NOTES for Mat 16:15

Who do you consider Jesus of Nazareth to be? It is impossible to pass by this question. Who are You, whom do You make Yourself out to be? The Son of Man, who is He? Who do you say that I am? This is one of the main questions in the Gospel. They brought a demon-possessed man to Him, and He healed him. And the people said: can this be the Christ, the Son of David? Is He not the One who is to save the world? But He Himself says: I came not to bring peace, but a sword. Your answer to the question of who Jesus is, this is the sword that penetrates to the deepest depth, "to the division of joints and marrow." And one cannot give an evasive answer to this question.

Thus Pharaoh, when God says to him through Moses, Let My people go, hardens himself. In the book of Exodus it says: "I will harden Pharaoh's heart" (Ex. 4:21). It is naive to suppose that God, by a special creative action, forces Pharaoh to refuse. Only demons act that way, taking possession of a person's will. But when placed before the necessity of choice, Pharaoh cannot remain politely evasive. Either the One who sent Moses is God, and he must obey, or in Egypt there is only one living god: Pharaoh.

The Pharisees, like Pharaoh, are placed before a choice: either this Man is the Savior of the world, or? There is no room here for soft-hearted "political correctness." In fact, this main question of life transforms your wavering, weak-willed heart and gives it the opposite quality. But depending on the answer to the question, this will be either the firmness of living faith or hardness, cruelty, like that of Pharaoh and the Pharisees.

This is exactly what Jesus states when He says: whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters. In our time such a way of posing the question seems overly rigorous to us. We would prefer to avoid a direct answer. But nothing except this answer to Christ's call will make your heart firm and your life real. And therefore this question is God's gift to us.