The same men who demand a sign from heaven and get only Jonah’s sign in return will, six days after this chapter closes, watch three of their own number see a sign no one else on earth was shown — but first Peter has to say the truest sentence any human being had yet spoken about Jesus, and then, in almost the same breath, become the mouthpiece for Satan’s own temptation to Him.
A study in Matthew 16 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 29 min read
Can Ye Not Discern The Signs Of The Times
“The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven. He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.”
Matthew 16:1-4
Pharisees and Sadducees agreed on almost nothing — this site’s own study of Matthew 14 and the studies to come will keep tracing that rivalry — but a shared hatred of Jesus was enough to unite them for one demand: a sign spectacular enough to settle the question on their own terms.
“Some such sign was demanded of Jesus. But these signs were not what the Jews needed. No mere external evidence could benefit them. What they needed was not intellectual enlightenment, but spiritual renovation.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 406
They had already been given more signs than they could count — the sick healed, the blind seeing, thousands fed from a boy’s lunch — and none of it had penetrated, because the problem was never a shortage of evidence. Jesus answers them with the same sign He had already given once before, in an earlier confrontation this site’s own Jonah studies touch on from the other direction.
“‘And He sighed deeply in His spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign?’ ‘There shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.’ As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, Christ was to be the same time ‘in the heart of the earth.’ And as the preaching of Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so Christ’s preaching was a sign to His generation.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 406
Nineveh, a heathen city with no covenant and no prophets of its own, repented at Jonah’s bare preaching. Jerusalem, with Scripture, miracles, and the Messiah Himself standing in front of them, still demanded more proof. Jesus sighs and walks away rather than supply it.
Beware Of The Leaven Of The Pharisees
“And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.”
Matthew 16:5-7
Jesus is speaking in metaphor; the disciples, embarrassed about a forgotten lunch, hear only literal bread.
“Yet the disciples failed to understand Jesus. In their sudden departure from Magdala they had forgotten to take bread, and they had with them only one loaf. To this circumstance they understood Christ to refer, warning them not to buy bread of a Pharisee or a Sadducee. Their lack of faith and spiritual insight had often led them to similar misconception of His words.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 407
“Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?”
Matthew 16:8-9
Two feeding miracles in two chapters, and the disciples are still worried about a single loaf. Jesus finally states plainly what leaven He actually meant.
“Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.”
Matthew 16:10-12
“The leaven placed in the meal works imperceptibly, changing the whole mass to its own nature. So if hypocrisy is allowed to exist in the heart, it permeates the character and the life.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 408
Hypocrisy works exactly the way leaven works — invisibly, gradually, and completely, until the whole character is shaped by it without ever announcing itself. White does not let this stay safely in the first century.
“The religion of Christ is sincerity itself. Zeal for God’s glory is the motive implanted by the Holy Spirit; and only the effectual working of the Spirit can implant this motive. Only the power of God can banish self-seeking and hypocrisy. This change is the sign of His working. When the faith we accept destroys selfishness and pretense, when it leads us to seek God’s glory and not our own, we may know that it is of the right order.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 409
The same test the disciples failed on the boat — missing the real meaning because their minds were on smaller things — is the test every reader of this chapter still faces: whether faith is producing sincerity or merely producing better-disguised self-interest.
Thou Art The Christ, The Son Of The Living God
“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.”
Matthew 16:13-14
Caesarea Philippi sat at the base of Mount Hermon, ringed with pagan shrines to the god Pan — about as far from the religious center of Jerusalem, geographically and spiritually, as Jesus could take His disciples. The question was not idle curiosity.
“He was about to tell them of the suffering that awaited Him. But first He went away alone, and prayed that their hearts might be prepared to receive His words. Upon joining them, He did not at once communicate that which He desired to impart. Before doing this, He gave them an opportunity of confessing their faith in Him that they might be strengthened for the coming trial. He asked, ‘Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 411
“He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Matthew 16:15-16
“But Peter and his companions turned not from their allegiance. The vacillating course of those who praised yesterday and condemned today did not destroy the faith of the true follower of the Saviour. Peter declared, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ He waited not for kingly honors to crown his Lord, but accepted Him in His humiliation.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 411
Other disciples of John had abandoned their faith in Jesus the moment John’s death made the story stop looking like a triumph; Peter’s confession is made precisely when there is no earthly glory yet to confess Him for.
“And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Matthew 16:17-19
“Jesus continued: ‘I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ The word Peter signifies a stone,—a rolling stone. Peter was not the rock upon which the church was founded. The gates of hell did prevail against him when he denied his Lord with cursing and swearing. The church was built upon One against whom the gates of hell could not prevail.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 412
“‘Upon this rock,’ said Jesus, ‘I will build My church.’ In the presence of God, and all the heavenly intelligences, in the presence of the unseen army of hell, Christ founded His church upon the living Rock. That Rock is Himself,—His own body, for us broken and bruised. Against the church built upon this foundation, the gates of hell shall not prevail.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 413
The wordplay in the Greek text — Petros, a stone, built upon petra, bedrock — makes the same point Peter’s own later denial in the high priest’s courtyard would prove beyond dispute: whatever the church stands on, it was never going to be a man capable of cursing and swearing his way out of a servant girl’s question.
“Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.”
Matthew 16:20
A public announcement, at this point, would have fed exactly the wrong expectation — a conquering king, not a suffering Savior — which is precisely the expectation Jesus is about to spend the rest of the chapter trying to correct in the Twelve themselves.
Get Thee Behind Me, Satan
“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.”
Matthew 16:21-22
This is the first time Jesus states the cross plainly, in so many words, to His own disciples — and He does it in the very same conversation where Peter has just made the truest confession any human being had yet made about Him.
“The disciples still expected Christ to reign as a temporal prince. Although He had so long concealed His design, they believed that He would not always remain in poverty and obscurity; the time was near when He would establish His kingdom. That the hatred of the priests and rabbis would never be overcome, that Christ would be rejected by His own nation, condemned as a deceiver, and crucified as a malefactor,—such a thought the disciples had never entertained.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 415
“But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”
Matthew 16:23
This site’s own study of Matthew 4 already recorded Jesus speaking these same words directly to the devil in the wilderness. Now, twelve chapters later, the man who had just confessed Him as the Son of the living God becomes the unwitting mouthpiece for that identical temptation.
“Satan was trying to discourage Jesus, and turn Him from His mission; and Peter, in his blind love, was giving voice to the temptation. The prince of evil was the author of the thought. His instigation was behind that impulsive appeal. In the wilderness, Satan had offered Christ the dominion of the world on condition of forsaking the path of humiliation and sacrifice. Now he was presenting the same temptation to the disciple of Christ. He was seeking to fix Peter’s gaze upon the earthly glory, that he might not behold the cross to which Jesus desired to turn his eyes.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 416
Peter loved Jesus enough to want to spare Him every ounce of suffering; that very love, undisciplined by an understanding of why the cross was necessary, made him usable by the one power in the universe most opposed to it.
What Shall A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
Matthew 16:24
To a first-century crowd, this word carried none of the softened, metaphorical weight it now sometimes carries.
“Calling about Him, with the disciples, the people who had been lingering near, He said, ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’ The cross was associated with the power of Rome. It was the instrument of the most cruel and humiliating form of death. The lowest criminals were required to bear the cross to the place of execution; and often as it was about to be laid upon their shoulders, they resisted with desperate violence, until they were overpowered, and the instrument of torture was bound upon them. But Jesus bade His followers take up the cross and bear it after Him.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 416
Every person in that crowd had watched a condemned man carry his own cross-beam through the streets. Jesus asks His followers to walk toward that same picture voluntarily, not as a punishment inflicted on them but as a life chosen.
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Matthew 16:25-26
“Selfishness is death. No organ of the body could live should it confine its service to itself. The heart, failing to send its lifeblood to the hand and the head, would quickly lose its power. As our lifeblood, so is the love of Christ diffused through every part of His mystical body. We are members one of another, and the soul that refuses to impart will perish.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 417
The question that closes verse 26 has no dollar figure that could ever answer it — not because the soul is priceless in some vague, sentimental sense, but because there is no currency in existence that trades in the right denomination.
“For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”
Matthew 16:27-28
The disciples heard a promise they could not yet decode, their eyes still fixed on the humiliation Jesus had just finished describing rather than the glory He was pointing toward. They would not have long to wait for an explanation. Six days later, on a mountain apart, three of them would watch that very promise begin to come true — which is exactly where this site’s own next study picks up the story.
