Simon Peter – His Life and Its Lessons
HIS LOVE
The more deeply we ponder the history of professing Christians, whether furnished by the pen of inspiration, or from the range of personal observation, the more fully a complete break with the world becomes evident. If this doesn’t happen, it is vain to look for inward peace, or outward progress. There may be a measure of clearness from the doctrines of grace, the plan of salvation, justification by faith, and the like. But unless there is a thorough judgment of self, and a complete surrender of this present evil world, spiritual peace and progress are simply out of the question. How can there be peace where self is fostered? And how can there be progress while the heart hankers after the world, halting between two opinions – vacillating between Christ and present things? We might as well expect a racer to be a challenger in the race while still lingering at the starting post, encumbered with heavy weights.
Can peace be found by denying self and giving up the world? No; but peace can never be found while self is indulged and the world retained. True peace is found only in Christ – peace of conscience in His finished work – peace of heart in His blessed Person. All this is clear enough. But why do so many who know, or profess to know, these things not have settled peace, and never seem to advance spiritually? Week after week, month after month, year after year, they are in the same position, the same state; with the same old story – chronic cases of self-occupation, stereotyped world-borderers, “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” They seem to delight in hearing the Gospel clearly preached, and truth fully unfolded. In fact, they cannot endure anything else. But, even with all that, they are never clear, bright, or happy. How can that be? They are halting between two opinions; they have never broken with the world; they have never surrendered whole heartedly to Christ.
Here lies the secret of the whole matter: “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” A person, who tries to keep one eye on the world, and the other on Christ, will end up having no eye for Christ, but both eyes for the world. Christ must be all or nothing. How absurd it is to talk of peace or progress when Christ is not the absorbing object of the soul. Where He is, there will never be any lack of settled peace or progress. The Holy Spirit is jealous for the glory of Christ, and He can never minister comfort, consolation, or strength to a heart divided between Him and the world. He is grieved by such unfaithfulness; and instead of being the minister of comfort, He must be the stern reprover of indulged selfishness, worldliness, and vacillation.
Let us look at the case of our apostle. How refreshing it is to contemplate his thoroughgoing style. What a marvelous beginning. “He forsook all and followed Christ.” There was no halting here, at all events; no vacillating between Christ and worldly things. Boats, nets, fish, natural ties, all are unhesitatingly and unreservedly surrendered, not as a matter of cold duty or legal service, but as the grand and necessary result of having seen the glory and hearing the voice of the Son of God.
Thus it was with Simon Peter, at the opening of his remarkable career. His starting was clear and unequivocal, whole-hearted and decided. No doubt, we shall find mistakes and stumblings, failure, ignorance, and sin; but, underneath it all, in spite of all this, we see a heart true to Jesus – a heart that deeply appreciates the Christ of God.
This is a grand point. Blunders can be handled, when the heart beats true to Christ. Someone said, “The blunderers do all the work.” If this is so, it’s because those blunderers have deep affection for their Lord. We may make many mistakes, but if we can say when challenged by our Lord, “Thou knowest that I love Thee,” we are sure to come out right in the end. Even in the midst of our mistakes, our hearts are drawn more to him than to the cold, correct, sleek, self-serving professor, who seeks to make the best of both worlds.
Simon Peter was a true lover of Christ, possessing a sense of His preciousness, of the glory of His Person, and the heavenly character of His mission. This comes out with force and freshness in his varied confessions of Christ, even before the day of Pentecost. We shall glance at one or two of these, not with any view to chronological order, but simply to illustrate and prove the lovely devotedness of this true-hearted servant of Christ.
“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?” (Matt. 16). Weighty question. The whole moral condition and future destiny of every human being under the sun, hangs on the answer to this question. And the answer depends on the heart’s estimate of Christ. This is a great moral indicator, revealing our true state and character in all things – not merely a question of our outward life, or profession of faith. Our life may be blameless, and our faith orthodox; but, if underneath all this blameless morality and orthodox profession, there is not a true pulsation of the heart for Christ, no sense of what and who He is, then all our morality and orthodoxy are just the trappings of a guilty sinner – adorning ourselves to be seen of others, deceiving ourselves as to the approaching eternal judgment of God. “What think ye of Christ?” is the all-deciding question; for God the Holy Spirit has emphatically declared, “If any man” – no matter who or what he be – “love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha” (1 Cor. 16:22).
How forcibly this declares to all who will listen, that love for Christ is the basis of all sound doctrine, the motive spring of all true morality! If that blessed One is not enthroned at the very center of the heart’s affections, an orthodox creed is an empty delusion; and an unblemished reputation is but dust cast in a man’s eyes, preventing him from seeing his true condition in the sight of God. The Christians at Corinth had fallen into many doctrinal errors and moral evils, all needing rebuke and correction; but when the inspiring Spirit pronounces His awful anathema, it is not leveled at the introducers of any one special error, or moral pravity, but at “any man who loves not the Lord Jesus Christ.”
This is especially solemn today, when there is so little thought of or concern for the Person and glory of Christ. A man may actually blaspheme Christ, deny His deity or His eternal Sonship, and yet be received into some professing Christian circles, even allowed to preside at so-called religious meetings. This must be dreadful in the sight of God, whose purpose it is “that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father”; that every knee should bow and every tongue confess Jesus as Lord of all. God is jealous for the honor of His Son; and the man who neglects, rejects, and blasphemes that blessed One will one day learn the meaning of that most solemn eternal decree, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.”
Therefore, the question put by our Lord Christ to His disciples was momentous: “Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?” But, “men” knew nothing and cared nothing about Him. They did not know who or what He was. “Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.” In other words, there was endless speculation – utter indifference and thorough heartlessness. Left to itself, the human heart has no true thought about Christ, not one atom of affection for Him. This is the awful condition of the very best of us, until renewed by Divine grace. We know not, love not, and care not for the Son of God – the Beloved of the Father’s heart – the Man on the throne of Heaven’s majesty. This is our moral condition – every thought, word, and act is contrary to God. Christ is God’s standard, and everyone and everything is measured by Him. There is no middle ground. From the view of eternity, a heart that does not love Christ, that does not pulsation in unison with the heart of God; a life that does not spring from love of Christ (however blameless, respectable, or splendid in the eyes of men) is meaningless, objectless, and misspent.
It is delightful to turn from the heartlessness and indifference of “men” and harken to the testimony of one who knows Jesus. “Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Here was the true answer – no vain speculation, no uncertainty, no maybe this, or maybe that. It was not yea and nay, but yea and amen to the glory of God. We can say with full assurance that these glowing words of Simon Peter, like fragrant incense, went up to heaven, refreshing the heart of God. There is nothing in all the world so precious to God as a heart that loves and appreciates Christ. “And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter; and upon this Rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Here we have the first direct allusion in the New Testament to the church of our Lord – the assembly of Christ. Note that our Lord speaks of it as being in the future. He says, “I will build My church.” Jesus Christ was the Rock1, the Divine foundation; but before a single stone could be built on Him, He must die.
This is a grand cardinal truth of Christianity – a truth which our apostle had yet to learn, notwithstanding his brilliant and beautiful confession. Simon Peter was not yet prepared for the profound mystery of the cross. He loved Christ, but he still had much to learn before he could take in the soul-subduing truth that this blessed Son of the living God must die. “From that time forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.”
The solemn truth now begins to break through the clouds. But Simon Peter is not prepared for his Jewish hopes and earthly expectations to be withered up. What! The Son of the living God must die! How could that be? The glorious Messiah nailed to a cross? “Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord, this shall not be unto Thee.”
Such is man. Simon Peter wanted to turn the blessed Lord away from the cross. In his ignorance, Peter would frustrate the eternal counsels of God, and play into the hands of the devil. “The Lord turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan, thou art an offence unto Me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”
Withering words? Who would have thought that “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona,” should so speedily be followed by, “Get thee behind Me, Satan”?
