The Church – How Jesus Will Build It (Matthew 16:16-19)

It is often good to go somewhere new, even if only for a short time. One never knows what will be experienced there, what new things will be discovered, perhaps even to the extent of discovering truths about ourselves. Jesus and his disciples were up in the north of Israel, near Caesarea Philippi, away from the crowds for a few days. No doubt, the disciples would have been anticipating something from Jesus, as had been the case now for almost three years. Jesus often said things that opened their minds to truths about God and his plans and desires for people that they had not heard before or explained so well. Would he say something like that on this occasion? 

The confession of Peter

Jesus had asked his disciples what people were saying about him. Luke tells us that before Jesus asked this question, he had been praying: ‘Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”’ (Luke 9:18). Evidently, he brought this conversation to the Father before he engaged in it with his disciples. So he was not asking for information. Rather he was giving his disciples an opportunity to express their awareness of their understanding of who he said he was. Surely he prayed about them beforehand. What a wonderful teacher he was! He did not only pray after the event, but before it as well.

 

Peter, as often happened, was the one who answered on behalf of the disciples. In doing so, he made a great confession as well as indicating he had a different opinion from the public, an opinion that did not indicate confusion but precision about the identity of Jesus. His confession indicates that he had understood two details about Jesus. He had grasped them truly, but not fully. What were those details?

 

First, he realised that Jesus was the promised Messiah. He knew that Jesus had performed various miracles that the Old Testament predicted would be done by the Messiah. Second, and perhaps more amazingly, given that he was a conservative Jew who believed in the existence of one God, he also confessed that he believed that Jesus was the Son of the living God. That was a remarkable insight. How did Peter know this? Maybe he found himself thinking that since God is unchangeable he must be the eternal Father with an eternal Son. Or more likely he listened carefully to what Jesus said about himself when he said that he was the Son of God who had come down from heaven. 

 

Jesus responded to Peter by informing him that his words revealed he had received heavenly blessing. His insight into Jesus was God-given. He did not know who Jesus was just because he had a privileged religious background as a Jew. Rather, the Heavenly Father had enlightened Peter. 

 

Jesus also said to him that he was giving evidence that he was becoming the kind of person that Jesus had indicated would happen more than two years previously. When he had first met Jesus he had been told that he would become Peter, a name that means rock. He would become someone who would help people find a sure foundation for their lives. Peter was getting there, although he still had more to learn. Now he knew who Jesus was, but the context indicates he still did not realise what Jesus had come to do. But that greater understanding would come eventually.

 

The purpose of Jesus

Jesus further responded to Peter’s confession by revealing what he intended to do. He said he was going to build something. It would not have surprised Peter to hear Jesus say that he was going to be involved in building because that was the kind of activity that Jesus had engaged in for many years in Nazareth. The word translated carpenter went beyond being a joiner. In Nazareth, he had engaged in that kind of work.

 

Yet there was something very unusual about what Jesus said he would build because he did not say that he would build something concrete such as a house. The word he uses for what he will build is ecclesia, which does not refer to a building but to a gathering of people. It was usually used of a gathering of people to meet with someone important – they would be summoned from their homes to a big enough space in order to hear what the important person had to say. Jesus revealed that this is what he would do.

 

How would Jesus do so? He told Peter that it would be connected in some way with the confession that he had made. It is as if Peter was a sample of every person that Jesus would gather to himself, and he would gather them by them finding out who he is and what he had done. Of course, we know how Jesus would gather them. He gathers them through the gospel.

 

This illustration also requires us to observe two other details. First, they have to be gathered from somewhere and, second, they have to be gathered to somewhere. Or gathered from someone and gathered to someone. The place where they would be gathered from is the world of sin, a place in which they had been born and lived all their lives. In a sense, the gathering would be straightforward in that all of them would be in the same kind of place, a place dominated by sin. Yet there would be an obvious difficulty because all of them would be spiritually dead in this place of sin. 

 

They would not be gathered to a place, however. Rather, they would be gathered to a person. They would be gathered to Jesus. Did Peter and the disciples think of the prediction of Jacob when he said of the Messiah that unto him would the gathering of the peoples be? Jesus stresses that they would be gathering to him when he describes it as his gathering (‘my church’). 

 

We should also observe the certainty with which Jesus spoke. He said that he would build it, but he does not mean by that statement that he would start building it. Rather, he meant that when he began to build it he would complete it. He did not say how long it would take him, only that he would finish the task of gathering people to himself.

 

How would he gather them? The answer is through the role that he was preparing Peter and the other disciples for, which was to speak about him to others in a variety of ways. All they had to do was tell people who Jesus is and what his actions have been, are and will be. It is through that method he will build his gathering. Through his followers passing on this message, in one way or another, he would reach those he intended to gather to himself. And this is what has taken place. The simplest way for the church to be built is to speak to people about Jesus.

 

Jesus did not only speak about his intention to build his church. He also mentioned that his efforts would be opposed by the kingdom of darkness. He stated that ‘the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it’. What does he mean by the gates of Hades? At that time, the gates of a city were the location where the local council would meet to discuss any issues. It is possible to see two meanings in this illustration. 

 

First, it could mean that the leaders of the kingdom of darkness and death would attack the church. They would be determined to stop its progress and try and get rid of it. Obviously, the leaders include the devil and his demonic agents, but they could also include various earthly powers that they mislead and influence. Persecution has been a common weapon used against the church, and each occasion has been an attempt to prevent Jesus from gathering people to himself. Of course, they can use many other means in addition to persecution. Yet the point that Jesus makes is that they will not prevail in all their attempts to attack his church.

 

Second, it could mean that the gates of Hades will not be able to withstand an attack on its domain. The illustration then would suggest that it is Jesus who is on the attack against the gates, and they will not be able to prevent him gathering his people to himself. No matter how weak his witnesses are in themselves, he can still use them to take his people out of the clutches of the enemy. Of course, Jesus uses the Holy Spirit in order for his people to be regenerated and changed.

 

The position of authority

Jesus also told Peter that he would have authority illustrated by keys and binding and loosing. In the political world, the person who had the keys was empowered by the sovereign to exercise authority on his behalf. To bind something was to forbid it and to loosen something was to allow it. This was also a common idea use by the rabbis indicating authority. What does this reference to authority mean?

 

There are at least four ways in which this statement has been understood in addition to the Roman Catholic notion that here Peter was given special authority over everyone else in the church, an idea that is obviously wrong and seen to be so in the way that Paul criticised Peter in Antioch.

 

One is that since the words were said to Peter, it must refer to him personally. We can see in the Book of Acts that he opened the door to Jews at Pentecost and to Gentiles when he was sent by Jesus to the home of Cornelius, the Roman soldier. So some suggest that is what is meant here. 

A second suggestion is that Peter represents all who preach the gospel and they assure people they will be forgiven their sins if they repent of them, but that they will not be forgiven if they don’t. Preachers can say that on Christ’s authority. 

A third suggestion is that Peter was representing the apostles because they were the foundation of the church (as Paul says in Ephesians 2:20). It is the case that they had special authority as well as the authority that subsequent church leaders had. 

The fourth view points out that the phrase also occurs in Matthew 18:16 where it is used in connection with church discipline. Personally, I would combine some of those suggestions and say that Jesus builds his church in an external sense by those who preach the gospel and by the exercise of church discipline.

 

Some applications

There are several applications we can make from this account. The first is the necessity of heavenly teaching in order to recognise who Jesus is. An obvious response to this necessity is that we should pray that God will enlighten people about the identity of Jesus. If people are left to themselves, they will not discover who Jesus is.

 

A second application is that we can have great confidence about the future of the church because its existence depends on Jesus. He will gather in his people. It does not matter where they are, and their situations will not stop Jesus finding them. His eye is on them from their birth, and he knows when to reach them.

 

A third application is the amazing fact that Jesus uses sinners in his work. In this incident Peter is highlighted and we know about other references to him in which he revealed that he was a saved sinner. But so is everyone who serves Jesus in the building of his church. There has never been a sinless preacher or church leader or church member. All the apostles were sinners and so have been all who followed after them.

 

A fourth application is to remember that what the Bible means by church is people. We can put it this way. The true way of speaking is not to say that people come to a church in the sense of a building. Instead, it is the church that comes to the building if they have one. It is interesting that the New Testament does not mention a church building. This does not mean that buildings are not useful. But Jesus does not build buildings, he gathers people to himself.

 

A fifth application is the importance of the visible church’s focus on preaching the gospel and on church discipline. It is through hearing the gospel that sinners are converted, and it is through church discipline that they are built up in the faith. We tend to use the term ‘church discipline’ in connection with people who have sinned, but wholesome discipline includes everything that a disciple needs in order to be a disciple indeed. After all, the only part of the church that the world sees is its visible part. If they don’t give a good impression, the world does not see anything else.