Matthew 16:20 Commentary and Bible Study

Why did Jesus charge his disciples not to tell any man that he was the Christ? Wasn’t this what people need to believe in order to be saved? Wasn’t this part of the message which the apostles had been sent out with? No, not at this time. They had been sent to preach what Christ had preached: ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Those who were saved trusted in God, and they believed that God would forgive their sins. They understood that the sacrificial system pointed to the method by which God would take away sin, and that it should that he was willing and able to do so. Christ had at no time yet preached, ‘I am the Christ.’ This was something that had been revealed to the apostles by the Father. Of course this should have been the expectation of every Jew. All their prophets had foretold this wonderful time and the fact that God would visit his people. The wise men had enquired where to find him who was born King of the Jews, and Herod had asked the chief priests and scribes and where the Christ should be born. The angel had announced to the shepherds that they should go to Bethlehem to see him who was born a Saviour, Christ the Lord. Simeon rejoiced at holding in his arms the Lord’s Christ, and John the Baptist, though he had denied that he was the Christ knew that he was sent before him. He knew that the one who came to be baptized by him was the Christ, and he witnessed to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world: a unmistakable role of the Messiah. So why should they not tell any man this? Various suggestions have been made. It has been supposed that the disciples did not themselves understand the nature of the Messiah clearly enough to teach this to others. But a greater problem was the general wrong understanding of the ministry of the Messiah among the people, who expected a political deliverer who would free them from the yoke of the Romans. To preach that the Messiah had come would only fan into flame these wrong expectations and hinder the work that Christ had come to do. It was also for the protection of the disciples, because if they had claimed him Messiah at that point, they would probably have lost their lives. After Calvary the apostles would be free to proclaim Christ, and they did so, but by then it would not be possible to the people to misunderstand and think they were talking about a political Messiah. All would know of the events that had taken place in Jerusalem.