MATTHEW 16:21-28
I RECENTLY READ LEWIS CARROLL'S CLASSICS Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (the abbreviated title is Alice in Wonderland) and its sequel, Alice through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. The two books are often printed together and blended together in movie form. In Alice through the Looking Glass, Carroll created a mirror image of the world, where in order to get somewhere in that world you need to think inside out. For example, if you want to walk toward something you must walk away from it.
Throughout Matthew's Gospel, our Lord Jesus has been looking at reality in a very different way than everyone else around him, kind of backwards or upside-down or inside-out. For example, he has been teaching these strange paradoxes: those who thirst, mourn, and are persecuted are blessed; the first shall be last and the last first; the greatest is the most humble, and so on. And here he teaches that to save one’s life one must lose it, and he teaches that the Son of Man, who will come in glory, must first suffer and die, that the Christ (i.e., the King) must be crucified. These are all very upside-down, backwards, inside-out ways of looking at things, or so it seems.
When I was in college, the Bible study I was a part of had a way of getting at this looking-glass perspective, seeing things the way God wants us to see them. Each week as we studied a passage of Scripture we asked five questions, one of which was, what’s surprising in this text? This question wasn’t merely dealing with something surprising in the experiential realm like “The short skinny man got stuck in the tall wide door. Isn’t that surprising? How did that happen?” Rather, the question deals with what we wouldn’t know—about God, Jesus, this world, ourselves, reality, etc.—unless the Bible taught it to us.
Here in 16:21-28, with this looking-glass/what’s-surprising mentality in mind, I want to show three concepts that are surprising, ideas that we never would have come to see unless God showed us his ways, showed us the way things really work in his world. In summary, if we want to reach the Kingdom, if we want to receive a crown of glory upon our heads, we must first robe ourselves with self-denial and suffering.
Christ Crucified: The Christ Would Suffer and Die
The first surprising concept is Christ crucified. That is, “the Christ” (16:16) would suffer and die in Jerusalem at the hands of the Jewish religious leaders: “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (v. 21).
Here the context is king. And the context (vv. 13-20) tells us that Jesus is the King. “You are the Christ” (16:16) is Peter’s great confession. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, the King. Right. Got it. What’s next? Here’s what's next: Christ crucified. Christ what? Crucified? No, it should be, Christ conquering. Now that we have the King, how do we get the kingdom? It’s time to take over. Let’s sit down and figure out our strategy. How do we get rid of the present political powers, the ruling religious authorities? How shall we crusade against the infidels and retake the holy city?
Or how do we win them to our side? Imagine Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a white horse, with the scribes and elders laying palm branches down before him, and Pilate and Herod striding with him, not side by side but a bit behind him, on smaller, darker horses. And then imagine the high priest, who has led the parade, shouting a chant that spreads throughout the crowd: “Hosanna, Hosanna. Hosanna to God in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna to the Son of David, the King.”
Christ crucified? No! God forbid. But Christ conquering! Yes! Christ marching into Jerusalem for holy war and holy victory. Amen and Amen.
But Jesus says, “No! The Christ—yes, but the Christ crucified—also yes.” Here is God’s plan. It’s not a mere prediction, like making a weather forecast based on observing certain previous trends and existing conditions. No, here’s the predetermined, “definite” divine plan (see Acts 2:22, 23). “It was the will of the Lord to crush him” (Isaiah 53:10a), and “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6)—that is how Isaiah puts it. Here’s how Jesus puts it: “I must go,” not “I will go.” “I must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified” (Luke 24:7). "I must go to Jerusalem, that city where all those millions of atoning sacrifices have been offered, to sacrifice myself, once and for all, for millions, for the sins of my people. I must go to Jerusalem, not to gather its leaders to my side, but to watch them pierce my side and crown my head with thorns and mock me and spit on me and cry out to me, ‘If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross’” (Matthew 27:40).
Christ crucified—to human wisdom this is nonsense!
Christ crucified—Jerusalem wouldn't get it. Christ crucified—the first disciples wouldn’t get it either. You see, they are moving forward when they should be moving backwards. They are rightside-up when they need to be upside-down. They are missing what’s in the mirror because the idea of the Messiah being put to death as “a public menace,” as a religious and political traitor, is too shocking, too surprising for them there to comprehend.
We will get to what Peter thinks of all this in a minute. It’s so important, importantly wrong, that I’ve made it into a separate point. For now let’s just get into our heads that from that day to our day almost nothing has changed in the minds of men. While the edge of the idea of the Christ crucified has been dulled by the countless crosses atop church steeples or the incalculable golden crosses hung around our necks, the concept is still crazy to the spiritually sane and is still anti-academic to the intelligentsia. How did Paul put it?
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles... For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. (1 Corinthians 1:22-24, 18a)
Oddly enough, "Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2) is what the religious leaders of our day oppose, and not just religious leaders in general, but those who gladly check the box for “Christian” when filling out a religious survey. Here I mean not only liberal Protestants who deny his bodily resurrection, and the exclusivity of salvation—that there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. Yes, I mean them. But I also mean evangelicals who have declawed the lion of Judah and pulled the bloody cross out of the side of the Lamb of God.
“Christians” have done remarkably well in writing books that have sold well, even making the New York Times bestsellers list. But find me a bestselling Christian book in the past ten years that has made such a list that is exclusively about the cross of Christ. Or find me ten books right now in the top 100 best-selling Christian books in Christian bookstores that mention the cross of Christ. Or, easier still, just find me ten churches in 10,000 that preach two times a year on the cross. Nearly every church today has on its website or sign “Christ-centered,” but how many are cross-centered?
But listen, you can’t be Christ-centered without being cross-centered. Christ crucified is the crux of Christianity. The summary symbol of our faith is not a fish or a shepherd or a dove or a shamrock but a cross—“that old rugged cross, so despised by the world... that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine.”
Simon the Stumbling Stone
The first surprise is Christ crucified, that the King must suffer and die, that Jesus’ passion and death must precede his resurrection and return, that the cross must come before the crown. The second surprise is Simon the stumbling stone. That is, right after Simon Peter gives the most important confession in the history of the world—“You [Jesus] are the Christ”—the very next time he opens his mouth he shoves his left foot and his right hand and his elbows and his other foot—everything he can—into his mouth.
Amazing! Verse 15: Jesus “said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?”’ Verse 16: Simon Peter replied in essence, “Everyone clear out. Put your hands down. I'll answer this one. ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” A+. Peter moves to the head of the class. Twenty seconds later, verse 21: “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things... and be killed.” Verse 22: "And Peter,” thinking he has moved from star pupil to the Chair of the Bible Department, “took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord!”’ Here Peter literally says, “May God be merciful to you, Lord,” or, my paraphrase, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, which doesn’t include suffering and death. This shall never happen to you.” And then verse 23: “But he [Jesus] turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’” He sends Peter to the very back of the class. “Here’s a hat,” he says. “Put it on.” The hat has a D on it. The D however is for “dunce”.
What a surprising change. From “you are Peter” (v. 18) to you are an adversary (v. 23), from Saint Peter to Simon Sinner, from Rock Star to Stumbling Stone. It’s surprising that Peter can get “you are the Christ” but not get “and you are the Christ crucified.” Well, at least it’s surprising to us, who can look back on the finished puzzle and see how each piece fits perfectly in place. But we must remember that just as the Old Testament prophets “had difficulty reconciling the sufferings and glory of the Messiah (1 Pet 1:10— 12),” so too did Peter. He would eventually get it; he writes in 1 Peter 2:24, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” But here he’s looking at it all backwards. The garment Jesus is wearing reads “Conquering Christ” in the mirror, but in reality it says, “Christ Crucified.”
Three Applications from the Second Surprise
Let me draw out three applications from this second surprise. First, we are not called to teach Jesus but follow him.
As I look at these verses, I get the sense that from verse 16 to verse 21 (or at least v. 20) Peter is feeling pretty good about himself. I mean, who wouldn’t? He got the answer right. And he got a pretty big pat on the back for it. However, it all seems to go to his head. Here Peter thinks he is Pope Petrus I, already sitting in his golden throne at the Vatican about to speak ex cathedra. So he speaks, like the perfect pontiff should speak, with gentle authority and merciful moral exhortation! “Jesus, let me teach you. God will be merciful to you, and God’s mercy never means pain.” He sounds a bit like Job’s friends, doesn’t he?
However, Jesus sounds a bit like God from the whirlwind. “Oh, Peter, shut your mouth. Your first encyclical is entirely fallible. It’s worse than fallible—it’s diabolical! You are acting devilishly. Just as the adversary tempted me in the wilderness—‘Turn stones into bread! Jump! I’ll give you the world; avoid suffering, stand above the crowd, show off your superpowers, win now!’— Peter, you are tempting me. You are tempting me to take the easy road—to skip Gethsemane and Golgotha and go directly to Glory. And not only are you tempting me, you are offending me. Get behind me, Satan. The cross is offensive to the world, but the things contrary to the cross are offensive to me.”
The moment we think we think better than Christ we’re not thinking right. The moment we pull Jesus aside for a spiritual lesson or two—instructing him about the cross, human sexuality, exclusivity, etc.—is the moment we are not seeing straight (see 1 Timothy 6:3, 4).
We are not to be like Peter when he teaches Jesus. We are only to be like Peter when he follows Jesus. That’s the first application. Here’s the second: don’t be an adversary. No adversarial spiritually allowed in the Ecclesia! What do I mean by adversarial spirituality? I mean letting the world’s ways (not God’s way) dictate your decisions.
I’ll give two examples and let the bible give you a thousand more. First, it is adversarial if your twenty-one year old daughter wants to go to the mission field to a dangerous region of the world and you oppose that decision, wanting her instead to stay safely at home. (The key word there being “safely” [i.e., no cross].) Second example: It is adversarial if you oppose the breadwinner in your family who wants to follow John Wesley’s wealth dictum (to “gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can”) and who thus when he makes $65,000 a year gives away $5,000, when he makes $80,000 gives away $20,000, when he makes $300,000 gives away $240,000. Each year, as he makes more, he decides to live on less so he can give more—more to missions, more to the Ecclesia, more to the poor, more to the gospel of Jesus Christ. No opposing gospel generosity or gospel sacrifice! No adversarial spirituality please!
My third application is this: God is patient with Peters, not wishing that anyone like him should perish but rather come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Return to Jesus after dumb denials (“you can’t die like that”) and even after devious denials (“I do not know the man”). God is patient with Peters.
What I like about Peter (what I think we all like about Peter) is that he never seems to arrive. Not just in the Gospels, but also in Galatians. In Galatians 2:11-14 we learn that Peter has gone off course in his teaching. He has taken the B out of the A, B, C’s of the gospel. So Paul opposes him to his face. Peter never seems to arrive. But through the ups and downs we do see him slowly moving up, not perfectly sanctified, but steadily sanctified—ethically, theologically.
God was patient with Peter as he is patient with all of us. Let that gracious patience encourage you. Let it encourage you, in Peter’s own words, to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).
Passion Pattern: We Must Follow the Pattern of Cross, Then Crown
With this text we are looking into Looking Glass Land, where everything is inside-out, upside-down, backwards. Surprising. And we’ve seen the first surprise (Christ crucified) and the second surprise (Simon the stumbling stone), and finally we come to the third surprise, what I call a passion pattern. What Jesus clearly teaches in verses 24-28 is the pattern we must follow—cross, then crown.
This pattern is surprising because after Jesus speaks of the basic content of the gospel (his death and resurrection—the resurrection part went over Peter’s head), he next speaks of our work. It’s astonishing that after he essentially says, “Listen, here’s the work I have to do for you to save your souls,” he doesn't next say, “So sit back and just enjoy my finished work.” Instead he says, “Get to work.”
Further, it’s surprising that that this work (our work) is cross-work. Jesus says, “I have my cross, and you have yours.” And we say, “Why so, Lord? Alter all you have done, why our cross too? Why not your cross and our crown? Why not reward now, suffering never? For you see, Lord, avoiding suffering is a high priority to us. The pursuit of happiness is a constitutional right. A comfortable lifestyle is a suburban necessity. William Penn’s famous book title of 1682—No Cross, No Crown—doesn’t read right to us today. No cross, no crown, oh no—that slogan won’t stick to the backs of our new Porsche SUVs or even our old Dodge mini-vans.”
It’s surprising that we have cross-work to do too! There is his cross and our cross: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (v. 24). Write that verse on your doorpost, bind it on your forehead, tuck it deep into the recesses of your heart.
Let me ask you: what makes a Christian a Christian or a church a church? What are the marks of the church? What are the characteristics of a Christian?
I like how Frederick Dale Bruner answers that question, based on his study of Matthew 16. He says there are two qualifications:
1. Confessing Jesus as Christ (Christo-centricity)
2. Following Jesus as the suffering Christ (Crucio-christocentricity)
What a perfect summary! We must confess, “Jesus, you are the Christ.” And we must follow him as the suffering Christ. So all theologies of glory in the here and now must be tossed out the window. “When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die” (Bonhoeffer)." Die to self and live for Christ—that’s what Jesus is teaching here.
Yes, he teaches us that we must carry a cross. He teaches us what that cross is. And (thankfully) he gives us good reasons why cross-carrying is worth it.
So, what is this cross we must carry? Is it enduring suffering—those trials and tribulations of life (the death of a loved one, economic hardship, poor health, a tyrannical boss, a nagging wife, a lazy husband, a rebellious child, and so on)? Or is it persecutions—suffering for believing, preaching, and living out the gospel? I think it can be both. (Job in Uz carried as much of a cross as John in Patmos or Paul in prison.) But whatever it is, cross-carrying centers on self-denial. I say that because of what Jesus says and how he says it: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (v. 24). Notice the poetic symmetry here:
Come after me Deny himself Take up his cross Follow me
What does it mean to “come after” or to “follow” Jesus? Metaphorically it means “take up your cross”; literally it means “deny yourself.” To follow Jesus means to deny self.
In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin taught that "the sum of the Christian life” is self-denial. What do you think about that? Is that how you summarize your Christian life, what it means to follow Jesus? It’s how Jesus summarized it! To come to Christ is to deny self—to admit that we’re sinful, that we need a Savior. And to live for Christ is to deny self—to abide in him, pray to him, walk in his power. God’s plan of salvation and sanctification has one summary command: deny yourself!
Therefore, Christ-follower, how’s the self-denial going? Are you saying no to sin, those sins that so easily entangle you? And are you saying yes to Christ, doing something difficult for Jesus’ sake? Do you sacrifice time, money, convenience, comfort, safety to do those things that Jesus especially sees—that list he gives at judgment day (in 25:31-46)—feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, receiving the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting the imprisoned?
Yes, self-denial is the sum of the Christian life. Or let me put it more positively. Following Jesus as Lord—that’s the sum of the Christian life. Not following self-loves and self-rules but Jesus as your first love and his rules as the best rules for living.
In fact, we must be willing to risk our life “on the dare that Jesus is It.” And as “It” he knows what he’s talking about, and he knows the way to glory—that it passes through the city of suffering, down the road of rejection, and up the valley of death. Self-denial, the self-denial Jesus is talking about here, is not giving up steak sandwiches and chocolate bon bons for Lent. Rather, it is giving up our own selves as lord. It is saying, “Jesus is Lord” and living like you mean it. Perhaps the four clauses in verse 24 all say the same thing, and the key word is not “cross” or “deny” or “follow” but “me.” “Come after me/follow me.” Who’s king? You or Jesus? Perhaps the answer to the opening question of the Heiclelherg Confession (1563) is the answer here:
Question: What is your only comfort in life and death?
Answer: That I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to myself but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.
Now, if Jesus is commanding his Ecclesia to live Lord-centered, cruci-formed lives, what’s the motive for such a seemingly morbid mission? In verses 25-28 Jesus provides the motive: “For whoever...(v. 25), “for what will it profit... (v. 26), “for the Son of Man is going to come… (v. 27).
The overarching or all-embodying reason is that Jesus’ wins and those with him win, and those not with him lose. If you choose the cross now, you get the crown then; if you choose the crown now, you get the cross then.
Verse 28 is a difficult verse: “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” This verse could refer to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 or to the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost or to both Jesus’ resurrection and return, two events of one final coming. Or it could refer to a general prediction of Christ’s future glory, encompassing the resurrection, ascension, Pentecost, and his present heavenly session. I think it simply refers to the transfiguration, where “some”—Peter, James, and John—see “the Son of Man” (Jesus) in his kingdom glory. Verse 28 is a difficult verse, but verse 27 is the key verse: “For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.” Then the righteous are rewarded and the unrighteous are undone.
In our text Jesus has talked about his passion, death, resurrection, and now his return as world judge. That’s clear. And when Jesus comes as judge, those who didn’t deny self and follow him—those who tried to hold on to life as if it was the most important entity, and those who lived to gain the world and touch and taste all the pleasures it has to offer—forfeit the game of life. Only doing for Jesus, and doing for others in the name of Jesus, matters. He who dies with the most toys most certainly does not win.
Let me be clear—Jesus isn’t just saying what weight lifters coax each other with: no pain; no gain. He’s not teaching what my ex-Marine basketball coach had printed on our practice jerseys: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Those sayings might very well be true. But what Jesus is here saying is far more serious. It’s not no pain, no gain, but no pain, much more pain. This is Kingdom and Grave stuff Jesus is talking about. Discipleship is not teatime. It’s not a casual coffeehouse conversation. It’s life or death, eternal life or eternal death. At the last judgment Jesus will not slap the wrists of those professing Christians who toyed with his teachings, who moonlighted with power and possessions, who chose self-indulgence over self-denial, who thought orthodoxy had nothing to do with orthopraxis. He won’t say, “What a shame. Now you’ve lost the big city mansion by the River of Life. You’re stuck with a refurbished farmhouse far out in the country.” No, he will say, “You’ve lost everything. Not just your life, but eternal life with God!”
And there is no wheeling and dealing at that point. There is no members’ fee you can pay to get in. There is no bargain to strike with the holy Son of Man. When he comes again in glory to judge, then “it’s too late. You made the wrong choices, you sought false goals, you had other gods,” and now you will pay for your whoring after success and status and self.
At the last judgment all looking glasses shall be shattered, and everyone shall see as they should have seen. We shall see that the first shall be last and the last first, that to live for self is to die and to die to self is to live, and that the crucified Christ shall rise again and soon return in glory with his angels, and with them a hundred thousand blessings, crowns of righteousness for “all who have loved his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).
Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass are "two beloved masterpieces of the nonsensical" But the Bible, as much as its Author turns things on their heads, is a masterpiece of the “sensical,” a book designed to make sense of the world we live in, and to bring us, like the prodigal son, to our senses, to Jesus, the perfectly righteous King who served sinners, the everlasting Son of God who died so that we who now live to serve and die to self might reign with him as kings and queens forever and ever.
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)