“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.’”— Matthew 16:15–16
The Bible is a story about the God who created, who governs everything by his providence, and who will one day transform heaven and earth into an eternal home for himself and his people (Rev. 21:1–3). And through general and special revelation, this God can be known even if the glass through which we see him is presently dim (1 Cor. 13:12). But though God has never been far from us (Acts 17:27), sensory creatures are accustomed to knowing in intimate closeness. How could we love God like that? The answer is Jesus.
There is only one, true, eternal God (Deut. 6:4). But he is a Trinity, revealing himself in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). And while “no one has ever seen God,” Jesus “has made him known” (John 1:18). If we see Jesus, we see the Father (John 14:9). And his disciples were adamant: “We have looked upon ... the word of life” (1 John 1:1–4). But you don’t have to have seen Jesus with your eyes in order to know him and the Father. “Blessed are those,” said Jesus, “who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).
Many people in Jesus’ day, even those who had seen him in the flesh, thought he was just one of God’s messengers (Matt. 16:13–14). But Simon Peter knew better. God had revealed to him that Jesus is the Christ. Christ is a loaded word. It’s the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah, which means “anointed one.” Jesus is the promised “anointed one” who fulfilled the Old Testament offices of prophet, priest, and king. He is the blessed “King who comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke 19:38). He is the great priest “who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). And he is the last prophet, God’s final Word (Heb. 1:1–2). Jesus is the one true believers seek, and when they find, never forsake, knowing that he has “the words of eternal life” and is “the Holy One of God” (John 6:68–69).
And Jesus is “the Son of the living God.” When Scripture calls Jesus God’s only Son (John 3:16), begotten of the Father (Ps. 2:7), it isn’t saying that he came into being; it’s stressing his inseparable union with the Father and the Spirit. Jesus did become one of us, being born of the Virgin Mary. But he is God’s eternal Son, neither made nor created, but begotten from the Father before time.
Jesus was pleased with Simon’s answer (Matt. 16:17). And he promised that God’s church is immovably established on this confession of Christ (Matt. 16:18). So everyone who follows Peter in truly confessing Jesus Christ as Lord will be saved (Rom. 10:9).
Footnotes
Athanasian Creed, 10, 22, 31.
