NOTES for Mat 16:13-20

Who do people consider Jesus to be? This question still stands before each of us, and we still hear different answers to it.

First He asks the disciples about the opinions circulating among the people. The opinions the disciples repeat differ, in essence, only in whose name is mentioned, but all of them come down to an evaluation of Jesus as a great prophet. And this opinion, in fact, has not disappeared; the most people can decide, looking from a distance, is that He is a prophet. In our time other definitions would be added, for example, "great teacher," and so on. But for the time being all these definitions remain in the realm of abstract information.

Then He asks the disciples for their personal opinion, and this question is addressed to all of us. Here bare theorizing ends and the hour of choice begins. How I will live depends on whom I acknowledge Christ to be.

Therefore Peter's confession became not only his personal acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. Through his lips all the apostles confessed Christ, and disciples of every time and nation join this confession. Flesh and blood did not reveal this to Peter; that means it was not human reasoning and traditions, but the Heavenly Father. Human reasoning can bring us to the threshold of truth, but the Lord Himself helps us cross that threshold, mysteriously and unnoticed by ordinary perception.