ONCE WHEN JESUS was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”
19They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”
20“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”
21Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. 22And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Original Meaning
THE GOSPEL OF Luke comes to a major turning point in 9:18–22 as Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ. It opens the door for a full discussion of discipleship in 9:23–50. The recognition of Jesus as the Christ is fundamental to responding to Jesus, but it must be supplemented by an explanation of his messianic activity. Jesus will indeed have a period of glorious rule when he returns to earth to exercise his authority visibly. Then he will judge the unrighteous and vindicate those who are his. But before the glory comes suffering, and his disciples will walk the same road. Thus, after Peter’s confession, Jesus has to teach the disciples about the Messiah. They must “listen to him” (v. 35) to understand God’s plan. To minister effectively they must change their views. Their instincts alone will not be an adequate guide to negotiate their way through the road of discipleship that calls one to suffer and serve, not just to rule.
Luke has been considering the question of who Jesus is in several passages (4:14–30; 7:16; 8:25; 9:7–9). Now the disciples provide a reply that yields a positive response from Jesus.1 Peter knows that Jesus is more than a prophet. They have been with him and know that he is not a mere teacher of God’s Word or one of many agents of God; he is the promised deliverer sent by God.
The confession emerges gradually. Jesus first asks about popular perceptions of who he is. The answer that comes matches the speculation of 9:7–9. The crowd believes that Jesus is a prophet of some kind or the reappearance of John the Baptist. In contrast, Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah. The importance of the difference should not be missed. He sees Jesus as God’s Promised Ruler, though this category is short of a full confession of deity. More time with Jesus and more reflection on the significance of his resurrection will produce that deeper understanding of Jesus and his messianic function.
Peter’s confession can lead to misunderstanding about what is ahead for Jesus, so Jesus immediately moves to correct that possibility. The disciples anticipate a direct route to glory. They believe power and privilege are the destiny of those associated with him. But they have much to learn about the road the Messiah travels. He predicts the suffering of the Son of Man in rejection, death, and resurrection. These things “must” happen; Luke uses the Greek word dei to indicate that God’s design is involved in the call to suffer. This is the first Son of Man saying in Luke that refers to suffering.
The Old Testament background to the necessity of such suffering has been much discussed.2 Some argue that this prediction looks too much like prophecy after the fact and that Jesus did not in fact make a prediction like this. But this underestimates the availability from the Old Testament of themes related to suffering, vindication, and victory. A combination of Old Testament teachings clearly make that association: the imagery of the suffering servant (Isa. 52:13–53:12) and the idea of the suffering of the righteous in the Psalter (Pss. 16; 22; 31; 69; 118). Both these themes teach that suffering precedes glory. It is this surprising route to glory that has caused Jesus to call for silence about the earlier confessions of him as Messiah, for the Messiah was seen as a triumphant figure who did not suffer at all. The disciples must have God’s true plan explained to them before they can share it with others.
Despite the need for more instruction, Peter’s confession is a crucial turning point. In recognizing Jesus as the Promised One of God, he sees that Jesus is unique. Such a building block is fundamental to understanding God’s plan of redemption and its accomplishment through Jesus. Whereas “prophet” was a category that left Jesus short, “Messiah” is one that places him as the promised deliverer from God. That is why in Matthew’s version of this confession, Jesus notes that “on this rock”—that is, on the confession and on people like Peter who see it—the church will be built (Matt. 16:18). To be a Christian is to understand this unique role of Jesus. There is no one else like him in the plan of God. He is the only foundation that can be laid to build the house of God (1 Cor. 3:11).
Bridging Contexts
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF this prediction has implications for the believer’s route to blessing. Jesus walks a path that his disciples are called to follow, though such suffering may well take a different form in the first century. At that time, families separated over religious issues, and isolation resulted. Some cultures today still witness such consequences for trusting Jesus; but in cultures where religious tolerance reigns, the suffering is more subtle. Believers may not be understood, for example, when they value family over a promotion in their job. They may not be understood when they desire to travel to faraway lands to minister the gospel to others rather than pursue a “normal vocation.” Even one’s immediate family may not understand decisions like these (see 9:57–62). Disciples are called to reflect distinct values in the choices they make in life or the values they carry.
Individual choice is not the highest value on life’s board, so that the right to life for the unborn does matter, or one may turn down a job promotion if it does not enhance the possibility of being effective in serving God. Those tough choices may lead to misunderstanding. Such suffering may not be the type of physical persecution Jesus alludes to here, but it is a form of rejection that emerges because one has walked a different road for God. So though martyrdom is less likely in some parts of the world, suffering is still a reality for many who seek to engage the world with their commitment to Jesus.
Contemporary Significance
THE FUNDAMENTAL SIGNIFICANCE in this text is its recognition about who Christ is. There is no greater tragedy or error of judgment in life than to underestimate him. To miss the one who possesses the gift of life is to miss life itself. To understand him as the Christ without understanding who the Messiah really is leaves us short in understanding Jesus. That is why, in 20:41–44, Jesus asks why David called the Messiah “Lord” rather than “Son.” There is a hierarchy in the plan of God, and Jesus stands at the top of it, ministering for God on our behalf from the right hand of the Father. The disciples do not understand that about Jesus at this time, though subsequent events will make it clear.
Many contemporary portraits of Jesus fall short of understanding who Jesus is. Some attempt to accept him as a religious teacher, a member of the religious Hall of Fame, but do not see him as unique. This approach to Jesus is popular in our culture, since it is a tolerant stance that does not foist his uniqueness on anyone. Unfortunately, it is also a view that denies one of the most fundamental claims of the great teacher, namely, that he uniquely represented the fulfillment of all God’s promises and uniquely showed the way to him. Whether one takes the Synoptic portrait of Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s promise in Isaiah 61:1–2 or the Johannine portrait that he is “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6), the point is that Jesus is not merely a prophet, as many in his day perceived him; he is much more. Our culture’s attempt to relativize one of Jesus’ fundamental claims is not consistent with regarding him as the great teacher. How can one respect Jesus’ religious greatness as a teacher and then reject or relativize his most fundamental claim to be the unique Son of God? One cannot have it both ways. Either Jesus was unique in fulfilling the promise of God, or else his claims were a distortion of truth—hardly a standard for a religious teacher of note.
Other more subtle contemporary attempts to relativize Jesus’ claim have recently appeared among some who study the New Testament. They attempt to drive a wedge between what Jesus taught and what the Gospels portray him as teaching. The claim is that the Christ of faith does not equal the Jesus of history. Differences in the Gospel portraits are highlighted as giving evidence of the church’s expansion of the teaching about Jesus. In this way, Jesus’ exalted claims are seen as utterances of the early church, with the most extravagant ones put into his mouth by the Evangelists. Those who promote this position hope to reclaim a culturally palatable Jesus by showing that his uniqueness was the product of devoted followers who made more of him than he did of himself.3 But such criticism fails to explain how Jesus could be crucified and how the disciples gave their own lives for such a belief. It also underestimates how tradition could communicate in summary form Jesus’ life and teaching. It refuses to recognize the possibility that the Gospel writers, in telling their story, could each have had access to fresh facts about Jesus. It also does not recognize that the Evangelists not only quoted but also often summarized the thrust of Jesus’ teaching with some variety of expression. They did so without distorting the fundamental portrait of who he was and what he did. This highly critical approach to Jesus is a modern form of attempting to treat Jesus as a prophet and not as the Promised One of God, thus falling short of Peter’s confession. A Jesus who is merely a prophet reduces the Christian faith to one ethic among many, something it never claims to be. Peter’s confession is crucial because in it he is claiming that Jesus uniquely bears the hope of God’s promise.
This passage also makes clear that blessing does not always come through a path of prosperity. Spirituality often requires great cost and pain (see 9:23–27), and one must be prepared to face the same sort of reaction Jesus faced. Much of Luke 9–19 is dedicated to describing exactly what this path may involve; here we have only the first hints of what is coming. Some parts of the world have an inherently better understanding of this part of the walk with Christ than what exists in the Western world. One of the advantages of being at a seminary with students from around the world is hearing the differing conditions believers must live in as they confess Jesus. It is not unusual to hear about those who lost promotions or jobs or were forced to work on Sunday simply because people found out they were believers. Some faced prison for their beliefs. In some contexts, confessing Jesus literally meant suffering. For those of us who live in a society where sharing Jesus is not outlawed, such testimonies should encourage us to be bold.