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A RETREAT TO GESAREA PHILIPPI
Mt. xvi. 13-xvii. 21 ; Mk. viii. 27-ix. 29; Lk. ix. 18-43a.
What destination had our Lord in view ? By the sources of the Jordan at the base of the southern slope of Mount Hermon which some fifteen miles northward reared its snow-clad crest nigh eight thousand feet aloft, lay a town which the Greek invaders had called Paneas in honour of Pan, their god of woodlands and pastures, and which the Tetrarch Philip had recently adorned and named Caesarea in honour of the Emperor Caesar Augustus and in his own honour Caesarea Philippi or Philip’s Caesarea, to distinguish it from the seaport of Caesarea, the Roman capital of Judaea. Probably He had passed that way in the course of His journey from Sidon and had marked it as a pleasant retreat ; and now He betakes Himself thither.
There at last on that peaceful mountainside He found the privacy which He had sought so long, and addressed Himself to converse with the Twelve regarding His Kingdom and the high service to which He had called them as its heralds to the world. First, in view of all the prevalent misunderstanding of His character and work and the recent defection of so many who had professed themselves His disciples, He would expressly ascertain how the Twelve regarded Him. As He walked abroad with them, He put the question : “Who do men say that the Son of Man is ?” They told Him the various opinions. The [ p. 206 ] latest was that of Herod Antipas—that He was John the Baptist risen from the dead. Another was that He was Elijah returned, according to Jewish expectation, to prepare the way for the Messiah’s advent. To many this seemed incredible, since in His graciousness He was so unlike the stern prophet of old ; and their idea was that He was one of the later prophets risen from the dead, most likely Jeremiah, the gentlest of them all. Such were the prevailing opinions. “But you/’ said He, “who do you say that I am ?” Prompt and unhesitating came the answer : “You are the Christ”—the Messiah, the Promised Saviour.
It was Simon Peter who spoke—that generous, impulsive disciple, so prone to err yet so quick to repent and ever the lover of the Master; and it was indeed a great confession, proving as it did that, though hidden from the world, His glory had been revealed by heavenly grace to Simon and the rest for whom he spoke. It was truly a revelation and no discovery of their own. “Blessed are you, Simon, son of John,” He exclaimed, playing upon the name which signified “the Lord’s grace” : “blessed are you, child of heavenly grace ! For it was not flesh and blood that revealed it to you ; no, it was My Father in Heaven.” It was a glad congratulation (Cf. Jo. i. 42). At His first meeting with Simon, observing the impulsiveness of his character, He had after the Jewish fashion given him the title Peter, “Rock,” expressing the character which he must by grace attain ; and this confession, evincing his strong and stedfast faith in face of all that seemed to contradict it, proved that he had now attained it. “I tell you that you are Peter (the Rock), and upon this rock I will build [ p. 207 ] My Church and ‘ the gates of Hades ’ will not prevail against her. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind upon earth will stand bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose upon earth will stand loosed in Heaven.” (Cf. Is. xxxviii. 10)
What does this mean ? Surely it is the supreme tragedy of Christian history that a saying of Him who was done to death by the priestcraft of His day has been claimed as its divine charter by that more baleful priestcraft which, born of mediaeval superstition, has so monstrously corrupted His Evangel and so cruelly enslaved the souls and intellects of men. What does it mean ? The ancient Church, as represented by the great Greek and Latin Fathers, was divided between two interpretations :
( 1 ) The earliest is that of the brilliant Alexandrian scholar Origen. The rock on which the Lord would build His Church was indeed Peter, but not Peter simply: it was Peter and every disciple sharing Peter’s faith. It was Peter as a confessor, and every confessor is a Peter. “You,” says our Lord, “are Peter, the exemplar of stedfast faith; and on this stedfast faith I will build My Church.” So, according to St. Chrysostom, the rock was “the faith of his confession,” and, according to St. Cyril, “the unwavering faith of the disciple. And herewith St. Cyprian agrees.
( 2 ) That was the early view of St. Augustine, but subsequently he preferred another—that the rock was not Peter at all but Christ Himself. This was St. Jerome’s view. Christ is the Rock, and He called Simon a rock in virtue of his faith, just as, being Himself “the Light of the world,” He so designated His disciples who reflect Him. (Cf. 1 Cor. x. 4; Jo. viii. 12; Mt. v. 14)
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These are the lines of interpretation followed by the ancient Church ; and be it observed that they are equally exclusive of the mediaeval fancy, inspired by the fiction of ecclesiastical infallibility, that our Lord here delegates His authority to Peter and his papal successors. It was the emergence in his day of a kindred disposition on the part of some presbyters and bishops who, “not understanding this passage, assumed somewhat of the arrogance of the Pharisees/’ that inclined St. Jerome to the interpretation which he and St. Augustine support against the consensus of patristic opinion; and indeed it expresses an essential truth—that “the Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.” It should, however, be observed that it is not the foundation that our Lord here speaks of. “Upon this rock,” He says, “I will ” —not “found ” but —“build My Church ” ; and His meaning is defined by the noble apostolic conception of the Church as a spiritual Sanctuary of living stones (Cf. 1 Pet. ii. 4,5; Cf. 1 Cor. iii. 11; Eph. ii. 20). He is the one and only foundation, and each true believer is a stone laid on Him, “built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.” (Cf. 1 Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11) The Prophets are here the Christian Prophets who ranked in the primitive Church next in prestige to the Apostles ; and their foundation means neither the foundation which they laid, since it was God that laid it, nor the foundation which they constitute, but the one and only foundation whereon they all, including Peter, were built by faith (Cf. Is. xxviii. 16; Rom. ix. 33). This is the abiding distinction of Simon Peter, that as the first confessor he was the first stone laid upon that foundation ; but his honour is shared by each fresh [ p. 209 ] believer who takes up his confession and is built with him into the ever growing fabric.
But what of that further promise : “I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind upon earth will stand bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose upon earth will stand loosed in Heaven ” ? Observe that our Lord’s language here is not ecclesiastical terminology but familiar, homely imagery. To give a person “the keys ” was a Jewish phrase for putting him, like King Hezekiah’s grand vizier Eliakim (Is. xxii. 22), in charge of the house. Because he had the keys, when he locked the doors no one else could open them, and when he opened them no one else could lock them. And similarly “loose” and “bind” were common Rabbinical phrases, signifying “permit” and “prohibit.”
What then does our Lord mean when, after telling Peter that as His first confessor he was the first stone in the fabric of His Church, that spiritual Sanctuary whereof He was Himself the foundation and whose stones are believing men, He now adds this promise of authority in the Kingdom of Heaven ? Here is an illuminating fact. At Caesarea the promise was addressed to Peter alone, but our Lord reiterated it on two subsequent occasions, and on each it was addressed not to Peter alone but to others as well. The first of these occasions was a few weeks later (Mt. xviii. 18). The Master and the Twelve had returned to Capernaum and, sitting with them in Peter’s house, He was discoursing to them regarding true greatness in His Kingdom. “Verily,” said He, “I tell you”—no longer Peter alone but them all—“all that you bind upon earth will stand bound in Heaven, and all that you [ p. 210 ] loose upon earth will stand loosed in Heaven.” What had made the difference ? Simply this—that at the moment of his confession at Caesarea Peter was the only confessor, the only stone as yet laid on the One Foundation ; but presently the others joined in his confession, and then they took their places beside Peter in the spiritual fabric and shared equally in his dignity. Nor was the promise limited to the Apostles (Jo. xx. 19-23). It was repeated, the selfsame promise though differently worded, on a third occasion—the evening of the Resurrection Day when the Lord appeared in the upper room at Jerusalem to the assembled disciples, not the Apostles alone but, as St. Luke states, the Apostles and “those that were with them,” “all the rest,” including the women (Cf. xxiv. 9,10,33). “Peace be to you,” He said; “even as the Father has commissioned Me, I also send you.” Then He breathed upon them : “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whosesoever sins you remit, they are remitted to them ; and whosesoever you retain, they are retained.”
Here then is the decisive truth. That promise, made first to Peter at Caesarea in the moment of his great confession, was a promise to every confessor ; and as the other Apostles joined in their comrade’s confession they too inherited the promise. And not the Apostles alone but every believer in every generation to the end of time who shares the faith of the Apostles and is built, a living stone, on the one foundation whereon they were built—the one foundation which is Jesus Christ.
Thus the promise belongs neither to Peter alone and his supposed successors nor to any priestly order, but to the Church, “the community of the faithful” (coetus fidelium). It is the Church, as her Risen Lord’s [ p. 111 ] witness and representative, that holds the keys of His Kingdom, speaking with His authority and declaring His will. This idea, however, is widely different from the mediaeval fiction of ecclesiastical infallibility. And the difference lies in the condition which the Lord attached to the promise. Observe what is written. First of all “He breathed upon them, and said, ‘ Receive the Holy Spirit’ ” ; and then He said : “Whosesoever sins you remit, they are remitted to them ; and whosesoever you retain, they are retained/’ And the thought is expressed by the grand Pauline conception of the Church as the Body of Christ, His perpetual Incarnation (cf. Eph.i. 22,23). He is the Head, and the Church is His body and each believer a particular member ; and even as the physical body is the organ of the brain, so is the Church His organ, and He speaks and works through her, so long but only so long and so far as she remains in vital union with Him.
The value of Peter’s confession lay in this—that, since it was so difficult for Jews to accept the lowly Son of Man as the King of Israel, their assurance of His Messiahship proved that the Twelve had perceived beneath His lowliness the glory of His heavenly grace. And therefore He hailed the confession with exultant gladness. At the same time He recognised the peril which their faith involved and the mischief which would ensue if they proclaimed it, since it would encourage the popular expectation of a national bouleversement. And therefore He immediately charged them to “tell no one that He was the Christ.” Moreover, the Twelve themselves still clung to the Jewish ideal of the Messiah and His Kingdom ; and their notion was that their Master’s lowliness was merely a temporary disguise, [ p. 212 ] and He would presently cast it aside and manifest His rightful majesty and claim the throne of His father David. There was no lesson which they had more need to learn than the truth regarding His Messiahship ; and so, pursuing the purpose which had brought Him with them to that peaceful retreat at Caesarea, He now seeks to disabuse their minds of their secular ideal and show them what actually awaited Him—not a throne at Jerusalem but a cruel death. He would be arraigned before the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court of seventy-one Elders representing the rival parties of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, and including, as the leaders of the former, the Chief Priests—the acting Chief Priest, who was ex officio President, and the Chief Priests emeriti —and, as the leaders of the latter, the Scribes, the guardians and interpreters of the Sacred Law. Already it had been determined to arraign Him on the capital charge of blasphemy, and His condemnation was inevitable. “The Son of Man,” said He, “must suffer much, and be rejected by the Elders and Chief Priests and Scribes, and be killed, and,” He added, foretelling also the final triumph, “after three days rise again.”
It was a startling announcement. Already indeed ominous suggestions had fallen from His lips in His public reasonings ; but nothing like this, so deliberate and definite, a distinct intimation to the Twelve in direct, personal converse. It was an express confirmation of those vague hints which, incredible as they had seemed, must have rankled in their minds (Jo. ii. 19, iii. 14; Mt. ix. 14,15; Mk. ii. 18-20; Lk. v. 33-35; Jo. vi. 51,55); and they were horrified, especially Peter, who loved the Master so well. He clutched Him and cried : “Mercy on you, [ p. 213 ] Lord ! this will never happen to you.” It was kindly meant, yet had he understood he would surely have held his peace. The prospect of His Passion was terrible to the Master. His frail humanity shuddered at it, prompting Him to turn aside from the painful path ; and it was only His devotion to His Father’s will that nerved Him to pursue it. His breast was tom by a continual conflict betwixt the appeal of Self and the call of God ; and in that impassioned remonstrance He recognised the solicitation of Satan, the Adversary, disguised in the accents of human affection. He turned sharply and exclaimed: “Get behind Me, Satan ! You are a stumbling-block to Me; for you are not taking God’s side but men’s.”
And then He told the Twelve that His painful path was the path which they too must tread. They were dreaming of an earthly kingdom and places of honour beside His throne ; and He displays the dread reality. They were called to a stern warfare, and like a general on the eve of battle He addresses to them an appeal which would stir their souls like a trumpet. He was going before them to the conflict, and would they not follow Him in loyal devotion ? In saving his life the recreant loses it; for inglorious life is worse than death, and a glorious death is immortality. And if they shirked the ordeal, how would they meet Him and endure His scorn when He came in the glory of His Father with the holy angels ? It was indeed a stem conflict that lay before them, but their cause would surely prevail. The immediate prospect was dark, but His death was not the end. “After three days He would rise again,” and some of them would live to witness the inauguration of His Kingdom’s triumph.
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With such converse regarding His Death and the glory which should follow, the Lord occupied His sojourn at Caesarea, seeking to forewarn the Twelve of the approaching denouement. It was difficult for them to take it in ; for the idea of His Death was so contrary to their Messianic expectation and that of His Resurrection so remote from their experience. At the time, as the sequel proves, His instruction was largely beyond their grasp, and it was only in the light of the event that they understood it; nevertheless He would spare no pains to prepare them for the impending ordeal, and He vouchsafed to Peter, James, and John, His trusted three, a singular prevision of the glory which should afterwards be revealed. They had been a week at Caesarea and, leaving the others behind. He conducted the three “to a high mountain”—assuredly not, according to an ancient fancy, Mount Olivet nor yet, according to ecclesiastical tradition, Mount Tabor nearly fifty miles distant from Caesarea, but a neighbouring height of Mount Hermon.
The night had fallen when they reached the summit, and the three disciples, wrapping their mantles about them, lay down and slept; but the Master had come thither to commune with His Father, and while they slept, He prayed. Presently they awoke, and a radiant vision met their astonished gaze. They beheld their Master “apparelled in celestial light,” and two heavenly visitants communing with Him. They heard the high discourse and learned thence who the strangers were. They were Moses and Elijah. And what was their theme ? They were speaking, not of “the decease,” as our English Version weakly has it, but, as it is in [ p. 215 ] Greek, “the Exodus which He was soon to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
What did the marvel mean ? Like the miracle which they had witnessed that night on the Lake when the Lord came to them over the rough waters, it was an anticipation of that crowning miracle whereof He had been vainly seeking to apprise them—His Resurrection from the dead, the transformation of His mortal body, “the body of His humiliation,” into “a spiritual, a heavenly body,” emancipated from earthly limitations and fitted for that Kingdom which “flesh and blood cannot inherit.” (Phil. iii. 21; 1 Cor. xv. 40,44,50) They understood this afterwards when He was raised from the dead and manifested Himself to them “alive after His Passion ” ; but meanwhile they did not, they could not understand it. They could only gaze in wonderment until the vision faded and the two heavenly visitants were passing from their view ; and then the impulsive Peter spoke, discovering how little he and his comrades comprehended the revelation. “Lord,” he cried, 4 ‘ it is good that we should he here * If you please, I will make here three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” It may have been a foolish speech, but it was love that prompted it. The thought that the dear Master must die a cruel death was terrible to him ; and here, he fancied, was a way of escape. Why quit the hallowed mount and resume the bitter conflict ? The words were still on his lips when a radiant cloud overshadowed them, and the Divine Voice which had spoken at the Jordan proclaiming His Messiahship, spoke again : “This is My Son, My Beloved : hearken to Him.” Awestricken, they fell on their faces and lay prostrate until He touched [ p. 216 ] them and bade them rise ; and when they looked about them, He was there alone.
What was the purpose of the Transfiguration ? It served, in the first place, as an encouragement to our Lord in view of the difficulties which encompassed Him and the ordeal which was looming so grimly before Him. His converse with those two glorified saints of old whose names were the greatest in Israel’s history showed Him that, though misunderstood and hated on earth, He had Heaven’s sympathy and approbation. It was like a vision of home to the weary traveller, and it nerved Him to tread the sorrowful way to the end. And it had a message also for the three disciples. His announcement of His approaching Passion had horrified them ; but how did Moses and Elijah view that dread consummation ? In their eyes His death was no tragic disaster; it was “the Exodus which He was soon to accomplish at Jerusalem”—a triumphant deliverance, grander than that ancient deliverance which Moses had achieved when he led Israel forth from the land of bondage.
On the morrow they returned to Caesarea, and as they made their way down the mountain, the Lord enjoined the three to keep silence meanwhile regarding what they had seen. Though they had themselves understood it, their story of the Transfiguration would have been misconstrued by their duller comrades and still more by the multitude, and would inevitably have confirmed them in their wild anticipations. And indeed its significance was hidden even from the three. Despite His express intimation of His approaching Passion they still clung to their expectation of a worldly triumph, and His premonition of His Resurrection had [ p. 217 ] merely bewildered them. Nothing but the actual event would dispel their illusion and reveal to them the significance of their experience on the Mount. And so He bade them say nothing of it “until the Son of Man arose from the dead/’ It proves the justice of His apprehension that His reference to His “rising again from the dead ” puzzled them, and they “questioned among themselves what it meant.”
So little did they realise its importance that instead of appealing to the Master they dismissed the question and turned to a petty problem arising out of their Jewish theology. Their vision of Elijah on the Mount had recalled to them the Rabbinical doctrine that the ancient prophet would appear on the eve of the Messiah’s advent and prepare Israel to receive Him. Had he not appeared too late ? “The Scribes say that Elijah must come first.” Their question afforded the Lord an opportunity to reiterate and enforce His announcement of His death. “Yes,” He answered, “and Elijah did come.” John the Baptist had come and performed the office which the Rabbis assigned to the ancient prophet. “Elijah did come, and they did not recognise him but worked their will upon him.” And as they had treated the Messiah’s herald, so would they treat the Messiah. “How is it written of the Son of Man ? He will come to suffer much and be set at naught.”
As they approached the retreat where they had left the nine, they perceived that its privacy had been invaded. The Galileans had missed the Lord. They would expect to find Him at Jerusalem during the Passover-week, which that year (28 A.D.) was the last week of March ; but He was not there, and they would [ p. 218 ] return home wondering what had become of Him. The days passed until—if there be truth in the ecclesiastical tradition, both eastern and western, which celebrates the Transfiguration on August 6—four months had elapsed; and then, guided by rumours of His movements, they tracked Him to His retreat at Caesarea. The rulers were as eager for His discovery as the people, and a party of Scribes, no doubt those inquisitors who had spied upon Him so long, accompanied the crowd. They found only the nine, who could not tell whither the Lord and their three comrades had betaken themselves. It was a grievous disappointment to them all, especially to one who had come thither with a burden of sorrow. His son, his only child, was sorely afflicted. He was a lunatic, deaf and dumb and epileptic; and the unhappy father had brought him that the Lord might heal him. He presented the poor creature to the nine in the hope that they would work the miracle (cf. Mt. x. 1,8; Mk. vi. 7; Lk. ix. 1). And they might have done it; for bad not the Lord empowered them to “cast out demons” ? They attempted it, but they failed ; and they were standing impotent and abashed with the crowd about them and the Scribes taunting them.
Just then the Lord and His three companions approached ; and on espying Him the crowd, it is written, “came to meet Him” (Lk. ix. 37)—a significant phrase in the original, denoting the ovation accorded to a royal visitor. The people hastened to welcome Him; and they would have hailed Him exultantly, but when they got near Him, something hushed their clamour and “they were greatly amazed.” Surely it was the sight of His face still shining with [ p. 219 ] the glory of His transfiguration, like the face of Moses when he came down from the Mount and they were afraid to come nigh him.” He asked what was ado, and the afflicted father told his story—how he had brought his poor child to the disciples for healing, and they had failed (Ex. xxxiv. 29,30). “O faithless generation !” He exclaimed, “how long shall I be with you ? how long endure you ? Bring him to Me.”
Willing hands grasped the lad and carried him forward. Excited by his strange surroundings, the poor creature was seized with a violent fit and dropped struggling and foaming at the Lord’s feet. How long has he been afflicted thus ?” He asked the agonised father. “Since childhood,” was the answer , “and many a time it has cast him into fire and into water to destroy him. But,” he implored, have compassion on us and help us, if you can.” “If you can’!” echoed the Lord. “There is no ‘cannot’ where there is faith.” “I have faith,” he cried. “help where my faith is lacking.” It is a blessed law of the moral order that there is a vicarious efficacy in love ; and the father’s faith availed for his imbecile son. The Lord had but to will it, and the power of God would have healed the lad; but foremost in the eager throng of spectators were the malicious Scribes, and a miracle thus quietly wrought they would have pronounced no miracle at all but a natural cessation of the fit. And therefore He acted on the common theory of demoniacal possession. “You dumb and deaf spirit,” said He, “I charge you, come out of him and never more enter into him.” A cry and a paroxysm, and the boy lay to all appearance dead, [ p. 220 ] till He grasped his hand and raised him, and presented him to his father healed.
The Lord retired with His disciples to their lodging in Caesarea. The nine were sorely discomfited by their failure and His rebuke, and they talked it over among themselves. What the reason was they knew very well. During the Master’s absence they had keen disputing on a question that bulked largely in their minds—which of them should hold the chief place by His throne when He established His Kingdom (Cf. Mk. ix. 33,34; Mt. xviii. 1; Lk. ix. 46). It was an ungracious employment. It banished faith and love from their hearts, and what marvel that they could work no miracle ? They knew the reason of their impotence, but, loath to acknowledge it, they cast about for an excuse. Perhaps, they suggested, it was a peculiarly difficult case: special power was required for the expulsion of this sort of spirit. They appealed shamefastly to the Master : “Why could we not cast it out ? ” “Because,” He answered, “you had so little faith. ‘This sort’ goes out by nothing but by prayer.”