Series: Who Do You Say I Am?
Message: Who Do You Say I Am?
Preacher: Japhet De Oliveira
Daily Walk: Japhet De Oliveira
Refresh: Open with prayer. Read or listen to Psalm 78:54-58.
Read: Matthew 16:13-24 (ESV). Re-read in the English Standard Version for new insights or questions.
Reflect: Our third question to consider is, "How did Jesus' answer to His own question, and the subsequent conversation around that answer shape the disciples' mission going forward?" In the original language of this passage, there is deliberate emphasis placed on the word “you." Jesus wanted to contrast what the disciples had heard from others or speculated about themselves and draw them into the truth that the Holy Spirit was building within their hearts—a true confession of Jesus not only as Messiah but as God. N. T Wright carefully reminds us that:
It’s important to be clear that at this stage the phrase ‘son of God’ did not mean ‘the second person of the Trinity’. There was no thought yet that the coming king would himself be divine – though some of the things Jesus was doing and saying must already have made the disciples very puzzled, with a perplexity that would only be resolved when, after his resurrection, they came to believe that he had all along been even more intimately associated with Israel’s one God than they had ever imagined. No: the phrase ‘son of God’ was a biblical phrase, indicating that the king stood in a particular relation to God, adopted to be his special representative (see, for instance, 2 Samuel 7.14; Psalm 2.7).
Very soon after Jesus’ resurrection, his followers came to believe that the same phrase had a whole other layer of meaning that nobody had hitherto imagined. But it’s important, if we are to understand the present passage, that we don’t read into it more than is there. What Peter and the others were saying was: you are the true king. You’re the one Israel has been waiting for. You are God’s adopted son, the one of whom the Psalms and prophets had spoken (Matthew for Everyone, p. 7).
This growth in the disciples' faith journey is the same growth that we need to experience ourselves—If we are to lead the movement. If we are to be the disciples that Jesus is calling us to be. If we are to embrace the Three Angels' Messages of Revelation. If we are to do any of these things we have to confess that Jesus is the One. We have to see that in Jesus rests all hope.
Recalibrate:
Respond: Pray for light and clarity in your life.
Research: What elements of the Trinity appear in the first testament?