In saying this, so far from weakening, we strengthen the import of this glorious confession. For first, we must keep in view, that the confession: Thou art the Messiah' is also that: Thou art the Son of the Living God.' If, according to the Gospels, we believe that Jesus was the true Messiah, promised to the fathers - the Messiah of God' - we cannot but believe that He is the Son of the Living God.' Scripture and reason equally point to this conclusion from the premisses. But, further, we must view such a confession, even though made in the power of God, in its historical connection. The words must have been such as Peter could have uttered, and the disciples acquiesced in, at the time. Moreover, they should mark a distinct connection with, and yet progress upon, the past. All these conditions are fulfilled by the view here taken. The full knowledge, in the sense of really understanding, that He was the Son of the Living God, came to the disciples only after the Resurrection. [3643] Previously to the confession of Peter, the ship's company, that had witnessed His walking on the water, had owned: Of a truth Thou art the Son of God,' [3644] but not in the sense in which a well-informed, believing Jew would hail Him as the Messiah, and the Son of the Living God,' designating both His Office and His Nature - and these two in their combination. Again, Peter himself had made a confession of Christ, when, after his discourse at Capernaum, so many of His disciples had forsaken Him. It had been: We have believed, and know that Thou art the Holy One of God.' [3645] [3646] The mere mention of these words shows both their internal connection with those of his last and crowning confession: Thou art the Christ of God,' and the immense progress made.
The more closely we view it, the loftier appears the height of this confession. We think of it as an advance on Peter's past; we think of it in its remembered contrast to the late challenge of the Pharisees, and as so soon following on the felt danger of their leaven. And we think of it, also, in its almost immeasurable distance from the appreciative opinion of the better disposed among the people. In the words of this confession Peter has consciously reached the firm ground of Messianic acknowledgment. All else is implied in this, and would follow from it. It is the first real confession of the Church. We can understand, how it followed after solitary prayer by Christ [3647] - we can scarcely doubt, for that very revelation by the Father, which He afterwards joyously recognised in the words of Peter.
The reply of the Saviour is only recorded by St. Matthew. Its omission by St. Mark might be explained on the ground that St. Peter himself had furnished the information. But its absence there and in the Gospel of St. Luke [3648] proves (as Beza remarks), that it could never have been intended as the foundation of so important a doctrine as that of the permanent supremacy of St. Peter. But even if it were such, it would not follow that this supremacy devolved on the successors of St. Peter, nor yet that the Pope of Rome is the successor of St. Peter; nor is there even solid evidence that St. Peter ever was Bishop of Rome. The dogmatic inferences from a certain interpretation of the words of Christ to Peter being therefore utterly untenable, we can, with less fear of bias, examine their meaning. The whole form here is Hebraistic. The blessed art thou' is Jewish in spirit and form; the address, Simon bar Jona,' proves that the Lord spake in Aramaic. Indeed, a Jewish Messiah responding, in the hour of his Messianic acknowledgment, in Greek to His Jewish confessor, seems utterly incongruous. Lastly, the expression flesh and blood,' as contrasted with God, occurs not only in that Apocryphon of strictly Jewish authorship, the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, [3649] and in the letters of St. Paul, [3650] but in almost innumerable passages in Jewish writings, as denoting man in opposition to God; while the revelation of such a truth by the Father Which is in Heaven,' represents not only both Old and New Testament Teaching, but is clothed in language familiar to Jewish ears ({hebrew} ).