By Mark W. Christy
In Matthew 16:16-18, the following exchange between Peter and Jesus is recorded: “Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.””[i] Among Roman Catholics, these verses are viewed as clear evidence that “Peter will remain the unshakeable rock of the Church.”[ii] To put this another way, the Roman Catholics employ this passage to affirm their belief that the freewill confession of faith of an individual fallen man to be the foundation of the Papacy and ultimately the Church as well.[iii] Since the Reformation, Protestants have denied this in favor of making the confession of faith central to the passage. In this article, both views will be examined alongside a third view to determine the most proper interpretation of this passage.
In v.16, most would agree that Peter did indeed make a saving confession of faith in his acknowledgement of Christ as Lord. This confession, however, did not originate in the person of Peter. As v.17 declares, Peter’s saving declaration was made possible because God chose to personally reveal this truth to him. Because of this revelation, Peter was marked as a blessed one.
For the Catholics, Peter is blessed such that he himself becomes the very foundation of the Church and, therefore, the first pope (although there is no historical evidence to substantiate this fanciful claim). Protestants, for their part, refuse to read v.18 in this way. Instead, they argue that Jesus is using a play on words where Peter literally means ‘small rock’ and rock literally means ‘large rock.’ In this way, Peter, the ‘small rock,’ makes his ‘large rock’ confession, and it is this faith confession that becomes the foundation of the church.
To further cement their case, Protestants will frequently point to Ephesians 5:23 and Colossians 1:18 which both declare Christ to be the Head of the Church as opposed to the Pope of Rome. Along with this, they also point to v.23 in the context of this present passage (i.e., Matt 16:16-18) where Christ directly calls Peter Satan in an open rebuke. With such an identification, the Protestants seem to offer convincing evidence against the Catholic position.
While the traditional Protestant position is certainly more in-line with revealed Scripture, a third alternative may be worthy of consideration. As the Protestants have historically held, Jesus is indeed the Head of the Church; nevertheless, Jesus is also an incarnate Person. According to Peter, He is the “living stone” and “corner stone” of God’s “spiritual house,” i.e., the Church (1 Pet 2:4-7). Likewise, Peter refers to individual believers, which would include himself, “as living stones,” who “are being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Pet 2:5).
When Jesus discussed the building of His Church in v.18, He must have been referring to, at least in part, the persons who would become the living components of this spiritual structure. As a person who was divinely enabled to understand and confess Christ as Lord, Peter became intimately and personally connected with the Body of Christ, just as he had declared Christ to be intimately and personally connected to God Himself: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v.16).
Before his confession, Peter was just like any other person. But after his earnest confession of faith, Jesus announces, “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church” (v.18). Peter has changed. He has now been awakened unto the truth of God’s salvation in Christ and made his confession. This change wrought by God was his personal faith. It was this change that granted Peter the blessing of being in the Church. This is the rock upon which the Church is built just as the Protestants have long declared.
While the traditional Protestant assertion is valid, one must still consider why Peter is given such prominence in Christ’s pronouncement, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.” Throughout the gospels, Peter is repeatedly portrayed as the leader and representative of the Twelve. In Ephesians 2:20, Paul says that the Church has been “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets” with “Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone.” This verse, then, does establish some viability in Peter being understood to be a part of the foundation. When one considers the obvious fact that the rock, that is personal faith, must be confessed by a person so as to form living stone in the Living Church of the Living God, this should hardly be surprising.
In conclusion, both Protestants and Catholics build some of their foundational views upon the exchange between Jesus and Peter in Matthew 16:16-18. While the Protestants assert the rock upon which Christ builds His Church to be faith confession, Catholics believe it to be Peter Himself. As has been shown, the Protestant view does indeed rest on more proven Scriptural ground, whereas the Catholic view ends up exalting the flesh when it places to much primacy on the person of Peter. Between these two views, v.17 offers a connection between the confession of faith and the confessor when it teaches that God Himself is the one who sovereignly illumines the mind of the one who confesses true faith. In this way, the rock in vs.18 can be expanded beyond the confession of faith itself to include the sovereignly blessed confessor.
[i]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.
[ii]Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 552.
[iii]For more on the Roman Catholic beliefs regarding the freewill and salvation, please see, Mark Christy, “The Similarity between Arminians and Catholics in Regard to Their Commonly Held Understanding of the Doctrine of Justification,” available at: https://battlehardenedbeliever.com/?p=2297.