Matthew 16:23 Commentary and Bible Study

This harshest of rebukes come from Christ to Peter just after Peter has received from him the highest of praises. Is the Lord contradicting himself, or talking back what he had said before? No, he is responding appropriately to these two very different behaviours in Peter. Both the praise and the rebuke were deserved. Christ feared no man and always spoke the truth. And this was no idle rebuke. Christ saw that Satan in his subtlety was coming in and speaking through Peter who had just said something so true and so noble. Perhaps Satan thought that the Lord would find it hard to reject this suggestion coming from one he had just praised so highly. We may find it harder to reject the insidious suggestions of friends than we do to handle the plain attacks of enemies. Christ said to him, ‘Get thee behind me Satan.’ You go for the things of this world, the things that savour of, taste of, this world. So Peter was for the Lord and loved him, yet he still didn't understand about cross bearing. That failing will warrant the lesson that follows. Peter thought he had the interests of the Lord at heart, but he did not understand himself. There is no substitute for us submitting to the purposes of God. Peter genuinely thought he was offering the Lord good advice, but it was deeply presumptuous of him. His own desire for ease and comfort was being foisted on the Lord and so he thought he knew better than the Lord what was good. Christ says nothing in vain, and Peter should have studied the Lord’s words with great care and accepted them. As it was he became a vehicle for Satan to launch a surprise temptation on the Lord. This had already feature in one of the three temptations which the devil tried on Christ, inviting him to bypass the cross. If he were to fall down and worship him, the devil would give him the world and all its glory. But Christ immediately saw this for what it was: an appeal to self-interest rather than to the commandment which he had received from his heavenly Father. He responded with the same words with which he had rebuked the devil before: ‘Get behind me, Satan’ (Luke 4:8). He put the temptation as far from him as he possibly could. When we are tempted, we must immediately want the temptation to cease, and not dangerously toy with it.This rebuke must have severely chastened Peter, and made him see how shameful his words had been. He had dared to think he knew better than the Lord, and he had been harshly corrected for doing so, nevertheless he was still the Lord’s and the Lord had not finished with him.