Before this gets too Greek and dorky—I’m not bloody Bryan Cross anyway—let me preface this by saying that I don’t ever want to simply give a Catholic interpretation of a passage, and ask you to consider it, and then if you’re persuaded about a Catholic dogma or even all of them, that you should then become Catholic. We don’t believe in Sola Scriptura. (Please see CCC, 100 and 105) To simply become Catholic because those dogmas accord with one’s own interpretation of Scripture would be to be a Catholic on Protestant/Reformation terms. The Catholic worldview depends upon the Church, the visible, united community joined to the successor of Peter, head of the Apostles. I don’t ask you to assume that; but I think it is reasonable in faith to reach that conclusion, looking at Christian history. God and us have won that argument in hundreds of billions of hearts over two millennia.
One other preface: There’s a lot of overlap between us as Christians. There should be! If there is but one “theme” that represents every dogma and ethical directive from the One True Church (TM) and everyone else is somehow arguing that their schism isn’t really a schism, and that their counter-dogma is an acceptable variation and not actually heresy, well, assuming we’re not all inventing divine revelation out of whole cloth, (naturalism) Christians should be able to literally look at each other and go, “Hey, that’s mostly right!”
I make one last gentle couple of apologetic points: It’s not going to pass muster, to use the existence of Christian communities separated from the Church—even if we don’t know what we mean by “the Church”— to stay separated, if one is not a member of the community you mentioned. If you think one of the Orthodox churches has a valid claim, join them. If you haven’t, you’re just running. One the other hand, if you’re Reformed or something, you should say, “These Reformed dogmas, even if imperfectly expressed, represent the truth. Everything else, Lord have mercy, is wrong.” All holy men and women, pray for us, that we may be delivered from the cursed “branch theory” of ecclesiology, and from dogmatic relativism. I’m thrilled that we don’t kill each other as Christians, at least not over the content of Christianity. I’m also more than happy to leave all final judgments of error and its consequences to God alone. This also includes His absolute right to confer beatitude upon anyone, where and to whom I myself would not expect to find it. (Please see Romans 2:12-13.)
OK, enough blather! On to the Scriptures! Let’s pick it up in Matthew 16, at verse 14 through to verse 19: And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! 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 powers of death 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.” (RSVCE, 1st edition via Bible Gateway)
A couple background notes here, still: I believe that this Gospel was indeed written first, as traditionally believed by most Christians until the 19th century, when scholarship allegedly claimed reasons to doubt it. The purported existence of some common document “Q” is the driving force of both the idea that Mark was written first, and that the first 3 Gospels share a perspective (“synoptic”—literally, “with the same eyes”). There is nothing wrong with scholarship; indeed, I do not adhere to any sort of idea that “faith” is contrary to knowledge in any other human area of inquiry. But many of us have been students in the great universities. We know that many experts have lost the fearless willingness to pursue truth that is verifiable. Some prefer guesses and speculation that conforms to what their fellows also say and believe. Nate Silver calls it “herding” when a polling firm adjusts its polling to match others. Standing as an outlier is risky when being wrong or odd could cost money and influence. Credentials in the humanities and social sciences are conferred on and by people who too often simply celebrate each other. And you don’t have to be a writer for the God is Not Dead movies to think that these people might sometimes want the pious to become the impious. Higher criticism is mostly horoscopes for credentialed agnostics.
To the text, then. Jesus asks the Twelve what they've heard about the Son of Man, a Messianic title from Daniel and the other prophets. I think the way this conversation goes suggests that they have already accepted Jesus as the Son of Man, even if they don't know at all what that means in general, or for themselves in particular. And notice how they talk about everyone else they mention: prophecy and divine revelation are, if not normal, not foreign ideas to these people. Sometimes when we try to enter the world of the Bible, we don't realize the excessively rationalistic assumptions we bring, or that we've been given to carry by others. If someone claims that there is no God, or that even if he exists, he does not speak, well, the Bible just seems crazy. But honestly, how reasonable are those assumptions?
Maybe there was something in the way they answered Jesus's first question that he sensed that they didn't really believe Jesus was like a symbol of someone else who'd come before. It's a cottage industry, to tease the apostles for saying silly things in the Gospels, but you'll absolutely notice as you read and re-read them that they truly didn't understand everything all at once. If you're ever confused in these things, you're in extremely famous company.
And then comes Jesus's second question. If nuclear bombs rained joy and blessedness instead of death and destruction, this question and the answer goes off like a million nuclear bombs: "But who do you say that I am?" You will never answer a more important question. There's a sharpness and clarity in Peter's answer that makes sense of Jesus's reply. Peter did not simply deduce this; it was revealed to him by God the Father. He could not have known it through natural reason or deduction. Fair to say that Jesus announces and reveals the plans and purposes of the Father. He is also a source of this knowledge. As we encounter the Holy Spirit in this and the other Gospels, we should understand Him to be either revealing things about Jesus that we need to know, or clarifying things that God the Father wants us to know.
As Jesus calls Peter "blessed," we should realize what this means: the truth about Jesus will be the driving force of the rest of Peter's life. He will himself be saved by the truth of what he has confessed. Pious tradition holds that he died at Rome, crucified upside down, because he considered himself unworthy to die facing up, as his Lord and Savior had.
Take note also of "flesh and blood" there. Notice how much like St. John's Gospel that sounds. If you have a Bible with you, turn on over to John 1:1-18. The scholars call this John's Prologue. If you read that, you'd have to say that John wants his readers to answer Jesus's explosive question in the same way that Peter did. I myself mark the Prologue off all the way to v. 18, because to cut it off any sooner doesn't make sense, in my opinion. Anyway, in John, we see a lot of dichotomies, oppositions. Light and darkness. Flesh and spirit. Natural and supernatural. Old and new. Lesser and greater. John doesn't do this to reject anything that has been surpassed. (Except the darkness.) He does it so that we can live in that present, so that we can receive it. And so that we will eventually see everything in the whole plan (as appropriate) as it unfolds. Personally, I have never lent much credence to the idea that the first 3 Gospels were really similar, while St. John's account was wildly different. I think all four are fundamentally similar, and that any of them can help us understand the others. If Matthew, Mark, and Luke didn't trust St. John (to say nothing of St. Peter) they wouldn't have asked him to write his account of the life and work of Jesus.
Notice also that Jesus asks all of the apostles, but it's Peter who answers. It's Peter who is renamed "Peter" by Jesus! He says, "And I tell you that you are Peter ("Petros"--big stone) and upon this rock (Petra--little pebble) I will build my church, and the powers of death/gates of hell will not prevail against it." He asks the group; he commissions Peter.
On the one hand, everyone should rightly ask, "What's the big deal about Peter? He's just a guy." True. And I'll further concede that the faith of Peter is the real point. If we don't know and confess Jesus, we're all wasting time. But he's still addressing Peter when he says, "And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven." And yeah, if you're wondering, "the keys to the kingdom of Heaven" looks as majestic in the Koine Greek as it does in every other language. Mysterious and awe-inspiring, ain't it? Take a breath.
Go on over to the Gospel of John, chapter 20. Here are verses 20-23:
20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
No big worries here; Jesus is blessing them, and sending them out to preach in His name. (See also Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8) And I would say that binding and loosing probably includes a governance aspect that isn't obviously apparent here. But the Church in its spiritual dimension is the community of people forgiven of their sins by Christ, so they can be in Christ, in order to enjoy eternal life with God in Heaven.
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