Peter's Confession

The confession of Peter begins with the question; who is Jesus? This is the first time in Mark's Gospel that someone admits Jesus is the Christ. Jesus then defines who the Christ is and what He does. What does Peter's reaction and the context of this passage mean for us today?

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Dan Gurtner

Professor of New Testament Studies

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Tyler Sanders

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Courtney Robenolt

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What is Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels?

Dr. Dan Gurtner takes on challenging passages and common misconceptions in the Gospels.

Dan Gurtner 0:03
This is Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels with Dr. Dan Gurtner. Today we're looking at Mark 8. Dr. Gurtner, can you launch us into the text?

Dan Gurtner 0:12
Sure, we're looking at what is often called the Confession of Peter or Peter's confession. But really this, like every passage in the Gospels is really about Jesus. And what triggers this scene, is the question about who is Jesus? Who do people say that I am? And like all the other passages that we've looked at in the gospels, we want to get some idea of the context. And we want to try to get some idea, first of what Mark is trying to say, to his original readers. So let's look a little bit, we're in Mark chapter eight, at the context of this so called confession to Peter, and especially the scene right before it. Because as we've talked about before, and as the Gospel of John tells us, that Jesus did so many things that I suppose the whole world couldn't contain the books that were written about it. Now, there's some hyperbole there, but Jesus did a lot of stuff. And if you read through the Gospel of Mark, it might take you three or four hours. Now we get the impression from the life of Jesus, that He spent more than three or four hours teaching and preaching and doing ministry. So we're getting a very, very condensed summary of Jesus life and ministry.

Dan Gurtner 1:42
So what we have is the gospel authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, selecting some things, leaving some things out, adapting some of the wording here and there and arranging it. Sometimes it's chronological, sometimes it's not chronological, but it's always deliberate. Remember what we talked about when we looked at Luke 1. And Luke isn't the same as Mark, but I think they have similar purposes in that Luke says that he's putting together for Theopolis, an orderly account of the things that have occurred. So Mark also is orderly. So my point in all that is to say that Mark is putting together here, an orderly account of this healing of the blind man at Bethsaida, right before the confession of Peter, as kind of a historically enacted parable. And by that I mean when we look at parables, we sort of say they're stories that Jesus made up. But this is a story that really happened, but also illustrates something. So it's a miracle, and miracles are really historical, but it also serves to illustrate something about this man's eyes physically seeing things and is analogous to the way the eyes of Peter's faith spiritually see things. Well, let's look at this healing of the blind man at Bethsaida.

Tyler Sanders 3:24
Yeah, this starts in what verse? 22?

Dan Gurtner 3:26
Verse 22. Mark 8:22-26. "And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to [Jesus], a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the village. And when [Jesus] had spat on his eyes and laid his hands on him, [Jesus] asked him, 'Do you see anything?' And he looked up and said, 'I see men, but they look like trees walking.' Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he opened his eyes. His sight was restored, and he saw everything. And he sent him to his home saying, 'Do not even enter the village.'" Now, we know from the miracles we've seen before, that Jesus can heal people instantly. He doesn't even have to be in the same place as people.

Tyler Sanders 4:31
Yeah, he doesn't even have to touch them.

Dan Gurtner 4:33
Right. So there's something illustrated here. He's healing him in stages. The first time he sees sort of vaguely, and then it becomes more clear later. And then comes Peter's confession. And I think Mark is putting this story like this and in this place, because that's how Peter's confession works. He confesses that Jesus is the Christ, so he sees that Jesus is the Christ, but it's not real clear to Peter what that means. That's going to become more clear later on. So let's look at this story of Peter's confession and sort of see how that works. Because there's a lot here, and these two paragraphs- in my Bible, I have an ESV Bible with paragraph headings on top of them-And really, this sort of makes you think that there are two different sections, but they're really one unit. And they belong together, we'll see why. So, "[Jesus] went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi." So they're up north, north of the Sea of Galilee. "And on the way, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that I am?' And they told him, 'John the Baptist.'" Now remember, I think it was in chapter six of Mark, we find out what happens with John the Baptist. John the Baptist is killed. So maybe they think that John the Baptist has now been raised from the dead. Something like that. "'Others say Elijah.'" We know from Malachi 4 that people were to expect that Elijah was supposed to come before the Messiah. Well, maybe some people think that John the Baptist wasn't the one who is coming in the Spirit and power Elijah, that Jesus is the one who's coming in the spirit and power of Elijah. "'And others, one of the prophets.'" So [Jesus] sort of polling them for what's the popular opinion, but that's sort of the warm up question to verse 29. "He asked them, 'But who do you say that I am?' And Peter answered him, 'You are the Christ.'"

Dan Gurtner 7:03
Now, the Christ could mean Messiah, it could be anointed one. Like King Cyrus in the Old Testament was called 'the anointed of the Lord'. So it doesn't necessarily have to mean Messiah. Now obviously here, he means Messiah. But verse 30, this kind of gets confusing, because all of a sudden Jesus says, 'Hey, don't tell anybody this.' And we might think, Why? You'd think; he knows who Jesus is, why wouldn't you want to tell anybody? Well, let's keep reading, and this is why this paragraph division here is so important, that we kind of ignore that. Because in verse 31, we're gonna see something really important that hasn't happened in the Gospel of Mark before, we'll see how we know that. Verse 31, Mark says, "[Jesus] began to teach them, that the Son of Man", (here he's referencing himself, in terms from Daniel chapter 7), "must suffer many things". Now, before we go on and see that, what happened here is-and I think Matthew's account says-'From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples...' So it's a little bit more explicit. But the point is that Jesus began to teach them something that he hadn't been teaching them before. Well, what is it occurred that all of a sudden Jesus is teaching them something new? The only thing that has occurred....Go ahead.

Tyler Sanders 8:49
Yeah well, Peter's recognized who [Jesus] is. He doesn't really know what that means yet. But there's been a recognition,

Dan Gurtner 8:54
There's been a recognition. For the first time in Mark's gospel, a person has said, "You are the Christ." Now, when Jesus casts out demons, they're saying all the time; we know who you are, you're the Christ, you're the Son of God, all this kind of stuff. This is the first time where a person says, you're the Christ. And so what Jesus does here in Mark's gospel, right off the bat, "don't tell anybody." Now what Jesus does is; you've used the term, I'm going to define it. So we've all had these tests, like in high school, where they say, I'm gonna give you a term and you give the definition. So that's what's happening here. Peter's used the term, Jesus is giving the definition. And here's Jesus' definition; "That the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." And notice that word, "must". This essential. So there's no ambiguity about what that "Christ" term means. So, Peter used the term, Jesus jumps on the opportunity and says, Here's the definition of the Christ. And verse 32, Mark says, "He said this plainly." And Peter, who just said, "You're the Christ", [now] there's some huge difference. He pulls Jesus aside, and rebukes Jesus. He just got done calling him the Christ and now he's rebuking him. What's the problem?

Tyler Sanders 10:47
Well, I think [Peter's] understanding was so far off, or what he assumed it meant to be the Christ, was so far from what Jesus told him, he felt like he had to say, that can't be right.

Dan Gurtner 11:03
Sure, yeah. Now, we could get into speculations about what that might be. And there are all kinds of ideas about what the Messiah might be, and we don't know what Peter was thinking. All we know is what Jesus said about the Christ, was not what Peter thought. Whatever it is that Jesus said is the Christ, Peter says; whatever my conception of the Christ is, it's not that. That is not the Christ. And he's so adamant about it, that he's willing to pull aside the one he just called the Messiah and rebuke him. Now, here's the kicker, because "Jesus turning and seeing his disciples", in other words, I think what Jesus is doing here is he's saying this in front of everybody.

Tyler Sanders 12:02
Yeah, I was gonna ask that.

Dan Gurtner 12:04
Yeah, this is not just a private issue anymore. This is now; you said this to me but this is bigger than just you and me, Peter. And look at what Jesus says to Peter. Because this is hard. Because Jesus says all kinds of nasty things to the Pharisees. He calls them blind guides, whitewashed tombs, hypocrites, all these kinds of things. The worst and harshest thing he calls anybody in the Bible is this; [Jesus] calls [Peter] Satan. Now that's nasty. But what I think the point is, he says, "Get behind Me, Satan!" Why? "For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." So your vocabulary, your terminology is spot on, but your concept is polar opposite of what God desires for the Messiah to be. In fact, it is so opposite, that your conception of what it means to be the Messiah is satanic.

Tyler Sanders 13:34
Yeah.

Dan Gurtner 13:35
That's awful. That's awful.

Tyler Sanders 13:39
And it's in front of the others, I don't think to embarrass Peter, but probably to inform them of the same thing, right?

Dan Gurtner 13:48
Well, we go back to verse 31, and I think this is part of Jesus teaching. So no, I don't think it's deliberately to embarrass for the sake of embarrassment. I think it is part of the instruction because my guess is-remember who else the disciples are. There's Simon the Zealot, he's probably having similar kinds of ideas. And others, I mean we don't know, but the fact that Jesus dies and raises from the dead, and even after Jesus says several times that he's going to die and then raise from the dead, and then whenever he's crucified, all the disciples are confused and scared. And the last thing that they expect for some reason is that He rises from the dead. It says that they're still confused. So what Jesus just says here is probably not unique to Peter. And Jesus knows it.

Tyler Sanders 14:50
Yeah. Now, maybe we should tie this back into the parable because there is a lot of parallels here, right?

Dan Gurtner 14:57
Sure.

Tyler Sanders 14:57
Because it's so fascinating to me that Peter, he gets the question right at the beginning. He totally understands, you think he just like nailed it. It almost reminds me a little bit of the Mary and Martha comparison from the narrative we did earlier about a Lazarus,

Dan Gurtner 15:19
Yes.

Tyler Sanders 15:20
That Martha just straight up is like, 'Oh, I know who you are, I know what you can do, Jesus. We have faith that you can do it.' And it reminded me this, because I almost imagined Peter was gonna do the same thing, and of course, he just totally doesn't do that. But it is similar to what we see in that enacted parable a few verses earlier, that this blind man can see, but he also knows that it's not right; 'I can see something, but it looks like trees walking around.'

Dan Gurtner 15:51
Right. So Peter can see that Jesus is the Christ, but his vision is so blurry, that he doesn't know what that means. And I think that's part of the point. Which is amazing when-I mean, we're getting outside of Mark-but it is amazing whenever we get to even like Luke or Acts chapter one. When Jesus is crucified, he's raised from the dead, he's now about to ascend to heaven, and the disciples are saying, 'Okay, are we ready to now restore the kingdom to Israel?' It's like; 'Okay, now that we got this part out of the way, can we kind of get rid of the Romans and move on?' Or whatever they're thinking. And then [he says], "Go into Jerusalem, it's not for you to know the day and the hour, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you."

Dan Gurtner 16:43
My pastor used to call Peter; "Ready, fire aim, Peter." Next thing you know, when the Spirit comes upon him in Acts, he's waxing eloquently. He's thoughtful, he's informed, and he follows the lead of the Spirit. And you get the sense that all the apostles are tripping over themselves and recognizing-and even like the conversion of Cornelius, whenever he has this vision of this food being let down by the sheet, he's so in step with what the Lord is doing, by the Spirit in this, that he intuitively recognizes; look, this isn't about me having an alligator sandwich, this is about the inclusion of Gentiles, as Gentiles into the people of God. So he goes from having everything in his narrow minded box, to being tethered to the teachings of God in Scripture, but open to the work of the Spirit of God in the hearts and lives of people in a really fascinating way.

Tyler Sanders 17:56
Yeah. And I think it's interesting to see how harsh this is, it certainly seems that way, and I think it is that way for Peter. But I'm sure this was a huge moment of realization for him, you know?

Dan Gurtner 18:14
I think it would be because-remember, at least according to church tradition, the gospel of Mark is written by John Mark as the memoirs of the apostle Peter.

Tyler Sanders 18:25
Hmm.

Dan Gurtner 18:25
So when we see Peter fumbling and bumbling in the Gospel of Mark, he's sort of airing his own dirty laundry to us. And it's like he's saying; look at the mistakes I've made. So this is likely coming to us 2,000 years later on the other side of the planet and in a totally different language from Peter himself. So I think we can take a lesson from that. And one of the lessons I take from that, so sort of moving from text to application, I think Mark is telling his readers that they need to understand who the Messiah is, of the Messiah's own terms. And I think the same application is for us, that just thinking in pastoral ministry in our church, for listeners who might just be struggling with things; a wayward child, a health crisis, a challenging marriage, or unemployment, or whatever it might be. Jesus is certainly a counselor, a friend, a healer, he is all those things, but he's not less than a savior. My point is to say that Jesus in this passage, insists it is necessary that he's more than suffering and dying for sins, but he's not less.

Dan Gurtner 20:03
In other words, we can never allow our understanding of Christ and who he is, in our own walk and in our churches, to be less than suffering and dying for sins. He can be more. But nevertheless, it reminds me of-well, I can't remember how long ago this was-do you remember, somewhere in Southeast Asia, when the boys soccer team was trapped in these caves. In these floods and they were trapped in these caves. And these divers went in, and they had a scuba gear on and they go through these caves, and they had these cameras on. And I'm watching this on live TV, and I'm kind of claustrophobic to begin with, and they're showing these maps of these caves and the water is all murky. It's pitch black. And they're showing how these caves go all over the place; up, downs, forward, backwards, sideways. And there's no way they could find their way around if it weren't for the fact that they have this rope that is tied to them, that enables them to find their way back. And the gospel-what Jesus is saying here about who he is in verse 31-is that lifeline. That is that lifeline in our churches, that we always need to keep a firm grip on. That gospel message, that no matter where we go in our ministries, whether we're doing outreach to the poor, whether we're serving people in mental health, whether we're housing the homeless, whether we're feeding the needy, whether we're going overseas and building shelters for people, no matter what we're doing, we dare not let go of that lifeline, that tether, to the Son of Man suffering many things. Being killed and after three days rising again, suffering and dying for our sins. That's the gospel message that I think isn't ours to sacrifice, isn't ours to give up. Jesus takes that very seriously. And I think we need to take that very seriously in our own faith, and in our churches.

Tyler Sanders 22:19
Yeah, this is kind of the fundamental aspect of our faith.

Dan Gurtner 22:24
Absolutely.

Tyler Sanders 22:25
Yeah. I'm sure there's more we could get into with this, but that's a pretty good wrap up right there.

Dan Gurtner 22:34
Sure.

Tyler Sanders 22:34
Do you have any ideas of what you want to talk about next time?

Dan Gurtner 22:37
Healing the paralytic in Luke chapter five.

Tyler Sanders 22:41
Okay!

Dan Gurtner 22:42
Sounds great.

Tyler Sanders 22:42
Dr. Gurtner, thank you so much for your time.

Dan Gurtner 22:44
My pleasure.