The text says it plainly. Here's how to see it.
"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Matthew 16:17-19Read carefully. The answer is in the structure.
Look at each one. What kind of statement is it?
Statement 1 is clearly a blessing. Statement 3 is clearly a blessing. So what about statement 2?
The claim: "You are Peter" means "you're just a little pebble." But read that in context:
"Blessed are you, Simon...
You're completely insignificant...
Here are the keys to the kingdom of heaven."
That's incoherent. Why would Jesus sandwich an insult between two massive honors? He wouldn't. All three statements are blessings on Peter.
Jesus makes a statement, then expands on it:
The expansion explains the statement. "You are Peter" is explained by "on this rock I will build my church." Peter = the rock.
When God changes someone's name in Scripture, it's significant. Abram becomes Abraham. Jacob becomes Israel. Simon becomes Rock.
Jesus renames Simon "Kepha" (Aramaic for rock). Then he says he'll build his Church on this rock. The connection is obvious. You don't rename someone "Rock" and then say the rock is actually something else.
The name change itself is the blessing. Peter is the foundation on which Christ builds.
"You are Peter / on this rock" is clearly a parallel. But what kind?
Antithetic (contrast)
"A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother."
Proverbs 10:1
Synthetic (building)
"He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither."
Psalm 1:3
Matthew 16:17-19 is synthetic parallelism. Each clause builds on the previous one. Jesus isn't contrasting Peter with the rock. He's identifying Peter as the rock.
Some claim Petros means "little stone" and Petra means "big rock." But this distinction had disappeared by the first century. They were synonyms in koine Greek.
If Matthew wanted to contrast Peter with a rock, he would have used lithos (stone), not petros. The word choice preserves a pun, not a contrast. Petra is feminine, so it becomes the masculine Petros for a man's name. That's it.
Jesus likely spoke Aramaic here anyway: "You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my church." Same word twice.
Our Lord, who is comparing his Church to a building, when he says that he will build it on St. Peter, shows that St. Peter will be its foundation-stone... When he makes St. Peter its foundation, he makes him head and superior of this family.
St. Francis de Sales
Doctor of the Church
The Catholic Controversy, 1596
This isn't special pleading. Serious Protestant exegetes have been acknowledging this for decades. Many admit the alternative interpretations come from anti-Catholic bias, not the text itself.
D.A. Carson
Baptist
R.T. France
Anglican
Oscar Cullmann
Lutheran
William Albright
Methodist
Craig Blomberg
Baptist
Gerhard Kittel
Lutheran
If it were not for Protestant reactions against extremes of Roman Catholic interpretation, it is doubtful whether many would have taken 'rock' to be anything or anyone other than Peter.
D.A. Carson
Baptist theologian
Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 8, Zondervan, 1984
It is only Protestant overreaction to the Roman Catholic claim... that has led some to claim that the 'rock' here is not Peter at all but the faith which he has just confessed.
R.T. France
Anglican scholar
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Matthew, 1985
The reference of petra to Christ is forced and unnatural. The obvious reference of the word is to Peter... The church is built, not on confessions, but on confessors—living men.
Marvin Vincent
Presbyterian Greek scholar
Word Studies in the New Testament, 1887
The structure shows it. The name change confirms it. The parallelism supports it. And Protestant scholars admit it.
Read the text. Follow the evidence.
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