Peter (died. ca. A.D 64)
Matthew 16:16 “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” (spoken ca. 30)
Medieval representation of Peter preaching.
Usually the better we get to know someone, the less perfect we find them. The opposite was true for those who walked with Jesus in the first century A.D. Put yourself in Peter’s place.
Peter has lived with Jesus for months. He’s seen him tired, hungry, and thirsty; he’s seen him angry; he’s seen him in the dark about facts and needing to ask questions. Like any other man, Jesus has had to sleep, and to relieve himself. In other words, Peter has seen him totally human. In spite of these facts, Peter declares “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God”—a statement which is shocking to first-century Jewish ears.
We don’t quite feel the impact of those words today. The success of Christianity has made it commonplace to think of sons and daughters of God.
First-century cultures outside Israel might not feel the impact either. In Greek culture, a son of a god was likely to be a thug and lecher like Hercules, acting no nobler than the worst idols in his diabolical pantheon. In far eastern cultures, almost anything useful or interesting could be treated as an object of worship. But coming out of a Jewish culture that has rejected idolatry, Peter’s words are extraordinary.
Jews saw God as high above all highness, pure above all humanly imaginable purity. To be a son of God was to have the character of God. For Peter to make this statement was to say, “I see in you, Jesus, a moral and spiritual character that puts you on an equality with God—a partaker of his nature.” This was either an astute observation or a terrible blasphemy.
Christ’s immediate reaction, however, is to praise Simon Peter: “Blessed are you, Simon son of John, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”
A short time after Peter’s earth-shaking avowal, the Pharisees scheme to have Jesus executed. One reason they give for their action is directly related to Peter’s great confession. According to the Pharisees, Jesus deserves to die because, “You, being a man, make yourself equal to God.” But Peter has recognized a radical truth about Christ’s person that millions of Christians have echoed ever since.
—Dan Graves
Dig a Little Deeper
- Bible. New Testament.
- Butler, Alban. The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints. D. & J. Sadlier, & Company, 1864.
- Lockyer, Herbert. All the Apostles of the Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1972.
- McBirnie, William Steuart. The Search for the Twelve Apostles. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1973.
- “Peter, St.” The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
- Scott, E. F. “Peter.” Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, 1921.
- Thurston, Herbert. “St. Thomas the Apostle.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Appleton, 1914.
- Vigeveno, H. S. Thirteen Men Who Changed the World. Glendale, California: Regal, 1966.
