The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity is September 3, 2023.

Readings for Year A can be found here, as used for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity on August 30, 2020.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

Matthew 16:21-28

16:21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

16:22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

16:23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

16:24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

16:25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

16:26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

16:27 “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.

16:28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Last week’s reading, Matthew 16:13-20, told us that Peter spoke for all the Apostles as he confessed that Jesus was ‘the Messiah, the Son of the living God’.

Jesus told Peter that he did not come to that conclusion on his own but through revelation from God the Father.

John MacArthur reminds us of that and of the establishment of the Church, Christ’s holy bride:

Jesus says this is not something you got from your own human wisdom, verse 17 says, but this was revealed to you by God the Father. And following that, He says to them, “In spite of the rejection, in spite of the hostility, in spite of the misunderstanding of the multitudes of people, in spite of the fact that I am not setting up my Kingdom instantaneously and overthrowing the Romans and taking the Herodians off their petty thrones, and in spite of the fact that I am not establishing immediately a glorious, majestic Kingdom, I am continuing to build my assembly of redeemed people.” And it’s important that He tell them that.

So now they know He is the Messiah, and they know He is continuing to build that which God has sent Him to build, the great and glorious church. And He says to them, the end of verse 18, “Even the gates of Hades shall not stop this” … “the gates of Hades” is a Jewish colloquialism for death. At least five times in the Old Testament, twice in Job, twice in Psalms, and once in Isaiah 38:10, you have the same statement, the gates of Hades, the gates of Sheol, the bars of death, and it all refers to death.

And so the Lord says, “Look, I am the Messiah, I am building my Kingdom, and death will not stop it.”

Our Lord’s ministry is in a transition stage towards the end, as evidenced from the first few words of verse 21, ‘From that time on’.

At that point, Jesus ‘began to show’ the disciples that He must go to Jerusalem to suffer at the hands of the Jewish hierarchy, be killed and rise again on the third day (verse 21).

MacArthur ties verse 21 in with verse 18:

And having said that, He then moves in verse 21 to tell them He will die. But His death is not permanent because He says the gates of Hades can’t stop Him.

However, the disciples do not fully grasp what he is saying, because they remember what the prophets of the Old Testament said about the Messiah.

Jesus had told them (Matthew 13) about the mystery era of the Church which God had not revealed to the prophets. The mystery era, which will end at His Second Coming in glory, will not be all sweetness and light, as discussed below:

Readings for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, Year A — exegesis on the Gospel, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52, part 1 (July 30, 2023)

Readings for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, Year A — exegesis on the Gospel, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52, part 2 (July 30, 2023)

Readings for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, Year A — exegesis on the Gospel, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52, part 3 (July 30, 2023)

Nonetheless, the disciples could not grasp that, because they still had the prophetic Messianic point of view in their minds. Jesus told them sternly not to tell anyone that He was the Messiah (Matthew 16:20). The Holy Spirit would tie everything together for them at the first Pentecost, reminding them of all that Jesus had told them.

MacArthur explains:

So He’s moving them through the truth they need to understand. He’s laying down a foundation. But now listen very carefully. They understood that He was the Messiah. They now understand that He’s going to build His church. They have heard Him say the gates of death cannot stop that. But the one thing they still cannot handle is that the Messiah should suffer and die, that the Messiah, the King, the Anointed One should suffer humiliation, rejection, hostility and death is really not within the framework of their Messianic viewpoint …

… Now, granted, they don’t understand all that He’s teaching. In fact, it’s kind of interesting to note that it says there that He began to show these things. And their lesson after lesson after lesson, He’s talking about it in chapter 17, He’s talking about it in chapter 20, He’s talking about it further on in Matthew’s gospel, He talks to them about it in John 12, He talks to them about it many times and it isn’t recorded.

He’s continuing to show these things to them about His death and resurrection, which they never are able to grasp, as indicated, for example, in John 13 where when Jesus stoops to wash the dirty feet of the disciples, Peter says, “You will never wash my feet, get up.” And what he is saying is, “I have no room for a humiliated Messiah. It can’t be.” And even when Jesus does go to the cross, they scatter [except for John]. And even after the death of Christ, as they walk the road to Emmaus, they are in utter confusion about what’s happened.

So the Lord is teaching them, unfolding lessons which they never will fully understand until the Holy Spirit comes, and when the Holy Spirit comes, Jesus said to them, “He will bring all things to your” – what? – “remembrance.” And all of a sudden when the Spirit of God came, the lights went on and all these lessons and all their meaning became real to them.

And so here, He begins to speak to them, to prepare them for the meaning of His death, which will fully dawn under the ministry of the Spirit of God, and then they’ll proclaim it with all their being and write it to give it as the legacy of God to the generations to follow.

Matthew Henry’s commentary tells us why Jerusalem had to be the place Jesus would die:

… he must die at Jerusalem; there all the sacrifices were offered, there therefore he must die, who is the great sacrifice.

MacArthur reminds us that Jerusalem was not a holy city in our Lord’s era:

… the city of Jerusalem, by the time Jesus got there, was hostile to God. It wasn’t the city of God. We can’t even call it the city of God. We can’t even call it Jerusalem, foundation of peace, because when Jesus was born, it tried to kill Him as an infant. And when He began His ministry, the first Passover He went to the city, He took a whip in John 2 it says, and He had to clean out the defilement in the temple there. And hatred of Him was born at that moment. The second Passover of His life, He went there, violated their sabbath tradition, and they tried to kill Him, says John 5. The third Passover of His ministry, He deliberately stayed away because of their hatred.

Later in the year, He went to attend the Feast of Tabernacles and the leaders – in John 7 – tried to arrest Him to execute Him. In John 8, He went to the temple to teach, and they tried to stone Him to death. He taught in the porch of Solomon and had to escape for His life. And when He returns for that last Passover and raises Lazarus from the dead, it is at the expense of His own life and they kill Him.

Jerusalem was not the city of David. It was not the city of God. It was not the foundation of peace. Jerusalem has a new name today, it got that name in the time of Christ, and that name is given for us in Revelation 11:8. Listen to what it says. “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified.” Jerusalem has a new name, folks, Sodom, a new name, Egypt, cursed, not the people of God, outside the covenant. That’s its name. And in 70 A.D., God used the Romans to wipe it out.

It will get its rightful name back, Zechariah 14 says, when it flourishes again when Jesus returns to set up His glorious Kingdom, and then again it will be Jerusalem the Golden City of David, city of God, foundation of everlasting peace. Jesus said He must go to Jerusalem.

Some might wonder, as I did for many years, why Jesus had to die for our sins. It is because God hates sin so much, He required blood sacrifices from His chosen and, as the ultimate redemption for fallen mankind, our Lord’s death on the cross. Hebrews 9 and 10 explain this in more detail, as I wrote in 2019:

Hebrews 9:16-23 – blood, sacrifice

The author establishes that death and blood sacrifice was always essential in the covenants God made with man. Although they continued, there was no need for further ritual sacrifices once Jesus died on the Cross. His death brought us directly into the presence of God through belief in Him. His death absolved us of our sins, something which the old sacrifices could not.

Hebrews 10:1-3 – Christ’s blood sacrifice one and sufficient, Jesus, God, sin, forgiveness

Jesus’s death on the Cross was the one, sufficient oblation — work/sacrifice — for our sins. No Old Testament — Old Covenant — blood sacrifice could compare to His, because only His death took away the debt of our sins. The Old Testament animal blood sacrifices were merely a represenation of the promise to come with regard to salvation.

Returning to Matthew 16, Peter took Jesus aside, rebuked him and said, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you’ (verse 22).

Henry says that Peter had the best intentions, but, even then, was puffed up with himself:

Perhaps Peter was a little elevated with the great things Christ had how said unto him, which made him more bold with Christ than did become him; so hard is it to keep the spirit low and humble in the midst of great advancements!

… It did not become Peter to contradict his Master, or take upon him to advise him; he might have wished, that, if it were possible, this cup might pass away, without saying so peremptorily, This shall not be, when Christ had said, It must be. Shall any teach God knowledge? He that reproveth God, let him answer it. Note, When God’s dispensations are either intricate or cross to us, it becomes us silently to acquiesce in, and not to prescribe to, the divine will; God knows what he has to do, without our teaching. Unless we know the mind of the Lord, it is not for us to be his counsellors, Rom 11 34.

MacArthur says there is a bit of Peter in each one of us with regard to ourselves:

… men don’t have the option to say, “God, I’d like to let you in on my plan. I want you to know my plan so you can adjust accordingly.” That sounds to us ridiculous and yet we do it all the time, when we say to God, “Say, God, I don’t understand what you’re doing, I’ve got a better plan. I don’t like the suffering I’m going through, I don’t like the circumstances that exist,” and we begin to talk God into what we think is a better approach. That’s the same thing …

And we want to offer to God the plan as we perceive it, “Lord, now this is the way the plan should work. Point one, no pain, Lord. Two, no suffering, Lord. No trials, no difficulty, just unmitigated joy and glory.” That’s our plan, always our plan, because as soon as the pain comes, that’s what gets us to pray. When we’re in the times of joy, we don’t pray because that’s the way we think it ought to be anyway and there’s nothing to ask for.

Returning to Peter’s rebuke, MacArthur tells us about the Greek used in the original manuscript:

Now, when men come to the plan and they don’t like the plan, they offer their plan instead. And here we see the presumption of Peter. We saw the plan of God, here’s the presumption of Peter, and this is very presumptuous. “Then Peter took Him,” and may I remind you that the Greek word here means to catch hold of. And it literally means that he put his arm around Him and forcefully dragged Him off.

Now, you know, that’s – two things hit me when I began to think about that. The first one is the brashness of Peter. The second one was the humanity of Jesus Christ. There must have been something so really, totally, consummately human about Jesus that Peter actually thought he could talk to Him as a man talks to his friend. And that’s marvelous, isn’t it? For those who would want to deny the utter humanness of Jesus, He must have been utterly human. Peter would never have thought to do so to God if God were being revealed in some supernatural inhuman way.

And so they’re walking along, he just puts his arm around the Lord, caught hold of Him, the Greek says, and hauled Him off to straighten Him out …

And look what he says to Him. “Be it far from thee, Lord,” that’s idiomatic, that’s a colloquialism, that’s an idiomatic expression. It’s kind of interesting, it means pity thyself, have a little pity on yourself, Lord. I mean don’t do that to yourself, don’t go die. I mean it’s obvious you don’t need to go to Jerusalem, right? You’re here, everything’s fine, there are roads leading to every other place in the world, don’t go there. Pity yourself, Lord.”

Or to put it in its real colloquialism, “God be gracious to you, Lord” or “Heaven grant you something better than that” or “Heaven forbid.” And notice in the middle he calls Him Lord but doesn’t mean – doesn’t mind commanding Him in the process, you see. He’s Lord in name but He’s not Lord in terms of His right to overrule Peter at this point, at least in Peter’s mind. So he says, “Heaven forbid, heaven grant you something better than that, don’t do that. Pity yourself, Lord. Give yourself a break. Take it easy on yourself. Don’t do that.”

And then he adds, “This shall not be unto thee.” We’re just not going to have it. That’s it. That’s pretty bold stuff. That’s a flat-out rebuke. You see, he could not see a suffering Messiah. He couldn’t see a humiliated Messiah. He couldn’t see a crucified Messiah.

Jesus turned to Peter and exclaimed, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things’ (verse 23).

Although it seems rough that Jesus called the Apostle Satan, Henry explains that Jesus knew that Satan, at that moment, was speaking through him:

We do not read of any thing said or done by any of his disciples, at any time, that he resented so much as this, though they often offended.

Observe, 1. How he expressed his displeasure: He turned upon Peter, and (we may suppose) with a frown said, Get thee behind me, Satan. He did not so much as take time to deliberate upon it, but gave an immediate reply to the temptation, which was such as made it to appear how ill he took it. Just now, he had said, Blessed art thou, Simon, and had even laid him in his bosom; but here, Get thee behind me, Satan; and there was cause for both. Note, A good man may by a surprise of temptation soon grow very unlike himself. He answered him as he did Satan himself, ch. 4 10. Note, (1.) It is the subtlety of Satan, to send temptations to us by the unsuspected hands of our best and dearest friends. Thus he assaulted Adam by Eve, Job by his wife, and here Christ by his beloved Peter. It concerns us therefore not to be ignorant of his devices, but to stand against his wiles and depths, by standing always upon our guard against sin, whoever moves us to it. Even the kindnesses of our friends are often abused by Satan, and made use of as temptations to us. (2.) Those who have their spiritual senses exercised, will be aware of the voice of Satan, even in a friend, a disciple, a minister, that dissuades them from their duty. We must not regard who speaks, so much as what is spoken; we should learn to know the devil’s voice when he speaks in a saint as well as when he speaks in a serpent. Whoever takes us off from that which is good, and would have us afraid of doing too much for God, speaks Satan’s language. (3.) We must be free and faithful in reproving the dearest friend we have, that saith or doth amiss, though it may be under colour of kindness to us. We must not compliment, but rebuke, mistaken courtesies. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Such smitings must be accounted kindnesses, Ps 141 5. (4.) Whatever appears to be a temptation to sin, must be resisted with abhorrence, and not parleyed with …

… why did Christ thus resent a motion that seemed not only harmless, but kind? Two reasons are given:

(1.) Thou art an offence to me—Skandalon mou ei—Thou art my hindrance (so it may be read); “thou standest in my way.” Christ was hastening on in the work of our salvation, and his heart was so much upon it, that he took it ill to be hindered, or tempted to start back from the hardest and most discouraging part of his undertaking. So strongly was he engaged for our redemption, that they who but indirectly endeavoured to divert him from it, touched him in a very tender and sensible part. Peter was not so sharply reproved for disowning and denying his Master in his sufferings as he was for dissuading him from them; though that was the defect, this the excess, of kindness. It argues a very great firmness and resolution of mind in any business, when it is an offence to be dissuaded, and a man will not endure to hear any thing to the contrary; like that of Ruth, Entreat me not to leave thee. Note, Our Lord Jesus preferred our salvation before his own ease and safety; for even Christ pleased not himself (Rom 15 3); he came into the world, not to spare himself, as Peter advised, but to spend himself.

See why he called Peter Satan, when he suggested this to him; because, whatever stood in the way of our salvation, he looked upon as coming from the devil, who is a sworn enemy to it. The same Satan that afterward entered into Judas, maliciously to destroy him in his undertaking, here prompted Peter plausibly to divert him from it. Thus he changes himself into an angel of light.

Thou art an offence to me. Note, [1.] Those that engage in any great good work must expect to meet with hindrance and opposition from friends and foes, from within and from without. [2.] Those that obstruct our progress in any duty must be looked upon as an offence to us. Then we do the will of God as Christ did, whose meat and drink it was to do it, when it is a trouble to us to be solicited from our duty. Those that hinder us from doing or suffering for God, when we are called to it, whatever they are in other things in that they are Satans, adversaries to us.

(2.) Thou savourest not the things that are of God, but those that are of men. Note, [1.] The things that are of God, that is, the concerns of his will and glory, often clash and interfere with the things that are of men, that is, with our own wealth, pleasure, and reputation. While we mind Christian duty as our way and work, and the divine favour as our end and portion, we savour the things of God; but if these be minded, the flesh must be denied, hazards must be run and hardships borne; and here is the trial which of the two we savour. [2.] Those that inordinately fear, and industriously decline suffering for Christ, when they are called to it, savour more of the things of man than of the things of God; they relish those things more themselves, and make it appear to others that they do so.

MacArthur has more:

So the things of men are set against the things of God. The plan of God, the presumption of Peter leads, thirdly, to the protest of Christ, verse 23. I couldn’t imagine anything more shocking to Peter than this response because Peter’s intentions seem honorable on the surface. He’s saying this out of love, he’s saying it out of ignorance, he doesn’t want the Lord to die, he doesn’t want the Lord to have the pain, he doesn’t want personally to have the pain that comes in the loss of the Lord. After all, the Lord had provided everything they had – everything – food, tax money, you name it, everything.

And they didn’t want to lose Him and they didn’t want Him to suffer and all that and it was sort of – sort of loving and ignorant, and the Lord hit him with this response in verse 23. “He turned and said to Peter,” the idea being that Peter had pulled Him off and apparently was talking to Him, you know, maybe with his arm around Him, and the Lord just turned around and looked him in the eyeball and said, “Get thee behind me, Satan, you are an offense to me.”

Now that’s a fairly strong rebuke. Two of the terms in that phrase “Get thee behind me, Satan,” “Hupage, Satana.” “Get, Satan. Begone. Leave.” Why does He say that? That’s a stinging, crushing, devastating response. I mean – and it says that Peter began to rebuke Him but he didn’t get finished, he got shot down in mid-flight and he landed with a devastating crash. And you ask yourself, “Does such a small sin deserve such a destructive blast of fury from the Lord?” Well, as soon as Peter said this to Him, the Lord immediately knew the source and He said, “Hupage, Satana” – “Get away, Satan.”

He’d said that once before, you know. Basically the same terms. In chapter 4, verse 10, when Satan took Him up and tempted Him and all of that, and after the temptation was over, you remember what He said? “Begone, Satan.” Luke tells us that Satan just waited for a more opportune time. And I believe that all the way through the life of Jesus Christ, Satan kept coming back trying to divert Him from the cross.

You see, Satan in that Matthew 4 passage and Luke 4 passage, parallels, took Him in a mountain, he said, “Look, there it is, all you want, just go down and take it, it’s yours. Feed yourself, take care of yourself, don’t suffer, don’t be the humiliated Messiah, don’t be the suffering Messiah, turn the stones into bread and eat, take care of yourself. And you want to be a hero to everybody? Dive off the promontory of the temple and land safely and they’ll all go, ‘Ah, He must be the Messiah of God.’ And then I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world and you won’t have to die and you won’t have to suffer, you can be a hero, you can eat what you want and when you want, you don’t have to depend on God, no humiliation, I’ll give you the whole deal.”

You say, “Was that a temptation?” The Bible says it was a temptation. Why was it a temptation? Because the Lord knew He was going to have to bear all the sins of all the people that ever lived on the face of the earth in His own body on the cross and that He would be separated from God the Father, and the horror of that to one who knew no mark of sin in His life was to cause this to be a temptation. Don’t you think for a minute that the Lord wasn’t tempted, He was. He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet – what? – without sin.

And as soon as that temptation came to Him, just that fast did He say, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” He knew who it was coming back. And would you mark somewhere in your mind that the same believer who can be used to speak the Word of God in one verse can be used in the next one to speak the word of Satan? The same believer who on the one hand extols the plan of God can on the other hand extol the plan of Satan? The same one who takes a side with God can turn around and take a side against God?

Jesus recognized the approach, He knew who it was. And Satan was using Peter. Now, you can discuss and debate whether Peter was demon possessed, demon obsessed, devil oppressed, or whatever, but whatever it was, somehow Satan had allowed or prompted Peter to think his thoughts so that Peter was reasoning along Satan’s lines. Whether Satan was actually in his mind, in his body dwelling or whether Satan had actually infiltrated his thinking is not the issue and the text doesn’t tell us, but what we do know is that he was articulating the thing that Satan was continually articulating.

And it was a heavy weight, a heavy temptation, so much so that when it came to Him in the garden, He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood in the agony over that same thing. Satan knows the cross is the place that crushes his head. Satan knows the cross is the place that destroys the power of death which he held. Satan knows the cross is the place where men’s sins are paid for and they are liberated from his dominion into the Kingdom of light to dwell with God forever. Satan despised and hated the cross. But when Jesus was crucified, he tried to keep Him dead and he couldn’t do that, either, because the gates of Hades can’t hold Him.

Satan always came to Jesus to get Him to avoid the cross, avoid the cross, avoid the cross, take the glory, take the power, take the earth without the cross. And here was the same old stuff again. And so He says, “Get behind me, Satan.” Then He turns and says, “You’re an offense to me.” And I think that’s directed to Peter. Peter had become a trap. Peter had become a stumbling block. The word skandalon means to entice somebody to destroy them. Peter was baiting a trap. “Peter, you’re setting a trap for me – a Satanic trap.” He recognized it. It’s an old story. Again and again the tempter launched this attack …

Well, you can imagine Peter’s shock. He could hardly have understood that by his attempt to dissuade Jesus from the cross he was putting arrows in Satan’s bow to shoot at the Savior. But he was. How profound an insight. Oh, to think that in our times of desiring, desiring to honor the Lord or desiring to express our love or whatever, we can actually be loading Satan’s bow, taking Satan’s side. How subtle.

I will conclude here and discuss the next five verses in tomorrow’s post.