Hi everyone. Welcome again to Logical Bible
Study where we dive into the scripture texts from today's
Mass. And we're going to look at the
Gospel reading for today, which is Matthew chapter 16 verses 21
to 27. So we'll have a look at the text
and see if we can find out what is meant on the literal sense of
the text, what what does it mean in its original context, which
is what we're all about in this podcast.
So Matthew chapter 16, verses 21 to 27.
Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was
destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands
of the elders and chief priests and scribes to be put to death
and to be raised up on the third day.
Then taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him.
Heaven preserve you, Lord, he said, this must not happen to
you. But he turned and said to Peter,
Get behind me Satan. You are an obstacle in my path,
because the way you think is not God's way but man's.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone wants to be
a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his
cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his
life will lose it, but anyone who loses his life for my sake
will find it. What then will a man gain if he
wins the whole world and ruins his life?
Or what has a man to offer in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his father
with his angels, and when he does, he will reward each one
according to his behavior. So what's the context here?
We've actually just had the famous passage where Peter makes
his great declaration of faith, and then Jesus makes him leader
of the church. He says, you are Peter on this
rock, I'll build my church. I'll give you the keys to the
Kingdom of heaven. So that has literally just
happened. And you can hear that on the
21st Sunday and Ordinary Time. It's also read on all sorts of
feast days, So the feast of Saint Peter, the Celemony of
Saint Peter and Paul. So that is a very famous passage
and you can hear it all throughout the liturgical year.
That leads straight into today, verse 21.
Jesus began to make it clear. So what it literally says there
is from that time Jesus began to show his disciples.
Now that phrase from that time, it's actually a key marker in
Matthew's Gospel. Matthew uses that when he's
about to start a new section or a new major phase in his story.
So he actually used it earlier, just before Jesus began his
Galilee ministry in Chapter 4. So here the signal Matthew is
giving us is that Jesus is now finished in Galilee and he's
going to move to Jerusalem, so it begins the next big section.
And the language here, from that time Jesus began to show his
disciples. It implies that Jesus doesn't
just give them this teaching once, He's giving it to them
constantly. And it appears that the reason
Jesus begins to teach them this now is because they, well, Peter
in particular has just recognized that he's the
Messiah. So Jesus realizes that they're
now ready to hear about his destiny, now that they
understand that He's the Messiah, at least partially, and
he teaches them that he was destined to go to Jerusalem.
So that phrase is interesting. Destined.
Jesus is teaching them what he's about to say to them from the
perspective of prophecy. It's not really I'm going to
suffer, It's more according to God's plan of salvation.
As made clear in the Old Testament, all of these things
must happen to the Son of Man. So if he's thinking of Old
Testament prophecy here, and in fact the word he for destined
can also be translated must. So Jesus wants his disciple was
to understand that these things that he's about to describe have
to happen as part of his ministry.
And they're not just going to be accidents or tragedies, though
they might appear to be. So he's encouraging them when
these events happen, to realize that he's prophesied them and
they shouldn't be discouraged. They're actually necessary.
So he predicts a whole lot of things that he will suffer
grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and
scribes. So these are the people who
should have recognized that he's the Messiah.
But here Jesus says those leaders are the ones who are
going to reject him. He even says here I'll be put to
death. So he's predicting his
crucifixion. And then he says and be raised
up on the third day. This is a very specific prophecy
actually. Why is it significant that Jesus
is in the tomb for three days? It's never fully unpacked in the
New Testament actually the three days significance, one of the
reasons is it probably taps into Hosea chapter 6 verses one to
two. So there it says God will revive
us after two days. On the third day he will raise
us up to live in his presence. So in the context of Hosea, that
refers to God raising up Israel after suffering.
So Jesus is kind of going to recapitulate this in himself.
He's going to make the whole destiny of Israel summed up in
his own resurrection on the third day.
So notice Jesus predicts all these things.
He says he'll be rejected, he'll be crucified, he'll be
resurrected on the third day. So Jesus knows exactly how the
timeline is going to go. Unfortunately, the disciples did
not recall a lot of these prophecies at the time that they
were occurring, that it was only later after his ascension that
they remembered all this stuff. Verse 22 Then taking him aside,
Peter started to remonstrate with him or more literally
rebuke him. So picture this.
Peter is rebuking Jesus. He says, heaven preserve you,
Lord or God forbid you Lord, this must not happen to you.
So Peter thinks Jesus is being crazy.
Jesus has just said I'm going to be crucified and abused and all
sorts of stuff. And Peter thinks, what?
So he's kind of thinking, what's gotten into you?
Jesus, you're the Messiah, you're not going to die.
So Peter is being pretty presumptuous here, isn't he?
He's the disciple who's thinks he needs to correct his master.
Pretty dangerous. But also keep in mind what the
Jews believed about the Messiah at the time.
The Jews did not really understand this suffering
servant aspect of the Messiah, although that is there in the
Old Testament. In Jesus time they focused more
on this idea that the Messiah will be a victorious ruler sent
from God to restore Israel. So that's the assumption Peter
is operating under. He thinks Jesus is the Messiah
and he thinks Jesus is going to be a victorious military leader.
Rather, Jesus says I'm going to suffer and be killed.
And that's not the way that they picture the Messiah at all.
So Jesus in verse 23 turned aside and said to Peter, Now
Merck's Marc's version actually makes it clear that Jesus first
sees the other disciples. So it looks like Jesus doesn't
want the other disciples to be led astray by Peter's false
outburst. He wants to keep them on the
right track. So he has to correct Peter for
the sake of the other disciples. And he says, strong language,
Get behind me Satan. Now there's two interpretations
here of what's going on. It could be that Jesus perceives
that Satan is literally influencing Peter.
So in that case, when Satan saw that Peter had confessed Jesus
as Messiah, Satan wasn't happy with that, so Satan intervened
to confuse Peter. And of course, we now get this
contrast between Jesus blessing, sorry, between Jesus blessing
Peter and giving him the keys. And now Jesus saying, put, Satan
has possessed you. There's a big contrast.
We know this. This is the kind of thing Satan
would do, actually, because earlier in chapter 4, verse 8 to
10, Satan had actually tried to exploit the human instinct to
avoid suffering. That's how we tempted Jesus.
Remember, he said you don't have to go to the cross, you can just
have the glory now. That was one of the things he
said to to Jesus. And now maybe he's tapping into
Peter's own natural inclination to avoid suffering.
And maybe that's why Jesus says get Behind me, Satan, because he
recognizes that same tempter. Another interpretation of this,
when Jesus says get behind me Satan, the Greek word for Satan
just means adversary. So maybe he's not accusing Peter
of being possessed literally by Satan or influenced by Satan,
but maybe he's just saying get behind me, adversary, and that
would fit as well. What about the get behind me
bit? What it basically means is fall
in line. So what Jesus is saying here to
Peter, or maybe to Satan, is I outrank you.
Now follow me rather than trying to lead me.
It's a command to get in line for fall behind me.
And then he says to Peter, you are an obstacle in my path.
More literally, what it says there is stumbling stone.
Interesting, isn't it? There's a contrast between the
rock that Jesus has just made him and now he's a stumbling
stone. The difference is one of grace
versus nature, really. When Peter speaks what the
Father has revealed to him like he did earlier, he's the sturdy
foundation stone that keeps the forces of darkness at Bay, which
is what he's supposed to do as leader of the Church.
But when that same Peter speaks from the standpoint of human
weakness, apart from divine assistance, he is a stone that
causes others to stumble. Interesting, isn't it?
The two sides of Peter, when he's acting with the Holy Spirit
and when he's acting just by nature.
Big contrast. So Jesus says to him, get behind
me, you're an obstacle in my path.
So the kind of idea that Peter has just expressed, which is
that you're the Messiah, you can't suffer Jesus, he declares.
That's actually going to make things difficult for Jesus.
Mission. That kind of thinking needs to
stop. He says to Peter the way you
think is not God's way, but man's What it actually says
there more literally is you are not on the side of God, but of
men. So the fact that Peter doesn't
believe that Jesus will die is because he's the Messiah.
That's just worldly thinking. So he's following common Jewish
opinion not in accordance with God's truth.
And the Catechism actually picks up on this.
I'll include that in the show notes.
It talks about world views of the Messiah versus the view of
the Messiah that Jesus knows is the correct one.
So that's what Jesus says to Peter.
And Jesus is now going to make the point that not only must he
as the Messiah suffer, but also all of his followers must be
willing to willing to experience suffering as well.
It's actually a necessary part of being a follower of the
Messiah. Verse 24 Jesus said to his
disciples. Now, Mark's version says there's
crowds listening to him as well, but given that he generally
speaks to the crowd in parables, his primary audience that he's
sort of speaking to mostly here is probably his disciples.
If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce
himself. So in that culture, it was
common for rabbis to have followers.
A Jew could listen to a rabbi and then choose to follow them
if they wanted to, and they could actually follow them
around the land. So Jesus here is giving the
prerequisites for if anyone wants to be a follower of mine.
Now notice that this implies a choice.
If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, they must make a
decision. That's kind of what's going on
here. It's not an automatic thing to
follow. Christ, there has to be a
decision involved at some point. Let him renounce himself.
Now the word therefore renounce, that's a legal term in that
culture which signified complete disornment, not partial
disornment, complete disornment. So Jesus here means not just to
let go of selfishness and attachment, although that's
probably in here. But as he's going to explain,
Jesus is actually asking for a radical abandonment to God, even
being willing to give up one's own life.
That's what Jesus is trying to communicate to his listeners.
He's saying, look, if you want to be a follower of mine, it's
not going to be easy. Perhaps they thought it was
going to be easy up till this point.
He's now telling them there's going to be suffering and even
death for some of you. And of course, we know that many
of their disciples did die for the faith.
He says let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow
me. So take up his cross.
I mean, those words might wash over us a bit because we're, you
know, when we hear the word cross, we think, of course Jesus
cross, but Jesus hasn't been crucified yet.
The Jewish people would have been quite familiar with this
image of a crucifix of a cross because the Romans crucified
Jews pretty commonly. It was very common, particularly
in Jerusalem, to see Jews being killed by crucifixion.
But here's the thing to mention cross or crucifixion in that
culture, that Roman crucifixions were so brutal, so to even
mention the word would bring to mind images of horrific
suffering. So when Jesus here says takes up
take up your cross, he doesn't just mean deal with your burdens
in life. He's actually talking about a
very extreme type of suffering that would that's what it would
have been conjured up in the minds of the original audience.
In fact, crucifixion was so bad that apparently even the Romans
who invented crucifixion, or who perfected crucifixion, even they
thought it was inappropriate to mention it in conversation.
They even they didn't want to talk about it.
That's how bad it is. So what does it mean here?
When Jesus says take up his cross, he probably doesn't mean
that he expects all Christian disciples to be crucified
literally. He's probably using it as a
metaphor, which means something like you need to make big
sacrifices and bear heavy burdens.
Now, Simon of Sirene, of course he literally did do this.
Chapter 23, verse 26, he takes up Jesus literal cross.
But here Jesus means in a metaphorical way you are going
to need to bear heavy burdens and suffer if you want to be my
disciple. This is something that we don't
like to hear as 21st century Christians, particularly
prosperity gospel kind of stuff. They don't like passages like
this, but it's probably even more extreme than we think.
Take up your cross implies extreme suffering in its
original context, he says, And then follow me.
So Jesus says that his followers must be willing to experience
suffering just as he's about to experience suffering.
So he's telling them the radical demands of discipleship.
They need to be completely set apart to God if they want to
follow him and truly be his disciples.
Jesus is now going to extend his thought here a bit and he's
going to use some words that he's actually already used
before in Matthew's Gospel. He's going to talk about if you
want to save your life, you'll lose it, etc.
Jesus has already said this in Matthew chapter 10, verse 38 to
39. If you remember, he said that as
part of the disciples, the discourse to the disciples, the
fact that Matthew records Jesus saying it on two separate
occasions. That confirms that Jesus often
taught the same phrase on multiple occasions in multiple
contexts. We sometimes think that Jesus,
whenever he uses words, he uses it in exactly the same way all
the time. It has to mean the same thing.
Not necessarily. It was quite common in Jewish
circles at the time, particularly amongst rabbis,
that would have a couple of key phrases that they would
continually keep using, but in different contexts.
And they did that as part of memorization because it was a
primarily an oral culture. A rubber would repeat things
over and over again so that his audience would remember that
phrase. And this is apparently one of
those phrases. When Jesus here says anyone who
wants to save his life will lose it, anyone who loses his life
for my sake will find it. That was echoing in the minds of
many Christians, apparently because Jesus said it a lot.
So for anyone who wants to save his life will lose it.
The word here for life is psyche, and that can mean soul,
but it can also mean physical life.
So there's two possible meanings here, possibly both.
When Jesus says for anyone who wants to save his life will lose
it, he could mean he's telling them not to deny him at the
point of death. As in, one must be willing to
give up his literal earthly life.
Don't try and save your life if you're in a life and death
situation. Do not deny me or the gospel at
the point of death. That could be one meaning or it
could be a warning against sort of spiritual life.
Here, as in it's a warning against worldliness and self
protection. He's telling them that they need
to be detached from those things, otherwise that will lose
their spiritual life. They won't get to heaven, it
will result in eternal death. Maybe he's talking about both.
So then he flips it around and says, but anyone who loses his
life for my sake will find it. What does that mean?
Anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.
It could either refer to being martyred, as in if you die for
the faith, then you'll inherit eternal life.
That would fit. It could also mean giving up
one's old life and possessions and then therefore they'll find
their true life, their true spiritual life.
So it's not clear which of those Jesus means, but certainly it's
something like this. The only way to truly preserve
oneself and to inherit one's true life is to give oneself
away fully to Jesus. And that's what it means to find
life. It means to find eternal life to
enter the Kingdom of heaven. Scholars here have pointed out
that Jesus demands a more radical even than a military
general, because Jesus says anyone who wants to save his
life will lose it, but anyone who loses his life for my sake
will find it. So he's asking for allegiance to
himself, not just to an army or to A cause.
He says you need to be willing to lose your life for my sake.
Very, very strong claim here from Jesus.
Jesus is now going to use terms here that are drawn from
commerce, so he's going to use words like profit, gain,
forfeit, exchange. These are all kind of monetary
terms. He starts by saying in verse 26.
What then will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins
his life or forfeits his life? That's a rhetorical question.
The answer is obviously none. The audience, when I heard that
question, they would have said, Oh well, the the answer is
nothing. A man will gain nothing if he
wins the whole world and ruins his life.
So Jesus is trying to get the crowds to focus on eternal
things rather than earthly things.
He wants them to realize that yes, you know, there's things
you probably want to pursue in this life, but in the end, what
good is that going to be? If you gain the entire physical
world but you lose, you ruin your spiritual life.
What good is that going to be? He wants them to recognize that
our spiritual life is more important than anything else.
Forfeiting that should never be done for a lesser good, And that
applies still today. We can pursue material things,
but never at the expense of forfeiting our spiritual life
and our relationship with God. Jesus says what has a man to
offer in exchange for his life? Now we probably miss this, but
Jesus here is probably alluding to Psalm 49 versus 7 to 9, which
says this truly no man can ransom himself or give to God
the price of his life, for the ransom of his life is costly and
yet can never suffice that he should live on forever and never
see the pit. So that's a clear teaching in
the Psalms that even if someone were to give up his own life,
that is not a sufficient ransom to inherit eternal life.
That seems to be what that phrase is saying.
So when Jesus, he says what can a man what what has a man to
offer in exchange for his life? He's basically saying there is
really nothing you can give in order to nothing physical you
can give to inherit your spiritual life.
So you need to pay more attention to your spiritual life
than physical things. That's the overall thrust of
this. Jesus is now going to use some
really interesting language here that scholars have discussed for
centuries and they're quite divided.
Even if you look at a Bible commentary today, you will see
all sorts of interpretations here.
So I'll read out the entire phrase or the entire 2 verses,
and then we'll dive into it. See what your mind thinks of,
See what you think is the is the fulfillment of this passage.
What is Jesus thinking of? Have a think about it and we'll
see if that fits. For the Son of Man is going to
come in the glory of his father with his angels, and when he
does, he will reward each one according to his behavior.
I tell you solemnly, there are some of these standing here who
will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming with
his Kingdom. First thing to notice about this
is verse 27, the first where there is 4.
So there's a connection there from the previous passage.
What he's about to say about the coming of the Son of Man and
judgment is directly related to what he has just said about He's
warning people not to lose spiritual life.
So Jesus is about to explain why he just said what he said.
He's about to explain the incentive for telling people
they have to have a radical commitment to Jesus.
Why is it they have to have a radical commitment to Jesus?
It's because of what he's about to say here about the Last
Judgment Day. Now, Mark's version adds in some
more information at this point. So Mark's version here adds the
phrases about anyone who is ashamed of me, etc, etc, and
anyone who is not ashamed of me. And so that fits in here as
well. But Matthew has cut that out.
Instead, Matthew starts this part by saying this.
The Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with
his angels. So firstly, who's the Son of
Man? That's the term for the Messiah.
Jesus disciples expected the Messiah to bring in the Kingdom
in a dramatic apocalyptic way. They saw the coming of the
Kingdom of God as being a one time radical event where God
sets up his Kingdom on heaven completely straight away.
Jesus here is telling them that this is going to happen.
It's going to happen at the final judgment.
He that's what he says here. He says the Son of Man is going
to come in the glory of his father with his angels.
So he's telling his disciples here that that is indeed going
to happen. But he doesn't tell them exactly
when that will happen. They were expecting it straight
away. Jesus is not going to comment on
when it's going to happen at this point.
And he says he will reward each one according to his behavior.
What it actually says there is He'll reward each one for what
he has done. If you know the Book of
Revelation, well that should echo for you.
Because remember, one of the last things Jesus says is in the
Book of Revelation is behold, I am coming soon to bring my
reward to give to each one for what he has done.
So this is something Jesus says even in the Book of Revelation.
Jesus is going to come back and reward or punish people based on
their deeds. Notice what they're being
rewarded or punished on. It's for what he has done.
It's not for believing that he exists.
It's not for believing that He's the Messiah even.
And criteria of judgment in the New Testament is always for what
he has done. Let's keep that in mind.
Jesus main point here is something like this.
If anyone wants to get into the Messianic Kingdom, he needs to
renounce himself and follow me. Anyone who focuses selfishly on
his own life and does not lay himself down will not inherit
eternal life when the Son of Man comes in glory to set up his
Kingdom. So that's how we sort of fit the
first half of this reading. In the second-half together,
they do connect well. Jesus wants the crowds to put
things in perspective. One day there will be a Judgment
day. Even if they don't know what it
is, they need to be prepared for that judgment day and everyone
will be rewarded according to their works.
What kind of works would Jesus judge people on?
Well, in the context of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus has
actually already said quite a few times the kinds of things
that are going to be focused on on Judgment Day.
So we see that God will judge people based on their words.
That's mentioned in chapter 12 on their thoughts.
That's mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount and their actions
as well. That's mentioned in chapter
seven of the Sermon on the Mount.
He also says in earlier in Chapter 6, just after the Our
Father, Jesus says God will judge people based on their
willingness to forgive others. And then later in chapter 25 of
the Gospel, Jesus says we'll be judged based on our commitment
to doing the works of mercy for those in need.
So all of those will be involved on Judgment Day.
The picture we get here when we read the entire Gospel of
Matthew is that God and the Son will both be involved in
judgment on the last day and they will take a big picture,
look at a person's life and see how committed they were to the
Kingdom and doing the will of the Father.
All of that comes together, so that ends today's reading.
There's actually one more line in this speech that Jesus gives,
and it's quite an interesting one that's generated a lot of
discussion. So that will be verse 28.
That's not included in today's lectionary reading, but you can
hear that last part of the speech on Friday of week 18 in
Ordinary Time. You might like to chase that one
down by looking at the podcast archives.
So Friday of week 18 in Ordinary Time follows on from today.
If we turn to the Catechism, we'll just go through a couple
of key verses here which are worth looking at.
So paragraph 736 of the Catechism says that we live by
the Spirit. The more we renounce ourselves,
the more we walk by the Spirit. This is in the section of the
Catechism about the Holy Spirit. So basically the Church is
teaching is to get more in touch with the Spirit.
We need to renounce ourselves more, and that comes, of course,
from this passage, paragraph 226.
This is early in the Catechism about what it means to believe
in one God. It says it means that we should
make good use of created things. faith in God the only one, leads
us to use everything that is not God only insofar as it brings us
closer to Him, and to detach ourselves from it, insofar as it
turns us away from Him. And then it goes on to give this
beautiful prayer, and you can clearly hear the link there to
what Jesus says about detachment.
Paragraph 618 talks about how Jesus calls his disciples to
take up their cross and follow him, and it goes on to talk
about how Jesus left us an example that we should follow.
Paragraph 2029 is about salvation and how we achieve
salvation. And it purely just quotes this
If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up
his cross and follow me. That's the entire paragraph,
paragraph 2029. So the Church sees in here an
important teaching about salvation.
If you want to be saved, if you want to be justified, then you
have to come after Jesus. There's a discussion about the
soul in paragraph 363. I'll include that in the show
notes. And then also paragraph 1021 is
a discussion about the judgment day and how Jesus is going to be
involved in the judgment. And also the Second Coming is
mentioned in that paragraph as well.
So there's actually quite a few paragraphs to look at today and
I'd encourage you to have a look at the sharing notes to check
that out. Thanks for listening.
I hope you learned something new.
If you have, please share the podcast around.