Who do you say I am

My name is Derek. For those I haven't had a chance to meet, I'm one of the elders here. Stephen and Sherry dropped their oldest off at college this weekend, so we're giving Stephen a much-needed break. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share with you this morning.

This coming Tuesday, my sister is going to board a plane in Seattle with my 89-year-old mother and fly with her to Augusta, Georgia. My sister started a new job in Augusta, and relocating my mom closer is essential. Taking an elderly mother on a plane sounds a little daunting, but it seems fairly doable on the surface—until you begin to drill down.

My mother is wheelchair-bound, which adds a measure of complexity to the whole process. In addition, she has lost most of her short-term memory, so when you are with her, you have the same conversation over and over again. My sister gets to sit next to her for about five and a half hours, complicated further by my mother's need to use the bathroom nearly every hour. The whole thing begins to feel pretty overwhelming. If you happen to remember my sister and mother on Tuesday and can say a quick prayer, I'd be grateful.

This is a little how I felt looking at this text. On the surface, it's familiar: Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ, and Jesus affirming Peter. It seems relatively simple and easy to apply—at some point, we all need to come to that same conclusion about Jesus.

C.S. Lewis wrote about the famous trilemma: the need to respond to the claims of Jesus in one of three ways. Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. You may conclude He was a charlatan duping people; you may conclude He was a lunatic who believed something untrue; or you may conclude He is in fact who He claimed to be: the Lord.

It isn't hard to imagine the disciples wondering all these things along the way as Jesus led them across the countryside saying things that sounded crazy to their ears. Is He who He says He is? Have I dropped everything for no reason? Is He a madman, or is He the Lord? This passage settles that issue, at least for Peter as the spokesman for the disciples.

When you look deeper, several elements make this text far more complicated:

• The Location: Jesus and His disciples are in Caesarea Philippi—a decidedly Gentile, pagan area. As far as scripture records, this is the only time they ever go there.

• The Foundation: Jesus states, "Upon this rock I will build my church"—a statement whose differing understandings contributed to the Protestant Reformation and the split of the church centuries later.

• The Authority: Jesus mentions the "keys of the kingdom" and the binding and loosing of things on earth and in heaven.

Suddenly, the text isn't so simple anymore. I don't presume to have all the answers. I've studied this for weeks and wrestled with these ideas. Many smarter people have written about this, and consensus is elusive. But there are threads we can knit together into something encouraging—especially for those of us grafted and adopted into the covenant who were not Jewish by birth.

Before we jump in, a quick public service announcement: we will dig into some technical elements, like Greek grammar. For some, the word "grammar" strikes fear and loathing, but understanding the background and specific words Jesus uses is critical to grasping the text.

"Father in heaven, we come to You with Your Word to us. Help us hear from You, not from me. Speak through Your Holy Spirit and apply these words to our hearts. Where there is difficulty, bring clarity. We trust You to do what only You can do. In Jesus' name, Amen."

The Location and the Central Question

In verses 13–15, Jesus asks: "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They reply with John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Then Jesus turns to them: "But who do you say that I am?"

Caesarea Philippi is located about 25 to 30 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. It is fully Gentile and was a major center of pagan worship. In the Old Testament, it was a site of Baal worship; during the Greek period, it became the center of worship for Pan, the half-goat, half-human fertility god. There was a cave there called the Paneon, considered by locals to be the gateway to the underworld, where unspeakable pagan rituals occurred.

For Jewish disciples, this was an off-limits, out-of-bounds location. By leaving Galilee, Jesus left behind the ever-present crowds, perhaps to have this intimate conversation with His inner circle.

Near this center of pagan worship, Jesus asks, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" "Son of Man" was Jesus' favorite self-designation. It is a dual-purpose phrase: literally meaning "son of a human," while simultaneously referencing Daniel 7, where the Ancient of Days grants dominion, glory, and an everlasting kingdom to "one like a son of man." In one phrase, Jesus declares both His humanity and His divinity, while giving Himself plausible deniability before hostile Jewish leadership.

The disciples list human figures—prophets and teachers. Pointing to the pagan temples behind Him, Jesus might implicitly be asking, "And what about them?"

When I taught high school chemistry, I would ask a question like, "What is the first law of thermodynamics?" A room full of teenagers would immediately look down, avoiding eye contact. I picture the disciples kicking the dirt when Jesus turns and asks: "But who do you say that I am?" That is the central question of the gospel. Either Jesus is who He says He is and we follow Him, or He isn't.

Divine Revelation and the Confession of Faith

Simon Peter steps forward: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus answers, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."

Jesus calls him "Simon Bar-Jonah"—his given name before Jesus nicknamed him Peter. It harkens back to his humble origin as a laborer's son. Passing over advanced Hebrew school meant he worked a trade, yet he is blessed with spiritual insight.

Peter is blessed not because he is smarter than the others, but because God revealed this truth to him. The work of changing hearts is ultimately God's work. Our minds are clouded by sin, unable to perceive spiritual truth without the Holy Spirit. Parents, we teach our children diligently, but ultimately we must entrust their spiritual condition to the Lord. We rely on the One who reveals truth.

Jesus continues with a statement that has sparked centuries of debate: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church."

In Greek, there is a wordplay lost in English: Peter is Petros (a small stone or boulder), while "this rock" is Petra (a massive rock cliff or bedrock). Three primary interpretations exist regarding what Jesus means by "this rock":

1. Built on Peter Himself: This view emphasizes Peter's leadership as the spokesman of the apostles and the leader of the Jerusalem church. Roman Catholic tradition views this as establishing Peter as the first bishop of Rome (the Pope) with transferable authority. Counter-arguments note that Jesus did not say "upon you," the Greek words Petros and Petra differ in nuance, and Peter's personal track record in scripture remains checkered (being called "Satan" five verses later, denying Christ, and being confronted by Paul in Galatians).

2. Built on Jesus Christ: This view holds that Jesus is referring to Himself as the cornerstone, pointing forward to passages like 1 Peter 2:7 ("the stone the builders rejected") and Ephesians 2:20 ("built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone").

3. Built on Peter's Confession: The primary Protestant view is that the "rock" is the truth and authority of Peter's confession—faith in Jesus as the Christ. The church is built on this shared faith rather than a single man or institution.

Each perspective carries elements of historical and biblical truth. Peter was the leader who stepped forward; Christ is the ultimate cornerstone; and faith in Jesus as Messiah is the thread uniting believers worldwide. Jesus may have left the phrasing open so that we would wrestle with the text, ending up at His feet declaring, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

The Unstoppable Church and the Gates of Hell

This passage contains one of only two instances in the Gospels where Jesus uses the word church (ekklēsia in Greek), meaning "the called-out ones."

While the Kingdom of God refers to God's complete reign and rule (as in Eden and Revelation 21), the church refers to believers gathered by faith—the called-out covenant people manifesting Spirit-empowered victory over sin.

Jesus promises that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The word for "hell" here is Hades (translating the Hebrew Sheol), understood as the realm of the dead or evil spirits. Standing near the Paneon cave—a place regarded culturally as the very mouth of the underworld—Jesus declares that evil cannot withstand His church.

His authority is not confined to Israel; it reigns over the underworld itself. Gathering 2,000 years later halfway around the world demonstrates that His promise holds true. The gates of hell cannot stand against the church of Jesus Christ.

The Keys of the Kingdom and Gospel Inclusion

Jesus then tells Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

In Greek, "you" is singular, addressing Peter, and the verb tense is future ("I will give"). This points to Peter's role in the Book of Acts, where he uses the "keys" to open the gospel door to the Gentile world. In Acts 10, Peter receives a vision and preaches to Cornelius, declaring that God showed him not to call any person common or unclean.

Regarding "binding and loosing," the Greek grammar refers to things (practices or conduct) rather than people. Furthermore, the phrase is accurately translated as "shall have already been bound in heaven." Peter is not inventing rules; he is executing what heaven has already revealed. This applied directly to declaring ceremonial laws—such as food restrictions and Sabbath rules—fulfilled in the New Covenant.

Our Place in the Story

Jesus expands the Old Testament covenant promised to Abraham in Genesis 12: that through his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. We are an expression of that promise fulfilled—Gentile believers admitted into the Kingdom.

When reading Scripture, we often ask whose shoes we should step into. Today, we step into our own. Jesus asks directly: "Who do you say that I am?"

If we share Peter's confession—"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"—then we are part of His ekklēsia. Though Jesus instructed His disciples to keep His identity quiet in that tactical moment, He closes Matthew's Gospel with the Great Commission:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." — Matthew 28:19–20

You are here because God revealed this truth to you. You are sealed, protected, and commissioned to go and tell.

Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We pray that You seal these truths in our hearts and empower us to live out our faith with confidence, knowing that Your church will prevail. In Jesus' name, Amen.