Full Transcript
[00:00:00] The Greek text of Matthew 16 makes clear that Peter is the rock on which the church is founded and that he is the one who holds the keys of the kingdom of [00:00:10] heaven. That’s the straightforward interpretation of the passage, and it’s the one that Catholics believe. On the other hand, Protestants go through a lot of mental gymnastics in order [00:00:20] to interpret the passage in other ways. For example, that it’s Peter’s confession of Christ, which is the rock that the church is founded on.
I am going to read the Greek [00:00:30] text of this passage to you and show two clear reasons why it leans towards the Catholic interpretation. So the first is based on just the clear [00:00:40] grammar of the word rock used in the passage. It’s just very difficult to interpret any other way than that Peter is the rock that Jesus is referring to.
[00:00:50] And second, when Jesus talks about giving the keys of the kingdom of heaven, he uses the second person singular pronoun. So he’s not saying that [00:01:00] statement to all the disciples, but specifically to Peter, himself.
So here’s the passage. I’ll read one verse at a time in Greek and then translate it into English, [00:01:10] and then once I’ve read all the verses, we’ll discuss.
Matthew 16:16. ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ Σίμων Πέτρος εἶπεν· σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστὸς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος.[00:01:20]
So in English: Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
Verse [00:01:30] 17. Ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῷ· μακάριος εἶ, Σίμων Βαριωνᾶ, ὅτι σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα οὐκ ἀπεκάλυψέν σοι [00:01:40] ἀλλʼ ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.
Jesus answered and said to him, happy or blessed, are [00:01:50] you Simon, son of Jonah, that flesh and blood, or because flesh and blood, did not reveal this to you, but my father, who is in [00:02:00] heaven.
Verse 18. κἀγὼ δέ σοι λέγω ὅτι σὺ εἶ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ [00:02:10] τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν καὶ πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς.
And I to you say, that [00:02:20] you are rock, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of [00:02:30] hell shall not overcome it.
Verse 19. δώσω σοι τὰς κλεῖδας τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν δήσῃς ἐπὶ [00:02:40] τῆς γῆς ἔσται δεδεμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν λύσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς [00:02:50] γῆς ἔσται λελυμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς .
I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you might bind on the earth, it will have been bound in [00:03:00] heaven. And whatever you might release on the earth, it will have been released in heaven.
Two main points here, one in verse 18 and one in verse [00:03:10] 19. So verse 18. Jesus specifically says, Peter, you are rock. And on this rock [00:03:20] I will build my church. In both cases, the word for rock there is singular. The first use of it he’s giving Peter the name rock. Now [00:03:30] here it’s Πέτρος in Greek, which is a male form of the word.
The Omicron Sigma ending usually signifies, usually, but not always a [00:03:40] masculine noun, whereas the word rock usually in Greek is feminine. The second use of rock here, Jesus says, [00:03:50] ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ. Notice Πέτρος versus πέτρᾳ. So the Omicron Sigma ending is masculine. The Alpha ending is usually, but not [00:04:00] always feminine.
And for the word rock it is feminine. And so the way the gender of nouns works is that each noun tends to have a gender, which is [00:04:10] either masculine, feminine, or neuter.
We shouldn’t be shaken up by the fact that Peter first use, or Jesus first uses the masculine form, then the feminine form of [00:04:20] rock. It’s very clear from the word “this,” that Jesus is referring to the same rock. He’s still referring to Peter, even though he switches the [00:04:30] gender of the word rock.
It would be very hard for him to have said on this Πέτρος, the masculine form of rock, I will build my church [00:04:40] because he would’ve had to change the gender of the word “this” and of the article, the word “the”, that’s in front of the [00:04:50] word rock there, as well as the word “rock” itself. All the genders there in Greek for “this the rock” are all feminine, whereas Πέτρος is [00:05:00] masculine and it would’ve just been a really awkward construction to, to say all that in a masculine form when you’re talking about rock, which is a noun that’s, it’s [00:05:10] always feminine unless you just happen to use it as a nickname for a man.
In which case you’re not [00:05:20] gonna say πέτρᾳ because if it was written that way, it would come across as kind of like an a weird underhanded, like is that a compliment [00:05:30] or is that actually a put down on Peter? It wouldn’t make grammatical sense to call a male a feminine noun as part of his name. Τhe common Protestant [00:05:40] interpretation of this verse that I’ve heard is that Jesus is saying the rock is not Peter, not referring to Peter, but the rock that’s like the foundation of the church is [00:05:50] referring to Peter’s confession, that Jesus is the Christ.
But Jesus didn’t, that’s not what Jesus says. That’s really twisting what the plain meaning of the [00:06:00] scripture is to make that interpretation. And I understand the motivation there is not really to honestly come to scripture and [00:06:10] to learn from it and to report clearly what it says. The motivation is, oh, we don’t want that to be twisted to mean that the [00:06:20] Pope and the Catholic Church has all this power, and so we need to actually change the wording of what the Greek says in order to [00:06:30] make it fit with our interpretations. Which is not honest, right? And not that everyone who’s doing that is explicitly lying. Most probably just [00:06:40] aren’t able to read the Greek, and so they just repeat what someone else has told them.
But for some, I think there’s a sense of like deceiving and being deceived. [00:06:50] So first there’s a self deception that creeps in, like, oh, my paradigm cannot fit the truth cannot fit within my paradigm, [00:07:00] and that makes me uncomfortable. Therefore, subconsciously I actually twist the meaning of what I’m reading in order to make it fit my view of the [00:07:10] world. And that’s a sense in which there’s a self-deception happening, which is causing the person to be deceived, and then they’re going on and deceiving [00:07:20] others by passing around this, this teaching that comes from their own desires and what they want to hear rather than from the truth. Okay, so now let’s [00:07:30] move to the second point, which has to do with the, whether these words you are singular or plural.
So in verse 19, [00:07:40] Jesus says, I will give you. So Sigma Omicron iota is clearly the second person, singular [00:07:50] form. I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus says to Peter.
And then he goes on to say [00:08:00] whatever you bind, and the word therefore bind in Greek contains the subject and the verb. It’s the second [00:08:10] person, singular form of the verb, the second person, plural form, which would be like you all or you, plural, is different. And so we can clearly [00:08:20] distinguish that Jesus is saying specifically to Peter and Peter alone: whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven. Whatever you release on [00:08:30] earth will be released in, will have been released in heaven.
When we read this verse in English or in any other language that does not distinguish between [00:08:40] singular and plural forms of the word you, it’s hard to tell, like is Jesus, we just don’t know. Is Jesus saying this singular or plural, to all the [00:08:50] disciples and therefore in a sense to the church as a whole, but from the Greek, it’s very clear he’s speaking just to Peter.
So once again the Catholic [00:09:00] interpretation of this verse is more accurate than the Protestant one. We don’t have to twist it. We can just say, yeah, it’s clear. Jesus is speaking [00:09:10] specifically to Peter.
Now at this point, it’s important to pause and say, okay, we’ve read what the scripture says. We’ve [00:09:20] understood it clearly and plainly. We haven’t gone through any mental gymnastics to try to twist this thing to fit our theology or our concept [00:09:30] of God or the church.
And now we can do the next step, which is okay, based on that simple truth of what the scripture is saying, [00:09:40] where do we go from there? How do we interpret that? And this is the point where I think the Catholics make their big mistake because it’s a [00:09:50] very, it’s a very long distance from what this passage is saying to then imply that a modern pope, like let’s say Pope [00:10:00] uh, Leo today, to say that the modern Pope Leo is still the one who is like Peter, and he is the rock, and he’s the one who [00:10:10] holds the keys to the kingdom and he’s the one who has the authority to bind and to loose on earth and in heaven.
That’s a [00:10:20] very big jump. What does the Catholic have to do to say that those words still apply? Well, they have to assume that [00:10:30] those words said to Peter are somehow like handed down from Peter to his disciple to one of his specific disciples, [00:10:40] and then who was considered, you know, the second Pope or whatever.
And that that person handed that charge from Jesus down to the next one and down to the next one, [00:10:50] and all throughout 2000 years of history. And that’s a really big stretch. I don’t believe there’s any basis in scripture from which the Catholics [00:11:00] can make those statements.
So what does this passage mean? I don’t have a final answer, but I’m just gonna give some thoughts about it. It stands out to me that [00:11:10] Jesus is speaking to a human being, right? So let’s step back from thinking of Peter as an apostle, as the first Pope, or [00:11:20] whatever frame of reference you have for Peter.
Let’s just remember like this is a human being. He used to fish for a living, and now he’s following Jesus [00:11:30] around seeing what Jesus does. Peter himself has been sent out with the other disciples to do miracles, to cast out demons, to heal the sick, [00:11:40] and he’s just, he’s probably overwhelmed at this point.
He’s seen a lot of amazing things and God has just revealed to him that Jesus is the [00:11:50] Christ, Jesus is the Messiah. And perhaps even more than that, that Jesus is the son of God, as Peter calls him. And then Jesus praises Peter [00:12:00] for saying accurately who Jesus is.
And we know the end of the story, right? We know that Peter goes on to play a very significant [00:12:10] role. In the early church. He’s the one whose speech is reported in the book of Acts after Pentecost when he’s preaching to all the people [00:12:20] who, all the Jews who came in from other places to Jerusalem.
It’s Peter and John who play a big role and are speaking before the Jewish Council. [00:12:30] Over and over again, peter is definitely one of the pillars. It’s not a stretch at all to say that we can just understand Jesus’ [00:12:40] statement as being a simple like, okay, you singular Peter, this person who I’m speaking to now.
[00:12:50] You are one of the key people on whom I’m gonna build my church. Meaning like sort of the church, if you think of the church throughout the ages as [00:13:00] being a building, that’s gonna be built up and that’s, that’s the verb that Jesus uses in this passage. If we think of the church in that way, I mean it’s clear that [00:13:10] Peter is one of the first kind of layers in that church, right?
Just simply chronologically. In that sense, he’s kind of a foundation of the church. [00:13:20] And then us today, it’s like that saying, we stand on the shoulders of giants, right? We have all of Peter’s life and his work and his writings that [00:13:30] can help us today as we seek to live the Christian life and to continue to allow Jesus to build the church through us.
So [00:13:40] saying those words to Peter, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s the first pope. It can just mean chronologically. He’s the first sort of layer of the church along with the [00:13:50] other apostles, although Jesus doesn’t explicitly call them out in this particular passage. Why? Because it’s Peter who’s the one [00:14:00] who just had this insight and just said that Jesus is the Christ.
So Jesus is specifically praising and talking to Peter at this moment. It doesn’t mean [00:14:10] that he didn’t go on later and say the same sort of things to the other apostles, right? There’s so many things that Jesus said and taught that we don’t have written down, that haven’t [00:14:20] survived through the ages, and so we just don’t know what all else he may have said.
Okay, so I hope I’ve made everybody mad in this [00:14:30] video, Catholics and Protestants. I have no idea what Eastern Orthodox teaching is on this specific passage, but maybe I managed to make them mad too. [00:14:40] So if you’re still here, you made it to the end. Thanks for watching.
Maybe leave a comment down below about your understanding of this passage. Are you Catholic? Are you [00:14:50] Protestant? Do you agree with your church’s teaching on this passage, or do you see it a different way? Thanks for watching.