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21 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. 22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!" 23 But He turned and said to Peter, "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." ~ Matthew 16:21-23
Today, we continue our study of Matthew 16 where after Simon Peter's amazing confession that the Lord Jesus was "The Christ, the Son of the Living God," the Lord Jesus for the first time explicitly told the disciples about His cross. The Lord Jesus will accentuate to the disciples the fact that He came to go to the cross two more times before He will actually go to the place of suffering and death. The disciples did not understand the teachings of the cross even though the cross is accentuated subtly throughout the Old Testament.
In v.21 of today's passage we read, "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."
From the opening verses of the Bible, God is presented as eternal, independent, holy, loving, righteous, and good. One crucial implication of this is that He, by nature, is the moral standard. This is why God’s law is not external to Him. The God of the Bible is the law and it is His very nature that determines what is right and wrong. He is the ultimate definer of all things. So, even though the cross was a foreign idea to the disciples, the Lord Jesus knew from eternity past that He would end up in Jerusalem to die a horrific death. He agreed to do this in order to pay the penalty for that which separated us from God. As a result of His death, burial and resurrection, justification will have been provided for all who place their trust in His finished work.
A biblical view of God is foundational to understanding the cross of Calvary. God's righteousness, justice, and holiness are a threefold cord which largely makes up His nature. This is why God cannot overlook man's sin. This is why He cannot just wink at sin and dismiss it. Sin had to be dealt with, otherwise sin and death would have triumphed. God’s holy justice demands that He punish all sin.
As a result of mankind's rebellion in the Garden of Eden, all people are conceived sinful and therefore guilty before God. As a result of our sinfulness man has been separated from God and under His judgement. Based upon God's moral perfection and man's imperfection, God decided to send His Son who willingly came to suffer the punishment for all of mankind's willful rebellion against God. And, in order to redeem mankind, Christ had to become the ransom for our sin. The result of Christ's work is that man is able to enter into a personal relationship with God. All we have to do is to request it from God.
In v.22 of today's passage we read, "Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, 'Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!'"
Peter took the Lord Jesus aside and tried to turn Him from the cross and His destiny. In doing so, Peter the rock became the Peter the stumbling stone. It is unimaginable that Peter tried to turn around the execution of a plan that has always been eternal. He did this because he thought he was doing a noble thing, he thought he was doing the work of God. Oh, the deceit of the evil one. It was the flesh that caused Peter to propose such an evil idea. This is why the Lord Jesus emphasized His cross from this point forward.
It is only through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are set free from the penalty of our sin. But, God doesn't stop there, He is also setting us free from the power of sin. Involved in this process is that, like Peter, we must be beaten down by the power of the flesh in order to depend upon the power of the Holy Spirit. After Peter failed egregiously in the Garden of Gethsemane by cutting off Malchus' ear and when he denied knowing the Lord Jesus in the courtyard three times, it was then that he began to learn the real difference between feeding the flesh and feeding the Spirit. Until the Lord Jesus comes and delivers us from the presence of sin, we must be wise to not feed the flesh and to feed the Spirit who has made us alive to God.
In v.23 of today's passage we read, "But He turned and said to Peter, "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."
After Peter spoke those words, the Lord Jesus responded with some serious words that I am sure threw Peter into an emotional tailspin. Peter did not understand the vortex into which he stepped when he tried to rebuke the idea that the Lord Jesus would die on the cross. But, a careful study of the Scriptures makes it clear that it was always God's plan for His Son to go to the cross. Beginning in Genesis all the way through the book of the Revelation of Christ, the cross is like a beautiful gem that can be looked at from many angles. It is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ that is central to the New Covenant which results in the transformation of the willing human heart.
We have all been tempted with Satan's philosophy on life, and, his message is based upon arrogance, pride and selfishness. The deceiver will always tempt us to put ourselves first. Satan never tries to get us to follow him or to worship him, He always appeals to our arrogance, pride and selfishness. He knows that if he can get us to worship ourselves, we will be found indirectly worshipping him. When Peter resisted God's plan for the cross, he was siding himself with Satan without even knowing it. We live in a day when the evil one is lurking, seeking whom he may devour. We must be diligent to be defined by God's word, thus we will resist Satan's deceitful lures. We must be diligent to stay close to God by talking to Him often and reading His word daily. God not only wants to rescue us from the diabolical schemes of the evil one, He wants to include us in on His rescuing efforts of those who are yet lost.
