Question:

Hello everyone! I want to ask a little question because of a doubt I have, and I would be very grateful if someone could clarify it for me.

Some Protestant friends told me that when Christ said to Peter, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church,” he was referring to himself as the Rock on which he would build his Church, and not to Peter. Then they gave me several verses where Christ is the cornerstone of the Church and not Peter. Could you help me?

Answer:

Receive a cordial greeting, and thank you for writing to us.

To give my answer to your friend’s arguments, I will take the opportunity to use the hermeneutical rules that Pastor Fernando García Sotomayor (director of a Protestant seminary in Colombia) has shared with us.

The central passage is this:

“And I, in turn, say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.» Matthew 16:18-19

We Catholics say that in this text Christ was referring to Peter as the Rock; Protestants say in this case that Christ was referring to himself as the Rock.

Let us apply the second hermeneutical rule that my pastor friend supplied to me:

Rule TWO. It is altogether necessary to take the words in the sense indicated by the whole sentence. That is, the meaning of a word must be taken into account in light of all the phrases. For this reason it is necessary to know the author’s thought.

In that sentence Christ changes Simon’s name to Peter (which means Rock). Why should one think that Christ was referring to himself if he had just changed Peter’s name to Rock? Was it a coincidence?

Rule THREE. It is necessary to take the words in the sense indicated by the context, namely the verses that precede and follow the text being studied. One cannot make doctrine from a single verse. That is, the context of the text must be taken into account so as not to invent a pretext.

The context does not reveal that Christ was referring to himself, but to Peter.

First, because, as I have said, he changes his name to Rock.

Second, because in every context where a change of name has occurred in the Bible, these had a profound meaning: a change of function or ministry for the person.

Examples:

God changes Abram’s name to Abraham because he constitutes him father of a multitude of peoples:

“Abram fell on his face, and God spoke to him thus: «As for me, behold my covenant with you: you shall be father of a multitude of peoples. No longer shall you be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have constituted you father of a multitude of peoples. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, I will make you into peoples, and kings shall come forth from you.” Genesis 17:3-6

God changes Sarai’s name (Abraham’s wife) to Sarah, which means “fruitful princess”, “mother of kings”:

“God said to Abraham: «As for Sarai, your wife, you shall no longer call her Sarai, but her name shall be Sarah. I will bless her, and from her also I will give you a son. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.»” Genesis 17:16

God changes Jacob’s name to Israel because he “struggled with God and with men and prevailed”

“The other said: «What is your name?» – «Jacob.» – «From now on you shall not be called Jacob, but Israel; because you have been strong against God and against men, and you have prevailed.»” Genesis 32:28

The name of Jesus also has a meaning:

“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.»” Matthew 1:21

If all names have a meaning and changes of name imply a change in the person’s function or ministry, why deliberately ignore this context here?

Third, because if we look at the preceding verses, Christ asks Christ “who do men say that I am“, Peter answers by saying who he is and his ministry: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God“. Christ repays him by now saying who Peter is: “You are Peter, and on this Rock I will build my Church“.

And if we continue to delve still more deeply into the context, it will be easy to see what the purpose of that change of name is and what that new ministry it implies is:

Rule THREE. It is necessary to take the words in the sense indicated by the context, namely the verses that precede and follow the text being studied. One cannot make doctrine from a single verse. That is, the context of the text must be taken into account so as not to invent a pretext.

The verse that precedes Matthew 16:18 is this:

I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.» “Matthew 16:18-19

Christ gives the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter. His function will be to be the bearer of the keys.

Is this confirmed by other Protestant hermeneutical rules? Yes.

Rule FIVE. It is necessary to consult the parallel passages. Parallel passages are those that are related, or that deal with the same subject. The good student of the Bible must acquire exact knowledge about Christian doctrines and practices. Spiritual things are explained by means of spiritual things. I Cor. 2:13. One parallel passage together with another forms what is called a thematic chain. Example, Prov. 16:4; Matt. 10:37; Lk. 14:26; II Pet. 3:9.

A parallel passage to Matthew 16:19 is undoubtedly Isaiah 22

“On that day I will call my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah. I will clothe him with your robe, with your sash I will bind him, your authority I will place in his hand, and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. I will place the key of the house of David on his shoulder; he shall open, and no one shall shut, he shall shut, and no one shall open. I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he shall be a throne of glory for his father’s house. They will hang on him all the valuables of his father’s house – his descendants and his posterity -, all the small vessels, all the cups and jars.On that day – oracle of Yahweh Sabaoth – the peg fastened in a secure place will be removed, it will give way and fall, and the weight it supported will be smashed, for Yahweh has spoken.” Isaiah 22:20-25

This text is a prophecy in which God will establish a new steward in Israel (Eliakim, who in fact became steward in place of Shebna. See 2 Kings 18:18; 19:2; Isaiah 33:3; 37:2). The steward was a minister with the keys of the kingdom. Although the rest of the ministers also had authority, the authority of the steward was superior. All bound and loosed, but what the steward bound the other ministers could not loose, and vice versa. (This refers to the authority to make decisions). The steward was not the king; he had authority conferred from the hand of the King.

Why does Christ use this figure? Because Christ wants to use an example from his time so that everyone would understand Peter’s new function: to be the new steward of his Kingdom. Just as the ancient kings of Israel had a steward, Christ designates his own: Peter.

All these rules Protestants ignore in practice. It is amusing to see them come out with hermeneutics this way, hermeneutics that way, and when it comes down to it, it is only a cliché.

Why is the Protestant interpretation wrong?

I will now tell you why the interpretation that Christ is the Rock specifically in Matthew 16:18 is incorrect. The reason is that Protestants apply a fixed pattern of meanings to metaphorical elements. This is an outrage against any serious exegesis. I will explain.

You will agree with me that in the Bible, among all the literary genres we can find, there are metaphors. In a metaphor, a literal element is compared and a meaning is associated with it.

Examples:

“…I am the light of the world…” John 8:12

“…I am the good shepherd…” John 10:11

“…I am the door…” John 10:9

“…I am the true vine…” John 15:1

And I could go on like this, but I consider it unnecessary, because we all know what metaphors there are in Sacred Scripture.

In these metaphors a word or an object is used in a symbolic sense. The object is not referred to literally, but it serves to suggest a comparison.

In this sense Christ is not literally light, nor literally a shepherd, much less are we literally sheep. Needless to say, neither is the Lord a door nor a plant (a vine); nevertheless, metaphors help us to understand a reality by means of this kind of comparison.

Once this has been clarified, it must be understood that although there are many metaphors in the Bible, the elements used in them do not have a fixed meaning. It is an error to think that because John 8:12 says that Christ is the Light of the world, every time the word light appears in a metaphor, it refers to Him. We have a clear example in Matthew 5:14, where Christ tells us: “You are the light of the world”

That is what Protestants do. They try to find many metaphors where Christ is the stone (or Rock), in order to try to establish the hypothesis    that every time this occurs it refers indisputably to Christ, but this is incorrect.

In Isaiah 51:1, for example, it says: “look to the rock from which you were hewn” , and in this metaphor the rock is not Christ but Abraham. The passage continues “…and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father,”

In 1 Peter 2:5 we are called “living stones”

We also have an example in another text where the foundation is the apostles and prophets, and Christ appears as cornerstone:

“Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone;” Ephesians 2:20

However, in another metaphor the foundation is Christ

“ For no one can lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3:11

Is there a contradiction? Of course not; they are different metaphors. In the first (Ephesians 2:20), the Church is compared to a building; there all of us come to be represented figuratively as Stones (believers, the apostles, and Christ too, since he appears here as cornerstone). In the second (1 Corinthians 3:11), it is no longer speaking of the Church but of each believer who builds his life on the basis of his works. These (works), if they are built on the foundation (which is Christ), will receive their reward. (I recommend reading the cited chapters in full to understand the context better).

In the passage that concerns us (Matthew 16:18), the Church is also compared to a building, but in that metaphor Christ is appearing as the builder, not as part of the construction; we see this when he uses the verb “to build” and conjugates it in the first person: “I will build”. We are the stones that Christ places, Peter the first.

The error in this sense is to mix the metaphors or to want to establish a constant meaning for a literal element in all of them. With that method one can prove anything: take a word from here, look for the symbolic meaning, and then jump over there, and the context of each passage “thanks very much”.

It is also important to point out that the cornerstone of a construction is not the stone on which the Church is built. The first stone on which a construction is built is at the base; the cornerstone is at the top and is the one that gives consistency to all the others. (In a construction, for example, in a pyramid, there are really 5 cornerstones, but the one generally referred to as the Cornerstone is the one at the summit, not the one at the base).

Thus we could construct a general metaphor where, if the Church is symbolized as a spiritual building, Christ can appear as Cornerstone, Peter and the apostles as foundation, Peter being the first Rock on which it is built (the steward), and we as living stones that make up the rest of the building.

I will never understand how Protestants can ignore the clear meaning of Matthew 16:18 and find themselves forced to twist it so as not to accept the Primacy of Peter. They know that if they accept it, all their doctrine will come crashing down because they will have to submit to his authority and that of his successors; nevertheless, they find themselves forced to twist the word of God to justify their positions.

“Consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, as Paul, our beloved brother, also wrote to you according to the wisdom granted to him. He also writes in all the letters when he speaks in them of this. Although there are in them things difficult to understand, which the ignorant and the weak twist – as they do also the other Scriptures – to their own destruction. You therefore, beloved, being already warned, live alert, lest, carried away by the error of those lawless people, you fall from your firm position.” 2 Peter 3:15-17

Author: José Miguel Arráiz