Matthew 16:21 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Matthew 16:21

Comments

They are just about ready now to begin to hear this. They are going to hear it three more times. Mark has here, ‘The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.’ He had taught them before but now, as the passage will say, he is going to teach these things much more openly. ‘The Son of man’ – what an expression! That is the term he uses for himself. It comes from the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ used this title for himself about eighty times in the record of the Gospels, and nobody else used it of him. He used it of himself. But it was clear to the disciples that by this title he referred to himself as the Son of God, because he would say things like, ‘the Son of man has authority to forgive sins.’ Well, only God has authority to forgive sins and by teaching them that, they realised that ‘Son of man’ was a term for the incarnate Son of God.He spoke of the Son of man commanding the angels to gather in the final harvest of souls when the time came. It is clear that by ‘Son of man’ he is describing himself as Messiah, Son of the living God, that is clear and obvious. He began to teach them, however, ‘that the Son of man [the Christ] must suffer many things.’ What things? Insults, arrest, whipping, scourging, we know all that now; great humiliation and death and he goes on to spell that out. He refers to the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes: the three classes of national, leading officer that comprised the Sanhedrin council, the seventy, the council of the Jews that formally rejected him and condemned him. The disciples would have trouble understanding this: ‘How can our Messiah, who is going to be supreme and raise us up as a nation; how can he be the one who is rejected nationally by all our leaders and suffer many things and be humiliated and then die?’ They could not grasp it. How could he ‘be killed, and after three days rise again’? That was the divine plan. It was essential. There was no other way we could go to heaven. God cannot hide our sin, or forget it; he cannot admit to heaven with our sins unforgiven. How can God be just and forgive? Christ had to come, and take human nature, and become representative so that the Father could pour out wrath on the Son and punish him instead of me. He became our scapegoat; it is the only way God can reconcile his justice and mercy.

Application

We note the word ‘must’ in the verse. This is not just a prediction of the future, but it is a revelation of what is in the plan of God. That plan must come to pass, and the suffering and death of Christ are the central part of it. Unless Christ goes to Calvary no one will be saved. This is the heart of the Christian gospel. He alone understands this and the disciples need to grasp it, to be prepared for it, but they find it so hard to take this in. The doctrine of penal substitution is the essence of the gospel. Christ must take the penalty that we deserve for our sin. He must be penalised instead of us if we are to be saved. But some people say, ‘This cannot be. What a terrible idea, that God is an angry person, an unpleasant, angry being, and he spitefully punished another person. What a terrible concept.’ Well, of course, that would be a terrible concept and an untrue one, and one that is insulting to God and to the message of the gospel. Did God the Father show a vindictive nature to God the Son, Jesus Christ? Of course not! Here is an enormous problem. The greatest problem you could ever think of. How can God be just and holy and yet forgive, let off man for his sin? How can God, whose holy and just character cannot abide sin and allow it to continue to exist in his moral universe, how can he forgive? It is an enormous problem and God has solved the problem. He will take the punishment himself! A member of the Triune Godhead will come down, assume human personality and a human body and be our representative and suffer and die for the penalty that we deserve. He must suffer. That it is the doctrine of penal substitution which is throughout the Bible.

Questions

Why must Jerusalem be the place where he suffers and dies?

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1. In Old Testament God disclosed only one place the Jews could sacrifice. God would choose the place. Christ, the God-man, was to offer himself in the same appointed place.

2. All prophecies said he would die in Jerusalem, particularly Isaiah and Jeremiah. They describe all that would happen there, and from there word would go out. It was to take place at the time of Passover as the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world.

3. The atonement was to be carried out in this national public place. This is the central event of the world, dividing history of the world, and it was to be seen by all the world. It was central to existence of the world; God would have destroyed the world else long ago but for this. Now Christ has earned a day for the gospel to be preached and souls gathered from every nation of the world.

4. The chief priests and scribes were there. The Pharisees would give a demonstration of their hostility towards the Son of God.

5. The first harvest of grace would be among the large number of people that had come to Jerusalem for the Passover. It was to be Jews, instructed in the Old Testament, who would be the first evangelists to the Gentiles. The church began with these large numbers of people from many different countries gathered in Jerusalem at this time.

6. At Jerusalem the mantle of the people of God was to be transferred to the church of Christ. The Jews would show their rejection of their Messiah, and the gospel would go to the Gentiles. Israel as a nation would be judged soon afterwards on account of this rejection.

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Matthew 16:21 Commentary and Bible Study

The meaning of Matthew 16:21 explained