Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God

Matthew chapter 16 marks another significant watershed in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. Up until this time, He has been presented as ‘Son of David,’ with a demonstrated right to the throne, but from this point on, He is presented as ‘son of Abraham’, Matt. 1. 1. We read, ‘From that time forth’, 16. 21, and the Lord proceeds to show that like Isaac of old, He is bound for the altar. He tells His disciples ‘that he must go up unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day’, v. 21. Not only so, but far from encouraging the expectation of an immediate arrival of His earthly kingdom, He shows His disciples that, each must take up his cross, and follow Him, v. 24. A pathway of suffering and rejection was to be their lot. In view of this, and lest they should be discouraged, the Lord took Peter, James, and John up to ‘an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them’, 17. 1, 2, thus giving them a preview of the glory of the future kingdom. In the meantime they had to realize that the promise of an earthly kingdom was not being abandoned, but simply postponed, during which time He would build His church, 16. 18.

But the highlight of these verses is surely the divinely inspired confession of Peter when he declared, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God’, v. 16. Others were prepared to see the Lord Jesus as being on a par with some of the great prophets of the past such as Elijah, Jeremiah, or the more recent John the Baptist, but Peter sees beyond all of these and identifies Him as possessed of full deity - ‘Son of the living God’. It is this that separates the Lord Jesus from all other men, and leaders of world religions. He alone is the eternal Son of the eternal God.

Thou art the everlasting Word,
The Father’s only Son;
God manifestly seen and heard,
And heaven’s beloved one.

JOSIAH CONDER