Thou Art Peter, and Upon This Rock I Will Build My Church (Matthew 16:18)

2023-12-11

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)

When Simon Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God, our Lord noted a few things. First, Peter was blessed. The Father showed him the true identity of Jesus while many others were still guessing.

Also, Simon is called Peter, which means rock or stone, just like the name Cephas does. “Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone” (John 1:42). Peter, Cephas, and stone all mean the same thing.

Next, we see that Jesus is the builder of the church. Previously, we saw how Jesus is the head stone of the corner and the Rock. Peter was the next stone to be laid down in this great building. Peter learned that Jesus was the cornerstone, and slowly, stone by stone, the spiritual house would be built. “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5).

This house of stone would not ever fall. Not even hell would defeat this new temple. Every stone in the building is an eternal, born-again life.

The keys of the kingdom were entrusted to Peter and “whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” We see what this means a few chapters later. But here, we see the word “thou” is singular. Only Peter gets this privilege for now.

Then, we see the famous passage on church discipline on Matthew 18:15-20, which we discuss elsewhere. However, we see Matthew 18:18 is like Matthew 16:19, but this time the “thou” is now “ye,” the plural. These other lively stones of the church now could bind and loose. What does this mean? In context, it means making decisions on Christ’s behalf, including those of church discipline. Matthew 18:19 restates the previous verse in other words for clarity: “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:19-20).

This shows us a little bit of the power of the church, “Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:23), “the house of God” and “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).