Australian Bible Church

A CONTINUATION OF THE THRUST AND BASE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
OF AUSTRALIA ON BIBLICAL LINES …

We have been seeing The Power and the Prodigality of the Works of the Son of Man, as the Son of God, and within this, The Mouth of Man. Now we come to

Australian Bible Church – Nov. 26, 06 Matthew 14-16

A CONTINUATION OF THE THRUST AND BASE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
OF AUSTRALIA ON BIBLICAL LINES …

The Piercingly Apparent Situation between Man and God-

Part II

We have been considering The Works of the Son of Man, as the Son of God, and within this, The Mouth of Man. Now we come to

The Mouth of God

The Dismissal

The petra rock of natural depth and impressive, it was on this, not on the pebble or stone, Peter, that any Church would be built! The word of God emphatically excluded any other rock, many times, both elsewhere and in the very words Christ used. Nevertheless, Peter saw fit to exclude any confusion again, having done well in the identification phase concerning the Lord, by immediately, counselling Christ not to worry about the death bit (Matthew 16:22). Thus such a 'rock' was a pebble indeed, as his name suggested. Stone as stones go, but no rock! If he had been a foundation, it would have cracked within minutes.

It is a good time to review the Rock in the Bible, and what it means.

The 'Petra' (a different word), 'living rock', on which Jesus Christ said He would build His church is not 'petros', 'a stone', Peter... In addition, in that very context and on that very occasion, Peter proceeded to seek to dissuade Christ from dying on the Cross! A founding rock ? it was just Peter, a stone, here found excluding the Cross, and thus himself rocked already.

Christ's answer to this adventure showed who the foundation assuredly was not; for since through Peter, basic Gospel on that very occasion had been rebuked, that disciple heard this response from his Lord: "Get behind me Satan".

Peter's position had momentarily changed to that of an adversary, whatever the motive, however great the dedication. It is ONLY Christ who is the foundation, so that without Him ALONE as God and Lord, among all men, there is no truth; and so has it been always when men exalt anyone, idolatrously, to perform the functions which the Rock of the Bible always reserves for Himself. Calamity is the infallible consequence where such errors go unrebuked!

If any bind (and the apostles could as in John 20, and 3 can as in Matthew 18), their words have irresistible power only when, and because they are in strict accord with the word of God, as God (John 14:12-15, 15:7, Luke 10:17-20), with no supplemental Saviour, Master, teacher or Lord. There is ONE Lord, God (Ephesians 4:4) in the Church. There is room for no more: more is less, and indeed a deadly addition, being delusive fantasy. Foundation on fantasy is worse than nothing, for with nothing, at least you have no illusions. Unfounded, you founder, and what could you then expect!

Thus immediate rebuke came to Peter from the Master, the Rock, the Lord, because of the temptation he was forwarding, the error which after the congratulation, he at once committed, at the highest level! Imagine now if this ‘papal' word TO God about God, had been sanctified in solemn assemblies. After all, what is more crucial a fault than to TELL God what He needs to know, and to CONTRADICT God in telling Him! That has been the Roman Way, like the old Roman roads. It has led to untold horrors, mutilations and insurgencies; though many have been told and the ruin may be estimated in millions.

No, nothing like that was the Petra, the rock on which the church was built. It would have been dead long ago if that were its base. No such power was given to Peter; and indeed, so far from God having to do what the priest tells Him, as one formulation has it, ALL men have to do and are to believe what God tells them. This is firstly because HE, unlike man, KNOWS. It is secondly, because when God saves your soul, it is not so that you might play god all over again, and instruct Him on the manual of life. What next ? will the car owner tell the manufacturer what to write ? Yes he may, but not man God!

Thus, just as the words applied to Peter, petros stone, and to the foundation of the church, petra, rock, diverge in form and basic meaning, so did the authority stay right where it began, in Christ, the ONLY Teacher (Matthew 23:8-10). The rest are brethren, in contrast with this; and who are these brethren who are lords over your faith ? Certainly, ONE of them was NOT Peter. HE says so (I Peter 5). Ignoring words and their meaning is certainly no way to interpret them - as contextually dramatised in this instance!

As with Mary (Matthew 12:46-50, Luke 11:27-28, 2:22ff with Leviticus 12:7-8), so with Mass, so with Peter, these are three figments, three fictions. I myself find it particularly unpleasant when someone makes it appear I hold, did or did not do something of great significance, one way or the other, when it is not so. One feels almost a subject of fiction, put in a novel. When it is to God Himself who is concerned, and yet you make the fictions, and when you pretend to have the power to do so, in addition, there is no help! Crushed to powder is the end of it (Revelation 18-19, Matthew 21:44).

Despising authority is found in various ways; exalting your own into that domain is merely one way of doing it (Jude 8). Speaking evil of Christ, they make Him a movable object at the priest's hand, His doctrine movable, His settlement for sin now once in the end of the world (Hebrews 9), unsettled, unfinished, continuing, and they make it a bloodless sacrifice in their mass, though without the shedding of blood there is no redemption, as well as without suffering, whereas it was with suffering that the only effectual blood sacrifice was made (Hebrews 9:22,26 cf. SMR pp. 1086-1088C). How degrading to the deity is this!

How degrading to make up a Peter who asserts his authority, when in fact that delightful apostle learned so swiftly that to present his authority in the presence of God, is mere madness! How horrid to make of Mary, the Queen of Heaven, and to have popes speak of her as the Redemptrix, when Christ declared that EVERY ONE who does the will of God is His brother, mother ... It is as with children. When they exalt their own authority, as some do now, they despise that of the ones who begot them.

The Foundation

Let us summarise the point on names.

Rock, petra, the church's stated foundation (cf.1 Corinthians 3:11) and Peter Petros, the words denote the Biblically immovable Christ, God, and verbally and factually movable Peter. It is what Peter saw and said, which, as Jesus pointed out, itself came by revelation from God, which is the crucial truth. That was the point of the question, and the nub of the answer. This was the revelation, and this was the Rock: Christ seen, confessed and exalted by faith with biblical connotation (Matthew 5:17ff.) AS THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD.

There is available for man's salvation, no other rock and God says so repeatedly (II Samuel 22:31-33, Psalm 62:1-2, Isaiah 44:9, 26:4 in 1:20, Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 18:30, I Corinthians 10:4, 3:11).

This is the foundation of the church, and God says so. Woe to the man who puts himself or his church or his will or his views or his ideologies or philosophies into that place ... reserved for the Son, whom to have is eternal life (I John 5:12) whom to know, Himself and His beloved Father, is eternal life (John 17:1). As Christ said,

"If God were your Father you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself but He sent Me" - John 8:42.

To love Him, you must KEEP His words, not as sinless, but as zealous (John 14:21-23). It is He who says so. Blessed is the man who knows the Lord: the man who, with John (l John 1:1-4) can savour the reality of knowing the Son and living thereby that eternal life which was with the Father and which was revealed to us. Thus (I John 5:1):

"he who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God,
and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him";

and such remain the very children of God (1 John 3:9).

As Christ said, He shared the glory with the Father before the world was (John 17:3); but God will share this with no one who is not the eternal and uncreated God (Isaiah 42:8). Seize it then? Those who 'take' it, take but air. Those who take those who take it, take but a snare (II John 2:9). Those who take the Son have thus and therefore the Father;... God himself bearing testimony that He is the only rock, over and over, He is the One on whom He expects us to rest on (Isaiah 11:10, Matthew 11:28), He the everlasting Rock, He, the eternal God is our refuge (Deuteronomy 32:4, 33:27), "the sure foundation laid in Zion" (Isaiah 28:16, 32:1ff.)...

In Isaiah 32 and 28, you see, as indeed one saw in Isaiah 7 and 9 before, in the prophecy -

	“For unto us a child is born, a son is given, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God …” -
	that this foundation stone which God will LAY in ZION (Isaiah 28:16), is “ a man,” in whom one must believe, indeed he is not only foundation, but a king, one who
	“will be as a hiding place from the wind, and as a cover from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

Isaiah 29 and 35 with 11, 9 and 32, 42 and 49, show the coming majesty and might of this Son of the living God, in healings and wonders innumerable, indispensable to His recognition, inalienable from His role. This last is a mini-message to Pentecostal excesses! Here is the foundation and the grace of God in the King of the Jews; and as we learn in Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6, it is not enough that He be this, for He will be as He has become: a LIGHT TO THE GENTILES. Knowledge will replace rashness, and what better example than that of Peter himself, whose inspired epistles with those of Paul are so deep in understanding (I Cor. 2:9-13, II Peter 3:16-21). Indeed, ALL scripture is nothing liberated from man’s private resources, “for” it has come through prophets sent as by driving wind of God.

What a transformation was wrought in both of these apostles, by the understanding which the Lord gives. What an understanding was given to Peter as in I Peter 5, when he makes it clear he is to be conceived as one of the elders, NONE of whom have any lordship over the flock. Paul declares, No, it is as helpers of your faith, not as dominating that we operate. Thus in II Corinthians 1:24, Paul is moved to write this, declaring thus their mission:

¨ “Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are fellow workers for your joy;
for by faith you stand.”

To contest this exclusive foundation and mastery in Christ, is not only to contest His own place and prerogative: it is to request the destruction, of an avalanche, which crushes to powder (Matthew 21:44)! God has both said, prescribed, and acted, inscribed sin on the hands and feet of His Son, that He might adopt many children to glory.

This matter of Peter’s place, then, it was resolved at once. The enormous rebuke sundered the air as Peter sought blithely and dully to advise on salvation, to add his own words. No room was there for supplement to the Saviour or addition, qualification or contradiction for His wisdom, to become set later as tradition. Apostles and their companions expound rather than compound, and even that ceased (Galatians 1, Revelation 22:18-19); and never could they impound the word of God, as the scribes did (Luke 11:52, Mark 7:7ff.), with such disastrous results!

The word of Christ echoes to eternity to idolatry: "Get behind Me, Satan!" The Rock being God, and the context making it apparent the Rock is God recognised in the being of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God - the whole point of Christ's question, thus any mismanagement of keys from simple and felicitous brotherly function to personal authority went like a soap bubble.

That having been said, our strength is in God only. Thus it is well to recognise that on this Rock one is never rocked, no, not even to sleep. It is living Rock, apt, able, articulate, reinforcing, immovable, strong.

“He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

God Himself, for whom it is impossible to lie, His way and will being otherwise and He omnipotent, has granted eternal life (Titus 1:1-3, 2:1-3:7), and done it thus, and thus only, not with our works but by His grace! It is His life, and its marvels are not for alteration or transcript!

	Indeed, His Messianic role is both foundational and dynamic, for
	“the eyes of those who see will not be dim, and the ears of those who hear will listen, and the heart of the rash will understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers will be ready to speak plainly” - Isaiah 35.