Matthew 16, Part Two

“Get thee behind me, Satan” (vs. 21-23)—And there is pretty good evidence for the “muck it up” theory above in this section. “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day” (v. 21). The apostles simply did not yet understand His mission, so entrenched were they in the Jewish conception of an all-conquering Christ. How could He be killed? So Peter “took Him aside and began to rebuke Him” (v. 22). But Jesus has some stern words for him: “’Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.’" Jesus’ language is strong, but then He had just told them what was going to happen; Peter, in effect, was calling Him a liar. Satan, of course, would love to have kept Jesus from the cross, as would the Jews who, again, wanted their Christ to lead them in glorious victory over the Romans. But “the things of God” pertain to the salvation of man, and that was what Jesus’ mission was all about.

“Take up your cross and follow Me” (vs. 24-29)—Following Jesus did not mean marching in an army; it meant being prepared to die on a cross. Self-denial, not personal aggrandizement. In verse 26, Jesus asks two of the most piercing questions of the Bible: “’For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’” Having the whole world for a few years will not be worth an eternity in hell. And what is it that we want so much that we’re willing to sacrifice eternal life to have it? Very, very thought provoking. Verse 28 needs to be understood: “Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." Note a few things: some of those standing there would be alive when it happened. So whatever it was was going to happen in the first century. What’s going to happen? The Son of Man (Jesus) was going to come “in His kingdom.” This cannot be a literal “coming” of Jesus, because He didn’t literally come back in the first century while the apostles were still alive. So this is a figurative coming, and it almost assuredly has reference to the church He mentioned earlier in the chapter, which was begun in Acts 2, 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection, and during the lives of the apostles. The “coming” of verse 27 does appear to be the literal Second Coming; but not verse 28. Context must determine because not all “comings” of God in the Bible are literal manifestations. Some are figurative, and that must be the case in verse 28, or there are going to be some awfully old apostles around at the Second Coming.