And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.The text for this week has been one of not inconsiderable controversy within Christendom over the centuries—a controversy which has now essentially passed. The issue at hand was whether our Lord sanctioned the primacy of the Roman Catholic church in this text. It was a debate which saw the Orthodox and the Western churches take different sides in the medieval period. The issue was also debated strongly during the centuries of the European Reformation, as one would expect.
Matthew 16:18
The real point of debate was whether the text would actually sustain the weight which the Roman Catholic church sought to place upon it. In the post-Reformation period, when the catholic (that is, universal) Christian church is facing the threat of militant Unbelief at every point and on every front, the issue has faded in importance. There are other more pressing things Christendom needs to focus upon.
No doubt in another future era the issues will be canvassed once again, and the Church will focus upon the proper exegetical meaning of our text. Nonetheless, our text remains more vital and more relevant than ever before. For its significance to our age is now unquestioned; the text needs (or rather our minds need) to be liberated from the Reformational debates and we need to believe upon its promises once more.
For our part, we believe the classic Protestant view is correct: that Peter and the apostles were the foundation stones of the Church. This position of being the fundamental ground of the Church, as Paul also declares in Ephesians 2: 20) did not belong to them as isolated individuals, but as that special college of men to whom God had revealed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah and was also the Son of the Living God.
Upon the rock of apostolic revealed and professed faith in Christ, the Lord would build His Church. Here we have the first indication of why this text is so relevant and important in our day. The Lord declares that the building of the Church—its truth, its light, its power, its influence, its extension and significance in the world—is His work. He will build it, not men. He will use men, but will not be dependant upon them. It is heaven which will inspire and empower men as His servants.
As the forces of Unbelief mount and gather strength in the Western world many a Christian may become timorous and fearful. Many may be tempted to consider placating the foe, or seek some accommodation with the latter day Athens before it is too late. Better to save something than lose everything. Not so. It is the Lord who builds His Church. Either we would be willing stones in the grand enterprise, or we will be rejected.
This leads to the second reason why our text is so vital to our day. The Lord's building of the Church would be so powerful, declares our text, that the gates of Hell would not be able to withstand it. Now, let us mark well, that is not how many in our day understand the Lord's words. They have not had the faith to hear them and receive them.
Through most of the previous century the Christian Church went through a long night of pessimism. It deserved to do so in many ways, for at the beginning of the twentieth century, in general, the Church in the West had got caught up with the widespread optimism of progress and prosperity that the ideology of the Enlightenment was busy pushing everywhere. Truth, reason, justice, liberty, peace, prosperity—the universal reign of goodness—was just around the corner. Mankind was on the cusp of the new heavens and the new earth. The Church had confused secular rationalistic idolatry with the Christian faith. It conflated them so that they were regarded as one and the same. The West was the Christian faith, and the Christian faith was the West. It was a most pernicious idolatry to which much of Jerusalem had become suborned and subverted.
But the Lord does not tolerate idols in His presence. So, what followed was the bloodiest, most turbulent century yet known to mankind. As a result a deep pessimism spread through the Western churches. As the idolatry collapsed, so the optimism engendered by the idol dissipated. It was replaced by fear and doubt. The end was nigh. Things were getting worse. Evil would triumph. Eschatological visions of war, collapse, devastation, followed by beliefs in the imminence of the Final Advent of our Lord to rescue the last Christian remnant off the planet before its conflagration. Such views became widespread and commonplace.
But this pessimism was yet a further doubting and unbelieving response to the Lord's discipline upon the Western churches for their joining and participating in the godless humanism of the post-Enlightenment West in the first place. It was just one more idol nurtured in the heart of Jerusalem. But our text became a favorite proof text of the pessimists. They misunderstood the Lord to be saying here that the Church would become a smaller and smaller island amidst a rising sea of hellishness. Yet, Hell would not wipe out the Church; it would abide and remain—a pitiful remnant to be sure, but it would not be extinguished.
But this was fear perverting the text. The Lord is actually declaring the exact opposite. It is Hell which is under siege, and the besieger is His Church. Hell is a fortress city, trying to hold back the forces of Messiah which is waging war with weapons not of this world. Hell has raised its bulwarks high, but it will fail. Its gates will be broken down. Hell will be entered into, broken down, and plundered. Hell will not be able to withstand the onslaught of the Church. As someone once acutely observed, in the ancient world gates were defensive constructions, not offensive. The fearful pessimism of the Western churches in the twentieth century had led to them being “read” as the exact opposite. This is how fear can distort faith, and even pervert the plain and obvious meaning of the Scriptures.
An example of the prevailing pessimistic fear can be found in the translation of our text in the NASB. It reads, “and the gates of Hell shall not overpower it.” The NIV translates the word as “overcome”. Both these translations imply that it is Hell which is the aggressor, and the Church is the defendant. But the actual Greek word means “to prevail against” or “to withstand”. Thus, in the context of our text, if Hell were to overpower the church Jesus would be telling us that the gates of Hell would be able to withstand successfully the onslaught of the Church, whereas our Lord declares the opposite.
If our Lord had said, the armies, rather than the gates of Hell shall not overpower the Church, there may be some warrant for these translations. But the reference to gates clearly places Hell in the defensive, not the offensive frame.
With the rise of militant and aggressive Unbelief, what is needed now is to revert to our Lord's declaration in our text and let it speak with its plain, obvious truth. In the end, the forces of Unbelief are paper tigers. Evil is self-destructive. It integrates into its own void. It destroys itself upon the rocks of its own confusion and contradictions. It tears itself apart from the inside—for the Lord makes it so. The Lord is building His Church. Hell will not be able to withstand it. Its gates will be torn down and laid waste.
The Lord declares, through His servant Paul, that the weapons of our warfare are not of this world, but they are powerful for the tearing down of every thought, word, and deed raised up against the Son of God. As the forces of secular humanism wax, so their downfall will be the more certain. The Lord will make it so. It is He who builds His Church. It is He who has decreed the destruction of Hell's defences. None can stay His hand. So let us believe. So let us act.
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