Matthew 16:1

Mat_16:1. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees] “The Pharisees” (Mark). The coalition between these opposing sects can only be accounted for by the uniting influence of a strong common hostility against Jesus.

a sign from heaven] They could not perceive the inner beauty of Christ’s teaching, but they would follow the rules of a Rabbi who, like one of the ancient prophets, should give an external sign—a darkening of the glowing sky—a flash of light—a peal of thunder. The answer of Christ teaches that the signs of the times, the events of the day, are the signs of God, the signs that Christ gives.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat_16:1-5

O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky.

Signs of the times

The proper observing of these signs. They are heavenly, and therefore must be seen in a heart which is seeking those things which are spiritual.

1. The sign of the day. Another day is gone. The day of the Lord is nearer. Am I better prepared for it?

2. The sign of the cross of his Saviour. Has he crucified every evil affection?

3. The sign of the example of his Saviour.

4. The signs of the times in which he is living, and he considers how they are the harbingers of the last day, and how he must conduct himself accordingly.

5. And the question with the man of God is, what do these signs foreshadow? Do they prove that he has advanced in the Christian course? Then the heavens are red with joyful signs for the morrow.

6. The redness of the evening sky may deceive, as we all know; these signs never can.

7. Whatsoever the signs of the sky foreshadow, we cannot alter; but we may alter that which is threatened by the signs of the spiritual world.

8. The true Christian will observe the signs of the morning as he rises as it were from death unto life again, and he will prepare himself for the coming day. Is it red and lowering with the coming storms of trial and temptation; then he will prepare to meet it.

9. The Christian does not desire any more signs from heaven. The more watchful he is the more he finds that he has already, and the more evident and certain they are. The very last has been given, the Son of man has risen from the dead.

10. Scripture is full of exhortations to Christian watchfulness.

11. The rebuke which our Lord administered to these worldly-minded sign-seekers-And He left them and departed. (R. W. Evades, B. D.)

Signs

The things that happen to nations and men are, in the most proper sense of the word, signs from heaven of the Divine government and its counsel.

I. Personal signs for every mans instruction, teach every man, at his peril, not to despise prophesyings. We read in the diligence, the moral goodness of the boy, the nature and history of the coming man. We say, It will be fair weather. These are signs from heaven. In familiar, when the evening glows the morning is fine; where there is affection and piety, we prognosticate fine weather. You are a sign from heaven, if unforgiven, a sign of coming storm.

II. Popular signs are always of number and force sufficient to give us an understanding of the character of the future. The life, the preaching of the Baptist was a sign of approaching change. The character of our Lord was a sign of Gods care of His children. (B. Kent.)

Unfairness in the treatment of religion

It is a humiliating fact that thoughtful men deal with the great facts of religion after a fashion which, in any other department of human inquiry, would he recognized as illogical or absurd.

I. Take an example from recorded history, Men treat Jesus Christ with a scepticism they do not Napoleon Bonaparte.

II. Take science. Christianity is a science as truly as chemistry. Its fundamental facts are determined by thousands of experiments. But how many accept the testimony of scientists and reject that of religionists. True religion has its difficulties, but has science any fewer?

III. As regards the bible. In temporal matters men investigate that which relates to their safety; but when eternal safety is at stake men do not give time to its consideration.

IV. As with Gods Book, so with gods witnesses. In a court of justice men accept evidence: but fight against it in religion. Men do not reject bank notes because some are forged; but they reject Christianity because of one false professor.

V. In nothing but pure mathematics do men insist upon mathematical certainty. The whole conduct of life is predicated upon a preponderance of probabilites. Upon this principle they plough and plant, buy and build, work and wait. Is it probable that all the generous and noble fruits are based on superstition.

VI. When of two ways of procedure one is known to be absolutely: safe and the other fraught with perils, all men choose the path of safety. It is safe to be a Christian; yet safety is rejected. Let a man be honest, do himself justice, and give Christianity fair play. (P. S. Henson, D. D.)

The demand of unbelief

This demand of the Jews was-

I. Prompted by wrong motives-and tempting. This was a two-edged temptation.

1. Suppose He should not give the sign, either by refusal or failure. Then they hoped to destroy His influence and to impress the people that he was a false Messiah.

2. But if He worked a miracle He would have yielded to their low ideas of His Messiahship and of its evidence. The scribes and Pharisees were bitter enemies of each other, yet combined to overthrow Christ: and how large a part of modern religious investigation is due to the enmity and selfishness of human hearts. Discussion is frequently designed not to fix but to unsettle faith. There are men who talk plausibly and with seeming sincerity about these matters, who in their hearts would be pleased at the destruction of Christianity. Again, their are men who use gospel themes as the theatre upon which to display their intellectual power. They demand evidence neither possible or reasonable. This is different from the humble inquirer who, walking in darkness, asks the way of light and life.

II. This demand was presumptious-From heaven. They limited Christ as to the method in which He should display His divinity. There are people who determine in their own minds the way in which God shall reveal Himself; the truth must flow through channels they have dug, or they will reject it.

III. This demand was due to their blind unbelief. They refused to recognize the force of the evidence already given them (Mat_11:5). Men inveigh against the Bible who never read it. They cry out for water and refuse to draw from the abundant wells of salvation around them.

IV. This request led to their desertion by Christ. The spirit manifested by these Jews showed that it was useless to remain longer with them.

1. He denied them further manifestation of His power-There shall no sign be given.

2. Christ withdrew Himself from them. This He did

(1) Sadly;

(2) Promptly;

(3) Finally. This incident seems go have closed His ministry in Galilee. (W. H. Williams.)

The signs of the times

I. Some of the signs of the times. Every age has its peculiar developments-signs. We live in an age that is replete with these moral indicators, and to sonic of them we call attention.

1. The almost universal diffusion of knowledge is one of the signs of the times.

2. The extent of its new discoveries and inventions.

3. The increasing power and commanding position of the Anglo-Saxon race.

4 The decay and approaching dissolution of heathen governments.

II. What do these signs indicate? These signs clearly indicate the rapid progress of Messiahs kingdom.

III. What is our duty in view of these signs of the times?

1. Rightly to discern them.

2. To seek an entrance into the kingdom of Christ without delay.

3. Labour and pray for its incoming in greater power and glory. (P. M. Brett, D. D.)

Too many signs of the times surround us on every side to make it either right, or wise, or safe, or happy to pass them by unnoticed.

I. Let us seek to understand distinctly what is intended by a sign. May be miraculous or moral.

II. What particularly were those signs which our lord rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees for not having observed?

III. Inquire whether the order of things in prophecy compared with the aspect of our own times may not afford us some instruction. It is a Christian duty to discern the signs, to watch the moral aspect of the times in which we live. We shall thus learn more of the intentions and character of the Divine Being. (J. P. Dunn.)

Human and Divine ideas of revelation

I. The human. From earliest times men have demanded a sign from heaven.

II. The divine idea of a revelation.

1. The atheist says, If there be a God let Him manifest Himself. How silently, but majestically, on earth and in sky is God revealing Himself.

2. The Jews demanded of Jesus a sign. Yet He wrought wonders and signs amongst them.

3. God reveals Himself in the words of prophets and evangelists.

III. The contrast in the two ideas of revelation.

1. Mans revelation must be addressed to his senses, to his imagination, and the marvellous-some fitful, awful display; God reveals Himself alone to what is spiritual, i.e., to what is deepest in man.

2. Gods revelations come to mens experience. (Dr. Chase.)

The hindrances to His work for the Church

It is necessary to take into account the character of the mind to which it has to address itself as well as the nature of the truth which it has to speak. How rapid and widespread and radical the change during the last half-century! How far is this new spirit checking the progress of truth, and in what way can we deal with it?

I. Some of the intellectual tendencies working against faith. The science of the day. The restless spirit which it begets. Uncertainty respecting the great truths of Christianity is regarded as a justification for neutrality. The influence of this widespread tendency is distinctly hostile to the acceptance of the gospel and the culture of vital godliness. Scepticism is in the air, and there are those who must be in the fashion of the hour. Our congregations are honeycombed with this sentiment. God forbid that we should despair or even look doubtfully to the future! But it behoves us to take care that our work be wisely and well and truly done. The gospel has still a power which will assert itself.

II. Some hints as to the mode in which Christians should meet these difficulties.

1. Not for us to sit down and mourn over evils, as though they were irreparable.

2. A policy of suppression never has succeeded, least of all is it likely to succeed in an age thrilled with all the energy of life, and strong to vehemence in the assertion of its own independence and freedom. It ought not to succeed. Protestants, of all men, can have no satisfaction in the contemplation of what would be a mere make-belief for a living faith. Liberty must have its perfect work, and a true faith will have no fear as to the consequences.

3. The true mode of dealing with the sceptical mind of the time is to dwell on points of agreement rather than of difference. Science has not yet stilled the longing of the heart for God, and it has been unable to meet it. (J. G. Rogers, B. S.)

The signs of the times

The most striking peculiarities of the present age.

I. The great increase of mental exertion. Some periods have been marked by intellectual inaction and even retrogression. Such was that period in which, after the decline of the Platonic philosophy, Aristotle reigned in all the schools and was idolized as the secretary of nature who dipt his pen in intellect. Since that era the greatest advances have been made in every department of science, more especially during the last century, etc.

II. An increased attention to the instruction of the lower classes.

III. The improved state of preaching, and the more abundant supply of the public means of grace. In our own and other countries.

IV. The advancement of the bible as the great and only standard of christian faith and practice.

V. The increasing harmony which prevails among the genuine disciples of Jesus Christ.

VI. The extension of civil and religious liberty. (Robert Hall, A. M.)

The signs of the times

I. The nature of these signs which should be regarded as appointed indications of the future.

II. The signs presented by the present times, with the duties they suggest.

1. A spirit of inquiry.

2. A spirit of active enterprize.

3. Let us beware lest in the excitement of passing events our attention should be diverted from our own spiritual prosperity. (J. West.)

The wickeds craft to ensnare Gods people described

I. The demand of a sign.

1. Observe the efficients or causes of it-Pharisees and Sadducees.

2. The end for which they did desire it, and that was to tempt Him.

II. Our saviours rejection of this demand.

1. The reproof He gives them and their persons.

2. The ground of His reproof of them, and that is a conviction of their readiness to believe more uncertain things upon less credible ground than they would believe Him to be the Messiah sent of God upon most certain and evident grounds. (John Cotton.)

Fair weather-for the sky is red

A Palestinian prognostication, which may or may not be applicable to other countries. The Saviour, in referring to it, does not intend to affix to it a seal of scientific approbation. It was enough for His purpose that the forecast was accepted by the weather-wise in Palestine. Doubtless it would, as a general rule at least, be a true forecast; for it indicated, we presume, that in the contiguous region of the atmosphere into which the sun on setting was descending, or had descended, there was no dense accumulation of clouds threatening a coming storm of rain. If there had been such clouds the suns golden radiance would have been drunk up and intercepted, and thus there would have been no redness of the evening sky. (J. Morison, D. D.)

Signs

The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light! To all things that concern their temporal interests how keenly are men alive! They will meditate, observe, infer, and act upon their inferences. The agriculturist notes carefully the approaching alterations in the weather; the politician watches the current of popular feeling and the moods of men; the scientific inquirer devotes all his energies to the observation of facts that will enable him to wrest from nature her secrets; the speculator is constantly on the outlook for the first symptoms of an alteration in prices. Yet how often do these very same men decline to take any interest in the highest of all subjects-the relationship of God to man-on the plea that it is too vague and too uncertain for practical consideration! They demand that this shall be put before them by some outward visible proof which it shall be impossible to dispute before they will acknowledge its claims upon them. They are blind to the signs which are ever around them and within them, and which demand at least as much interest and inquiry as do the signs in the outward world which engross their attention. (V. W. Hutton, M. A.)

The signs of the times

I. The difficulty of satisfying impracticable people.

II. The dangers of a half-educated sagacity.

III. The demand of Christianity to be judged by a wide induction of facts. (Pulpit Germs.)

Changes in theological opinion a sign of the times; not to be feared

Why did my multitudinous trees throw off their leaves last autumn? Was their throwing them off a sign that they were dying? They did not throw off one single leaf until they had a baby leaf wrapped up and lying along the branch. They threw off the garments of last year, and to-day they are putting on the garments of this year. So, with respect to them, change was growth, and preparation for growth. Why does the kernel of wheat die? Should a modern sceptic, after the seed had been in the ground for a few warm days, go through the field seeking for it, raking it up, and finding it rotten in his hand, he would say, Dont you perceive that agriculture is all a myth? The thing is dead. But it must die if it would live. The reason of its decay is that its sustenance may be sucked up into the root and stem, and give new life to them; and when a single kernel seems to die, it is but a pang of birth for a hundred kernels that come into life. Thus there are changes going on in the Church. There are many things in it that must decay, in order that other things may grow. The spirit of Christianity is not changing, but its surroundings will more or less change or be thrown off, in order that it may unfold. Christianity is like a lighthouse over whose glass the keeper has permitted spiders to spin their webs, or on which insects have gathered until the glass is so dim that the light, though it shines brightly on the inside, is scarcely seen on the outside. These obstructions must be scoured off, the rubbish must be taken out of the way, in order that the light may shine out. There are thousands of things in the interpretations of religion that are obscurations. (H. W. Beecher.)

Signs from heaven

I. A hypocritical request.

II. A withering rebuke.

III. An indignant denial. (Expository Outlines.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 16:1. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came — Notwithstanding the difference of their principles, and the alienation of their affections from each other, they now agreed to join in an attempt upon Christ; his doctrine being equally opposed to the errors and vices of both these sects; see the note on Mat 3:7 : tempting, or, trying him, as πειραζοντες properly signifies; (see note on Mat 4:1,) that is, making trial, in a crafty and insnaring manner, whether he was able to do what they required: desired a sign from heaven — Such a sign as they insinuated Satan could not counterfeit. They pretended they were willing to be convinced that he was the Messiah, could they see sufficient proofs of it: whereas they had already resisted the clearest evidence of it, and now indeed came with no design or desire of being convinced of his divine mission, but in order that, failing in the proof which they required, he might expose himself to general censure and contempt.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 70. — A SIGN AGAIN ASKED, Mat_16:1-12.

1. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees — These two sects were hostile to each other, but could be friends in order to resist the Saviour in concert. On this occasion they repeated the demand for a sign made on more than one occasion. See notes on Mat_12:38-40.

Tempting… him — Inasmuch as our Lord refused the sign formerly demanded, they now try again the same experiment. If he complies with their demands he will be such a Messiah as they desire. If he does not, they have an argument against him. From heaven — As being less likely to be a magical or juggling performance than a terrestrial miracle. Alford says: “In the Jewish superstition it was held that demons and false gods could give signs on earth, but only the true God from heaven.”

Signs in the skies indeed there were. At his birth was the star. The angels announced from the skies his nativity. The dove from the skies descended upon him. Voices from heaven at different times acknowledged him Son of God. Finally, at his crucifixion darkness at midday and earthquake gave witness to him.

At a later date in Jewish history (about the year 136) a false messiah came and undertook to be just such a messiah as the Jews desired. He called himself Bar Cochevas, or son of a star, from the star prophesied by Balaam. He performed signs by legerdemain, gained thousands of followers, among whom were three of the greatest of rabbis. He raised an insurrection against the Roman government, and terrible slaughters ensued. After one of the most sanguinary wars in history, the rebellion was subdued in the blood of the impostor and his deluded followers.

It is a bloody messiah like this whose sign these Pharisees wished to see appear in the heavens. Miracles of mercy, sermons and parables, forgiveness of sin and reformation of life, were matters for which they had no taste. To have granted their request would have been to concede their notion.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Mat_16:1. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees.—The presence of members of the latter sect, who do not elsewhere appear in our Lord’s Galilean ministry, is noticeable. It is probably explained by St. Mark’s version of the warning in Mat_16:6, where “the leaven of Herod” appears as equivalent to “the leaven of the Sadducees” in St. Matthew’s report. The Herodians were the Galilean Sadducees, and the union of the two hostile parties was the continuation of the alliance which had begun after our Lord’s protest against the false reverence for the Sabbath which was common to both the parties (Mar_3:6) (Plumptre).

Mat_16:4. The sign of the prophet Jonas.—As if he would say, I refer you to my former statement on this subject

(12) as sufficient and final (Lange). He left them.—This abrupt termination indicates that He judicially gave them up (ibid.).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_16:1-4

Evil repeating itself.—We have seen reason to believe that the Saviour, in going to Tyre and Sidon (Mat_15:21), and in going afterwards to the other side of the lake (Mat_15:29) was actuated by a desire, for the sake of His work, to be out of the way of His enemies. The story before us seems to show us how much reason He had for this wish. Scarcely is He back again before some of His bitterest enemies—sinking for the time their mutual antipathy (Act_23:7-9) in their greater hatred of Him—come upon Him with a hostile design. It is a repetition of what we have read of before in Mat_12:38—a request for a “sign from heaven”—as though to put an end to their doubts (Mat_16:1). The Saviour meets this second request, the insidious and treacherous character of which He fully perceives (Mat_16:4), by a twofold reply, in which He points them, first, to what they already possess, and, secondly, to what He has already promised—in the very way they demand.

I. What they already possess.—They possessed signs, on the one hand, which were not difficult to perceive. They might see this by that which was palpably true about them in other respects. They speak of “heaven.” Let them look upon “heaven.” Are there not certain frequent and well-known appearances there by means of which they were all in the habit, in a certain way, of judging of the times? Did they not constantly argue, e.g. from what they saw of such signs as to the kind of weather to be expected by them in the immediate future (Mat_16:2-3)? And were there not at that time, also, in the spiritual firmament, very similar signs? Certain conspicuous appearances which the least intelligent among them, if only they looked for them, could not fail to descry? Possibly, in so speaking, the Saviour referred to such cotemporaneous occurrences as the mission and message of John the Baptist, and His own subsequent appearance and works as predicted by John himself. And certainly, if He did so, He referred to such things as the generation He spoke to had already acknowledged as signs (see such passages as Luk_3:15; Mat_3:1-6; Joh_3:1-2, etc.). Let them, therefore (so He says to them, first), make use of these signs. In other words, let them read what they had before seeking for more. And that all the more, in the next place, because of the character of the signs they possessed; these not being of such a character as to make them, in reality, at all difficult to interpret. A certain amount of discrimination would be required, no doubt, if men would do so aright. But the same thing was true, and that notoriously, in regard to those “weather-signs” too of which He had spoken. Men had to consider, in judging of them, the question of time as well as that of appearance. The very same appearance, when seen at one time, meant the exact opposite of that which it signified when beheld at another (Mat_16:2-3). Men knew this so well, in fact, that they argued accordingly every day that went by. Let those that heard Him, therefore, do the same by those other “signs” to which He had alluded. Let them consider their date, as it were, as well as their nature. Let them consider how things were in Israel (Mat_21:13), let them consider how they were in the world (Rom_1:28-32), when these spiritual signs, so to call them, were seen in that sky. Let them consider these things and they will see how these “signs” pointed to Him as the “Christ.”

II. What He had already promised.—Besides these present “signs” there was that future one of which He had spoken before (Mat_12:39-40). Three things seem observable here with regard to this sign. The first is, that, as before, our Lord does not allow it to be a thing to be claimed. It was an “evil and adulterous generation” that was “seeking” it at His hands (Mat_12:39, and here Mat_16:4). They were not asking for it in sincerity. They would not use it aright. All the same they should have it in its proper season and way. Not even this unreasonable request of theirs should be wholly rejected. The second is that the Saviour, on this occasion, merely refers to the fact. On the previous mention of it, whilst even then leaving the event itself to explain His meaning in full, He yet gave some sort of intimation of the kind of “sign” to be expected (see Mat_12:40). Now He appears to do nothing more than, as it were, refer back to those words. It is to be, but what it is to be you will not fully know till it comes. And the last is, that when He has given them this, He has given them all they must ask. In the future let them understand fully that there should be evidence enough of His mission. A “sign” should be given which would declare plainly enough that “heaven” attested His work. But for the present they must understand as fully that He was only biding His time; and must diligently, therefore, fall back on the use of those signs they possessed. Such was the tone of the Saviour’s language. Such also appears to have been the significance of His action. “He left them and departed” (see also Mar_8:13).

Here is, therefore, a lesson for all of us as to hearing the word. When the Saviour had given these inquirers what was enough for them at the time, when He had let them know that a good deal more might be expected by them in time, He added no more. He left it with them to do with it as they thought well. Even so of the world at large and of Scripture at large. It is not intended to give us light on every department of thought. It does not aim at making it impossible for us to disbelieve in its truth. It appeals to us only as free agents and reasonable beings. And it asks us, therefore, while waiting for more light, to use the light that it gives (2Pe_1:19). We shall not find it too little, if used aright, to be a guide to our steps. Neither shall we find it too little, if despised by us, to prove our condemnation and death (cf. Joh_5:45-47; Luk_16:31).

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat_16:3. The signs of the times.—Two evils in Judging the moral and spiritual condition of our times: that of the optimist, and that of the pessimist. Reasons for difficulty of forming fair judgment.

1. They are our times. We are not dispassionate.

2. Each one’s circumstances tend to warp his judgment.

3. Special opinions bias our conclusions. Christ told us that we ought to understand the “signs of our times.” What then can we see?

I. Vast increase of intelligence and education.—Supposed panacea for all woes. Knowledge is wider, but shallower. Knowledge of our day loves surprises. Men are becoming “vain in their imaginations.” To know is trying to take the place of to believe. Will it succeed? Can we ever know?

II. Seeking after pleasure.—We are sent into the world to serve, not first to enjoy. We may come to put pleasure before duty. And what moral condition would that indicate?

III. Pressure of business and haste to be rich.—Fortunes made rapidly in manufacturing districts. Is this consistent with Christian calmness and content? Success is the modern god.

IV. Preaching is intellectual and moral, rather than evangelical and spiritual.

V. Organisations for Christian work are multiplied.—In this advantages and disadvantages. Danger of loosening the sense of personal responsibility.

Points to impress.—

1. God must not be thought of as separate even from a decaying and dying church. See His messages to the Seven Churches of Asia.

2. It is in the power of God alone to revive a dying church. 3. Revival begins in the experience of some individual soul. The kindled flame will run and enlarge, until the new love will inspire the whole church. Will you be the one?—Weekly Pulpit.

Overlooking the signs of the times.—

I. There are signs of the times by which wise and upright men are enabled to make moral prognostications, and so far to understand the motions and methods of Providence as from thence to take their measures, and to know what Israel ought to do, as the men of Issachar, as the physician from some certain symptoms finds a crisis formed.

II. There are many who are skilful enough in other things, and yet cannot, or will not, discern the day of their opportunities; are not aware of the wind when it is fair for them, and so let slip the gale (see Jer_8:7; Isa_1:3).

III. It is great hypocrisy when we slight the signs of God’s ordaining, to seek for signs of our own prescribing.—M. Henry.

The duty of pondering the signs of the times.—It is a religious duty to estimate the times in which we are called to live a Christian life, and by our life to render our witness for God. It is said that some years before the Franco-German war, German officers had visited the probable battle-fields, and had made plans and maps of mountain range, village, wood, watercourse, road, and rail. To that wise foreknowing and estimating of difficulties the German success was largely due. It is possible for us to hide ignorance and unpreparedness behind the use of merely general terms. We say that the Christian must fight the “world, the flesh, and the devil,” but we fail to observe the exact forms in which each evil power is clothing itself in our times, and for us.—Weekly Pulpit.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. The Great Announcements of the Rejected King Concerning Himself.

CHAPTER 16

1. Pharisees and Sadducees Asking a Sign. (Mat 16:1-4.)

2. Instructions Concerning the Leaven. (Mat 16:5-12.)

3. Peter’s Confession. (Mat 16:13-16.)

4. The Future Building of the Church Announced. (Mat 16:17-20.)

5. The Announcement of His Death and Resurrection. (Mat 16:21.)

6. Peter’s Rebuke and the Lord’s Answer. (Mat 16:22-23.)

7. The Path of the Disciple. (Mat 16:24-26.)

8. His Second Coming Announced. (Mat 16:27-28.)

After the wonderful manifestation of Jehovah among His people, in the healing of the great multitudes and the feeding of the four thousand men, besides women and children, the Pharisees appear again upon the scene, and this time with the Sadducees to tempt Him.

“And the Pharisees and Sadducees came and asked Him, tempting Him, to shew them a sign out of heaven” (Mat 16:1). The Pharisees were the strictest sect among the Jews. They were the religious class, the Ritualists who not alone held to the letter of the law, but who enforced the traditional teachings. They were hypocrites, and fully exposed as such by our Lord in the previous chapter. There He uncovered the hypocrisies and the wickedness of their hearts. Once before the Pharisees and the scribes had come to Him with their subtle cunning and asked to see a sign from Him (Mat 12:38). The scribes were in fullest sympathy with the Pharisees, being as religious and ritualistic as they were. These scribes had the care of the written law and studied it. They made the transcripts, expounded the law, explained difficulties, kept the records and were also called lawyers.

The Sadducees were the very opposite from the Pharisees and the scribes. The Pharisees hated the Sadducees, and the Sadducees were the sworn enemies of the Pharisees. Sadduceeism was the reaction of Phariseeism. It was a reform movement, and as such (like all reform) a big failure. The Sadducees were Freethinkers, Rationalists. They denied the supernatural. Up to this chapter they are mentioned only once before. In the third chapter we read that the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to the Baptism of John. We can well imagine how the Pharisee, when he saw a Sadducee on the road out to the wilderness, would gather his long, flowing robe around himself for fear that the hem of his garment would become defiled by brushing up against that unrighteous Sadducee, while the Sadducee had nothing but looks of scorn and hatred for his brother. John greeted them with the title which belongs to them both, “Offspring of vipers!”

Now, here in the beginning of the sixteenth chapter, this event happens, the Pharisees and Sadducees agree together to tempt the Lord. Both make a common cause in opposing the Lord. Most likely they came together in Conference. Well could they meet together, though outwardly separated, yet inwardly possessed by the same satanic hatred against Him, whose words had so completely unmasked Phariseeism and whose deeds and mighty miracles had so perfectly exposed the fallacy of Sadduceeism. While they could not agree in doctrine and practice in one thing they could agree and were perfectly harmonious, and this was, the hatred and rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, as before indicated in our exposition of this Gospel, these Pharisees and Sadducees, these sects among the professing earthly people of God in the past, are perfectly reproduced in the professing sphere of Christendom. The modern “Christian” Phariseeism is the religious, ritualistic part of Christendom, having a name to live but being dead, the form of godliness, but denying its power. Sadduceeism in its “Christian” aspect is the liberal current so strong in our day, the new theology which puts supernaturalism out of the way, the higher critics who deny the inspiration of the Bible, beginning with the denial of the written Word and rapidly ending with the denial of the living Word. And these two great parts of Christendom, modern Phariseeism and Sadduceeism are opposing the Person and the Work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The day is not far off when there will be a great union of Christendom, a union which will take in the most ritualistic and the most liberal, a union which will also include the reform Jew and which will aim at a universal religion founded upon that anti-Christian doctrine of “a Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of men.” All this is seen approaching by the modern drift of things throughout Christendom. This union to come will be upon the ground of opposing the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement He made on the Cross. That coming union will be “the devil’s millennium.” When the Lord Jesus Christ comes the second time He will find that monstrosity fully developed in the earth.

And thus they came asking a sign out of Heaven. Before it was only “asking a sign of Him.” But now it was to be a sign out of Heaven. Perhaps the Sadducees had asked this and the Pharisees were well satisfied. He had done many signs among them and He Himself, God manifested in the flesh, was the Sign, and now they desire a sign. Would they have believed if He had given them a sign? Supposing He had with His omnipotent power opened the Heavens and shown out of Heaven with the rays of glory; what would have been the effect upon their unbelieving hearts? Would they have bowed in worship before Him? We believe not. The Sadducees, with a sneer, would have explained it as a phenomenon of nature. They do it so now. During a visit to California a brother told us how the leading preacher of a certain city, a “Congregationalist,” had told his hearers that it was a stroke of lightning which fell upon the sacrifice of Elijah on Mt. Carmel. And the Pharisees would have only blasphemed the more. They would have repeated their previous blasphemy in saying that the sign was given through Beelzebub’s power. Indeed, the ritualistic, Jewish fanatic believes to this day that our Lord did His miracles through the mysterious and unlawful use of the Holy Name. A sign out of Heaven! Infidelity still demands it occasionally through its disciples. “If some one came back from the ‘other world’ we would believe,” persons have often told us. But would they believe? “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, not even if one rise from the dead will they be persuaded” (Luk 16:31). That awful delusion “Spiritualism” with its satanic abominations has for a bait that ridiculous assertion, “the evidence of a future life, the demonstration and sign of a hereafter,” and many have been ensnared by these demon doctrines. No signs any more; the Sign of all signs has come, Christ Himself. But a sign will yet come, the sign of the Son of Man followed by the Manifestation of Himself out of Heaven. Of this we shall hear more in the closing verses of this chapter.

“But He answering said to them, When evening is come, ye say, Fine weather, for the sky is red; and in the morning, A storm today, for the sky is red and lowering; ye know how to discern the face of the sky, but ye cannot the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it, save the sign of Jonas. And He left them and went away” (Mat 16:2-4).

They understood the signs of nature, the warnings of the coming storm and the harbingers of a beautiful day. The Jews in general closely observed the seasons and signs in nature. (“In the going out of the last day of the feast of Tabernacles, all observed the rising of the smoke. If the smoke bended northward, the poor rejoiced, but the rich were troubled; because there would be much rain the following year and the fruits would be corrupted; if it bended southward, the poor grieved and the rich rejoiced, for there would be fewer rains that year, and the fruit would be sound; if eastward, all rejoiced; if westward, all were troubled.” From Talmud, Bal. Ioma. -- Horae Hebraeicae.) All the changes in nature they observed, but the signs of the times they did not discern. They were blinded to these. If their eyes had been open they would surely have known that a great change of seasons in another realm than nature had come. They could have seen the evidences of a fast approaching judgment upon the apostate nation and likewise the blessed evidences of the visitation from on High, by the Presence of the Lord, which had taken place.

And is professing Christendom less blind? Alas; almost everything is discerned and studied, the records of the past, the history of Christendom, everything else except the signs of the times. This strange, unscriptural optimism, by which Christendom closes wilfully the eyes, so as not to see the signs of an approaching crisis, this false cry of “Peace and Safety,” is indeed blindness as great, perhaps greater, than the blindness of those who asked a sign of the Lord.

But thanks be to God, not all are blinded, but many do discern the signs of the times and know “the morning cometh, but also the night.”

They were “a wicked and adulterous generation;” this solved the whole problem why they could not discern the signs of the times. The sign of the Prophet Jonas was to be the only sign they were to receive and that refers us to the death and resurrection of our Lord.

“He left them and departed.” Significant words as well as a symbolical action once more.

“And when His disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. And Jesus said to them, See and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, Because we have taken no bread. And Jesus knowing said, Why reason ye among yourselves, O ye of little faith, because ye have taken no bread? Do ye not yet understand nor remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many hand baskets ye took up? nor the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How do ye not understand that it was not concerning bread I said to you, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? Then they comprehended that He did not speak to them to beware of the leaven of bread but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Mat 16:5-12). Here the slowness of heart and the unbelief of the disciples stands exposed. The Lord turns to His own, right after He had turned His back upon these enemies, and He warns now that even His disciples, believers, are to beware of the terrible leaven of Ritualism and Rationalism. How significant that after He left the offspring of vipers and before He unfolds the truths concerning the church which was to be built, He warns to beware of the leaven and its pernicious work and effect. At no time perhaps is this warning to be heeded so much as in the times we live.

But they understood Him not. They thought of the bread which perishes and even then unbelief was mixed with it. Instead of being occupied with Christ Himself and spiritual things they minded earthly things and so He had to tell them in plain words that He did not speak of the leaven of bread, but of that which leaven typifies, the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

What follows now after the warning words of our Lord is one of the most important sections of this Gospel. Around the contents of the second half of the sixteenth chapter cluster indeed the most vital and solemn doctrines. We approach, therefore, the exposition of this part with much prayer, that His Word may be made very plain to every reader and all may learn the lessons which are put before us.

We find the Lord and His disciples in Caesarea-Philippi, and there He asks His disciples what men say concerning Himself. After the disciples had answered He turns to them with the same question and Simon Peter gives that wonderful answer upon which the Lord announces the fact of the future building of His church, as well as His coming suffering, death and resurrection. Before we begin the study of these events in detail we wish to say that only in Matthew do we find the full answer to Peter’s confession and the fact brought out that the Lord is to have a church. The other Gospel records do not mention these words at all. The Holy Spirit put them here in this dispensational Gospel because there it is where they belong. He, as the writer of this Gospel, is like a goldsmith who has numerous precious stones and pearls, each a costly gem in itself, and forms them in a perfect chain. He arranges all in His divine order, in perfect beauty, to work out and show forth the perfection and worth of the Lord. And so He put the events before us into the very heart of the Gospel of the King.

“But when Jesus was come into the parts of Caesarea-Philippi, He demanded of His disciples, saying, Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am? And they said, Some, John the Baptist; and others Elias; and others, again, Jeremias, or one of the prophets” (Mat 16:14-15).

It is significant that this takes place in Caesarea-Philippi. It is on Gentile ground, so to speak, where it happens and where on the one hand it is demonstrated once more that His own had not received Him; and on the other, He is truly confessed and His revelation concerning the church is made known.

In putting the question to His disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am?” He knew, of course, perfectly well what men said of Him, for He knows all things. Nor does He include in this question those proud and evil Pharisees with their blasphemies, but He means the multitudes who had followed Him, the men who had listened to His words and who had seen His miracles. The answer they give Him, the echo of the different voices in Israel, proves only too well that they knew Him not. John the Baptist, Elias, Jeremias, or one of the prophets, these were the estimates of Him who is God manifested in the flesh. And is not this yet the burning and important question, “Who is He? What think ye of Christ?” It is still so, and the attacks of the enemy are ever aimed at the person of the Lord. The answer is a manifestation of the unbelief of His earthly people Israel, and this unbelief which became more and more evident indicated the setting aside of Israel. So it is likewise at the end of this Christian age. The ever increasing denial of the Deity of Christ and of His Glory, as it is going on in that which claims His name, Christendom, is the forerunner of judgment. (2Pe 2:1-22)

But now the Lord turns to His own. “He says to them, But ye, who do ye say that I am? And Simon Peter answering, said to Him, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The question was addressed to the disciples, but Peter answers as the representative of the disciples, and is also the mouthpiece of the Father, whose revelation has come to his heart. But what does this confession mean and what does it all include? It includes more than the prophetic statements contained in the Old Testament Scriptures concerning the Deity of the Messiah, that He is the Mighty God, Immanuel. It is more than the expression of faith in the prophecies and the fulfilment of them in the person of Him who was standing in their midst. The confession is personal faith in the Christ, the Son of the living God, and as such He had been revealed unto Peter by the Father, and Peter, knowing Him as the eternal life, realizing Him as the one who hath life and who imparts life, gives utterance to it. The confession goes beyond the cross and the grave and shows forth Christ the Son of God in resurrection, though Peter had not the full grasp of this when he spoke. It includes all that, realized in personal faith, of which the Lord speaks of in the Gospel of John. “For even as the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself,”... and that which precedes this statement in Joh 5:1-47, “Verily, verily I say unto you, that an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live.” But all is, of course, in anticipation of His resurrection from the dead, as we read in the Epistle to the Romans, “marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 1:4).

And thus Peter’s confession includes all upon which personal faith in the Son of God rests. The first Epistle Peter wrote by the Spirit of God shows forth the word “living” in connection with the resurrection of Christ. There we read of “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead,” and “the living and abiding Word of God,” and the Lord is termed “a living Stone,” while believers are “living stones.” The confession of Him by Peter, through the Father’s revelation, is then something altogether new. It denotes a new departure and is the very opposite from Israel ‘s unbelief. How it must have delighted His heart, when for the first time the full truth concerning Himself comes forth from human lips as the result of divine revelation! And now He is ready and free to give as the Son of the living God a new revelation. He is now giving a glimpse of what is going to be and He speaks of that mystery hidden in former ages, the church or assembly, which He calls “My church.”

“And Jesus answering said to him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens. And I, also, I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church (assembly), and hades’ gates shall not prevail against it” (Mat 16:17-18).

The blessedness of Peter is announced first, a blessedness which is equally upon each sinner who believes in the Christ, the Son of the living God. “Bar Jona,” as the Lord calls Simon, means “son of a dove,” and the dove is the emblem and type of the Holy Spirit. Flesh and blood could not produce such a revelation and such faith, it was the work of the Father; and upon this He, the Son, speaks, “I also, I say unto thee...” So in the event before us we have the Father mentioned as well as the Son and the Holy Spirit.

With His own divine authority the Lord now speaks to Simon. Simon Bar Jona receives a new name. Thou art Peter. The Greek word Petros means “a stone;” and then the Lord gives the declaration of the building of His assembly upon this rock. The new revelation is concerning His church. The word “ecclesia” is found here for the first time in the Bible. It means literally “to call out,” and denotes an assembly of persons. It would be much better if the word assembly could be substituted for the word “church,” as that term is so much misused. By speaking of “my church” the Lord indicates what he is going to do with those who, like Peter, with a God-given faith, confess Him as the Son of the living God. They are to form His church, one great assembly.

This passage containing the word “church” for the first time, and the Lord intimating that it is still a thing of the future, should be sufficient in itself to clear up all the unscriptural views held and taught throughout Christendom about the “church.”

The Lord’s speaking of the church as to be built upon this rock makes it clear that there was no church in existence up to that time. It is therefore all wrong to speak, as it is done so often, of the Old Testament church. There was no such institution in Old Testament times. It is altogether unknown on the pages of the Old Testament prophetic Word. There are, of course, types which indicate that a church was to be called into existence and which we now understand after God’s hidden secret has been made known. We remember some years ago, after giving an address on the church, how a number of brethren took exception to our statement that there was no church in the Old Testament. The argument they brought was from Stephen’s address in Act 7:1-60, where it speaks of “the church in the wilderness,” and because this referred to Israel these brethren took it for granted that Israel was the church of Christ in the wilderness. What havoc and confusion such a view produces and leads to! All the sad conditions about us in Christendom originate from the prevailing ignorance of what the church is. The miserable method of applying promises made to God’s earthly people Israel to the church, and forcing the fulfilment of them into this present age, has its starting point from the same misconception.

Now if the term “church in the wilderness” is mentioned in the Book of Acts, it simply means “a congregation, an assembly of people in the wilderness,” and such was Israel. The word “ecclesia” church is likewise used in Act 19:32. The mob there is called “ecclesia,” but, unlike Act 7:38, the translators used the word assembly instead of “church.”

However, the emphasis here is upon the word “my.” He is going to have an assembly of people, a church; this out-called people is for Himself. The formation of His assembly could only begin after the work of redemption had been accomplished. He had first to suffer and die, to be raised from the dead and by it become Lord and Christ, to be received up into Glory and the Holy Spirit sent down, ere the building of His assembly could begin. Therefore He says here, “I will build my church;” not I am building it now, or it has been building since Adam’s day, but “I will build.” Get this clearly settled in your mind and the fuller revelation about the church, the body and bride of Christ, her heavenly calling, heavenly relationship, heavenly hope and heavenly destiny, will soon be understood. And the gates of hades, death, cannot prevail against it because He whose is the church and who builds it has prevailed over death and has annulled him, who has the power of death, that is the devil.

This fuller revelation we do not find here. This is not the place for it. Nor do we find the full truth concerning the church revealed on the day of Pentecost. If Peter were the rock, a statement we shall follow closely, the rock upon which the church is built, we could surely expect that on that wonderful day, when the Spirit was poured out, Peter in his preaching would refer to himself and to the church. But he uses the word “church” not once in his address. When at last all is to be brought out and that mystery hidden in former ages is to be made known, the Lord does not commit these truths at all to Peter, but he chooses another instrument to whom He intrusts His secrets, Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles. Through Paul the full revelation of the assembly, the one body, is given.

As it is so well known, Roman Catholicism founds upon the Lord’s words to Peter the assertion of Peter’s supremacy, and as an outflow from this the Papacy. Peter, according to the poor Romanist, is the stone upon which the church is built, and the infallibility of the church is claimed from the words “hades’ gate shall not prevail against it.”

What then does the Lord mean when He says, “Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my assembly?” He did not mean Peter or He would have said “upon thee will I build my church.” The word Peter -- petros -- means a part of a rock, that is a stone. When the Lord says upon what He is going to build His church, He no longer speaks of petros, a stone, but he uses the word petra, which means a rock, out of which the petros, the stone, is hewn. The word petra, rock, He uses for the first time in Mat 7:24-25. The house there is built upon a petra, a rock, and cannot fall, and this rock is He Himself. “This rock” upon which the assembly is built is “Christ, the Son of the living God” as confessed by Peter.

But why this peculiar use of petros and petra -- a part of a rock and the rock? Ah, it brings out the most precious truth that Peter and every true believer in possession of eternal life, this life imparted, is associated with Him, is a part of Him, for He is the Eternal Life.

Let Peter answer from the God-breathed words of his first Epistle, “To whom (Christ) coming, a living stone, cast away indeed as worthless by men, but with God chosen, precious, yourselves also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1Pe 2:4-6). Here is the same relation of stone and stones, and Peter himself settles the question of who the stone is -- not he, but Christ -- and Peter, like every other true believer, is but a living stone built upon Himself. It would take us too far to look to the Messianic prophecy in Isa 28:16, the basis of Peter’s words.

But the Lord has more to say to Peter. “And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens; and whatsoever thou mayest bind upon the earth shall be bound in the heavens; and whatsoever thou mayest loose on the earth, shall be loosed in the heavens” (Mat 16:19).

These words have been very grossly misapplied and the most abominable doctrines have been built upon it. It is indeed strange that but few Christian believers are clear about their meaning. From these words to Peter the very ridiculous, Christ and the Gospel dishonoring picture is drawn, which represents Peter with keys in his hands guarding the entrance of heaven, and that it is left to him, who shall be admitted and who rejected. The Lord did not say the keys to heaven were given to him, nor did he say that the keys to the church were in his hands and with the loosing in the earth and loosing in heaven the Lord never meant that the eternal destiny of one single soul was left in Peter’s hands.

Let us see that the keys of the Kingdom of the heavens were given to him. The Kingdom of the heavens is not heaven nor is it the church, and upon this fact rests the true meaning of the words before us. Notice the place Peter has in the church, not different from the place every believer holds in the assembly through the Grace of God, is given first and when the Lord speaks of giving him keys of the Kingdom of the heavens, He confers upon him authority for actions not in the church, but in the Kingdom of the heavens. It is therefore wrong to say that the Lord gave the keys of the church to Peter, except one assumes (which is so often done) that the church and the Kingdom are identical.

We have learned before (Mat 13:1-58) what we have to understand by the Kingdom of the heavens in its present form. It embraces the entire sphere of Christian profession, all Christendom. Every one who confesses the name of Christ is in the Kingdom of the heavens, though that one may not at all be a true believer. This Kingdom of the heavens is in existence in the earth during the absence of the King; it is committed into the hands of men, and it is to be administered by men. Now, if the Lord tells Peter that He will give to him the keys of the Kingdom of the heavens, He puts the administration of the Kingdom into his hands. The question arises next, Did the Lord assign to Peter a special place distinct from the other disciples? Are the keys peculiar to Peter and only to Peter? Was Peter to have these keys exclusively? These are important questions.

It is easily proven that the Lord did not mean to single out Peter and give to him a work distinct from the other disciples, nor did he give him a peculiar place or one of supremacy.

The Lord adds immediately after the declaration that He will give to him the keys of the Kingdom of the heavens -- “and whatsoever thou mayest bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, etc.” Now, if we turn to the eighteenth chapter of this Gospel (Mat 16:18) we find that the Lord repeats this very commission and He addresses it no longer to Peter but to the whole company of disciples. Peter must be looked upon in the whole passage as the representative of the disciples and as such of all true believers. If the Lord calls him “a stone,” He certainly did not mean him alone, but every one who believes is a living stone, and so when He speaks of the keys and the binding and loosing He commits this authority not upon Peter exclusively, but upon every disciple, and as true believers form His assembly, upon the assembly as such.

It is generally taught that Peter used the keys on the day of Pentecost, and when he preached to Cornelius and his household (Act 10:1-48). It is assumed that the Lord gave this commission to him exclusively and that the words of the Lord were fulfilled at these occasions. However, this cannot be proven from the Scriptures, nor does Peter refer to any special authority in preaching on the day of Pentecost or in the house of Cornelius. (After all that Rome and ritualism and even more evangelical systems have found in these keys it may be hard to credit such a view as this; and with many it has been customary to point to Peter’s eminent place on the day of Pentecost in opening the kingdom to the Jews, as afterwards in the person of Cornelius to the Gentiles. But an eminent place may be fully allowed him in this way, while yet we deny him an exclusive place; and, in fact, we cannot exclude others on the day of Pentecost; nor even at Caesarea allow that this was the sole use of the key in relation to the Gentiles, any more than the use of another key than that which before had opened the kingdom to the Jews. One act did surely not exhaust the service of the key, nor to open the door twice require two keys. Can it be thought that the door once, opened simply remained open, and needed no more opening? On the contrary, I believe it can be conclusively shown that the administration of the kingdom, which these keys stand for, is not yet over, is not at all come to an end in one initial authoritative act. Men still receive and are received in; and if the power of the keys speaks of admission into the kingdom, and the kingdom be the sphere of discipleship, then the key is in fact but authority to disciple. -- Numerical Bible.)

But what are the keys? The answer is, Knowledge (teaching and preaching) and Baptizing. “Go ye therefore and teach (disciple) all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (Mat 28:19). These are the doors of entering into the professing sphere of Christendom, that is the Kingdom of the heavens. These keys are still used. The binding and loosing refers only to discipline on the earth. It has nothing whatever to do with remission of sins or eternal salvation. We pass this over at present, but shall enter into it more fully when we reach the eighteenth chapter, where we find these words in connection with the statement, “where two or three are gathered together unto My Name, there am I in the midst of them.”

“Then He enjoined on His disciples that they should say to no man that He was the Christ” (Mat 16:20). As the promised Messiah His people had rejected Him; He is now to go on towards Jerusalem to be delivered up and then raised from the dead to be announced as Lord and Christ. Therefore He enjoined His disciples not to publish Him as the Christ.

And now after the Lord had made known for the first time, upon Peter’s confession, the future building of His assembly, He speaks likewise for the first time in this Gospel of His rejection, death and resurrection. “From that time Jesus began to shew to His disciples that He must go away to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised” (Mat 16:21).

In the beginning of this chapter the fact was brought out that Israel had no heart for Him and His own knew Him not nor would they receive Him. What they would do to Him He now reveals. It was more than mere rejection of His Person and His words. He would have to suffer many things from the hands of the leaders of the nation and be killed; after death His resurrection. And when this solemn announcement came from His blessed lips He knew the full meaning of what was included in “the suffering of many things and be killed.” He knew before He entered into the world what work He was to do. “Wherefore coming into the world He says, Sacrifice and offering thou willest not; but thou hast prepared me a body. Thou tookest no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. Then I said, Lo, I come, in the roll of the book it is written of me to do, O God, thy will” (Heb 10:5-7). He knew the suffering, for His own Spirit was in the prophets of old, testifying before of the sufferings which belong to Christ (1Pe 1:11). He began then to speak of these sufferings to His disciples, but He alone knew what it all meant. He had entered into the world for this very purpose to give His life and as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. We must also lay emphasis upon the words “from that time began Jesus.” The building of His assembly and His suffering, death and resurrection are closely connected. The beginning of the assembly, the building of the same, could only be possible after the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ was finished. We read in Gen 2:22 how the helpmeet of the first Adam was made. She was taken from Adam’s side while he slept. She was built out of his side. It is that well known and blessed type of the last Adam and His assembly, Christ and the church.

No sooner had the last word of the announcement of His passion fallen from the lips of the Lord than the enemy is manifested, attempting to keep Him from going to the cross. It is Peter who interrupts Him. “And Peter taking Him began to rebuke Him, saying, God be favorable to thee, Lord; this shall in no wise be unto thee” (Mat 16:22). The same Peter who had uttered that glorious confession, the revelation of the Father, becomes all at once the mouthpiece of the adversary. He had not been asked by the Lord what he thought of His statement; he speaks in the impulsiveness of the flesh, as a natural man. Perhaps the conception of Messiah’s kingdom, His glory as an earthly King in which He as a Jew with his fellow disciples so strongly believed, was in part responsible for this hasty word, and explains why he became so readily an instrument of Satan. May be the words addressed to Peter by the Lord, the giving of a new name and the commission, lifted up Peter and gave him a spiritual pride, which brought on his hasty action. The way he acts seems to indicate this. He acts in an astonishing forwardness. He takes his Lord aside and then began to rebuke Him. The Lord, who rebuked the winds and the sea, rebuked by His creature! What ignorance of the person of the Lord and what failure this action of Peter reveals. And what does he say to the Lord? He desires that God should be favorable unto Him by keeping Him from such a fate. But only through His sacrificial death could God’s favor flow forth to lost men, and so Peter gives expression to the very endeavor of Satan, who would have kept the Lord Jesus Christ from going up to Jerusalem to die on that cross of shame.

And now turning round to Peter, the Lord speaks: “Get away behind Me, Satan; thou art an offence to Me, for thy mind is not on the things that are of God, but on the things that are of men” (Mat 16:23). The Lord recognizes the enemy behind Peter’s words and He addresses that unseen one in almost the identical words He had used upon yonder mountain, from which Satan had showed Him the kingdoms of the world, offering the same to Him. We learned from the fourth chapter in the Gospel, from the temptations of our Lord by Satan, what the aim of the enemy was with every one of these temptations. He attempted to keep the Lord from going that path of humiliation, of obedience unto death, unto the death of the cross. Satan knew all his dreadful power, the power of death, would be broken and his complete defeat wrought on the cross, and to keep Him from going there was his aim. Here is a blunt attempt of Satan through Peter to hinder the Lord in His path.

And there is still another lesson which we cannot pass by. We read in the Epistle of James concerning the tongue, “Does the fountain, out of the same opening, pour forth sweet and bitter? Can, my brethren, a fig produce olives, or a vine figs?” Alas! it may be so with any believer, as it was with Peter, going on from the sweet revelation of the Father to the bitter things of the enemy and giving expression to them; and he was not conscious of it. “Thy mind is not on the things that are of God.” What a word this, is for our consideration! As soon as the mind ceases to be occupied with the things that are of God, and we turn to the things that are of men, we are stepping on the territory of the adversary. “For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are noble, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are amiable, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if any praise, think on these things” (Php 4:8-9).

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, If any one desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever shall desire to save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Mat 16:24-25).

These words are addressed to the disciples and not to unbelievers. It is therefore not a question of salvation. We are not asked to deny self and take up the cross in order to be saved. These words tell us that the way the Lord went is the way of all His true disciples. He states in a few words all the great truths of the association of the believer with the Lord, which the Holy Spirit brings out so fully in the Epistles. We read of the same association in the Gospel of John, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it die, it bears much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it, and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. If any one serve me, let him follow me; and where I am there also shall be my servant” (Joh 12:24-26). Of course there is an immeasurable difference between Him and the believer. He alone could drink the cup, and yet the path He went is our path. In the third chapter of Joshua we read of the passage of God’s people over Jordan. The ark of the covenant led the way and all the people followed. Between the ark and the people, however, was maintained the space of two thousand cubits. And yet they all followed after. It is the type for us. He has made the way and we follow Him. “For to this have ye been called; for Christ also has suffered for you, leaving you a model that ye should follow in His steps” (1Pe 2:21). But how little of the denial of self and the losing of the life is known in these days. Many are, no doubt, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ; but do they follow Him? Is His path ours, too? It is not only possible to believe in the Lord and not follow Him, but it is the most common thing we see today about us. If we are loyal to Him in a world which has rejected Him and which is unchanged, we shall share His rejection. We may not be called upon in these days to lay down our lives for His sake, but we should be willing for it, should it become again a test of following Him. Surely as we desire to follow Him and He is before us, we shall find abundant occasion to deny ourselves and take up our cross. In the degree we look upon Him, our adorable Lord, and He is the object of our affection, in that degree shall we be obedient to Him, deny self and take up the little cross. It will be a pleasure, a joy and a blessing then. As the martyrs went to the stake with singing or faced the wild animals with holy laughter and praises on their lips, so shall we praise Him for the little suffering with Him in these evil days. (“Take up his cross. These words are not to be understood as meaning that we should choose a cross. Begin only with self-denial and then the cross will come of itself. He says ‘his cross’; for He does not teach that we should bear the identical cross which He bore. Everyone’s cross has been prepared according to the measure of each one’s strength” (1Co 10:13). -- Martin Luther on the Gospels.)

“For what does a man profit if he should gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mat 16:26). What solemn questions these are! And who could answer them? Surely if anything is taught in them it is the immense, immeasurable value of the soul. The soul is immortal; if it were not these questions would be unreasonable.

The denial of the immortality of the soul and with it the teaching of man dying like the beast, if he dies without Christ, is one of Satan’s lies which has gained ground throughout Christendom in these last days.

The last verse of this chapter contains another revelation. “For the Son of Man is about to come in the Glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will render to each according to his doings. Verily, I say unto you, There are some of those standing here that shall not taste of death at all until they shall have seen the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom” (Mat 16:27-28).

These words refer to His second coming, His coming in power and in glory. They have puzzled not a few readers, and all kinds of spiritual meaning have been read into them. They are, however, very clear if we read at once the first part of the seventeenth chapter, where we find six days after the Lord and three of His disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. What the disciples beheld there was the type of His glorious second coming as Son of Man in His Kingdom. Our exposition of the next chapter will lead us deeper into this fact.

The sixteenth chapter has brought before us seven revelations:

1. The Rejection of the Lord.

2. The Confession of the Lord as the Christ the Son of the Living God.

3. The Building of His Assembly.

4. The Authority of His Assembly.

5. The Death and Resurrection of the Lord.

6. The Path of the Disciple.

7. The Return of the Lord.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 35

SIGNS OF HIS COMING

Mat 15:39. “Having sent away the multitudes, He entered into a ship, and came to the coasts of Magdala.” Mar 8:10 : “Immediately embarking on a ship, with His disciples, He came into the parts of Dalmanutha.” In these records, chronicling the peregrinations and defining the whereabouts of our Savior, Matthew and Mark precisely agree, both certifying His embarkation, crossing the sea, and His landing — the latter in Dalmanutha, which is the name of the country; and the former, in Magdala, which is the name of the city into which He came on landing. This is the nativity of Mary Magdalene, the latter cognomen being taken from her city, Magdala. Though evidently saved out of the slums, by the ejectment of seven demons, she became one of the brightest saints and truest disciples on whom the sun ever looked down, being last at the cross, first at the sepulcher, and first to receive the full-orbed gospel commission, “Run and preach the risen Christ.” Among the mighty works of Jesus, only a small fraction do we have on record. We have no account of Mary Magdalene’s conversion; but a mere reference to the ejectment of the seven demons, and her subsequent incessant concomitancy of our Lord to the end of His earthly ministry. I trow, she was converted during the present or some other visit of Jesus to her city, Magdala. I feel it pertinent thus to write about her, as she stood at the head of the female department of our Savior’s ministry.

Mat 16:1-4 : “The Pharisees and Sadducees, coming to Him, tempting, asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. He, responding, said to them, It being evening, you say, It will be fair, for the sky is red; in the morning, It will be stormy today, for the sky is red, lowering. O ye hypocrites, you truly know how to discern the face of the sky, and are you not able to discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous nation seeketh after a sign; and no sign shall be given unto it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” He had fed the multitudes this second time over in Decapolis, not very far out in the country, off the southeast coast of the Galilean Sea; after which, coming with His disciples and embarking on a ship, He crosses the sea from southeast to northwest, landing at Magdala, which is on the coast between Bethsaida and Tiberias, but nearer the former. I was in it, and as I sailed all around the sea, landing at many places, I saw all of these localities, and this as well as other routes pursued by our Lord and on record for our edification.

“Jesus now preaches to the multitudes assembled at Magdala, in the land of Dalmanutha.” Here we have, by Matthew and Mark, the subtle attack made on Him by the Pharisees and Sadducees. These, and the Essenes, were the great denominations of the Jewish Church. The Pharisees were the orthodox, with plenty of good and true doctrine, but spiritually dead; the Sadducees were rich and worldly, skeptical in doctrine, regarded as the heterodox wing of the popular Church; while the Essenes, very poor and generally living in the desert, were the holiness people of that day. As in all ages and countries there has been an exterminating war between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, so it was in that age. The Pharisees and Sadducees, however, bury the hatchet, and unite their forces against Jesus, as we see on this occasion, and may see all over this country, if you will open your eyes. Let a holiness evangelist come to a wicked town, and pour out the lightning — truth of full salvation, and the warring sects will all make peace, like Pilate and Herod, and unite their forces, to criticize, oppose, and if possible defeat the revival. Though Jesus had flooded the whole country with His stupendous miracles, always exercising His power for the relief of suffering humanity, doing good to soul or body; dissatisfied with these wonderful benefactions, which they could neither criticize nor call in question, they allege that these works are all confined to this world, and as Moses, the great leader, lawgiver, and mediator of Israel, whose disciples they boastingly claim to be, had fed them with manna from heaven, incessantly, forty years in the wilderness, therefore they demanded of Him a similar miracle, coming down from heaven. He now, responsively to their impudent and arrogant demands, called them hypocrites; not by way of insult, but because it behooved the Author of all truth to call everything by its right name; and if these preachers had enjoyed the true light of God, instead of antagonizing Jesus, they would have been His faithful and loving disciples. Hence, the reason why, with all their meteorological sagacity, which enabled them to prognosticate the weather, and still they could not discern the spiritual signs of the time, was demonstrative proof that they were not the true ministers of God as they claimed to be, as in that case, the light of the Holy Ghost on the prophecies would enable them so to decipher the signs of the times as to know that He was truly the Christ. That it was not the want of natural intelligence was abundantly evinced by their accurate discriminations of the weather. But it was simply the want of spiritual illumination, which the Holy Ghost sheds on the Word, clear and unmistakable to the spiritually-minded. Hence, the very fact that those preachers were utterly blind to the signs of the times was demonstrative proof that they were hypocrites. What were those signs of His coming? The seventy weeks of Daniel — i.e., four hundred and ninety prophetic years — were just about expired. The scepter, which was not to depart from Judah till Shiloh (Christ) came, had actually departed about the time of His birth, as, on the death of Herod, Augustus Caesar, the Roman emperor, instead of transmitting to Archelaus, took it away altogether, turning Judea into a Roman province, and sending Coponius to serve as proconsul. Besides, all the prophets had just poured out torrents of Messianic predictions, which were wonderfully fulfilled on all sides; John the Baptist, the last of all, and the greatest of the prophets, not only having preached Him with all His might, but actually introduced Him publicly to all the people, assuring them of His Messiahship. If these preachers had not been bigoted and blinded hypocrites, they would most assuredly have seen in Jesus the Christ of prophecy.

Let us beware lest we plunge into the same awful dilemma. The present age is flooded with prophetic signs of the Lord’s near coming, as we are now in the last century of the demiurgic week; the six thousand years, according to some chronologies, already out; while all of them expire the period in the present century. The Gentile times, according to Daniel and John, are actually running out on us, the lunar chronology having them already expired, the Calendar due in twenty-four years, and the solar in seventy, all conspiring to illustrate the obvious fact that we are living in the time of the end of the Gentile age. Besides, the prophetical fulfillments among the Mohammedans, Romanists, heathens, and Protestants, and especially the Jews, literally girdle the globe with signs of His near coming; e.g., the rapid gathering of the Jews to Palestine, the revival of the old cities in that country, the great and rapid apostasy of the Church in the home lands, and the wonderful and unprecedented progress of missions among all heathen nations, are all literal fulfillments of the latter-day prophecies, ominous of the Lord’s near coming. And yet preachers by thousands see nothing of it, but comfort their carnal members by ridiculing the awful and momentous truths which God’s awakened people are preaching in all the earth, arousing the spiritually-minded to wash, and dress, and be ready for their coming King. We should not be surprised at the blindness of the pulpit and pew with reference to our Lord’s second coming, when we see how literally this state of things was verified in His first advent; as intellectual and educational culture has no power to open spiritual eyes, and reveal the electric light of God’s truth, so we may expect to find humanity uniform in all ages, and the same paradoxical blindness on Israel this day which, in the visitation of her Lord, disqualified her learned preachers to see Him.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Matthew Chapter 16

Chapter 16 goes farther than the revelation of the simple grace of God. Jesus reveals what was about to be formed in the counsels of that grace, where He was owned, shewing the rejection of the proud among His people, that He abhors them as they abhor Him. (Zec 11:1-17). Shutting their eyes (through perversity of will) to the marvellous and beneficent signs of His power, which He constantly bestowed on the poor who sought Him, the Pharisees and Sadducees-struck with these manifestations, yet unbelieving in heart and will-demand a sign from heaven. He rebukes them for their unbelief, shewing them that they knew how to discern the signs of the weather; yet the signs of the times were far more striking. They were the adulterous and wicked generation, and He leaves them: significant expressions of what was now passing in Israel.

He warns His forgetful disciples against the devices of these subtle adversaries to the truth, and to Him whom God had sent to reveal it. Israel is abandoned, as a nation, in the persons of their leaders. At the same time in patient grace He recalls His disciples to the remembrance of what explained His words to them.

Afterwards He questions His disciples as to what men in general said of Him. It was all matter of opinion, not of faith; that is, the uncertainty that belongs to moral indifference, to the absence of that conscious need of soul which can rest only in the truth, in the Saviour one has found. He then inquires what they themselves said of Him. Peter, to whom the Father had deigned to reveal Him, declares his faith, saying, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” No uncertainty, no mere opinion is here, but the powerful effect of the revelation, made by the Father Himself, of the Person of Christ, to the disciple whom He had elected for this privilege.

Here the condition of the people displays itself in a remarkable manner, not, as in the preceding chapter, with respect to the law, but with respect to Christ, who had been presented to them. We see it in contrast with the revelation of His glory to those who followed Him. We have thus three classes: first, haughty unbelieving Pharisees; next, persons conscious and owning there was divine power and authority in Christ, but indifferent; lastly, the revelation of God and divinely given faith.

In the fifteenth chapter, grace towards one who had no hope but in it, is put in contrast with disobedience to and hypocritical perversion of the law, by which the scribes and Pharisees sought to cover their disobedience with the pretence of piety.

The sixteenth chapter, judging the unbelief of the Pharisees respecting the Person of Christ, and setting aside these perverse men, brings in the revelation of His Person as the foundation of the assembly, which was to take the place of the Jews as the witness for God in the earth; and announces the counsels of God with respect to its establishment. It shews us, in adjunction to this, the administration of the kingdom, as it was now being established on the earth.

Let us consider, first, the revelation of His Person.

Peter confesses Him to be the Christ, the fulfilment of the promises made by God, and of the prophecies that announced their realisation. He was the One who should come, the Messiah whom God had promised.

Moreover, He was the Son of God. The second Psalm had declared that, in spite of the schemings of the leaders of the people, and the haughty animosity of the kings of the earth, God’s King should be anointed on the hill of Zion. He was the Son, begotten of God. The kings and judges of the earth [42] are called to submit themselves to Him, lest they should be smitten with the rod of His power, when He takes the heathen for His inheritance. Thus the true believer waited for the Son of God born in due time upon this earth. Peter confessed Jesus to be the Son of God. So had Nathanael also: “Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.” And, still later, Martha did the same.

Peter however, especially taught of the Father, adds to his confession a word simple, yet full of power: “Thou art the Son of the living God.” Not only He who fulfils the promises, and answers to the prophecies; it is of the living God that He is the Son, of Him in whom is life and life-giving power.

He inherits that power of life in God which nothing can overcome or destroy. Who can vanquish the power of Him-of this Son-who came forth from “Him that liveth”? Satan has the power of death; it is he who holds man under the dominion of this dreadful consequence of sin; and that, by the just judgment of God which constitutes its power. The expression “The gates of hades,” of the invisible world, refers to this kingdom of Satan. It is then on this power, which leaves the stronghold of the enemy without strength, that the assembly is built. The life of God shall not be destroyed. The Son of the living God shall not be overcome. That; then, which God founds upon this rock of the unchangeable power of life in His Son shall not be overthrown by the kingdom of death. If man has been overcome and has fallen under the power of this kingdom, God, the living God, will not be overcome by it. It is on this that Christ builds His assembly. It is the work of Christ based on Him as Son of the living God, not of the first Adam nor based on him-His work accomplished according to the power which this truth reveals. The Person of Jesus, the Son of the living God, is its strength. It is the resurrection that proved it. There He is declared to be the Son of God with power. Accordingly it is not during His life, but when raised from the dead, that He begins this work Life was in Himself; but it is after the Father had burst the gates of hades-nay, He Himself in His divine power had done so and was risen-that He begins to build by the Holy Ghost as ascended on high, that which the power of death or of him who wielded it-already overcome-can never destroy. It is His Person that is here contemplated, and it is on His Person that all is founded. The resurrection is the proof that He is the Son of the living God, and that the gates of hades can do nothing against Him; their power is destroyed by it. Hence we see how the assembly (though formed on earth) is much more than a dispensation, the kingdom is not.

The work of the cross was needed; but it is not the question here of that which the righteous judgment of God required, or of the justification of an individual, but of that which nullified the power of the enemy. It was the Person of Him whom Peter was given to acknowledge, who lived according to the power of the life of God. It was a peculiar and direct revelation from heaven by the Father. Doubtless Christ had given proofs enough of who He was; but proofs had proved nothing to man’s heart. The Father’s revelation was the way of knowing who He was, and this went far beyond the hopes of a Messiah.

Here, then, the Father had directly revealed the truth of Christ’s own Person, a revelation which went beyond all question of relationship with the Jews. On this foundation Christ would build His assembly. Peter, already so named by the Lord, receives a confirmation of that title on this occasion. The Father had revealed to Simon, the son of Jonas, the mystery of the Person of Jesus; and secondly, Jesus also betokens, by the name He gives him, [<A href=“#43” 43] the steadfastness, the firmness, the durability, the practical strength, of His servant favoured by grace. The right of bestowing a name belongs to a superior, who can assign to the one who bears it his place and his name, in the family or the situation he is in. This right, where real, supposes discernment, intelligence, in that which is going on. Adam names the animals. Nebuchadnezzar gives new names to the captive Jews; the king of Egypt to Eliakim, whom he had placed on the throne. Jesus therefore takes this place when He says, The Father hath revealed this unto thee; and I also give you a place and a name connected with this grace. It is on that which the Father hath revealed unto thee that I am going to build My assembly, [44] against which (founded on the life that comes from God) the gates of the kingdom of death shall never prevail; and I who build, and build on this immovable foundation-I give you the place of a stone (Peter) in connection with this living temple. Through the gift of God thou belongest already by nature to the building-a living stone, having the knowledge of that truth which is the foundation, and which makes of every stone a part of the edifice. Peter was pre-eminently such by this confession; he was so in anticipation by the election of God. This revelation was made by the Father in sovereignty. The Lord assigns him, withal, his place, as possessing the right of administration and authority in the kingdom He was going to establish.

Thus far with respect to the assembly, now mentioned for the first time, the Jews having been rejected because of their unbelief, and man a convicted sinner.

Another subject presents itself in connection with this of the assembly that the Lord was going to build; namely, the kingdom which was going to be established. It was to have the form of the kingdom of heaven; it was so in the counsels of God; but it was now to be set up in a peculiar manner, the King having been rejected on earth.

But, rejected as He was, the keys of the kingdom were in the Lord’s hand; its authority belonged to Him. He would bestow them on Peter, who, when He was gone, should open its doors to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles. He should also exercise authority from the Lord within the kingdom; so that whatsoever he bound on earth in the name of Christ (the true King, although gone up to heaven) should be bound in heaven; and if he loosed anything on earth, his deed should be ratified in heaven. In a word, he had the power of command in the kingdom of God on earth, this kingdom having now the character of kingdom of heaven, because its King was in heaven [45] and heaven would stamp his acts with its authority. But it is heaven sanctioning his earthly acts, not his binding or loosing for heaven. The assembly connected with the character of Son of the living God and built by Christ, though formed on earth, belongs to heaven; the kingdom, though governed from heaven, belongs to earth-has its place and ministration there.

These four things then are declared by the Lord in this passage:-First, the revelation made by the Father to Simon; Second, the name given to this Simon by Jesus, who was going to build His assembly on the foundation revealed in that which the Father had made known to Simon; Third, the assembly built by Christ Himself, not yet complete, on the foundation of the Person of Jesus acknowledged as Son of the living God; Fourth, the keys of the kingdom that should be given to Peter, that is to say, authority in the kingdom as administering it on the part of Christ, ordering in it that which was His will, and which should be ratified in heaven. All this is connected with Simon personally, in virtue of the Father’s election (who, in His wisdom, had chosen him to receive this revelation), and of Christ’s authority (who had bestowed on him the name that distinguished him as personally enjoying this privilege).

The Lord having thus made known the purposes of God with regard to the future-purposes to be accomplished in the assembly and in the kingdom, there was no longer room for His presentation to the Jews as Messiah. Not that He gave up the testimony, full of grace and patience towards the people, which He had borne throughout His ministry. No; that indeed continued, but His disciples were to understand that it was no longer their work to proclaim Him to the people as the Christ From this time also He began to teach His disciples that He must suffer and be killed and be raised again.

But, blessed and honoured as Peter was by the revelation which the Father had made to him, his heart still clung in a carnal manner to the human glory of his Master (in truth, to his own), and was still far from rising to the height of the thoughts of God. Alas! he is not the only instance of this. To be convinced of the most exalted truths, and even to enjoy them sincerely as truths, is a different thing from having the heart formed to the sentiments, and to the walk here below, which are in accordance with those truths. It is not sincerity in the enjoyment of the truth that is wanting. What is wanting is to have the flesh, self, mortified-to be dead to the world. We may sincerely enjoy the truth as taught of God and yet not have the flesh mortified or the heart in a state which is according to that truth in what it involves down here. Peter (so lately honoured by the revelation of the glory of Jesus, and made in a very special manner the depositary of administration in the kingdom given to the Son-having a distinguished place in that which was to follow the Lord’s rejection by the Jews) is now doing the adversary’s work with respect to the perfect submission of Jesus to the suffering and ignominy that were to introduce this glory and characterise the kingdom. Alas! the case was plain; he savoured the things of men, and not the things of God. But the Lord, in faithfulness, rejects Peter in this matter, and teaches His disciples that the only path, the appointed and necessary path, is the cross; if any one would follow Him, that is the path He took. Moreover what would it profit a man to save his life and lose all-to gain the world and lose his soul? For this was the question, [46] and not now the outward glory of the kingdom.

Having examined this chapter, as the expression of the transition from the Messianic system to the establishment of the assembly founded on the revelation of the Person of Christ, I desire also to call attention to the characters of unbelief which are developed in it, both among the Jews and in the hearts of the disciples. It will be profitable to observe the forms of this unbelief.

First of all, it takes the grosser form of asking a sign from heaven. The Pharisees and Sadducees unite to shew their insensibility to all that the Lord had done. They require proof to their natural senses, that is, to their unbelief. They will not believe God, either in hearkening to His words or in beholding His works. God must satisfy their wilfulness, which would be neither faith nor the work of God. They had understanding for human things that were much less clearly manifested, but none for the things of God. A Saviour lost to them, as Jews on earth, should be the only sign granted them. They would have to submit, willing or not, to the judgment of the unbelief they displayed. The kingdom should be taken from them; the Lord leaves them. The sign of Jonah is connected with the subject of the whole chapter.

We next see this same inattention to the power manifested in the works of Jesus; but it is no longer the opposition of the unbelieving will; occupation of heart with present things withdraws such from the influence of the signs already given. This is weakness, not ill-will. Nevertheless they are guilty; but Jesus calls them “men of little faith,” not “hypocrites,” and “a wicked and adulterous generation.”

We then see unbelief manifesting itself in the form of indolent opinion, which proves that the heart and conscience are not interested in a subject that ought to command them-a subject that if the heart would really face its true importance, it would have no rest until it had arrived at certainty with respect to it. The soul here has no sense of need; consequently there is no discernment. When the soul feels this need, there is but one thing that can meet it; there can be no rest till it is found. The revelation of God that created this need, does not leave the soul in peace until it is assured of possessing that which awakened it. Those who are not sensible of this need can rest in probabilities, each according to his natural character, his education, his circumstances. There is enough to awaken curiosity-the mind is occupied about it, and judges. Faith has wants, and, in principle intelligence as to the object which meets those wants; the soul is exercised till it finds that which it needs. The fact is that God is there.

This is Peter’s case. The Father reveals His Son to him Though weak, living faith was found in him, we see the condition of his soul when he says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Happy the man to whom God reveals such truths as these, in whom He awakens these wants! There may be conflict, much to learn, much to mortify; but the counsel of God is there, and the life connected with it. We have seen its effect in the case of Peter. Every Christian has his own place in the temple of which Simon was so eminent a stone. Does it then follow that the heart is, practically, at the height of the revelation made to it? No; there may be, after all, the flesh not yet mortified on that side where the revelation touches our earthly position.

In fact the revelation made to Peter implied the rejection of Christ on earth-necessarily led to His humiliation and death. That was the point. To substitute the revelation of the Son of God, the assembly and the heavenly kingdom, for the manifestation of the Messiah on earth-what could it mean, except that Jesus was to be delivered up to the Gentiles to be crucified, and after that to rise again? But morally Peter had not attained to this. On the contrary, his carnal heart availed itself of the revelation made to him, and of that which Jesus had said to him, for self-exaltation. He saw, therefore, the personal glory without apprehending the practical moral consequences. He begins to rebuke the Lord Himself, and seeks to turn Him aside from the path of obedience and submission. The Lord, ever faithful, treats him as an adversary. Alas! how often have we enjoyed some truth, and that sincerely, and yet have failed in the practical consequences that it led to on earth! A heavenly glorified Saviour, who builds the assembly, implies the cross on earth. The flesh does not understand this. It will raise its Messiah to heaven, if you will; but to take its share of the humiliation that necessarily follows is not its idea of a glorified Messiah. The flesh must be mortified to take this place. We must have the strength of Christ by the Holy Ghost. A Christian who is not dead to the world is but a stumbling-stone to every one who seeks to follow Christ.

These are the forms of unbelief that precede a true confession of Christ, and that are found alas! in those who have sincerely confessed and known Him (the flesh not being so mortified that the soul can walk in the height of that which it has learnt of God, and the spiritual understanding being obscured by thinking of consequences which the flesh rejects).

But if the cross was the entrance into the kingdom, the revelation of the glory would not be delayed. The Messiah being rejected by the Jews, a title more glorious and of far deeper import is unfolded: the Son of man should come in the glory of the Father (for He was the Son of God), and reward every man according to his works. There were even some standing there who should not taste of death (for of this they were speaking) till they had seen the manifestation of the glory of the kingdom that belonged to the Son of man.

We may remark here the title of “Son of God” established as the foundation; that of Messiah given up so far as concerned the testimony rendered in that day, and replaced by that of “Son of man,” which He takes at the same time as that of the Son of God, and which had a glory that belonged to Him in His own right. He was to come in the glory of His Father as Son of God, and in His own kingdom as Son of man.

It is interesting to remember here the instruction given us in the beginning of the Book of Psalms. The righteous man, distinguished from the congregation of the wicked, had been presented in the first Psalm. Then, in the second, we have the rebellion of the kings of the earth and the rulers against the Lord and against His Anointed (that is, His Christ). Now upon this the decree of Jehovah is declared. Adonai, the Lord, shall mock at them from heaven. Further, Jehovah’s King shall be established on Mount Zion. This is the decree: “Jehovah hath said unto me, Thou art my Son: this day [47] have I begotten thee.” The kings of the earth and the judges are commanded to kiss the Son.

Now in the Psalms that follow, all this glory is darkened. The distress of the remnant, in which Christ has a part, is related. Then, in Psa 8:1-9, He is addressed as Son of man, Heir of all the rights conferred in sovereignty upon man by the counsels of God. The name of Jehovah becomes excellent in all the earth. These Psalms do not go beyond the earthly part of these truths, excepting where it is written, “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh at them”; while in Mat 16:1-28” Mat 16:1-28 the connection of the Son of God with this, His coming with His angels (to say nothing of the assembly), are set before us. That is to say, we see that the Son of man will come in the glory of heaven. Not that His dwelling there is the truth declared; but that He is invested with the highest glory of heaven when He comes to set up His kingdom on earth. He comes in His kingdom. The kingdom is established on the earth; but He comes to take it with the glory of heaven. This is displayed in the following chapter, according to the promise here in Mat 16:28.

In each Gospel that speaks of it, the transfiguration immediately follows the promise of not tasting death before seeing the kingdom of the Son of man. And not only so, but Peter (in his second Epistle, 2Pe 1:16), when speaking of this scene, declares that it was a manifestation of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says that the word of prophecy was confirmed to them by the view of His majesty; so that they knew that whereof they spoke, in making known to them the power and the coming of Christ, having beheld His majesty. In fact it is precisely in this sense that the Lord speaks of it here, as we have seen. It was a sample of the glory in which He would hereafter come, given to confirm the faith of His disciples in the prospect of His death which He had just announced to them.

Footnotes for Matthew Chapter 16

42: The study of the Psalms will have made us understand that this is the connection with the establishment of the Jewish remnant in blessing in the last days.

43: The passage (Mat 16:18) should be read, “And I also say unto thee.”

44: It is important here to distinguish the church which Christ builds, not yet finished, but which He Himself builds, and that which is, as a manifested whole in the world, built up in responsibility by man. In Eph 2:20-21 and 1Pe 2:4-5, we have this divine building growing and built up. No mention of man’s work is found in either passage; it is a divine one. In 1Co 3:1-23 Paul is a wise master builder; others may build in wood, hay and stubble. The confusion of these has been the basis of Popery and other corruptions found in what is called the church. His church, looked at in its reality, is a divine work which Christ accomplishes and which abides.

45: Remark here what I have spoken of elsewhere-there are no keys of or to the church or assembly. Peter had the keys of administration in the kingdom. But the idea of keys in connection with the church, or the power of the keys in the church, is a pure fallacy. There are none such at all. The church is built; men do not build with keys, and it is Christ (not Peter) who builds it. Further, the acts thus sanctioned were acts of administration down here. Heaven puts its sanction on them, but they did not relate to heaven, but to earthly administration of the kingdom. Further, it is to be remarked that what is conferred here is individual and personal. It was a name and authority conferred on Simon, son of Jonas. Some further remarks here may help us to understand more fully the bearing of these chapters. In the parable of the sower (chap. 13) the Person of the Lord is not brought forward, only that it is sowing, not reaping. In the first similitude of the kingdom He is Son of man, and the field is the world. He is quite out of Judaism. In chapter 14 we have the state of things from John’s rejection, to the time the Lord is owned on His return where He had been rejected. In chapter 15 is the moral controversy, and God in grace in Himself as above evil. On this I dwell no further. But in chapter 16 we have the Person of the Son of God, the living God, and hereon the assembly, and Christ the builder; in chapter 17 the kingdom with the Son of man coming in glory. The keys (however heaven sanctioned Simon’s use of them) were, as we have seen, of the kingdom of heaven (not of the assembly); and that, the parable of the tares shews, was to be corrupted and spoiled, and this irremediably. Christ builds the church, not Peter. Compare 1Pe 2:4-5.

46: In the Epistle of Peter we continually find these same thoughts-the words, “living hope,” “living stone”-applied to Christ, and afterwards to Christians. And again, in accordance with our present subject, salvation through life in Christ, the Son of the living God, we find “receiving the end of our faith, even the salvation of [our] souls.” We may read all the verses by which the apostle introduces his instructions.

47: We have seen that Peter went beyond this. Christ is here seen as the Son born on the earth in time, not as the Son from eternity in the bosom of the Father. Peter, without the full revelation of this last truth, sees Him to be the Son according to the power of divine life in His own Person, upon which the assembly consequently could be built. But here we are to consider that which belongs to the kingdom.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16:1-12 Having been warmly received in the Gentile world, Jesus returned to his fellow countrymen only to encounter further rejection.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Mat 16:1. Οἱ Φαρισαῖοι καὶ Σαδδουκαῖοι, the Pharisees and Sadducees) The common people were mostly addicted to the Pharisees, men of rank to the Sadducees (see Act 5:17; Act 23:6); as at present the crowd is more inclined to superstition, the educated to atheism, the two opposite extremes. The Evangelists describe only two attempts of the Sadducees against our Lord (the first of which occurs in the present passage), for they cared less than the Pharisees about religion.—ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, from heaven) Miracles had been performed from heaven in the times of Moses, Joshua, and Elijah. The reason why the Pharisees were unwilling to accept as Divine the miracles hitherto performed by our Lord, seems to have been this: that since He had not yet produced any sign from heaven, they thought that the others might proceed even from Satan (cf. ch. Mat 12:24; Mat 12:38); and that they considered that a sign from heaven affecting the whole creation, would be greater than any signs performed on the microcosm[707] of man. [Perhaps, also, they were relying on the prophecy of Joel; see Act 2:19.—V. g.] The Sadducees, who disbelieved the existence of any Spirit, and therefore of Satan himself, were of opinion that our Lord’s power extended only to hunger, and the diseases of the body, not to all greater matters. Both were influenced also by another motive, namely, the desire to witness a variety of miracles, considered merely as sights. Their lust[708] (libido) is indicated by the word θέλομεν, we wish, in ch. Mat 12:38.

[707] “Signa in microcosmo,” signs performed in the little world, the limited horizon, of which man is the centre.—ED.

[708] The word is, of course, not to be taken in the literal force of its ordinary signification, but rather in the wider sense which it has in English writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (cf. 1Jn 2:16, and Gal 5:17), though there is a special allusion to the epithet adulterous in Mat 12:38, and infra Mat 16:5, and to the common source of the various manifestations of the φρόνημα σαρκὸς.—(I. B.)

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat_16:1 ff. Comp. Mar_8:11 ff. Not a duplicate of the incident recorded in Mat_12:38 (Strauss, de Wette, Bruno Bauer, Schneckenburger, Volkmar, Weizsäcker, Bleek, Scholten), but a second demand for a sign, and that from heaven, in which respect it is distinguished from the first. With regard to the alliance between Pharisees and Sadducees, supposed by some to be utterly improbable (de Wette, Strauss, Weiss, Scholten), it is sufficient to say, with Theophylact: κἂν τοῖς δόγμασι διίσταντο Φαρισαῖοι καὶ Σαδδουκαῖοι, ἀλλά γε κατὰ Χριστοῦ συμπνέουσι· σημεῖον δὲ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ζητοῦσιν, ἐδόκουν γὰρ, ὅτι τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς σημεῖα ἀπὸ δαιμονικῆς δυνάμεως καὶ ἐν Βεελζεβοὺλ γίνονται. In the unbelieving hostility with which they are animated, they demand of Him the very highest sign which the Messiah would be expected to give (Mat_24:29 f.; Joe_3:3 f.), intending thereby to have Him put to the test, but thinking, all the time, that it would be beyond His power to comply with their demand.

ἐπηρώτησαν] Their challenge was put in the form of inquiry.

The compound ἐπερωτᾶν never means: to request, to beg; see note on Mat_15:23.

Their questions had reference to such a sign, by way of Messianic credential, as, coming from heaven, would be visible to their outward eye.

ἐπιδεῖξαι] spectandum praebere, Joh_2:18.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 16:1-12 . Demand for a sign (Mar 8:11-21 ).

Mat 16:1 . προσελθόντες : one of Mt.’s oft-recurring descriptive words. φαρ . καὶ Σαδδ .: a new combination, with sinister purpose, of classes of the community not accustomed to act together; wide apart, indeed, in social position and religious tendency, but made allies pro tem , by common dislike to the movement identified with Jesus. Already scribes by themselves had asked a sign (Mat 12:38 ). Now they are joined by a party representing the priestly and governing classes among whom the “Sadducees” were to be found (Wellhausen, Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer ). Mk. mentions only the Pharisees (Mat 16:11 ), but he makes Jesus refer to the leaven of Herod in the subsequent conversation with the disciples, whence might legitimately be inferred the presence of representatives of that leaven. These Mt. calls “Sadducees,” probably the better-known name, and practically identical with the Herod leaven. The “Herodians” were, I imagine, people for whom Herod the Great was a hero, a kind of Messiah, all the Messiah they cared for or believed in, one who could help worldly-minded Israelites to be proud of their country ( vide Grotius on Mat 16:6 ). It was among Sadducees that such hero-worshippers were likely to be found. ἐπηρώτησαν : here like the simple verb (Mat 25:23 ) = requested, with infinitive, ἐπιδεῖξαι , completing the object of desire. σημεῖον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ : before (Mat 12:38 ) only a sign . Now a sign from heaven . What might that be? Chrys. (Hom. liii.) suggests: to stop the course of the sun, to bridle the moon, to produce thunder, or to change the air, or something of that sort. These suggestions will do as well as any. Probably the interrogators had no definite idea what they wanted, beyond desiring to embarrass or nonplus Christ.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chap.

16:1-4.] Request for a sign from heaven. Mar 8:11-13, but much abridged. See also Luk 12:54 and notes.

1. σημεῖον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ] see notes at ch. 12:38. There is no ground for supposing that this narrative refers to the same event as that. What can be more natural than that the adversaries of our Lord should have met His miracles again and again with this demand of a sign from heaven? For in the Jewish superstition it was held that dæmons and false gods could give signs on earth, but only the true God signs from heaven. In the apocryphal Epistle of Jeremiah, ver. 67, we read of the gods of the heathen, σημεῖά τε ἐν ἔθνεσιν ἐν οὐρανῷ οὐ μὴ δείξωσιν.… And for such a notion they alleged the bread from heaven given by Moses (see Joh 6:31), the staying of the sun by Joshua (Jos 10:12), the thunder and rain by Samuel (1Sa 12:17, compare Jer 14:22), and Elijah (Jas 5:17, Jas 5:18). And thus we find that immediately after the first miraculous feeding the same demand was made, Joh 6:30, and answered by the declaration of our Lord that He was the true bread from heaven. And what more natural likewise, than that our Lord should have uniformly met the demand by the same answer,—the sign of Jonas, one so calculated to baffle his enemies and hereafter to fix the attention of His disciples? Here however that answer is accompanied by other rebukes sufficiently distinctive.

It was now probably the evening (see Mar 8:10, εὐθύς) and our Lord was looking on the glow in the west which suggested the remark in ver. 2. On the practice of the Jews to demand a sign, see 1Co 1:22.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(M)

16:1. And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, tempting Him, and asked Him to show them a sign out of heaven.] Mk. has: “And the Pharisees went out, and began to dispute with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, tempting Him.” For the request for a sign, see 12:38. ἐπερωτᾶν = to beseech, cf. on 15:23. The editor substitutes his favourite καὶ προσελθόντες for Mk.’s ἐξῆλθον, of which the precise reference is obscure. Whence did they go out?

1-4. Mt. and Luk 11:16, Luk 11:29 agree against Mk. in the following:—

σημεῖον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, Mat_1 = σημεῖον ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, Luk_16.

πονηρά, Mat_4, Lk 29.

καὶ σημεῖον οὐ δοθήσεται αὐτῇ εἰ μὴ τὸ σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ, Mat_4, Lk 29.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The wicked which otherwise are at defiance one with another, agree well together against Christ, but do what they can, Christ beareth always the victory, and triumpheth over them.

To try whether he could do that which they desired, but their purpose was naught, for they thought to find some thing in him by that means whereupon they might have just occasion to reprehend him: or else distrust and curiosity moved them so to do, for by such means also is God said to be tempted, that is to say, provoked to anger, as though men would strive with him.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

We have here Christ's discourse with the Pharisees and Sadducees, men at variance among themselves, as appears Act 23:7, Act 23:8, and yet unanimous in their opposition to Christ; because his doctrine did equally overthrow the errors and heresies of the Sadducees, who denied the existence of spirits and a future state; and the pride, tyranny, and hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who were the great imposters of the traditions of the elders. Christ and Christianity meet with opposition on all hands. Observe,

I. Their demand, and the design of it.

1. The demand was of a sign from heaven; this they desired him to show them; pretending they were very willing to be satisfied and convinced, when really they were far from being so, but sought excuses from an obstinate infidelity. That which they pretended to desire was,

(1.) Some other sign than what they had yet had. They had great plenty of signs; every miracle Christ wrought was a sign, for no man could do what he did unless God were with him. But this will not serve, they must have a sign of their own choosing; they despised those signs which relieved the necessity of the sick and sorrowful, and insisted upon some sign which gratify the curiosity of the proud. It is fit that the proofs of divine revelation should be chosen by the wisdom of God, not by the follies and fancies of men. The evidence that is given is sufficient to satisfy an unprejudiced understanding, but was not intended to please a vain humour. Ant it is an instance of the deceitfulness of the heart, to think that we should be wrought upon by the means and advantages which we have not, while we slight those which we have. If we hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would we be wrought upon though one rose from the dead.

(2.) It must be a sign from heaven. They would have such miracles to prove his commission, as were wrought at the giving of the law upon mount Sinai: thunder, and lightening, and the voice of words, were the sign from heaven they required. Whereas the sensible signs and terrible ones were not agreeable to the spiritual and comfortable dispensation of the gospel. Now the word comes more nigh us (Rom 10:8), and therefore the miracles do so, and do not oblige us to keep such a distance as these did, Heb 12:18.

2. The design was to tempt him; not to be taught by him, but to ensnare him. If he should show them a sign from heaven, they would attribute it to a confederacy with the prince of the power of the air; if he should not, as they supposed he would not, they would have that to say for themselves, why they did not believe on him. They now tempted Christ as Israel did, Co1 10:9. And observe their perverseness; then, when they had signs from heaven, they tempted Christ, saying, Can he furnish a table in the wilderness? Now that he had furnished a table in the wilderness, they tempted him, saying, Can he give us a sign from heaven?

II. Christ's reply to this demand; lest they should be wise in their own conceit, he answered these fools according to their folly, Pro 26:5. In his answer,

1. He condemns their overlooking of the signs they had, Mat 16:2, Mat 16:3. They were seeking for the signs of the kingdom of God, when it was already among them. The Lord was in this place, and they knew it not. Thus their unbelieving ancestors, when miracles were their daily bread, asked, Is the Lord among us, or is he not?

To expose this, he observes to them,

(1.) Their skilfulness and sagacity in other things, particularly in natural prognostications of the weather; "You know that a red sky over-night is a presage of fair weather, and a red sky in the morning of foul weather." There are common rules drawn from observation and experience, by which it is easy to foretel very probably what weather it will be. When second causes have begun to work, we may easily guess at their issue, so uniform is nature in its motions, and so consistent with itself. We know not the balancing of the clouds (Job 37:16), but we may spell something from the faces of them. This gives no countenance at all to the wild and ridiculous predictions of the astrologers, the star-gazers, and the monthly prognosticators (Isa 47:13) concerning the weather long before, with which weak and foolish people are imposed upon; we are sure, in general, that seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, shall not cease. But as to the particulars, till, by the weather-glasses, or otherwise, we perceive the immediate signs and harbingers of the change of weather, it is not for us to know, no, not that concerning the times and seasons. Let it suffice, that it shall be what weather pleases God; and that which pleases God, should not displease us.

(2.) Their sottishness and stupidity in the concerns of their souls; Can ye not discern the signs of the times?

[1.] "Do you not see that the Messiah is come?" The sceptre was departed from Judah, Daniel's weeks were just expiring, and yet they regarded not. The miracles Christ wrought, and the gathering of the people to him, were plain indications that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, that this was the day of their visitation. Note, First, There are signs of the times, by which wise and upright men are enabled to make moral prognostications, and so far to understand the motions and methods of Providence, as from thence to take their measures, and to know what Israel ought to do, as the men of Issachar, as the physician from some certain symptoms finds a crisis formed. Secondly, There are many who are skilful enough in other things, and yet cannot or will not discern the day of their opportunities, are not aware of the wind when it is fair for them, and so let slip the gale. See Jer 8:7; Isa 1:3. Thirdly, It is great hypocrisy, when we slight the signs of God's ordaining, to seek for signs of our own prescribing.

[2.] "Do not you foresee your own ruin coming for rejecting him? You will not entertain the gospel of peace, and can you not evidently discern that hereby you pull an inevitable destruction upon your own heads?" Note, It is the undoing of multitudes, that they are not aware what will be the end of their refusing Christ.

2. He refuses to give them any other sign (Mat 16:4), as he had done before in the same words, Mat 12:39. Those that persist in the same iniquities, must expect to meet with the same reproofs. Here, as there, (1.) He calls them an adulterous generation; because, while they professed themselves of the true church and spouse of God, they treacherously departed from him, and brake their covenants with him. The Pharisees were a generation pure in their own eyes, having the way of the adulterous woman, that thinks she has done no wickedness, Pro 30:20. (2.) He refuses to gratify their desire. Christ will not be prescribed to; we ask, and have not, because we ask amiss. (3.) He refers them to the sign of the prophet Jonas, which should yet be given them; his resurrection from the dead, and his preaching by his apostles to the Gentiles; these were reserved for the last and highest evidences of his divine mission. Note, Though the fancies of proud men shall not be humoured, yet the faith of the humble shall be supported, and the unbelief of them that perish left for ever inexcusable, and every mouth shall be stopped.

This discourse broke off abruptly; he left them and departed. Christ will not tarry long with those that tempt him, but justly withdraws from those that are disposed to quarrel with him. He left them as irreclaimable; Let them alone. He left them to themselves, left them in the hand of their own counsels; so he gave them up to their own hearts' lust.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Pharisees insidiously require our Lord to give them a sign,

1.

They are severely rebuked for their hypocrisy and wickedness,

2-5.

The disciples are cautioned to beware of them and their

destructive doctrine, 6-12.

The different opinions formed by the people of Christ, 13, 14.

Peter's confession, and our Lord's discourse on it, 15-20.

He foretells his sufferings, and reproves Peter, 21-23.

Teaches the necessity of self-denial, and shows the reasons on

which it is founded, 24-26.

Speaks of a future judgment, 27.

And promises the speedy opening of the glory of his own kingdom

on earth, 28.

NOTES ON CHAP. XVI.

Verse 1. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees] Though a short account of these has been already given in a note on Mt 3:7, yet, as one more detailed may be judged necessary, I think it proper to introduce it in this place.

The PHARISEES were the most considerable sect among the Jews, for they had not only the scribes, and all the learned men of the law of their party, but they also drew after them the bulk of the people. When this sect arose is uncertain. Josephus, Antiq. lib. v. c. xiii. s. 9, speaks of them as existing about 144 years before the Christian era. They had their appellation of Pharisees, from פרש parash, to separate, and were probably, in their rise, the most holy people among the Jews, having separated themselves from the national corruption, with a design to restore and practice the pure worship of the most High. That they were greatly degenerated in our Lord's time is sufficiently evident; but still we may learn, from their external purity and exactness, that their principles in the beginning were holy. Our Lord testifies that they had cleansed the outside of the cup and the platter, but within they were full of abomination. They still kept up the outward regulations of the institution, but they had utterly lost its spirit; and hypocrisy was the only substitute now in their power for that spirit of piety which I suppose, and not unreasonably, characterized the origin of this sect.

As to their religious opinions, they still continued to credit the being of a God; they received the five books of Moses, the writings of the prophets, and the hagiographa. The hagiographa or holy writings, from αγιος holy, and γραφω I write, included the twelve following books - Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. These, among the Jews, occupied a middle place between the law and the prophets, as divinely inspired. The Pharisees believed, in a confused way, in the resurrection, though they received the Pythagorean doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls. Those, however, who were notoriously wicked, they consigned, on their death, immediately to hell, without the benefit of transmigration, or the hope of future redemption. They held also the predestinarian doctrine of necessity, and the government of the world by fate; and yet, inconsistently, allowed some degree of liberty to the human will. See Prideaux.

The SADDUCEES had their origin and name from one Sadoc, a disciple of Antigonus of Socho, president of the Sanhedrin, and teacher of the law in one of the great divinity schools in Jerusalem, about 264 years before the incarnation.

This Antigonus having often in his lectures informed his scholars, that they should not serve God through expectation of a reward, but through love and filial reverence only, Sadoc inferred from this teaching that there were neither rewards nor punishments after this life, and, by consequence, that there was no resurrection of the dead, nor angel, nor spirit, in the invisible world; and that man is to be rewarded or punished here for the good or evil he does.

They received only the five books of Moses, and rejected all unwritten traditions. From every account we have of this sect, it plainly appears they were a kind of mongrel deists, and professed materialists. See Prideaux, and the authors he quotes, Connex. vol. iii. p. 95, and 471, c., and See Clarke on Mt 3:7.

In Mt 22:16, we shall meet with a third sect, called HERODIANS, of whom a few words may be spoken here, It is allowed on all hands that these did not exist before the time of Herod the Great, who died only three years after the incarnation of our Lord. What the opinions of these were is not agreed among the learned. Many of the primitive fathers believed that their distinguishing doctrine was, that they held Herod to be the Messiah but it is not likely that such an opinion could prevail in our Saviour's time, thirty years after Herod's death, when not one characteristic of Messiahship had appeared in him during his life. Others suppose that they were Herod's courtiers, who flattered the passions of their master, and, being endowed with a convenient conscience, changed with the times; but, as Herod was now dead upwards of thirty years, such a sect could not exist in reference to him; and yet all allow that they derived their origin from Herod the Great.

Our Lord says, Mr 8:15, that they had the leaven of Herod, i.e. a bad doctrine, which they received from him. What this was may be easily discovered:

1. Herod subjected himself and his people to the dominion of the Romans, in opposition to that law, De 17:15, Thou shalt not set a king over thee - which is not thy brother, i.e. one out of the twelve tribes.

2. He built temples, sat up images, and joined in heathenish worship, though he professed the Jewish religion; and this was in opposition to all the law and the prophets.

From this we may learn that the Herodians were such as, first, held it lawful to transfer the Divine government to a heathen ruler; and, secondly, to conform occasionally to heathenish rites in their religious worship. In short, they appear to have been persons who trimmed between God and the world - who endeavoured to reconcile his service with that of mammon - and who were religious just as far as it tended to secure their secular interests. It is probable that this sect was at last so blended with, that it became lost in, the sect of the Sadducees; for the persons who art called Herodians, Mr 8:15, are styled Sadducees in Mt 16:6. See Prideaux, Con. vol. iii. p. 516, c., and Josephus, Antiq. b. xv. c. viii. s. i. and x. s. iii. But it is very likely that the Herodians, mentioned c. xxii. 10, were courtiers or servants of Herod king of Galilee. See the note there.

Show them a sign] These sects, however opposed among themselves, most cordially unite in their opposition to Christ and his truth. That the kingdom of Satan may not fall, all his subjects must fight against the doctrine and maxims of the kingdom of Christ.

Tempting - him] Feigning a desire to have his doctrine fully proved to them, that they might credit it, and become his disciples but having no other design than to betray and ruin him.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

XVI.

(1) The Pharisees also with the Sadducees.—The presence of members of the latter sect, who do not elsewhere appear in our Lord’s Galilean ministry, is noticeable. It is probably explained by St. Mark’s version of the warning in Mat_16:6, where “the leaven of Herod” appears as equivalent to “the leaven of the Sadducees” in St. Matthew’s report. The Herodians were the Galilean Sadducees, and the union of the two hostile parties was the continuation of the alliance which had begun after our Lord’s protest against the false reverence for the Sabbath, which was common to both the parties (Mar_3:6).

That he would shew them a sign from heaven.—The signs and wonders that had been wrought on earth were not enough for the questioners. There might be collusion, or a power, like that implied in the charge of “casting out devils by Beelzebub,” preternatural, but not divine. What they asked was a sign like Samuel’s thunder from the clear blue sky (1Sa_12:18), or Elijah’s fire from heaven (1Ki_18:38); or, possibly, following the train of thought suggested by the discourse at Capernaum, now definitely asking, what they hinted then (Joh_6:30-31), for bread, not multiplied on earth, but coming straight from heaven.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.

Ver. 1. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came] Came forth, saith St Mark, to wit, out of the coasts of Magdala, as soon as ever our Saviour arrived there, to quarrel him, and keep him from doing good. So active are the devil’s instruments to hinder the kingdom of God and the good of souls. Truth never wants an adversary; she goes seldom without a scratched face, as the proverb is. The Pharisees and Sadducees, though at deadly difference between themselves, yet can easily combine against Christ. So to this day the priests disparage the Jesuits, the Jesuits the priests, the priests again the monks, the monks the friars, but they can all conspire against Protestants, whom they jointly persecute. Dogs, though they fight never so fierce, and mutually intertear one another, yet if a hare run by they give over, and run after her. Martial makes mention of a hare on the Sicilian shore, that having hardly escaped the hounds that hunted her, was devoured by a sea dog; whereupon he brings her in thus complaining:

" In me omnis terraeque aviumque marisque rapina est:

Forsitan et coeli, si canis astra tenet."

Tempting desired him] Or questioned him to and fro, sifted him by interrogatories, pretending to be his friends, and to seek satisfaction only. {a} All this savour strongly of putrid hypocrisy, quae ipsis domestica erat virtus, as Aretius. Socinus did in like sort set upon Zanchius. "He was," saith Zanchius, "a learned man, and of unblamable conversation, but full of heresies, which yet he never propounded to me otherwise than by way of question, as seeming desirous to be better informed." {b} By this subtle means he drew away many, and sought to work upon Zanchius, as did also Matthaeus Gribaldus, and some such others. But when they could not prevail, they brake friendship with him, and he with them, for the which he praiseth God from the bottom of his heart.

Show them a sign] Them, {c} by all means, as more worshipful men than the multitude, such as might merit an extraordinary sign. See here their satanical arrogance. So Herod would see our Saviour, that he might see a sign from him. He looked upon him no otherwise than upon some common magician, that would sure show him his best tricks. Thus these hypocrites here would gladly be gratified, but they were deceived.

{a} επηρωτησαν, vicissim interrogabant.

{b} Homo fuit p1enus diversarum haereseon, quas tamen mihi nunquam proponebat nisi disputandi causa, et semper interrogans quasi cuperet doceri. Zaneh.

{c} αυτοις, ipsis, i. q. solis.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See also Mar 8:11-12.

The Pharisees also, and the Sadducees - See the notes at Mat 3:7.

Tempting - That is, trying him - feigning a desire to see evidence that he was the Messiah, but with a real desire to see him make the attempt to work a miracle and fail, so that they might betray him and ruin him.

A sign from heaven - Some miraculous appearance in the sky. Such appearances had been given by the prophets; and they supposed, if he was the Messiah, that his miracles would not all be confined to the earth, but that he was able to give some signal miracle from heaven. Samuel had caused it to thunder 1Sa 12:16-18; Isaiah had caused the shadow to go back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz Isa 38:8; and Moses had sent manna from heaven, Exo 16:4; Joh 6:31. It is proper to say, that though Christ did not choose then to show such wonders, yet far more stupendous signs from heaven than these were exhibited at his death.

Mat 16:2, Mat 16:3

He answered ... - The meaning of this answer is, There are certain indications by which you judge about the weather.

In the evening you think you can predict the weather tomorrow. You have evidence in the redness of the sky by which you judge. So there are sufficient indications on which you should judge concerning me and these times. My miracles, and the state of affairs in Judea, are an indication by which you should judge.

Is red - Almost all nations have observed this as an indication of fair weather.

In the morning ...the sky is red and lowering - That is, there are threatening clouds in the sky, which are made red by the rays of the rising sun. This, in Judea, was a sign of a tempest. In other places, however, the signs of a storm may be different.

The face of the sky - The appearance of the sky.

Mat 16:4

A wicked and adulterous generation ... - See the notes at Mat 12:38-40. Mark adds Mar 8:12 that he signed deeply in spirit. He did not say this without feeling; he was greatly affected with their perverseness and obstinacy.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pharisees and Sadducees. These were widely opposite in their religious sentiments to each other, but closely united in their design of persecuting Jesus Christ, and they come and ask of him a sign or prodigy from heaven, to convince them that he was the Christ, the Messias. (Bible de Vence) --- The Sadducees deny the immortality of the soul, and affirm that our only obligation is the observance of the law; insomuch, that they prided themselves on their right of disputing the most important points with their teachers. This sect is not numerous, and chiefly composed of men of condition, who, when properly qualified for offices of state, are compelled to conform, at least in appearance, to the principles of the Pharisees; otherwise, they would incur the resentment of the Pharisees. (Josephus, Book xviii. chap. ii.) See also note on ver. 7, chap. iii, above. --- St. John Chrysostom is of opinion he would have granted them any sign they wished, had they been willing to believe; but as their object was curiosity and censure, he refused to comply. They mistrusted, it would seem, his other miracles as the effect of some occult quality inherent in him, and wished to see a miracle performed upon distant objects in the heavens or clouds, which would be to them less suspicious and objectionable. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

What these Pharisees and Sadducees were we have had an occasion to show before in our annotations on Mat 3:7, See Poole on "Mat 3:7". There was a great opposition between them, as we may learn from Act 23:7,8. The Pharisees and scribes were great zealots for their traditions; the Sadducees valued them not. The Pharisees held the resurrection, angels, and spirits; the Sadducees denied all. But they were both enemies to Christ, and combine in their designs against him. They came to him

tempting, that is, desirous to make a trial of him; they desire

that he would show them a sign from heaven; such a one as Moses showed them, Joh 6:30,31 bringing down bread from heaven. They had seen our Saviour showing many signs, but they had taught the people that these things might be done by the power of the devil, or by the art of man; therefore they challenge our Saviour to show them another kind of sign, a sign from heaven, that they might know he was sent of God. See Mar 8:11.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

St. Peter's great Confession

1-4. A sign from heaven demanded (Mar_8:11 cp. Luk_11:16 : see on Mat_12:38).

1. Pharisees.. Sadducees] An unnatural and unholyalliance of men whose only bond of union was hatred of Jesus. The Sadducees had probably been sent from Jerusalem by the chief priests, but some regard them as the same as the Herodians mentioned by St. Mark, and, therefore, Galileans.

From heaven] Jewish superstition held that the demons could work signs on earth, but that only God could work them in heaven.

2, 3. They professed to be able to forecast the weather, but shut their eyes to the signs of the times which denoted the speedy fulfilment of the prophecies respecting the coming of the Messiah.

The second half of Mat_16:2 ('When it is evening,' etc.) and all Mat_16:3 are omitted by some important ancient authorities, but the evidence in their favour, both internal and external, is so strong that it is hazardous to reject them. J. Lightfoot says, 'The Jews were very curious in observing the seasons of the heavens, and the temper of the air,' and gives examples of their weatherwise saws.

4. But the sign of the prophet Jonas] RV 'the sign of Jonah.' St. Mark omits these words: See on Mat_12:39.

5-12. The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Mar_8:14). But the narratives are independent. This incident could only be derived from an eyewitness and an apostle. The discreditable light in which it places the Apostles goes to confirm its authenticity.

5. To the other side] i.e. the E. side. This favours the view that Magadan (Dalmanutha) was on the W. side.

6. The leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees] St. Mark says, 'of the Pharisees and of Herod.' Herod may have been a Sadducee in spite of his superstitious belief in John's resurrection, but, even if he was not, he exactly represented the secular, irreligious, worldly spirit of Sadduceeism. The leaven of the Pharisees is hypocrisy, ostentation, pride, formalism, scrupulosity, and the tendency to place the letter before the spirit. The leaven of the Sadducees is worldliness, and the temper of irreligious scepticism.

The disciples took Jesus' words literally as a command to lay in a fresh stock of bread, taking special precautions to avoid all bread made with leaven from the house of a Pharisee or a Sadducee. The misunderstanding is not so absurd, if it be remembered that Gentile food and Gentile leaven were regarded by the stricter Jews as unclean. Since Jesus had pronounced the Pharisees worse than the heathen, it was quite natural (from the strictly Jewish point of view) that He should proceed to pronounce their houses, food, and, therefore, their leaven unclean. Jewish writings contain subtle discussions as to when, why, and under what circumstances heathen, Samaritan, and Christian leaven is to be regarded as unclean.

9, 10. See on Mat_15:32.

12. Cp. Luk_12:1, and see on Mat_16:6.

13-20. St. Peter's confession (Mar_8:27; Luk_9:18). Jesus now undertook another distant excursion, partly to escape the hostility of the Pharisees (Mat_16:4), but chiefly to hold private converse with His disciples, and to lead them on to the recognition of His Messiahship and divine Sonship, which was the supreme object of His ministry so far as the Twelve were concerned. What was the significance of this confession, which clearly marked a great epoch in Christ's ministry? According to some its significance lay in the fact that He was now for the first time recognised as the Messiah. But is this so? Already He had been called the 'Son of God,' i.e. the Messiah, by the Apostles (Mat_14:33). He had been so designated by the Baptist (Mat_3:11-12) and by popular acclamation ('Son of David'=the Messiah, Mat_9:27; Mat_12:23; Mat_15:22). So also in the Fourth Gospel the apostles regard Him as the Messiah from the first ('We have found the Messiah,' Joh_1:41; 'Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the king of Israel,' Joh_1:49). The significance of Peter's representative confession, therefore, lies in this, that what they had before received on the authority of the Baptist, and as a mere working hypothesis, which might or might not be proved by events to be true, they now deliberately ratified as their own conviction, based on their personal experience of what Jesus had shown Himself to be. Here then at last was the solid rock on which Jesus could build, not the shifting sand of possibilities and surmises, nor the weak faith which consists in mere submission to authority, but the strong conviction of earnest souls who know what they believe and why they believe it, and are willing to live by the truth they have apprehended, and, if need be, die for it.

13. Caesarea Philippi] i.e. the Caesarea built by Philip the Tetrarch (see art. 'the Herods'), was situated at the sources of the Jordan, near the foot of Mt. Hermon (9,000 ft.), in the midst of magnificent scenery. It was a Gentile city, and was often called Paneas (now Banias), because the god Pan was worshipped there. The other Cæsarea on the sea-coast was called, for distinction, Cæsarea Palestina.

14. Cp. Mat_14:2. Why do not the apostles mention the belief that Jesus was really the Messiah, among the current opinions? Because this belief no longer existed. Those who held it, had abandoned it because of His continued refusal to declare Himself (J n Mat_6:15), and to do what was expected of the Messiah, viz. deliver the oppressed nation from its enemies. Though the people could not deny His miracles or His greatness, they felt that He had disappointed them, and His popularity had already begun to ebb. Elias] RV 'Elijah': see on Mat_17:10. Jeremias] Jewish legend represented Jeremiah as well as Elijah, as preparing the way for the Messiah. He was said to have hidden the ark when Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians, and to have called Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses from their tombs to assist him in mourning for the destruction of the Temple. In the days of the Messiah it was said that he and Elijah would dig up the ark from the cave on Mt. Nebo in which it was concealed, and replace it in the Holy of Holies.

16. The Christ] i.e. 'the Messiah.' So also St. Mark; but St. Luke has 'the Christ of God.' The Son of the living God] These words, together with the next three vv., are peculiar to St. Matthew, but are nevertheless authentic. They suit the context admirably, and are so thoroughly Hebraic in spirit, that their significance can only be apprehended by going behind the Greek to the Aramaic original. Their absence from St. Mark is readily explained. In confessing that Jesus was the Christ, Peter did no more than express the general sense of the apostolic circle. But in confessing that He was the 'Son of the living God,' he was going beyond what the others at that time believed. He, therefore, modestly suppressed his own personal confession and the special commendation with which Jesus greeted it.

'Son of God' here is no mere equivalent of 'the Messiah,' but a confession of Christ's unique filial relation to God. This is shown, (1) by the deep emotion with which the speaker makes, and Jesus receives, the confession; (2) by the fact that the confession is perfectly satisfactory to Jesus, and is forthwith made the dogmatic foundation of Christianity('Upon this rock I will build my Church').

17. Simon Barjona] i.e. Simon, son of Jonah. The full name harmonises with the solemnity of the occasion and the emotion of the speaker. In Joh_1:42; Peter's father is called 'Joanes' (John), of which Jonah is probably a contraction. Flesh and blood] corresponds exactly to the English expression 'mortal man,' and is often found in that sense in rabbinical writings.

18. Thou art Peter] Gk. Petros Aramaic, Kephas. Jesus had given Peter this name at their first interview (Joh_1:42). Peter had now realised his character, and Jesus solemnly confirmed the honourable title. And upon this rock] Gk. petra. As the Gk. word here is different, most ancient commentators deny that Peter is the rock. The Roman Catholic Launoy reckons that seventeen Fathers regard Peter as the rock; forty-four regard Peter's confession as the rock; sixteen regard Christ Himself as the rock; while eight are of opinion that the Church is built on all the apostles. Assuming, however, with the majority of modern commentators that Peter is the rock, the interpretation still remains nearly the same, because it is upon Peter, as confessing faith in Christ's divinity, that the Church is founded.

The next question is, 'Was the promise made to Peter exclusively, or did Christ address Peter as the representative of the Twelve, intending to give to all. the same powers that He gave to Peter?' The answer can hardly be doubtful. The whole text speaks of the future. Christ says not 'I build,' but 'I will build'; not 'I give,' but 'I will give,' referring to the future for the explanation. The rest of the NT. shows in what sense the words of Christ are to be understood. On the evening of Easter Day He fulfilled His promise to Peter, by giving to all the Apostles present even greater powers than those which are here promised—'As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And.. he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained' (Joh_20:22-23). No power of any kind was then given to Peter which was not given equally to all the Apostles, and in harmony with this all the Apostles are jointly regarded in the NT. as the foundation bn which the Church is built (Mat_19:28; Eph_2:20; Rev_21:14).

The position of Peter in the Apostolic Church was entirely unlike that of a modern Pope. In Act_11:2 he is sharply criticised for his conduct in the matter of Cornelius and makes his defence before the Church. At the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) he plays quite a subordinate part. It is James who presides and pronounces the decision, and the decree runs in the name of the apostles and elders. St. Paul claims an authority equal to and independent of Peter's.. He reckons himself 'not a whit behind the very chief est apostles' (2Co_11:5), and on a celebrated occasion resists Peter and rebukes him to his face (Gal_2:11). Moreover, the tone of St. Peter's first and certainly genuine epistle is thoroughly unpapal. 'The elders therefore among you, I exhort, who am a fellow elder,' etc.

What then was the nature of the primacy which Peter possessed? It was a primacy of personal character and ability. He excelled the other apostles not in office, but in zeal, courage, promptness of action, and firmness of faith. He was their leader, because he was most fitted to lead. He boldly ventured, where others hesitated. And this explains the peculiarity of the present passage, that the promise was made, in form at least, to Peter alone. The other apostles had by this time attained to the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah (see the parallel narratives), but only Peter had made the great venture of faith which is implied in the acknowledgment of the divinity of Christ.

My church, with emphasis on the My, signifying that the Church is not a human but a divine institution. In this passage the Church is identified with the Kingdom of Heaven.

The gates of hell] i.e. the gates of Hades, Heb. Sheol, the abode of the dead. As the Church is often represented as a city, so here its great adversary Death is poetically represented as a fortified city with walls and gates.

Two distinct promises are here made: (1) that the Church as an organisation shall be indestructible. No persecutions, or assaults of Satan from within or without shall destroy it, because the life which is in it is Christ's; (2) that individual members of the Church, united to Christ and sharing in His indestructible life, shall not be held by the power of death, nor overcome by judgment, but be made 'partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.'

19. The keys of the kingdom of heaven] i.e. the keys of the earthly Church, not of heaven itself. Peter is not here compared to the porter of a house, who has only the key of the gate, but, since he possesses all the keys, to a house-steward exercising full authority over the house and all its inmates, in the master's name: cp. Isa_22:15-25. The power of the keys is, (1) the power to govern the Church; (2) the power to exercise discipline in it; (3) the power to decide who shall be admitted into it, and on what conditions (subject, of course, to the Law of Christ); (4) and indirectly, since the steward provides food for all the household, the ministry of the Word and Sacraments. Government and discipline, however, and not ministry, are the main ideas. The narrower interpretations of the power of the keys, as that it is the power to admit into the Church by the preaching of the gospel, are not so much erroneous as insufficient. The figure in Luk_11:52; ('the key of knowledge') is different. The best NT. parallel is Rev_3:7.

Bind.. loose] These words, unintelligible in Greek and English, become full of meaning when traced back to the original Aramaic.

Every rabbi or scribe received at his ordination, which was, like that of the Christian Church, by the laying on of hands, the power to bind and to loose, i.e. to decide with authority what was lawful and unlawful to be done, or orthodox and unorthodox to be believed. To bind was to declare unlawful, to loose was to declare lawful. We read, for example, that 'Rabbi Meir loosed (i.e. permitted) the mixing of wine and oil, and the anointing of a sick man on the sabbath'; that Babbi Jochanan said, 'They necessarily loose (i.e. permit) saluting on the sabbath,' and 'Concerning gathering wood on a feast day, the school of Shammai binds (i.e. forbids) it,—the school of Hillel looses (i.e. permits) it.' The power, therefore, which Christ here promised to Peter and the other apostles was the power to decide with authority questions of faith and morals in the Christian Church,—the power to fix the moral standard and to determine the Christian creed. In the exercise of this authority the apostles 'loosed' the prohibitions of the Mosaic Law first to the Gentiles (Acts 15), and finally to the Jews (Mar_7:9 RV, see on Mat_15:1-20), decided what standard of morality should be enforced in the society, and pronounced with authority in controversies of faith.

When the Jewish rabbis differed upon an important matter of doctrine or practice, a conference was held, and the judgment of the majority was held to be authoritative. Similarly the apostolic power of 'binding and loosing' was intended to be exercised collectively, and great deference was paid both in the apostolic and in subsequent ages to the decisions of synods (Acts 15).

In heaven] It is promised that God Himself will ratify the 'binding and loosing' of the earthly Church, when these powers are duly and legitimately exercised. 'Binding and loosing' is different from the power of remitting and retaining sins, for which see Joh_20:23.

21-23. Peter rebuked.

21. Began Jesus] There had been intimations of his death before (Mat_9:15; Mat_12:40; Joh_2:19; Joh_3:14; Joh_6:51), but now they began to be more distinct. St. Mark says expressly, 'and He was speaking the word openly.'

22. Be it far, etc.] lit. 'God have mercy on thee.'

23. Satan] The sharpness of the words indicates a strong and intense emotion. The chief of the Apostles was addressed in the selfsame terms as those which had been spoken to the tempter. St. Peters suggestion was indeed something like a renewal of the same temptation. 'In this suggestion that He might obtain the crown without the cross.. Christ saw the recurrence of the temptation which had offered Him the glory of those kingdoms on condition of His drawing back from the path which the Father had appointed for Him.' An offence] lit. 'stumbling-block.' A play on the word Peter, 'A stone in my path, not a foundation stone of my Church.' Savourest] RV 'mindest.'

24-28. Exhortations to steadfastness and selfdenial in prospect of Christ's return.

24. See on Mat_10:38. By the cross Jesus means primarily martyrdom, either in will or act, and not merely selfdenial, though this is included.

25. Whosoever will save his life (in this world in time of persecution by denying Me) shall lose it.

26. Lose his own soul] RV 'forfeit his life.'

27. This v. refers to the Last Judgment.

28. The most probable interpretation of this v. refers it to Christ's coming to overthrow the old dispensation by the destruction of Jerusalem, 70 a.d. The decisive phrase is, 'There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death.' This obviously excludes the Last Judgment, and, hardly less obviously, Christs Resurrection, for it would be a truism to say that some of the disciples present would live to see an event which happened only a few months later. Whether the Transfiguration is referred to is not so clear. It was witnessed by only some of those present, but, on the other hand, it can hardly be described as the kingdom of God coming 'with power' (Mk). Nevertheless it is not by an accident that the Transfiguration immediately followed the saying. The Transfiguration was an earnest of the greater manifestation of power shown at the destruction of Jerusalem, just as that event itself was an earnest and, as it were, a rehearsal of the final act of judgment: see farther on Matthew 24.

Taste of death] a common rabbinical expression for 'to die.' Not in OT. The Son of man, etc.] St. Mark 'the kingdom of God come in power'; St. Luke 'the kingdom of God.'

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 1-4. The Pharisees and Sadducees desire a sign. (Mar_8:11-13)

The Pharisees also with the Saddueees; rather, and the Pharisees and Sadducees. The scribes and Pharisees are often mentioned together as watching or attacking Jesus; but this is the first time that we hear of Pharisees combining with Sadducees for this purpose. The two sects were directly opposed to each other, the traditional belief of the former being antagonistic to the scepticism and materialism of the latter. But both were hostile to Christ, whose teaching, on the one hand interfered with rabbinism, and on the other maintained the existence of the supernatural and the certainty of the resurrection. The Sadducees alone seem to have attacked Christ only on two occasions. They were probably Herodians, (comp. Mat_22:16) and on this account also disliked by the Pharisees; but they were powerful, and held most of the highest offices in the state, and their alliance was sought or allowed in order more effectually to compromise Jesus. Even theological hatred and political opposition sank into indifference in the face of what was regarded as a common danger. Strauss and his school regard this combination as so unnatural that they throw discredit on the whole account. This is shallow criticism. Nothing is more common than for persons opposed on all other subjects to coalesce for an unholy purpose in which they are jointly interested. The most violent political opponents will join forces in order to gain some desired point, and. when an attack on the Church is meditated, even unbelievers are gladly welcomed. Tertullian says forcibly, "Christ is always being crucified between two thieves." Tempting. Trying him with captious questions, to bring him into a difficulty, or to give them an opportunity of accusing him of heterodoxy, or disloyalty, or insubordination, and of discrediting him with the people. A sign from heaven. The rabbis held that demons and. false gods could perform certain miracles on earth, but God alone could give signs from heaven, such as, e.g. , the manna of Moses" time, the staying of the sun and moon by Joshua, the lightning and thunder that came at Samuel"s word, the stroke of death on the captains who tried to arrest Elijah. They had heard of the miraculous meal just before, and saw how deeply the people were moved by it, and they would imply that such a miracle was no proof of a Divine mission, as it might have been wrought by magical or Satanic agency. Let Christ give a sign from heaven, and they would acknowledge his claims. They knew what Christ"s answer would be, as they had already attacked him with the same demand; (Mat_12:38) and they hoped that he would either refuse to gratify them, as before, or else make an attempt and fail. In either case they thought they might turn the circumstance to his disadvantage. The Sadducees joined in the request, because they disbelieved in all such occurrences, and were fully persuaded that they were impossible, and any one who attempted to produce them must prove himself a miserable impostor. The word translated desired. (ephrwthsan) is emphatic; the verb is used classically in the sense of "to put a question for decision;" so the interrogation here would signify that this was to be a final test of the claims of Christ; on his answer depended their adhesion or opposition. (comp. 1Co_1:22)

Vers. 1-12. The visit to Galilee.

I THE LORD CROSSES THE LAKE TO THE WESTERN SHORE.

1. He dismisses the multitude. They went away quietly, it seems. There was no need now to constrain the disciples to depart first. The people did not attempt to take the Lord by force to make him a King. They were more docile than the five thousand had been. They were full of thankfulness. They glorified the God of Israel. But they were simple-hearted people; they did not regard themselves as wiser than the Lord. They were content to believe and adore. So we must wait on him, and say, like the rustic people on the east of the Sea of Galilee, "He hath done all things well." He sent them away, and took ship, and crossed to the western side of the lake.

2. The coalition of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They were bitterly hostile to each other. The Sadducees rejected the whole system of traditional interpretations and observances on which the Pharisees insisted so strongly, and maintained the necessity of accepting in every particular the literal meaning of the written Law. They were in possession of the chief places in the Church. They were cold hearted and apathetic. They clung to the honours and emoluments of the priesthood, but they had no earnestness, no faith in spiritual religion. They were the aristocratic party in the Jewish Church of the day. Their support of the Herodian family and the Roman rule made them unpopular with the people. The Pharisees were fanatics, full of zeal; but it was misguided zeal zeal for the letter of the Law as interpreted by the immense mass of rabbinical learning which, though not yet digested into the Mishna and Gemara, was taught in the school of the rabbis, and regarded as at least of equal authority with the Scriptures themselves. The Pharisees were intensely national. They mixed with the people. They sympathized with and encouraged their hatred to foreign domination. Their principles were generally accepted. They were looked upon with reverence as the teachers of the nation. Their great popularity more than compensated for the fact that all the highest positions in the Church were held by the Sadducees, The Pharisees were narrow-minded fanatical zealots; the Sadducean priests were worldly unspiritual ecclesiastics. The two parties hated one another with all the bitterness of party spirit; but they hated the Lord yet more; and this common hatred now brought them together in ill-omened union against the most holy Saviour. Apparently they had been on the watch for his return. He had been some time absent; first, in the borders of Tyre and Sidon, then in the half-heathen Decapolis. The rude country-people had received him with enthusiasm; but, it may be, his holy human heart (for he was made like unto us, sin only excepted) yearned for the familiar Scenes of the much-loved Galilee, his own country, his home, so far as he could be said to have had a home during the years of his ministry. He returned; but his feet had scarcely touched the land when his enemies were upon him. They came with a renewed demand for a sign from heaven. The Lord had wrought miracles in abundance, but these they wickedly attributed to the agency of the evil one. Let him show some sign from heaven, they said, such as Joel and Daniel had predicted; then they would recognize him as the Messiah. They understood not the Scriptures. They confused the first and second advents. They expected an earthly Messiah a king like David or Solomon. They prescribed the kind of miracle which they required. So unbelievers now say, "Let there be such and such a miracle wrought publicly in London or Paris; then we will believe." But this is tempting God. Such a demand implies a presumptuous boldness which is the very opposite of trustful faith. If men will not believe after all that God has done for our salvation, "neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

3. The Lord"s answer. They were weather-prophets, he said. They talked much about the weather, as people do still; they knew the signs of its probable changes. These things interested them; they were much in their thoughts and on their lips. But there were signs of far more momentous import for those who had eyes to see. The sceptre had departed from Judah; the mystic weeks of Daniel were fulfilled; the Lord himself had pointed out to the messengers of the Baptist the signs of the Messiah"s presence. These things they would not understand. The signs of the times should be to us a subject for careful study and solemn thought. The signs of the workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church should strengthen and encourage us; the signs which seem to point to the approach of the great apostasy and to the coming end should stir us up to watchfulness and earnest prayer; the signs which show the energy of the wicked one, and his awful power in ensnaring the souls of men, should kindle in us a determined resolution to resist even unto death. The Lord had shown signs of his Divine mission sufficient to the full to satisfy all earnest seekers after truth. The Pharisees and Sadducees came in the spirit of the tempter, tempting him. The Lord would work no further miracle in proof of his Messiahship; had he done so they would not have believed. He replied in the same stern words which he had used once before (Mat_12:39) in answer to the like demand. He left them, and departed. It was not his last visit to Galilee, but it was his last public appearance them. He preached there no more; he wrought no more miracles there. "He sighed deeply in his spirit," St. Mark tells us, as he spoke these last words, and entered into the ship again. He had come to Galilee with words of love, with a message of peace and salvation; but these hard, selfish men rejected him, and prejudiced the people against him. He was indeed "a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." That deep sigh told the anguish of his spirit. He came to save them. He had given up the effulgence of the Divine Majesty. He was ready to lay down his life for their salvation; and they would not be saved. He had come to his own country, the Galilee which he loved so well; and they opposed and insulted him, and drove him from his only home on earth. Let us be patient when we meet with opposition and disappointments. Opposition and disappointments, if we take them meekly and in faith, will help to make us more and more like unto our Lord.

II HE RETURNS TO THE EASTERN SIDE.

1. The Lord"s caution. He bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. It was not the first time that he had used this figure; but they misunderstood him. Probably they were in great distress. They had hoped to return to Capernaum. They had seen it in the distance. Now they were obliged to depart again to the inhospitable eastern side of the lake, away from home and kindred, away from the scene of the many triumphs of the Lord"s earlier ministry. They felt, too, that their Master"s popularity was passing away. The influence of the scribes and Pharisees had undermined it. Now the Sadducees, who wielded all the power of the priesthood, had joined them in opposing him. The disciples continued faithful. They followed Christ in his retreat; but probably with very sad and troubled hearts. In their excitement they had forgotten to rake bread. They had only one loaf, St. Mark tells us, with his wonted exactness in little details. The discovery of their neglect added to their trouble. What should they do? Where should they find bread in those uninhabited regions? They interpreted the Lord"s warning according to the thoughts that filled their mind. He seemed to forbid them from using the bread of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, though they had but one loaf with them. They thought that Christ"s words were aimed at their neglect, as people sometimes suppose that the preacher is aiming at them, when it is really their own conscience that disquiets them. The disciples were full of excitement and hurry; the Lord was calm. Let us imitate him, and try to learn of him that holy calmness of spirit which will keep us by his grace thoughtful and collected amid trouble and disappointment.

2. His explanation.

(1) He rebuked them for their want of faith. They had seen his miracles. Twice he had fed with his sovereign bounty vast multitudes on those same barren shores which they were now approaching. He recalled to their memory the details of those wondrous banquets in the wilderness. He had bidden them take no thought for the morrow, what they should eat or what they should drink. Strange that they could have forgotten his words, enforced, as they had been, by those marvellous displays of power; strange that they could have been anxious about food while the Lord was with them. They knew him then after the flesh; we know him, if we are his indeed, with a deeper and holier knowledge. Let us trust him. If only he is with us, we have all that we can really want. We need not fear the enemies of faith, whether fanatics or freethinkers. We need not tremble for ourselves. We need not be anxious about our future, if only we are Christ"s and Christ is ours.

(2) He explained his words. It was not of bread that he had spoken; such a caution would have been like the formal precepts, the countless ceremonial rules of the Pharisees. The Lord"s words had a deeper meaning. As the children of Israel at the first institution of the Passover were forbidden to take leaven with them, in token that the defiling influences of Egypt were to be left behind; so now, when the disciples were departing from the controversy with the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Lord had warned them to take with them nothing that savoured of error and corruption. The leaven of the Pharisees was hypocrisy; the leaven of the Sadducees was indifference. We may well dread such evil influences; we may well shun such evil examples. The leaven of hypocrisy or of indifference spreads itself with a corrupting power through the heart which admits it, through the society which encourages it. "Take heed and beware," the Lord says. The human heart is prone to evil, prone to sloth; indifference and hypocrisy soon take possession of it, if they are once received through the contagion of sinful companionship. We must depart from the Pharisees and Sadducees. We must not make friends of the hypocritical and the indifferent; we must take none of their influences with us. We must depart with the Lord.

(3) We must be careful, in reading Holy Scripture, not to understand literally what is spoken figuratively; and we must be equally on our guard against the opposite error. We must not explain away by figurative interpretations what is intended to be taken literally. The disciples made both mistakes at different times. The student of the Scriptures needs humility, single-hearted patient thought, and earnest prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

LESSONS.

1. Party spirit is an evil thing; beware of it.

2. Study the signs of the times; look for the fulfilment of prophecy; prepare for coming troubles; prepare for the second advent.

3. Shun hypocrisy and indifference; be truthful and earnest; see that your religion is real and living.

4. Remember the Lord"s past mercies, and be not anxious for the future.

HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD Vers. 1-4. The signs of the Messiah.

Coming into the borders of Magadan, after the miracles of the mountain in which he healed all manner of diseases, and miraculously feasted about eight thousand persons, Jesus encountered the Pharisees and Sadducees, who, sinking their sectarian differences for the time, agreed to tempt or test him by demanding a special sign of his Messiahship. Jesus declined to gratify them in this, appealing to the signs of the times which should be sufficient for them, and giving them himself a special sign. Let us consider, then

I THE SPECIAL SIGN WHICH THE PHARISEES SOUGHT.

1. They sought a sign from heaven.

(1) This was dearly the sign of the Prophet Daniel. (see Dan_7:9-14) The Pharisees then desired Jesus then and there to prove his Messiahship to them by appearing in the heavens as the Son of man in glory, and to establish a visible kingdom.

(2) This is a true sign of the Messiah. Not only is it a favourite sign with the Jews, but one also which Jesus acknowledged. He commonly spoke of himself, in manifest allusion to that very sign, as "the Son of man." But why, then, did he not gratify their expectations? The answer is:

2. They sought that sign too soon.

(1) It is a sign of a second advent of Messiah. A second advent there must needs be, for Messiah is described in prophecy in two distinct characters, which he could not fulfil at one and the same time. He is to come in the character of a Priest, to make atonement for sin, in humiliation, suffering, and death. He is also to come in the character of a King, in glory and immortality.

(2) In the first of these characters Jesus had then appeared. He must first suffer before he can enter into his glory, and therefore, also, before he can be revealed in his glory. (cf. Gen_3:15 Deu_18:15-19 Psa_16:8-10 Ps 22 Isa_50:5, 6 Isa 53 Dan_9:24 Luk_24:26)

(3) In the second character he promises in due time to appear. (cf. Mat_24:29-35 Mat_26:64-68 Rev_1:7 Rev_14:14) And in this character accordingly he is expected by his disciples. (cf. Act_1:11 1Th_1:10 1Th_4:14-17 2Th_1:7-10)

II THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES TO WHICH JESUS APPEALED.

1. Those connected with his personal advent.

(1) At the period of his birth there was a general expectation. The weeks of Daniel were fast running out within which Messiah was to be cut off. (see Dan_9:23-27) He must be born a considerable time before the date of his Passion. Gentiles then shared in the expectation of the Jews.

(2) His birth was itself a miracle. He was born of a virgin, and m the house and lineage of David. This was according to the requirement of the first promise in Eden, that he should be the "Seed of the woman," and of that remarkable place in Isaiah where a virgin of the house of David was to bring forth a son, who was to be distinguished as Immannel. (see Gen_3:15 Isa_7:14 Mat_1:23)

(3) That birth was also attended by miracles. The annunciation to the Virgin by Gabriel corresponded to that made to Manoah"s wife concerning the birth of Samson, who was a type of Christ. (cf. Jud 13:2-5 Luk_1:26-35) The wonderful birth was then celebrated by angels, who appeared to the shepherds; and by a star seen by the Wise Men in the East. (cf. Num_24:17 Mat_2:2 Rev_22:16 Luk_2:9-14)

2. Those connected with ills public ministry.

(1) Foremost amongst these was the miracle at his baptism, when he was about to enter upon that public ministry. (Mat_3:16, Mat_3:17)

(2) This was followed up by the testimony of the Baptist. That testimony could not be impeached. The Baptist was authenticated as a prophet of God by the miracles connected with his birth. (see Luk_1:5-22) In that character he was acknowledged by his nation. He announced himself, as the angel had designated him to be, the harbinger of Messiah. In that capacity he pointed out Jesus to his disciples as the "Lamb of God that beareth away the sin of the world". (Joh_1:29)

(3) This wonderful character Jesus was able to sustain. He wrought the miracles which the prophets said Messiah was to work. He did everything and suffered everything which the prophets said Messiah was to do and suffer in his advent as a Priest.

(4) The very wickedness of the generation that "tempted him, and proved him, and saw his works," was a sign of the times. (cf. Isa_6:9-12 Mat_13:14, Mat_13:15) And to all but themselves is their obstinacy in rejecting Jesus, together with their long continued sufferings, a proof that Jesus is the Christ; for these things he foretold. (cf. Mat_23:34-39 Luk_21:22-24)

III THE SPECIAL SIGN WHICH JESUS GAVE.

1. He gave them a sign from the earth.

(1) They sought a sign from heaven. The sign they sought, as we have seen, was that of the Prophet Daniel. That he gave them was the sign of the Prophet Jonah. (cf. Mat_12:39)

(2) They sought the sign of the kingdom of glory. He gave them the sign of the priesthood and suffering. The burial presupposes the death, and the death the suffering, of Messiah. These things he afterwards plainly showed to his disciples (see ver. 21).

2. This sign best suited a wicked generation.

(1) It fulfilled the sacrifices of the Law. Those sacrifices were ostensibly to make atonement for sin. But in what sense? Ceremonially and typically. Morally they could not remove sin. To suppose so would be to outrage common sense. "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins." Their inability to do this was acknowledged, for it was necessary to repeat the sacrifices. In the light of the great sin sacrifice of Calvary, all is plain.

(2) It fulfilled the sacrifice of Isaac. In the daily prayers read in the synagogue we have this: "dlm ana, O most merciful and gracious King! we beseech thee to remember and to look back on the covenant made between the divided offerings, and let the recollection of the sacrificial binding of the only son appear before thee, in favour of Israel." But what sense is there in this unless the "sacrificial binding" of Isaac be accepted as typical of the only Son of God, the Seed of Isaac, in whom all the families of the earth are blessed?

(3) The sign of a sufficient sacrifice for the expiation of sin is, of all others, to be desired by a wicked generation. But were the Lord to have answered their foolish prayer, and to have appeared without a sin sacrifice, as their King in judgment, they would be the first to be destroyed in the fires of his anger.

3. Jesus rested his claims upon this sign.

(1) He predicted that he "must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed." Within a year this was literally fulfilled.

(2) But now comes the testing point. He added, "and the third day be raised up" (see ver. 21). So about a year earlier he explained this sign of the Prophet Jonah to certain scribes and Pharisees. "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea-monster; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth". (see Mat_12:40)

(3) This also was fulfilled to the letter. No event of history is better authenticated than the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And if the evidence that Jesus is the Christ will not convince the Jews, they cannot be convinced by evidence; they can only be convinced by judgment. The sign from heaven will convince them. J.A.M.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A sign from heaven - Such they imagined Satan could not counterfeit. Mark viii, 11; Matt. xii, 38.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The Demand for a Sign

v. 1. The Pharisees also, with the Sadducees, came, and tempting, desired Him that He would show them a sign from heaven.

Here is a combination showing how far unionistic tendencies may lead if the object is opposition to Christ: the Pharisees, legalists, with their unceasing harping upon the details of Law and tradition: and the Sadducees, rationalists, with their denial of large parts of the Old Testament and all those doctrines that did not suit their reason. At other times these two Jewish sects were at sword’s points, but for the purpose of resisting Christ they gladly unite their forces. In order to tempt Him, they come, in a malicious, deceitful manner. In a haughty way they request, demand, a sign from heaven, In chapter 12:38 they had not been so arrogant. Their bitterness toward Christ grew in the same measure as their inability to overcome Him. "Just as if the wonders which He had done hitherto were nothing at all, since they had been performed on earth only. As though they would say: Oh, these earthly miracles are nothing! If He would show that He was powerful in heaven, then one might believe Him. Not as though they had been willing even then to believe, but they in the meantime blaspheme these miracles in such a way, although they are far greater than those which they demanded from heaven. For to raise the dead, to give sight to the blind: that surpasses all signs which it is possible to show from heaven by as much as man, who is the likeness of God, surpasses heaven and all physical creatures, and eternal life the temporal creatures."

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 16:13-16

I. According to the reply of Peter to Christ’s general question, the impression which Christ made upon the various classes with whom He came in contact was, with rare exceptions, that He was a Personage far surpassing, in greatness, and truth, and grace, all whom they had ever seen or known. His contemporaries, dull, and selfish, and worldly as many of them were, felt instinctively that He was one for whom they could find no just comparison. (1) His miracles declared His power, and fanned the widespread enthusiasm into an intense flame. (2) His teaching was new, original, and authoritative. With astonishment and delight the multitudes confessed, "He teaches with authority, and not as the scribes." (3) On down-trodden, guilty outcasts Christ looked with Divine compassion, and declared that He had come to seek and to save that which was lost. He drew them to Him, and spake words to them the like of which they had never heard before. Thus He became the centre of almost universal wonder, and trust, and worship.

II. The popular conception concerning Christ was a very exalted one; nevertheless, He put it aside as incomplete, as short of the truth. "The people say of Me that I am John the Baptist, or Elias, or one of the prophets; but whom say ye that I am?" "Thou art Christ, Son of the living God." To that belief in Him Christ gave His sanction and approval. To that He set His seal that it was true. This is an important consideration. There are those who think of Him as the Prophet, the tender, loving Brother, the purest and loftiest Soul that has ever lived in our world—but no more. Christ everywhere claimed to be more than simply a good man. A hearty belief in Christ as the Son of God is, in my judgment, a matter of supreme importance to any one who aims at the full mastery of his sins, and who aspires to complete vigour and fulness of religious life and character.

III. The great confession, "Thou art the Son of God," came from the lips of a disciple. It is ever so. The knowledge of Christ—His saving might, His inspiring energy, the riches of His love—can only be possessed by him who has entered into close and loving fellowship.

T. Hammond, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 33.

References: Mat 16:13.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 132. Mat 16:13-16.—J. C. Jones, Studies in St. Matthew, p. 235. Mat 16:13-19.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 457; J. Hiles Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 30; Expositor, 2nd series, vol. vi., p. 430. Mat 16:13-20.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 164. Mat 16:13-23.—Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. iii., p. 2. Mat 16:15.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 112; H. Wace, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 200.

Mat 16:15-17, Mat 16:21

Peter’s Confession of Faith, and Christ’s Prediction of His Passion.

I. At the end of the second year of His ministry, Christ wrought the astounding miracle of multiplying the loaves for the five thousand persons. That miracle led to the no less wonderful discourse which St. John relates in his sixth chapter, and to the withdrawal of many of our Lord’s followers. The crisis had arrived, and naturally, while His enemies drew their bands of union more closely together against Him, He turned to test the fidelity of His friends, and to develop His views more explicitly to them. From the time of Peter’s confession He began to prepare them for His cross and passion.

II. Consider what practical effect the faith in Christ’s Divinity has upon us, and what is its connection in our own minds with His passion and with His death upon the cross for us. (1) It sets the seal on the deep foundation of God’s immutable will; it gives us a rock of everlasting strength to rest on; it spreads those everlasting arms beneath us, which hold us up in deep assurance that His love is most patient and His endurance eternal. (2) There is another feeling set deep in your heart—the desire to be known of those you love, without secrets, without dissimulation, without error or defect. Where will you look for this but in the presence of Him who is invisible and comprehendeth all things? No knowledge of the heart is so searching as His omniscience; no hatred of evil is so pure as His, who is perfect goodness; and while He knows, while He hates all, then His love is most consoling. We can fling ourselves at His feet, because He knows us thoroughly and already. (3) As our Lord’s Divinity gives infinite worth to all His human sufferings which are past, so does it ensure the endurance of His human sympathy for all our needs in the present and in the future.

C. W. Furse, Sermons at Richmond, p. 22.

References: Mat 16:15-18.—W. Spensley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 268. Mat 16:16.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xvi., p. 333. Mat 16:17.—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 108. Mat 16:17-23.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 344.

Mat 16:18

The Unity of the Church.

I. That all Christians are, in some sense or other, one, in our Lord’s eyes, is plain, from various parts of the New Testament. It is to this one body, regarded as one, that the special privileges of the Gospel are given. It is not that this man receives the blessing, and that man, but one and all; the whole body as one man, one new spiritual man, with one accord, seeks and gains it.

II. When asked why we Christians must unite into a visible body or society, I answer (1) that the very earnestness with which Scripture insists upon a spiritual unseen unity at present, and a future unity in heaven, of itself directs a pious mind to the imitation of that unity visible on earth; for why should it be so continually mentioned in Scripture, unless the thought of it were intended to sink deep into our minds and direct our conduct here? (2) But again, our Saviour prays that we may be one in affection and in action; yet what possible way is there of many men acting together, except that of forming themselves into a visible body or society, regulated by certain laws and officers? and how can they act on a large scale and consistently, unless it be a permanent body? (3) I might rest the necessity of Christian unity upon one single institution of our Lord’s, the sacrament of baptism. Baptism is a visible rite, confessedly; and St. Paul tells us that by it individuals are incorporated into an already existing body. But if every one who wishes to become a Christian must come to an existing visible body for the gift, it is plain that no number of men can ever, consistently with Christ’s intention, set up a Church for themselves. All must receive their baptism from Christians already baptized; and thus we trace back a visible body or society even to the very time of the Apostles themselves. (4) One other guarantee, which is especially suggested by our Lord’s words in the text, for the visible unity and permanence of His Church, is the appointment of rulers and ministers, entrusted with the gifts of grace, and these in succession. The ministerial orders are the ties which bind together the whole body of Christians in one; they are its organs, and they are, moreover, its moving principle.

J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vii., p. 230.

References: Mat 16:18.—S. G. Green, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 49; L. Abbott, Ibid., vol. xxxii., p. 362; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 103; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 2nd series, p. 58; E. W. Shalders, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 152; J. C. Jones, Studies in St. Matthew, p. 255; W. Anderson, Discourses, p. 66; C. Kingsley, Village Sermons, p. 309. Mat 16:18, Mat 16:19.—Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 1.

Mat 16:21-26

Great Purposes and Interruptive Voices. "From that time forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples how that He must go." Special emphasis should be laid upon the word "must," in order to discover the depth and range of the idea which the speaker seeks to convey. The emphasis, so placed, gives us the utterance of a great purpose. "Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him." This is an interruptive voice. Christ and Peter set before us the broadest contrasts in human development.

I. The majesty of a purpose imparts to its possessor tranquillity in anticipation of the severest trials. What are the constituent elements of heroism? I answer, a great purpose, and faith in it. Given the purpose and the faith, and you have strength, and patience, and hope, and surest victory.

II. Superficial natures cannot interpret the majesty of a great purpose. Did ever a great idea realize its "must go" without having to encounter interruptive Peters? Little ideas, respectable enterprises, decent actions have passed along the world’s highway without much incommodation; but the ideas that have given love to the heart and direction to the understanding, of an age or an empire, have had to fight their way to Jerusalem step by step.

III. Great purposes are necessarily associated with self-sacrifice. (1) Whoso follows a great leader must expect great sacrifices. (2) The spirit and example of a great moral leader must ever be reproduced.

IV. Great purposes always correctly estimate the value of material possessions.

V. Superficial natures always proceed on a self-defeating policy. Christ’s testimony is clear: "For whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it."

Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 361; see also Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 177.

References: Mat 16:21.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 271; R. Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 376. Mat 16:21-23.—C. Morris, Preacher’s Lantern, vol. iii., p. 47. Mat 16:21-26.—Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 61. Mat 16:21-28.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 173. Mat 16:22.—J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 376. Mat 16:23.—W. H. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit, p. 345.

Mat 16:24

One of the proofs of the truth and of the Divine origin of our religion is that it gives such a distinct notice of the difficulties which its followers will have to encounter. What other religion could afford to speak like this?

I. "Deny himself." As in the natural character selfishness and affection are two such opposite principles that the man that is selfish can never be truly affectionate, and the man that is affectionate will never be long selfish, so in the spiritual life self and the Divine love are the two great antagonists which do battle in a man’s heart. Between these two, from the moment that any one is really in earnest in religion, there is contest, severe and unceasing, even to death, till ultimately either self, being allowed, stifles grace, or grace, being cherished, gradually swallows up self, till all self loses itself in Jesus.

II. "Daily." What is the cross? What is it that a man is to take up? Not some very great thing which is to come by-and-by. Against that idea Christ appears especially to have guarded us when He added the word "daily." The cross must be a trial which has something humiliating in it, something which brings a sense of shame, something which lingers, something which is painful to the old nature, for that is exactly what the cross was.

III. "Follow Me." What is it worth to deny one’s self how much soever, or to take up a cross however hard, if it be not done in reference to Christ—with an express intention towards Christ? But to do all these things with the eye only to Jesus as all our righteousness and peace; to do them because He wishes it and as He did it, that He may be magnified—this is to obey a doctrine while we fulfil a command, and therefore this is in the spirit of the requisition to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Jesus.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 282.

The command which the text contains is based upon the great principle of the imitation of Christ. Unlike all other legislators, His life is the law of His people.

If we would gain the root of the matter, then we must contemplate suffering as manifested in Christ Himself.

I. The great primary fact, upon which all the essential peculiarities of our religion are founded, is that God became strangely, inconceivably connected with pain; that this Being, whose nature is inherent happiness, by some mysterious process entered the regions of suffering, crossed the whole diameter of existence, to find Himself with His own opposite; bore, though incapable of moral pollution, the dark shadow of pollution, even anguish unspeakable; and though unsubdued by the master, Sin, exhibited Himself, to the wonder of the universe, clad in the weeds of the servant, Death.

The main reason of this fact is to be found in the necessity of atonement. But the Divine Person also visited the regions of pain in such a sense as to be our Example; for so the text presents Him.

II. Must we not think that there is something in the sorrow, thus cordially and perpetually chosen by our Master, that is eminently adapted to elevate and purify our being? Must there not be something divinely excellent in that which was deliberately chosen by a Divine nature as its peculiar tabernacle out of all the world afforded, the sad but awful cloud above the mercy-seat in which, while among us, His glory was to dwell? This special excellence is not hard to discover. Humbleness of spirit, the most pervading and universal of all graces, is in the Christian code the very essence of perfection, and sorrow borne with resignation has a direct tendency to produce it. Now, because our Redeemer knew, what it is so hard to persuade even His avowed followers, that in this direction lies the true perfection of man—that a gentle, unmurmuring submission is his truest, brightest heroism—therefore did He, in His own person, adopt the way that leads to it. He daily suffered, because suffering subdues the pride of human hearts, and He would teach us to accomplish that conquest.

W. Archer Butler, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, p. 27.

References: Mat 16:24.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 394; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 36; vol. ii., p. 44; H. G. Bird, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 151; J. M. Nelson, Ibid., vol. xxxi., p. 200.

Mat 16:24-28

The Eucharist considered as a participation in the unselfish life of Christ.

I. From the day of his temptation, when He refused to prove Himself the Son of God by doing any work to support Himself, or to make His power manifest, or to take possession of His kingdom—from that day forward to His death, He was practising self-denial, and so was revealing the Father to men. The cross was the gathering up of all that previous sacrifice. And having proved this to be the true life of man, the law of human life, He called upon men to enter into it with Him. Self-denial was not to be an occasional act; it is the ground of man’s existence, for it is the ground of His.

II. The words, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you," remind us of the daily, hourly temptation to be seeking a life of our own, to be forgetting that we are bound by the eternal law of God, by the unchangeable conditions of our own being, to our fellows, and to their Father and ours, in the well-beloved Son. These words remind us that the selfish life is in truth no life at all, but death; that to choose it is to choose death. They remind us that we are not bound to choose it; that in doing so we are renouncing our true human state, we are trying to cast off bonds which are actually holding us, we are resisting God’s Spirit. They remind us that the common life is still with us; that the Son of man is still the same; that His flesh and His blood were really given for the life of the world; that our spirits groan for that life, groan to be delivered from the death into which they have fallen through self-pleasing, self-seeking. Christ bids my spirit partake of the flesh and blood which He shed for the world, as my body partakes of the bread and wine. It is what I need. It takes away the selfish glory which I have coveted; it invests me with the human glory which I have renounced. It bids me cast away that weight of cares about my body and soul which have become intolerable; it bids me throw myself upon that sacrificing love which provides for all and for each, which seeks to make me its minister to others, which can never bless me so much as by forming me after its own likeness.

F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 127.

References: Mat 16:24-26.—W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, 2nd series, p. 125. Mat 16:24-28.—Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. iii., p. 10.

Mat 16:26

I. Our Lord tells us in the text that our choice of a principle and end of living involves an exchange. You get nothing in life, good or bad, without cost. No man ever leaped into a success of any kind without cost to himself. Success is always paid for with some coin or other. Do you expect you will win moral success, spiritual victory, on any other terms?

II. Look at the nature of the exchange in this particular case. If you buy the world you pay a definite price for it, a price from which there is no discount to the most favoured buyer, and that price is your life.

Our Lord states it as a principle, a universal fact, that the man who takes the world takes it at the price of his life.

III. Suppose we go the whole length of our Lord’s words. Suppose you gain the whole world, everything the world has to give you. I submit (1) that you have gotten something perishable; (2) your interest in it will not last. "The world passeth away, and the desire of it." (3) It will not satisfy you. (4) You have gotten something dangerous. When you buy the world you buy a master at the price of your life. (5) You come to the line at last, and pass over. Whatever price you pay for the world, you leave the world behind you when you pass the gate of death. The only thing that has any hold on the future is the Christlike self, and if you have not that, if you have parted with that for the world, what have you?

M. R. Vincent, God and Bread, p. 21.

Mat 16:26

Every one of us is able fluently to speak of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and is aware that the knowledge of it forms the fundamental difference between our state and that of the heathen. And yet, in spite of our being able to speak about it, there seems scarcely room to doubt that the greater number of those who are called Christians in no true sense realize it in their own minds at all. It is a very difficult thing to bring home to us and to feel that we have souls; and there cannot be a more fatal mistake than to suppose we see what the doctrine means as soon as we can use the words which signify it.

I. To understand that we have souls is to feel our separation from things visible, our independence of them, our distinct existence in ourselves, our individuality, our power of acting for ourselves this way or that way, our accountableness for what we do. We feel that while the world changes, we are one and the same; we are led to distrust it, and are weaned from the love of it, till at length it floats before our eyes merely as some idle veil, which, notwithstanding its many tints, cannot hide the view of what is beyond it; and we begin, by degrees, to perceive that there are but two beings in the whole universe—our own soul, and the God who made it.

II. We never in this life can fully understand what is meant by our living for ever, but we can understand what is meant by this world’s not living for ever, by its dying never to rise again. And learning this, we learn that we owe it no service, no allegiance; it has no claim over us, and can do us no material good or harm. On the other hand, the law of God, written in our hearts, bids us serve Him, and partly tells us how to serve Him, and Scripture completes the precepts which nature began. And both Scripture and conscience tell us we are answerable for what we do, and that God is a righteous Judge; and above all, our Saviour, as our visible Lord God, takes the place of the world as the only-begotten of the Father, having shown Himself openly, that we may not say God is hidden. And thus a man is drawn by all manner of powerful influences to turn from things temporal to things eternal, to deny himself, to take up his cross and follow Christ.

J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. i., p. 15.

I. Man has a soul. You may call it mind, or spirit, or will, or affection, or reason, even as the sea washing different continents has various names. It includes all these. Scripture reveals to us its independent creation and existence. The great difference between the soul of man and the soul and being or substance of all other creatures is that they are made out of the kingdom of nature. The soul is not created; it is derived, and its derivation is Divine.

II. Consider the value of the soul. (1) Its power. It can sin; it can suffer; it can think. (2) Its duration. For ever; no cessation. "I am, and I can never cease to be."

III. A soul may be lost. Man’s greatest danger is his perverted will. But I may mention four causes of the loss of the soul: (1) ignorance; (2) error; (3) passion; (4) a perverted will, which underlies the whole. Thy soul is not truly thine till it is given to God. If you look beneath you, behold your life lying there, it is not your own; it is Satan’s.

IV. The soul may be saved. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

E. Paxton Hood, Sermons, p. 291.

Mat 16:26

Let us consider why the saying of our Lord in the text, while generally admitted to be true, is yet so little laid to heart.

I. Because we are accustomed to admit freely the incomparable worth of the soul, but without a clear perception of that in which its worth consists. We feel the unique dignity of our own position in creation. We can compare ourselves with the world around us; and it and all that it can offer of possession and power, of enjoyment and honour, is beneath the soul. But in what does this incomparable worth of the soul consist? The only true answer is this: The incomparable value of the soul consists in its being capable of and destined for communion with God in the direct meaning of the word. How few have any definite conception of this. There is but one way in which we can learn it, in the contemplation of Christ.

II. Because we have usually no clear idea of the injury which may happen to our souls. It is not sufficiently clear that there really do exist permanent consequences of a single sinful deed, even of a sinful disposition of mind. That such consequences do exist, we can plainly see in such frightful developments of sin as we find in the hardened criminal. But we do not sufficiently grasp the truth of the words, "He that committeth sin is the servant of sin."

III. Because we so often fail to perceive clearly how we can and ought to care for the salvation of our soul, and because the only successful mode of doing so is not usually pleasing to us. We do not like to admit that the care for our soul must begin with the care for its recovery, because by nature it is diseased. The care for our soul must be a care for our soul’s salvation. It consists simply in turning to Christ, in accepting Him by faith, in giving ourselves up to Him in love, and in obedience to the workings of His Word and of His Spirit. By such care for our souls life will not become more painful, it will only be elevated.

R. Rothe, Nachgelassene Predigten, p. 37.

References: Mat 16:26.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 269; J. W. Burgon, Ninety-one Short Sermons, p. 78; S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 14; S. Cox, Expositions, vol. ii., p. 149. Mat 16:27.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 554; B. F. Westcott, The Historic Faith, p. 87; J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve, p. 108. Mat 16:28.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 594.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, 1. The persons demanding of our Saviour a sign, the Pharisees and Sadducees, person of contrary opinions and interests; yet both agree in tempting and opposing Christ.

Learn hence, That wicked men, how opposite soever they are one to another, yet can agree together in opposing Christ, and undermining his truth.

Observe, 2. The sign demanded; Shew us a sign from heaven: as if they had said, Put us not off with such earthly signs as we have seen, in multiplying loaves; but let us see a miracle from heaven, such as Moses and Elias wrought. This they desired, not so much for their satisfaction, as out of curiosity, nay wicked treachery.

Learn thence, That to demand a sign, not to confirm our faith, but to harden ourselves in our unbelief, is a dangerous tempting of Christ.

Observe, 3. Our Saviour’s rejection of this demand of the Pharisees to give them a sign; O ye hypocrites, says he, ye can discern the face of the sky, but ye cannot discern the signs of the times. As if Christ had said, "Did not malice and obstinacy blind your eyes, ye might as easily see and discern that these are the times of the Messias, and that I am he, by the miracles wrought by me, as you can make a judgement of the weather, by looking upon the sky."

Learn, that to pretend more ignorance and uncertainty in discerning the signs of the gospel times, than the signs of the weather is great hypocrisy: Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky, but ye cannot discern the signs of the times?

Observe lastly, That our Saviour doth not condemn the study of nature, or making observation of the state of the weather, from the face of the sky. All that our Saviour blamed was, that they were better skilled in the signs of the weather, than in the signs of the times. As God by natural signs gives us warning of a change in natural things: so by his providential dispensations he gives us warning of a change in civil things. He that is wise, will observe these things; and by their observation will come to understand the pleasure of the Lord.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXX. A. Third Withdrawal].

LXX. THIRD WITHDRAWAL FROM HEROD'S TERRITORY. Subdivision A. PHARISAIC LEAVEN. A BLIND MAN HEALED. (Magadan and Bethsaida. Probably Summer, A. D. 29.) aMATT. XV. 39-XVI. 12; bMARK VIII. 10-26.

b10 And straightway he entered into the boat with his disciples, aand came into the borders of Magadan. binto the parts of Dalmanutha. [It appears from the context that he crossed the lake to the west shore. Commentators, therefore, pretty generally think that Magadan is another form of the name Magdala, and that Dalmanutha was either another name for Magdala, or else a village near it.] a1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees bcame forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign aand trying him [testing the strength of his miraculous power] asked him to show them a sign from heaven. [They rejected his miracles as signs of his Messiahship, the Pharisees holding that such signs could be wrought by Beelzebub. They therefore asked a sign from heaven such as only God could give, and such as he had accorded to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and Elijah, or such as Joel foretold ( Joe_2:31). It is generally thought that the [406] Herodians were Sadducees of Galilee. If so, we note the beginning of their hostility recorded at Mark iii. 6, 1Co_1:22.] 4 An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and bverily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. [i. e., none such as was demanded] bbut the sign of Jonah. [For comment on similar language, see pages 305-306. The resurrection or Jonah sign was a sign from heaven in the sense in which they used the words; that is, it was wrought directly by God, and not through man.] 13 And he left them, bAnd again entering into the boat departed to the other side. [I. e., from Magdala back again to the east shore, or rather, toward Bethsaida Julias, on the northeast shore.] a5 And the disciples came to the other side and forgot to take bread. band they had not in the boat with them more than one loaf. [This loaf was probably left over from the previous supply.] a6 Then Jesus said unto them, b15 And he charged them, saying, aTake heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. band the leaven of Herod. [Leaven, which answered to our modern yeast, was a symbol of a secret, penetrating, pervasive influence, usually of a corrupting nature. The [407] influence of the Pharisees was that of formalism, hypocritical ostentation, and traditionalism; that of the Sadducees was sneering rationalistic unbelief, free thought and cunning worldliness, manifesting itself among the Herodians in political corruption. 16 And they reasoned one with another, aamong themselves, saying, We took bhave no bread. They thought that Jesus reproved them for their carelessness in forgetting to take bread, since that carelessness might lead them to be without bread on their journey. So his rebuke below indicates.] a8 And Jesus perceiving it said, bsaith, unto them, aO ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? 9 Do ye not yet perceive, bneither understand? aneither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets [cophini, probably traveling baskets] ye took up? 10 Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets [spurides, probably grain baskets or hampers] ye took up? 11 How is it that ye do not perceive that I spake not to you concerning bread? bhave ye your hearts hardened? 18 Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember? 19 When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets [cophini] full of broken pieces took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve. 20 And when the seven among the four thousand, how many basketfuls [spurides] of broken pieces took ye up? And they say unto him, Seven. 21 And he said unto them, Do ye not yet understand? aBut beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? 12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. [Jesus had resorted to metaphor because the word leaven better expressed his idea than did the word teaching. The formulated dogmas of the Pharisees were not so bad, but the subtle influence of their spirit and example corrupted [408] without warning, like a concealed grave. There are those to-day who are too skillful to be openly convicted of heterodox statements, but whose teaching, nevertheless, in its very essence and spirit, tends to infidelity.] b22 And they cometh unto Bethsaida. [Not the suburb of Capernaum, but Bethsaida Julias, a town on the east side of the Jordan, near where it flows into the Sea of Galilee. Jesus was proceeding northward toward Cæsarea Philippi.] And they bring to him a blind man, and beseech him to touch him. 23 And he took hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village [Jesus increased the sympathy between himself and the man by separating him from the crowd. Our greatest blessing can only come to us after we have been alone with God]; and when he had spit on his eyes, and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, Seest thou aught? 24 And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold i them as trees, walking. 25 Then again he laid his hands again upon his eyes; and he looked steadfastly, and was restored, and saw all things clearly. [The man's eyes were probably sore, and Jesus made use of saliva to soften and soothe them. But it was our Lord's custom to give variety to the manifestation of his power, sometimes using one apparent auxiliary means, and sometimes another; and also healing instantly or progressively, as he chose, that the people might see that the healing was altogether a matter of his will. The man had evidently not been born blind, else he would not have been able to recognize men or trees by sight, for those not used to employ sight can not by it tell a circle from a square.] 26 And he sent him away to his home, saying, Do not even enter into the village. [The man, of course, lived in the village, and to send him home was to send him thither, but he was to go directly home and not spread the news through the town, for if he did the population would be at once drawn to Jesus, thus breaking up the privacy which he sought to maintain.] [409]

[FFG 406-409]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1. The Pharisees and Sadducees. Compare Mark 8:10–13. For description of these two sects, see note on Matt. 3:7. It is the first time the latter party is mentioned as opposed to Christ. A sign from heaven. Some mighty, visible miracle. See Matt. 12:38. Still in Paul's time “the Jews required a sign” (1 Cor. 1:22).

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

This begins an encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees.

tested him

Here "tested" is used in a negative sense. AT: "challenged him" or "wanted to trap him"

When it is evening

The situation can be stated more clearly. AT: "If the sky is red in the evening" or "If the sky is red when the sun is setting" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

When it is evening

"When the sun is setting"

fair weather

This means clear, calm, and pleasant weather.

for the sky is red

As the sun is setting, Jews knew that if the color of the sky changes to red, it is a sign the next day will be clear and calm.

translationWords

Pharisee

Sadducee

test

miracle

heaven

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

1. οἱ Φαρισαῖοι καὶ Σαδδουκαῖοι. In Mark οἱ Φαρισαῖοι alone. The coalition between these opposing sects can only be accounted for by the uniting influence of a strong common hostility against Jesus.

πειράζοντες. The participle sometimes expresses in a condensed form what might be expanded into a final or consecutive sentence. See Campbell’s Soph. Essay on the language, &c., § 36. (5) b., ἔβας | τόσσον ἐν ποίμναις πίτνων (Ajax, 185) = τόσσον ὥστε πίτνειν. Cp. Ant. 752, ἤ κἀπαπειλῶν ὦδʼ ἐπεξέρχει θρασύς; see Jebb’s note on Ajax, loc. cit.

σημεῖον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. They could not conceive the inner beauty of Christ’s teaching, but they would follow the rules of a Rabbi who, like one of the ancient prophets, should give an external sign—a darkening of the glowing sky—a flash of light—a peal of thunder. The answer of Christ teaches that the signs of the times, the events of the day, are the signs of God, the sign that Christ gives.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.