The Confession and Confusion of Peter (Mark 8:27-33)

As he frequently does in his Gospel, Mark informs his readers of the location where the event he is now describing took place. Jesus and his disciples have moved to the far north of the territory regarded as Israel. In today’s geography, they are moving about in the border area with Lebanon. Why are they there? Two reasons can be suggested from what Mark says about what happened there.

One is that Jesus had planned to use this time to engage in teaching particular truths to his disciples as we can see from verse 31 when Mark tells us that Jesus began to teach them about his death and how it would happen and who would be involved in causing it. This suggests that Jesus had a strategy of teaching his disciples, which was that first he wanted them to discover who he was and once that had been established in their minds he would explain to them what he had come to do.

The other reason is indicated in the mention of villages in verse 27. Sometimes when a person wants to commence something he will do so from a strategic city or town so that as many as possible become aware of it. Here Jesus does the opposite in a sense and focuses on teaching people who lived in uninfluential places. We are reminded that souls are valuable wherever they are.

The Confession of Peter (8:27-30)

It is clear from the description that the disciples are undergoing an exam with two questions in verses 27-30. The first question is connected to people’s opinions of who Jesus is. Mark has mentioned a variety of opinions earlier when he described the way John the Baptist was murdered by Herod (Mark 6:14-16). It is interesting that Jesus expected his disciples to know what other people thought about him. They were not to evangelise people whose ideas they knew nothing about as far as what was being opined about Jesus. The fact that one opinion was nonsensical (thinking he was John the Baptist risen from the dead) and the other opinion was demeaning (thinking Jesus was only the forerunner of the Messiah, which explains the reference to Elijah, or one of the Old Testament prophets) did not mean that the disciples were to ignore the wrong notions. It looks as if the disciples would have received good marks for their answers to Question 1 because they were aware of the various opinions people had about Jesus.

How about Question 2? Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was. Peter responds, probably on behalf of them all, and says that they believe that Jesus is the Messiah. They were now confident about who he was. Their experience is a reminder that discipleship is a process and we are not to read our experiences into theirs. We start off with the awareness that Jesus is divine, and that he died on the cross for sinners. We look back to accomplished facts, but those facts were not so clear to the disciples before the cross.

This was a marvellous confession by Peter because his words express that what he had longed for now had happened. The reason why Peter had become a follower of John the Baptist several years earlier was because that famous preacher had announced that the Messiah would soon appear and set up his kingdom. John even identified him as the Lamb of God who would bear away the sin of the world. We do not know what Peter had made of those statements at the time. Yet having now spent a couple of years with Jesus Peter had discovered that his longings had been more than satisfied in Jesus.

Moreover, the words of Peter are an expression of loyalty. He was saying to Jesus that he now belonged to his disciples and wanted to serve him alone. Others might want to exalt John the Baptist, but Peter who was able to compare Jesus with John did not share that desire. He had seen Jesus do all kinds of deeds that John could not do. Spending time with Jesus, listening to Jesus and watching Jesus had convinced Peter that Jesus was the one to serve. Therefore he was glad to state that Jesus was the Messiah.

We can also say that Peter's response here was one that was completely logical. After all, he had been an eyewitness of the amazing things that Jesus had done in his miracles. Peter knew what the Old Testament said about the promised Messiah and he had seen Jesus perform several of those signs with great ease. Even although Peter may have found it uncomfortable to begin with, he could even see that Gentiles were taking a great interest in Jesus, which was what the Old Testament had predicted the Gentiles would do when the Messiah came.

While our experiences of discovering who Jesus is will differ from that of Peter, yet we can affirm that the three features of longing, loyalty and logical are found in every conversion. Jesus provides the answer to many longings, including the forgiveness of sin and the prospect of heaven; conversion means the commencement of a life of loyalty to Jesus; and a believer finds logical the sequences involved in conversion.

So Peter made a good confession, and if we want to read the response of Jesus in more detail we should look at how Matthew records the incident. Yet Jesus did not want the disciples to tell others what they now believed with such certainty. There may have been many reasons for this command and I suspect we can see one of them in the next set of verses. Although Peter and the disciples knew who Jesus was, they still did not know what he intended to do, and Jesus would not have wanted them to speak for him until they knew what to say.

The work of the Messiah (8:31-32)

It is clear from other passages in the Gospels that the disciples had assumed that Jesus would set up an earthly kingdom. Even as they met together in the Upper Room on the night he was arrested the disciples still assumed that an earthly kingdom was about to appear – it was the topic of their conversation, according to Luke. They held on to this idea even although Jesus had taught them otherwise.

Verse 31 is a summary of what Jesus focussed on with regard to his mission. Mark mentions the content of his teaching as well as his manner. The teaching included the meaning of a particular name, the certainty of suffering, a rejection by the Jewish leaders that would involve his death, and a subsequent resurrection three days later. It may be the case that Mark uses this verse to inform his readers the order of subsequent material in his Gospel. 

Obviously Jesus instructed his disciples that he was the Son of man. There used to be an idea that suggested the title ‘son of man’ stressed the humanity of Jesus and the title ‘son of God’ stressed his deity. Such an explanation does not take into account the way the title ‘Son of man’ is used in the Old Testament. Since Jesus wanted his disciples to know the significance of this title, we should also try to understand it.

There are four possible references to the title in the Old Testament. One is in Psalm 8:4, where Adam, the head of the human race, is called the son of man. A second reference is in Psalm 80:17, where the title ‘son of man’ is linked to the Davidic kings. A third reference is found in the Book of Ezekiel when God calls the prophet by that title. And the fourth reference is found in Daniel 7:13 when one like the son of man enters God’s presence in order to receive universal authority.

Those four references provide four details connected to the work of the Messiah, and maybe Jesus spoke about each of them because they each have a connection to what the Messiah would do: he was to become the head of the creation that Adam lost by his sin; he was to reign on the throne of David for ever; he was to speak about the kingdom of God; and he was to ascend and take his place on God’s throne.

Of course, at first glance this would sound marvellous. Yet the pleasure would evaporate for the disciples as Jesus explained how he would enter into those roles. He would get there by rejection, by suffering unto death and by resurrection. Because we live after the event we are not shocked by these words of Jesus. But the disciples were. For them at that stage it was inconceivable that the Messiah would suffer.

The confusion of Peter

It is obvious that Peter did not agree with the emphasis that Jesus was making. Perhaps Peter imagined that Jesus had succumbed to a negative way of thinking about how the future would go. Now we have the pupil telling the teacher how little he, that is Peter, knows. He did know who Jesus was, but only having half the truth is not good. Peter should have continued listening to what Jesus had to say about his death and resurrection. How did Jesus respond to Peter's actions?

Jesus showed care for all his disciples. It is likely that Peter's opinions would carry weight with the other disciples and this probably explains why Jesus gave him a public rebuke. Maybe Peter had voiced them to the other disciples previously. Whether he had or not, he now discovered that his correction was not private. Peter is like a disobedient pupil who is given a rebuke in front of the class.

Jesus gave Peter a strong rebuke. The Saviour told Peter to get behind him rather than to be facing him as Peter would have been when he attempted to correct Jesus. As far as disciple was concerned, the place for him was to follow his Master. Peter had moved into a position of inappropriate self-promotion. He is reminded forcibly what his position actually was.

Jesus reminded Peter that objecting to God's ways was satanic. Who was Peter like when he disagreed with Jesus? Sadly, he was acting like the devil. Of course, this incident tells us that while Peter knew who Jesus was, he had failed to remember who he was, a disciple. Trying to climb into a position of influence that does not belong to one is how the devil fell initially.

Jesus diagnosed the problem that Peter was having, which was that instead of using his mind to discover the purposes of God through the teaching of Jesus, he was using his mind to think the way sinful humans would. The will of God for Jesus to suffer and die looked ridiculous, yet it was what God had planned for him. Peter should not have thought he knew better than Jesus.

Jesus taught plainly

Having said that was the case, it is interesting to note the assessment that was given of how Jesus taught. Clearly this is an eyewitness testimony, probably that of Peter himself. The problem was not that the Teacher was obscure in his remarks. Instead the problem was the preconceived notions of the disciples. They had already decided what the Messiah would do, and when Jesus indicated it would be otherwise, Peter was quick to disagree. They had no problem understanding what he said, but they had a problem accepting it.

It is very likely that the same problem exists today. The message of the gospel is declared, with its accompanying call to faith in Jesus. As far as its details are concerned, they are not difficult to remember. We can put them this way: Jesus is God's eternal Son. About two thousand years ago he became a man without ceasing to be God. After living a perfect life for thirty-three or so years, he laid it down as a substitute on the cross of Calvary when he bore the wrath of God against sin. Three days he later he rose in power from the dead. Forty days later he ascended to heaven to rule over the world with the aim of gathering an innumerable number of followers. In the future, he will return, raise people from the dead, preside over the judgement at the Great White Throne, and assign the eternal destiny of every human. Some will be in heaven and the rest will be in hell. To avoid being in the latter place we should repent of our sins and put our faith in Christ.

That summary is not difficult to remember or understand. So why do people not respond appropriately? The answer is that they don't like what the gospel says when it calls them sinners, and that the only way to escape God's judgement is to depend on Jesus. People are basically self-righteous, and assume that they are good enough to get into heaven, if it exists, without any help from Jesus. So they reject his offer of mercy and some of them become strident opponents of the gospel. But they are enemies because they understand its contents and requirements and don't like its claims on them.