Jesus Christ · On the Church
Upon This Rock
Twenty-five miles north of Galilee, at a pagan cult center built against a great rock cliff where the Jordan rises, Jesus asks His disciples the question the whole Gospel has been building toward — “but whom say ye that I am?” Peter answers for the ages: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answers Peter with a renaming, a rock, a building He calls my church— the word’s first appearance in the Bible — keys, and a promise that the gates of hades will not hold against it. What “this rock” means has been read three ways for two thousand years, and this page lays out all three, with the people who hold each.
The Setting
— Caesarea Philippi — a rock face, a cave, and the springs of the JordanJesus chose the ground for this conversation. Caesarea Philippi — ancient Panias, today’s Banias — sits at the foot of Mount Hermon, where one of the Jordan’s sources pours out beside a cavern in a towering rock cliff. For centuries the site had been a shrine of the Greek god Pan; niches for idols are carved into the rock face to this day, and pagans of the region associated the cave’s depths with the underworld. It is the most defiantly pagan spot Jesus is recorded visiting — and it is here, of all places, that He asks who men say He is, speaks of building on a rock, and promises that the gates of hades will not prevail. Michael Heiser made the case at length that the geography is the sermon (The Unseen Realm, 2015): the announcement is made at the enemy’s front door.
This Philip was the brother of Herod, the tetrarch of Ituræa, and the region of Trachonitis, who gave to the city, which is now called Panæas, the name of Cæsarea in honour of Tiberius Cæsar. Beautifully is the question put, Whom do men say that the Son of Man is? For they who speak of the Son of Man, are men: but they who understood His divine nature are called not men but Gods.
Jerome· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (420), on Matt 16:13
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He questioned His disciples: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”The Confession
— Matthew 16:15-17 — flesh and blood did not reveal itThe crowd’s answers are all compliments — John the Baptist returned, Elijah, Jeremiah — and all wrong, because every one of them makes Jesus a dead man come back rather than the living God’s Son. Then the question turns personal, and Peter, first as always, says the sentence on which everything after it stands. Jesus calls him blessed — not for insight, but for having received what only the Father gives.
“But what about you?” Jesus asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.What then saith the mouth of the apostles, Peter, the ever fervent, the leader of the apostolic choir? When all are asked, he answers.
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 54 (407), on Matt 16:16
Peter did not say "you are a Christ" or "a son of God" but "the Christ, the Son of God." For there are many christs by grace, who have attained the rank of adoption [as sons], but [there is] only one who is by nature the Son of God. Thus, using the definite article, he said, the Christ, the Son of God. And in calling him Son of the living God, Peter indicates that Christ himself is life and that death has no authority over him.
Cyril of Alexandria· Fragment 190 (444), on Matt 16:16
(Verse 17.) But Jesus answered and said to him: Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. The Apostles answer on behalf of Jesus. Peter had said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God; a true confession has received a reward: Blessed are you, Simon Barjona. Why? because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but the Father revealed it. What flesh and blood could not reveal, has been revealed by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Jerome· Commentary on Matthew (420), on Matt 16:17
“This Rock” — Three Readings
— each stated at its real strength, with its holdersThe rock is Peter
The sentence's plainest surface: Jesus renames Simon 'Peter' and says 'on this rock' in the same breath — in His own Aramaic, kepha both times.
WHO HOLDS IT
- · Tertullian (On Modesty): the gift conferred 'personally upon Peter'
- · The Catholic tradition, from Cyprian's chair of Peter onward
- · Honored in Orthodoxy as Peter's primacy of honor among equals
- · G. K. Chesterton; J. R. R. Tolkien (Letter #250)
The rock is the confession
What had just happened was not Peter being impressive but Peter confessing — 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' The church stands on that revealed faith.
WHO HOLDS IT
- · John Chrysostom: 'on the faith of his confession'
- · Theodore of Mopsuestia: 'his confession is a rock… not the property of Peter alone'
- · Hilary of Poitiers; the Greek fathers broadly
- · The Protestant mainstream (JFB: 'the heavenly-taught confessor of a faith')
The rock is Christ
Scripture's own rock language runs to God and His Messiah (Deut 32:4; Ps 118:22; 1 Cor 10:4 — 'that Rock was Christ'). Peter is named FROM the rock, not as it.
WHO HOLDS IT
- · Augustine (Retractations) — his later, preferred reading
- · John Wesley: 'perhaps… he pointed to himself'
- · Many Reformation-era readers, alongside reading 2
(de Cons. Ev. ii. 53.) But let none suppose that Peter received that name here; he received it at no other time than where John relates that it was said unto him, Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted, Peter. (John 1:42.) (Retract. i. 21.) I have said in a certain place of the Apostle Peter, that it was on him, as on a rock, that the Church was built. But I know that since that I have often explained these words of the Lord, Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my Church, as meaning upon Him whom Peter had confessed in the words, Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God; and so that Peter, taking his name from this rock, would represent the Church, which is built upon this rock. For it is not said to him, Thou art the rock, but, Thou art Peter. (1 Cor. 10:4.) But the rock was Christ, whom because Simon thus confessed, as the whole Church confesses Him, he was named Peter. Let the reader choose whether of these two opinions seems to him the more probable.
Augustine of Hippo· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (430), on Matt 16:18
"And I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church;" that is, on the faith of his confession. Hereby He signifies that many were now on the point of believing, and raises his spirit, and makes him a shepherd. "And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." "And if not against it, much more not against me. So be not troubled because thou art shortly to hear that I shall be betrayed and crucified."
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 54 (407), on Matt 16:18
This is not the property of Peter alone, but it came about on behalf of every human being. Having said that his confession is a rock, he stated that upon this rock I will build my church.
Theodore of Mopsuestia· Fragment 92 (428), on Matt 16:17-18
On this rock - Alluding to his name, which signifies a rock, namely, the faith which thou hast now professed; I will build my Church - But perhaps when our Lord uttered these words, he pointed to himself, in like manner as when he said, Destroy this temple, John ii, 19; meaning the temple of his body.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Matt 16:18
"On thee," He says, "will I build My Church; "and," I will give to thee the keys," not to the Church; and, "Whatsoever thou shall have loosed or bound," not what they shall have loosed or bound.
Tertullian· On Modesty (c. 220), on Matt 16:18-19 — the personally-Peter reading, stated early
When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its corner-stone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob a coward—in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and …
G. K. Chesterton· Heretics, ch. 4 (1905) — public domain
I myself am convinced by the Petrine claims, nor looking around the world does there seem much doubt which (if Christianity is true) is the True Church
J. R. R. Tolkien· Letter #250, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1963) — modern, cited within the 50-word rule
and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.the verse the third reading stands on — 'that rock was Christ.'
Where the readings meetthe ground they share
The readings are less far apart than the centuries of dispute suggest. Peter is never named apart from his confession, and the confession never floats free of the man who made it; and both stand on the Christ confessed. Peter’s own first letter draws the picture the readings share: Christ the living stone, and believers — Peter included — “as living stones… built up a spiritual house” (1 Pet 2:4-5). What divides the traditions is not whether Peter mattered, but what his role passes on, and to whom — a question this site lays out rather than adjudicates.
As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.Peter's own stone-language, decades on.
The Gates of Hades
— Matthew 16:18b — a defensive image, read from a rock faceGates do not attack; they hold. The image is of a church advancing on death’s own stronghold and the stronghold failing — spoken, if the setting is allowed its voice, within sight of a cave the pagans linked with the world below. The fathers read the gates variously — death’s powers, the persecutors, the doctrines that drag men down — and all their readings share the verse’s one point: whatever hades has, it is not enough.
But in this bestowing of a new name is a happy foundation of the Church, and a rock worthy of that building, which should break up the laws of hell, burst the gates of Tartarus, and all the shackles of death. And to show the firmness of this Church thus built upon a rock, He adds, And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Hilary of Poitiers· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (367), on Matt 16:18
I consider the gates of Hell to be vices and sins: or certainly the doctrines of heretics, through which deceived men are led to Tartarus. Therefore, let no one suppose that it is said concerning death, that the apostles were not subject to the condition of death, whose martyrdoms he sees flashing.
Jerome· Commentary on Matthew (420), on Matt 16:18
The Keys, and Binding and Loosing
— Matthew 16:19 — the steward's authorityKeys belong to a steward — the man who opens the house on the owner’s behalf (Isa 22:22 is the picture’s Old Testament home). “Bind” and “loose” were the era’s ordinary terms for declaring what is forbidden and what is permitted. Here too the traditions divide over how far the grant runs — to Peter singularly, or through him to all the apostles and the church — and here too the quarry carries both, including the New Testament’s own data: the same authority spoken to all the disciples two chapters later (Matt 18:18) and breathed on the gathered disciples after the resurrection (John 20:22-23), and Peter unmistakably first to use the keys — at Pentecost for the Jews, at Cornelius’s house for the Gentiles.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”When He had said this, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”the same authority, breathed on the gathered disciples.
I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven - Indeed not to him alone, (for they were equally given to all the apostles at the same time, John xx, 21, 22, 23;) but to him were first given the keys both of doctrine and discipline. He first, after our Lord's resurrection, exercised the apostleship, Acts i, 15.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Matt 16:19
As first in confessing Christ, Peter got this commission before the rest; and with these "keys," on the day of Pentecost, he first "opened the door of faith" to the Jews, and then, in the person of Cornelius, he was honored to do the same to the Gentiles. Hence, in the lists of the apostles, Peter is always first named.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Matt 16:19
(Verse 19.) And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. The bishops and priests who do not understand this passage, arrogantly assume to themselves something of the Pharisees, either to condemn the innocent or to release the guilty; whereas with God, it is not the judgment of priests, but the life of the accused that is sought.
Jerome· Commentary on Matthew (420), on Matt 16:19
Tell No Man
— Matthew 16:20 — and the turn toward the crossThe scene ends strangely: the greatest confession yet made is placed under a gag order. The very next verse explains it — “from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer.” A Christ proclaimed without a cross would be a Christ misunderstood, as Peter himself proves within five verses. That turn has its own page.
Then He admonished the disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ.Then charged he his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. Jesus himself had not said it expressly even to his apostles, but left them to infer it from his doctrine and miracles. Neither was it proper the apostles should say this openly, before that grand proof of it, his resurrection.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Matt 16:20
Where It Points
— the church, and the Christ it confessesWhichever reading of the rock a tradition holds, the sentence’s center does not move: I will build my church. The builder is Christ, the church is His, and the confession Peter spoke at the foot of a pagan cliff is the one this site exists to lay open.
Closing
A question asked at the enemy’s front door; a confession given from heaven; a renamed fisherman; a church announced before it existed, with a promise no century has yet falsified. The readings of the rock divide the traditions; the Rock they all confess does not.