Who Do You Say That Jesus Is?

Class Outline:

Thursday May 29, 2025

 

MAT 16:13-20.

 

Asking the disciples who the people think He is opens the way for Jesus to ask the disciples who they think He is, which moves the question to the reader.

 

“Who do the people say the Son of Man to be?”

 

Who do “You” say Me to be?

 

Believers conform to the status quo because of fear (JOH 12:42-43).

 

MAT 10:32-33 - the confessors of Christ are rewarded in heaven (it’s not always easy).

 

Believers who proclaim the truth about Christ will be persecuted (MAT 5:10-12).

 

The more real and a Person God is to you, the more likely you will be to proclaim Him. If God is more of an ideal or principle, the less likely you will be to proclaim Him in the midst of persecution - when it will cost you something to do so.

 

“For millions of Christians, God is no more real than He is to non-Christians. They go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principle.” (A.W. Tozer)

 

GAL 6:17

From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.

 

2 Tim 1:12

For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.

[That’s a Person, not an ideal]

 

Peter’s response is emphatic: “You Yourself are the Christ …”

 

“The Son of the living God.” (2 Sa 7:13; PSA 2:7)

 

“Living God” - in one way this adds nothing to the title God, yet in another it is a wonderful reminder that God is not a philosophical abstraction.

 

First used in DEU 5:26 of God from Sinai (contrast to the idols of Egypt and golden calf).

 

Beautifully used throughout the Scripture to remind us that we have a God who is a Person (not an idea, principle, philosophy).

 

PSA 42:1-2

As the deer pants for the water brooks,

So my soul pants for You, O God.

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;

When shall I come and appear before God?

 

PSA 84:1-2

How lovely are Your dwelling places,

O Lord of hosts!

2 My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord;

My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.

 

In Isaiah the king of Assyria reproaches the living God. In Jeremiah, the Lord is the true God, the living God who makes the earth shake. In Corinthians, the living God writes on your heart. In Timothy, the household of God is the church of the living God and our hope is the living God. In Hebrews, we serve the living God.

 

The reason Peter knows that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, is that the Father revealed it to him.

 

Did God the Father directly talk to Peter and not the others? First, Peter would know nothing without the teaching from Christ. In MAT 13:16-17 a similar statement was said to them all because of their faith. They had eyes to see and Jesus explained the parables to them and they saw.

 

Peter listened, he had faith in what he heard and saw, and he thought on or pondered what he heard and saw and the truth was revealed. In the church, the Revealer is now the Holy Spirit.

 

Revelation comes from the Holy Spirit through the Word taught and understood.

 

In other words, no one tweezes this out with intellect or hard work.

 

Messiah is a functional title.

Petros is a functional title.

 

Peter calls Jesus the Son of the living God. Jesus refers to Simon son of Jonah.

 

Peter (singular “you”) can bind or loose on earth because Christ gave him the authority.

 

Christ bids the disciples to tell no one because it is not yet His hour to present Himself as prophesied (Isa 42).