Jesus Rebuking Peter as Satan

The Text

Just before this, Peter stood on the mountaintop. Read what he had just said, and what Jesus said back.

Blessed, and the Father had told him. And then Jesus said what He would build, and on whom.

Now men who love this Book have differed for a long time over what the rock is, whether it is Peter, or his confession, or Christ, and I am not going to settle that here. What I am holding is what Jesus said next, the keys, and I have opened those in The Keys That Heaven Already Turned. Then Jesus began to speak of the cross, of suffering and being killed, and Peter pulled Him aside and said this must never happen to You, and in the very next breath Jesus turned and said, Get thee behind me, Satan. Same man, and in the same sequence Matthew records it. Heaven had spoken through his mouth, and then this.

The Word

The word Satan is the Greek satanas, and it means the adversary, the opposer, the one who stands against. Now read who Matthew says He spoke to. He said unto Peter, and He finished the sentence about Peter, thou savourest not the things that be of God. So the address is to Peter and Matthew does not tell me the adversary was speaking through him. And here is what I hear in it all the same, and not what the verse says. I do not hear Jesus renaming Peter. I hear Him naming a voice that had found a soft place to hide, a friend’s love, a caring word.

And hear the mercy folded even into the rebuke. When Jesus says get thee behind me, the word behind is opiso, the very word He used when He called them, come after me. The word itself means behind, or after, and it does not by itself mean return to your place. But He uses it in verse 23 and He uses it again in verse 24, come after me, and reading those two together is where I get this. Not get away from Me forever. Get back to your place, follow, do not lead, for the follower had stepped in front and tried to become the guide.

And notice the other word Jesus uses, offense, the Greek skandalon, a stone you trip over. Now that is not the same Greek word as the rock in verse 18, so the two are not Matthew’s wordplay, they are my picture set beside each other. One moment the Father is revealing to him, and the next he is a stone to trip over, and the only thing that changed was whose thoughts he was carrying, the things of God or the things of men.

The Point

Here is the point, and it is a mercy. The enemy loves to borrow a vessel. Jesus said the hard word and He kept the man. And when I say He rebuked a voice and kept the man, that is my reading of it, because Matthew tells me what was said and not what was working underneath. And because He kept the man, that man would one day stand and rebuke the very same voice in someone else.

The Proof

Watch the arc, because Scripture proves it in Peter’s own life.

The man who was called that name is now the man who sees the adversary at work in another heart and names him out loud. The mouth that was used is now the mouth that discerns. Now Acts does not stop and tell me how Peter knew. And I believe a man knows those fingerprints best when they were once on him. But look at the training in between, because it is tender.

Between the rebuke and the discernment came a sifting, and a prayer. Jesus did not pray that Peter would escape the sifting, He prayed that his faith would not fail under it, and that once he had turned back, he would strengthen his brethren. That is what I see God doing with this kept vessel.

The Heart

So do not despair if your mouth, your fear, or your love turned the wrong way has ever been the thing in the way. Read what Jesus actually did with Peter. He said the hard word, and He kept the man, and the man was still there in the next chapter and the next.

And here is my picture for it. Christ struck the hand in the glove and not the glove.

What I can promise you is what Scripture shows, and it shows it in one man. Peter was rebuked, Peter was prayed for, Peter was sifted, and Peter stood up in Acts and named the thing in another heart. I am not going to tell you that God gives every one of us that same ministry, because Scripture does not say it. What I will tell you is that He did not throw Peter away. So get back to your place, and follow.