Bible Synapse
Did Peter learn that Jesus was the Christ from the Father or from his brother Andrew?
Hard question · The life of Jesus · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Andrew tells his brother Simon, “We have found the Messias”, and brings him to Jesus.
One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
Peter confesses Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God”; Jesus says the Father revealed it to him.
When Jesus came into the coasts of Cesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar–jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
Earlier, Peter speaks for the twelve: “we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ”.
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
The objection
In John, Andrew tells his brother Simon at the very start, “We have found the Messias”. In Matthew, when Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus says that “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven”. So did Peter learn it from his brother or from God?
The answer
Both are true, because hearing a claim and being given to see that it is true are different things. Andrew’s words were the first news Peter heard, and they brought him to Jesus (John 1:41–42). In Matthew 16 Jesus first asks what people are saying about him, and then asks the disciples, “But whom say ye that I am?” (16:15). Peter’s answer, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”, is a settled conviction after months with Jesus, and Jesus says that no human being, ‘flesh and blood’ in the Jewish idiom, produced it in him: the Father did. The Greek apekalypsen, ‘revealed’, means to uncover what was hidden.
God’s revealing does not rule out human messengers; it is what makes their message take hold. Many heard reports like Andrew’s and did not believe. Peter, having lived and worked with Jesus, had come to see for himself that the report was true, and Jesus calls him blessed because that insight was a gift from God, not merely something he had been told.
Other answers Christians give
A fuller confession
Some note that Andrew spoke of Jesus as Messiah, while Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi adds “the Son of the living God”, a deeper grasp of who Jesus is. It is this fuller insight that Jesus says came from the Father.
From the classic commentators
the sense here is, that this excellent confession of faith, which Peter had delivered, was not revealed unto him, nor taught him by any mere manJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Matthew 16:17 (1746–1763)
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee—‘This is not the fruit of human teaching.’Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary, on Matthew 16:17 (1871)
Sources
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Matthew 16 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary: Matthew 16 (1871), at Bible Hub