Behind the Lord

The disciple's place is to go behind the Lord; every time that he tries to overtake, he hinders the work of God, and he trips up.

Rodrigo Abarca

Reading: Matthew 16:16-25.

The supreme revelation

The passage that we have just read represents the most important moment in the whole time in which the Lord Jesus Christ had been with his disciples. For a long time the Lord had lived with them and had taught them about the Kingdom of God; but now he declares what the supreme matter of the Kingdom of God is. That which constitutes the heart of the Kingdom, the purposes and the thoughts of God. And the man who is chosen by the Lord to receive this revelation is Peter.

We shall therefore observe the man, and also what God has deposited in him. The Lord asked his disciples: "Who do men say the Son of Man is…"; and next comes the answer: "Some say…." Of course, from a human perspective, there may be many opinions about Jesus, but only one truth about The Lord Jesus exists, and that truth is the one that the Father knows about him. Only He can only show us who Jesus truly is: The Son of the living God! It is a revelation of God, and it begins in this way, it continues and consumes everything.

Thank the Lord that His Son has been revealed to us. Because the Lord will also tell you: "Blessed are you, Peter, Paul, John, Sarah, Andrew, Helen -whatever your name may be - because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but God the Father who is in heaven." Thank the Lord!

God the Father deposits that eternal revelation in Peter, and then the Lord Jesus continues: "And I tell you that you are Peter… The Lord says the same to us: " You are Peter"! Because Peter means 'stone'. Not a rock, but only a stone. And this is what the Lord tells us who are in the thoughts of God. You and I brother, we are all Peter. That is to say, we are all stones! "And upon this rock, the Lord added, I will build my church." "You are Peter, a stone, but I am the Rock that the Father has revealed you, Peter, the Christ, the Son of the living God." This is how the Lord shows Peter His Church for the first time.

The Father has shown us that Jesus is his beloved Son and that he is the Christ. And His beloved Son has revealed his church to us. And he has told us that we are stones, and that he will build His church upon that Rock, Himself. So Peter, in his first letter, tells us: "You also as living stones are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood." This means that we are the stones and He is the Rock: "Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious." So then, there are other stones besides Peter.

And the next thing to be said to Peter was: "I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven." The Lord Jesus is the King. The Father gave him all authority and made Him supreme head over all things. Everything was put under the government and authority of His Son, the Christ.

But now that he has the keys -because the Father gave him the keys - he tells Peter: "I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom that I received from my Father I will give to you." Not only to Peter, but to what Peter represents: a stone among many other stones. He will give His authority to those stones. This speaks to us of responsibility. What an enormous responsibility!

Do you know what it means to govern the universe? Do you know how to maintain the galaxies in their course? How to sustain the planets rotating in their orbits? Do you know how to govern the tides and the winds? Do you know how to govern the thunder and the clouds? Do you know how to send out angels and archangels? Do you know how to face the fire cherubs, to stand before them and to have authority over them? Do you know how to reign?

"I will give unto thee the keys..., whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven"; that is to say, "you will have the authority that I have." Just as I govern and the heavens move, to execute what I order over the earth, when you govern, the heaven will also move.

Dear brothers and sisters, do we know these things, and are we capable of them? What do you thin? We should confess that we don't know, and nor are we capable. But the Lord already said it. In fact, if we go forward a few chapters, we find that the Lord says the same thing to the Church as to Peter: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am." And that's why, all that you bind on the earth will be bound in the heavens. It's not just Peter, it is the Church; because Peter is simply a stone that represents the other stones, and the stones are the Church.

But, in order to end up exercising the authority of the Lord and to take the thoughts and the purposes of God ahead on the earth, we first need to go by way of the cross.

The way of the Cross

Notice that Peter has received the greatest revelation of all. Even today, we cannot understand the complete range of what was revealed to Peter. However, the man who has received that revelation is, at the moment, the most inadequate to receive it. Indeed, when stones are taken to make a house, they are still rough. They are rough stones that have to be cut, moulded and carved. They are required to take on the exact form so that they can enter into the house.

Peter is a rough stone and we will assume that, for the moment, we are also rough stones. That's why verse 20 tells us: "Then charged he that the disciples (all the other stones that were with him, who were also rough) that they should tell no man he was the Christ." Why do you think the Lord would have prohibited them from telling others what had been revealed to them? Because they could not yet give testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. They had the revelation, but they were not yet the appropriate vessels. They had not yet been dealt with nor prepared to communicate the testimony of Jesus.

A distance exists between the revelation and the experience of the revelation. Having the revelation does not mean we are already qualified to serve the Lord. The way to service and usefulness for God is not only the way of revelation. Revelation by itself doesn't capacitate us for it. If we receive the word of the Lord and that word is revealed to us, it doesn't mean that by that revelation we are already qualified to go out, to preach, to teach and to give testimony of that word. Look at Peter; what great revelation! However, the Lord tells him: "Not yet! Not until I have resurrected. You still have a road to travel, the way of the cross."

Let's look at verse 21: "From that time (starting from that moment, not before) began Jesus to show unto his disciples, that he must go unto Jerusalem." Notice the Lord's words, it was he necessary. It was not a question of his own free will. Why? Because the Father had imposed that necessity on him. The Lord didn't move by his own will, nor by his own concepts and ideas about things. The Lord moved by his Father's will.

Since the Lord was a man like us, he didn't want to suffer. However, the Lord Jesus Christ didn't live a life governed by his emotions, or his feelings, or his human nature. His human nature instinctively resisted the cross, but his spirit was totally surrendered to the Father's will. And so his human nature was also completely surrendered to the divine will. Do you see? That was the Lord, and that's why the Kingdom of God could be shown through him and God could act through him.

Learning not to overtake the Lord

And on the other hand we have Peter. The Lord knows that he has to go to Jerusalem because that is his Father's will. He is not thinking of himself, he is not calculating the advantages and disadvantages of going to Jerusalem. The Lord's thought is that the Father's will be done. But, in verse 22 it says: "And Peter took him aside"... Please, observe the scene here: The Lord Jesus is speaking with his disciples and he tells them that he has to go to Jerusalem; that is he necessary, but Peter takes him aside from amidst the disciples and begins to speak to him: "Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee."

Dear brothers and sisters, why do you think Peter did this? He loved the Lord Jesus deeply; but it was merely human love. And when things are merely human, they are always a mixture. Man's soul is always looks to itself in everything that it does and so although Peter loved the Lord, he also had a personal interest in the Lord. There was something of Peter invested in the Lord. If the Lord died, all his plans, all that he had invested in the Lord would die with him. What great hopes Peter had in the Lord! How many yearnings! Wasn't it the Lord who consoled and helped Peter? How could the Lord die and leave him alone and abandoned? How could the Lord be so hard and emotionless, not thinking of Peter when saying those things?

What do you think? How could the Lord be like that and do things that will hurt us and will damage us like that?

Look at what Peter did: he overtook the Lord. The Lord always went on ahead, and if you read carefully, this was the case here. That is the correct position: He advances and we follow on behind. Nevertheless, Peter walked quicker and overtook the Lord, hindering him, not allowing him to continue.

Now, you may feel sympathy for Peter, but think about what he is doing when giving free reign to his human emotions. He is doing something very serious: he wants to divert the Lord from his course, and to take him outside the Father's will. Somebody was working behind Peter; someone who always wanted to remove the Lord from the Father's will. Who was that? Satan!

Do you realize how serious this matter is? When we let our human nature take the lead and opposes the Lord, immediately we allow Satan to enter in and block the way, to damage and to destroy the work of God. You see the danger. That's why they could not yet speak of Jesus as the Christ. The revelation and the word were there, but they still lacked the life and the experience.

Can you imagine Peter with the keys of the Kingdom? Think for a moment. What wouldn't he have done to preserve it, make it survive, and to please himself! We sometimes have deep emotions and feelings, but, however deep they may be, they are not necessarily the will of God. Peter had deep thoughts and emotions with regard to the Lord, but he was mistaken, and he had to learn the lesson.

What terrible words the Lord spoke! right? "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men"! Truly, Peter didn't see. Look at the contrast: Peter, on the one hand, has just received an immense revelation, and on the other, doesn't understand it, nor does he know what he has received. Maybe he can speak with the others and tell them: "The Lord showed me this and that", and go on and on about it, but he doesn't understand, because otherwise he would not never have overtaken the Lord.

Peter didn't know the ways of God. We have to know the thoughts of God, and also the ways of God, and these may be summed up in the way of the cross. That's why, Jesus said to his disciples: "If anyone would come after me" (if anyone wants to be my disciple, and to enter into the possession of all that God has prepared for men in His eternal purpose), he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me."

Paul told Peter the same: "I am crucified with Christ...." Do you remember that those words are in the context of the answer that Paul gave to Peter in Antioch? The Lord reminds Peter again, now through another man, Paul, the same lesson: "Peter, don't overtake me; get behind me." Well, in the biblical Greek, "get from in front of me ". That is to say, "your position, Peter, is not to go in front of me, but behind me." " …and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!"

The mere revelation of the words of God doesn't mean that we understand them. This is only the beginning of a long road, where we have to experience the operation of the cross. That's why Paul said: "I am crucified with Christ." Notice that he says it in the present tense: I am; and in Greek this tense is a process of continuous crucifixion with Christ.

The cross means the end of our life and natural energy. It is our natural man's end, not in terms of its destruction, but in terms of its operation and independent work. Look at Peter: he allows himself to be guided by his emotions, he goes on ahead and gets in the Lord's way. So he is in the way of the Lord and contaminates the work of God. He is of no use to the Lord like this.

Peter may be full of revelation, but he is still of no use to God, because what the Father looks for in all things is the manifestation of his Son's life in us. He doesn't want our life to be manifest, however intelligent we may be, nor however much we know about the Bible, our willpower, our decisions, nor our capacity to take things forward. Nor does he want our ability to organize, to order or to carry out plans and projects. The Father only looks for one thing: His Son Jesus Christ's life expressed in us, and nothing less than that satisfies Him.

He wants to teach this to us, but we don't learn easily. By nature, we are so self-sufficient and we admire ourselves so much! Obviously, we may use an outwardly humble language, but consider ourselves within. What secret valuation we have of our abilities and aptitudes! If you are not like this, you are not part of the human race. You belong to another species. But if you are a son of Adam, then this will be so.

We find it difficult to admit to this, and that's why God has difficultly. But the Son of God is different. Look at Him, who has the cross before him, but doesn't pay attention to his emotions, nor to his soul and subjects his whole being to the Father's will, fixing his gaze to the cross. Think about it, he waits for the cross: the lashes, the scorn, the nails in his hands and feet, his body pierced, the jeers, the gibes, the betrayal of his disciples, the agony and the horror of the sin born by him, and, more than any of these, the Father's abandonment. And in spite of everything, he fixes his sights and goes on ahead. He is the Son of God, and the Father wants us to become like Him, hallelujah! Thanks to the Father for His eternal purpose, because He does not renounce nor abandon it. He bears with us, until reaching the purpose of His heart!

This is what He did with Peter. He was no more difficult than you or I. We sometimes go overboard judging his impetuous and accelerated nature, thinking: "I am not so like him." No, my dear brother, we maybe slower, but we are all Peter (a stone), as much for our edification, as for the operation of the cross; as much for service, as for the dealings of God. We like Peter's positive side: "To you I will give the keys, Peter." Nevertheless, Peter was immediately told: "Get behind me, Satan"

Learning how to listen to the Lord

Next, we read in chapter 17, verse 1: "And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart: and he was transfigured before them." How wonderful this was, brother and sisters! What Peter had previously declared: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God", was now shown to him, because the Lord appears in His glory as the Christ and the Son of the living God. His flesh, which was a veil, ceases to be a veil and is transfigured. They see the glory of the Lord in the majesty of His heavenly and divine nature.

What a privilege! But look at what Peter said: "And Peter answered, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, I will make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah." His soul was still very alive, very effective and very active. He had so many thoughts and was so intelligent; so quick to think and to act. Immediately, he introduced his ideas into the heavenly vision. The heavenly vision implies that Christ is unique, central and supreme. Nobody nor anything exists that can be compared to Him. He is over everything, and beyond everything! Immense! Sublime! High! exalted! Lord of lords and King of kings! He is unique! There is no other beside him and nobody can be compared with him!

But Peter thought… Ah! Moses and Elijah are here! Because they were the greatest prophets in the Jewish religion. So he quickly introduced his Jewish ideas, and put the Lord on the same level as Moses and Elijah. Three shelters: for Moses, for the Lord and for Elijah. Peter was on dangerous ground was he not? If it had been for Peter, we would have had three "christs", not one. We would have had the religion of Moses and of the Lord Jesus. Certainly the Lord would have been a little higher than the other two, but with the three of them nonetheless. Those were Peter's ideas and he quickly introduced them. That's why, dear brothers and sisters, we need the operation of the cross. Without the operation of the cross, you and I are always in danger of introducing that which is ours into that which is God's. However, it was not the Lord Jesus who reprehended Peter this time. It was God Himself. A cloud covered them… and look at what it says here: that they were afraid. And God told Peter: "This is my beloved son! I don't have two children, Peter. I don't have three, nor four; only one; and you are only to listen to him."

Peter is corrected again, limited once again. Once again, Peter is out in front and he overtakes the Lord, letting his thoughts go quicker. And he wants to contribute. Do you want to contribute something to the work of God? Don't do it, dear brother; it doesn't contribute anything. The Lord Jesus already contributed everything, listen to the Lord! Neither you nor I have anything to contribute to the work of God. Nothing! All that we contribute will bring damage, confusion and ruin. May we allow the cross to make us diminish, so that the Lord increase. Only that which is of Christ pleases God the Father. The Father tells us: "Only my Son pleases me. Moses and Elijah only existed because of Him. But now that he has come, Moses and Elijah are no longer here. It is only Him. Listen to Him, look at Him and obey Him."

Knowing our human nature

We progress now to the moment before the crucifixion of the Lord. We will look at the Lord and Peter. Matthew 26:30: "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the mount of Olives. Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended in me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad But after I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee." Once again, the Lord always goes on ahead, and we follow on behind.

"But Peter answered and said unto him...." Again Peter spoke, and he was overtaking the Lord. And what did he say? "If all shall be offended in thee, I will never be offended." Peter walked quicker than the Lord. What had the Father told Peter? "Listen to Him." And what does it mean to listen? It means to listen, not to speak; to listen and to obey. And if the Lord says that you and I will be offended of him, will we call Him a liar? The Lord doesn't lie.

Do you know why Peter said that? There are two things that we can observe about Peter: first, he thought that he was better than the rest. Peter thought that the others could be offended, because he knew them: they were weak and cowards; but not him... never! So Peter was made of something better and nobler. What a tragedy! But the beautiful thing is that the mercy of God had determined that that man would one day receive in his hands the keys of the Kingdom. Can you imagine Peter governing and at the same time feeling he was better than all the rest? What would he have done to the other poor brothers and sisters! How he would have mistreated them!

And second: How little Peter knew himself, and how well the Lord knew him! So, brothers and sisters, the Lord knows you better than you know yourself; the Lord knows who you are. Your problem and mine is that we don't know who we are. And this is applicable to the brothers and sisters. Only the Lord knows the brothers and sisters. You don't know them. Peter said: "I know them, I know who they are, and I also know myself. As soon as they can, they will abandon you, but I won't, ever." How terrible it is when we say I know." The apostle Paul said: "If any man thinketh that he knoweth anything, he knoweth not yet as he ought to know." However far along the way you think you've gone with the Lord, you still know nothing and still have everything to learn. This is what happened to Peter.

"Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, that this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." Not only once but three times! And three means a complete denial. "You will deny me completely, Peter. That day you won't have any doubt that you have denied me." "Peter saith unto him, Even if I must die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples." And the other disciples were quick to say the same! Do you see how the other disciples were contaminated by Peter's words? Again Peter overtook the Lord and brought confusion and damage. Oh, what this means for the church of the Lord!, what more unlikely candidate to receive the keys of the Kingdom. Would you have chosen him? Would you have called him? However, if Peter is unfit, so are we, because we are also Peter.

Let us continue with Peter's dark night, verse 69, chapter 26: "Now Peter was sitting without in the court … Peter had followed the Lord from a distance, in the shadows, hidden among the crowd... "and a maid came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus the Galilaean."

How terrible it is when the cross comes to meet us. That night, all the value, all the courage, all Peter's self-confidence collapsed when faced with the simple words of a maid. How the Lord knew him; how little he knew Him! "But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest and when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and saith unto them that were there, This man also was with Jesus of Nazareth… And again he denied with an oath, I know not the man. " Peter swore that he didn't know Jesus. And so all that Peter thought of himself collapsed that night.

"And after a little while they that stood by came and said to Peter, Of a truth thou also art one of them; for thy speech maketh thee known Then began he to curse and to swear, I know not the man." Peter's human nature was proven that night and it was stripped bare. And the true Peter appeared, just as he was before the eyes of God. Because the cross reveals our true condition. How ugly Peter was when he really appeared! When the beautiful vestments with which we all like to cover ourselves fall, when everything collapses, what appears is very ugly. How much darkness, how much selfishness, how much idolatry, how much vanity, how much arrogance, all self-sufficiency, all self-esteem, how much self-confidence. All that ugliness that we hide with other names, appears naked. The cross does this work. And there was Peter, the true Peter, completely unsuccessful, at rock bottom failure. Collapsed in the dust of desperation and defeat! The most terrible of defeats. Broken, parted and crushed in the depths of his being!

The fruit of the cross

So the Bible says: " And straightway the cock crew." And the words of the Lord came back to him so clearly; and so he discovered how true and how terrible the words of the Lord can be. How lightly we sometimes take the words of the Lord. We speak of the Bible with such ease; with such ease we speak of the cross, of death and of resurrection; and of this and that. But when those words hit us with their fullness of meaning, how terrible and hard they are for us: "And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly."

That was Peter. But blessed is God! because that night Peter died. That night the old Peter died and a new Peter was born. That night Peter was broken in two; the dorsal thorn of his human life was broken and he was reduced to nothing. All his pretenses were gone; all his vanity disappeared. Now only Peter was left, the one who had denied his teacher. Never again would he forget that he had denied his Lord. The rest of his life would be lived knowing that he had denied his Lord. All would know that he had denied his Lord! He could never again appear to be something. Because had he ever wanted to be something and be recognised above the rest, that night would return to him to remind him: "You denied your Lord." However, it was that night, the darkest night of his life (when he could no longer hope for anything), that qualified him to be Jesus Christ's witness and to receive the keys of the Kingdom of the heavens.

You know that Mark -according to the oldest traditions - wrote his gospel listening to Peter. And Mark's gospel contains an exclusive event. We will read it now, because Peter was behind Mark's writing of the gospel. It is something that Peter never forgot. He had denied the Lord, he had fallen to the lowest point, the worst failure; but, when the Lord resurrected, and some women went to the tomb, an angel appeared and told them (Mark 16:6): "And he saith unto them, Be not amazed: ye seek Jesus, the Nazarene, who hath been crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold, the place where they laid him! But go, tell his disciples and (and brother and sisters observe with attention) Peter…"

And Peter! Why should they say to Peter?: " He goeth before you." "The Lord goes before you, and you, Peter, are still a stone, you are still His disciple, and he calls you so that you may follow him." Peter thought that everything had ended for him that night, but the first thing that the Lord said when he resurrected was: "Tell Peter to follow me." Blessed is the Lord!

That's what Peter did. One day, when he was old, and after many years following the Lord, he was captured, as the Lord's prophecy had said. Then his hands were tied and he faced death… but this time he didn't hesitate, this time he didn't swear, this time he didn't deny. When he saw the cross before him, albeit horrendous and terrible, he only said: "Not with my head upwards, because I am not worthy of dying as my Teacher died." Then with his head downward, he was crucified, and he died, blessed is the Lord! Because His mercy and His love never abandon us, they never leave us. Finally, he will transform us into stones of the New Jerusalem, and we will be there for ever and ever.

That's why, at the end, dear brothers and sisters, when you come to the New Jerusalem of God descending from heaven, you'll discover that the first of the twelve foundations takes Peter's name. Thanks to the Lord!

Copyright © AGUAS VIVAS | CHILE 2005