sermonette: Was Peter the Lead Apostle?
Austin Del Castillo
Given 25-Apr-26; Sermon #1872s; 14 minutes
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Going from the extreme of the Catholic Church that makes the apostle and disciple Peter into an almost divine being where people kiss the feet of his statue, many are at risk of going towards the other extreme where they deny that God appointed Peter as the main leader of his church after the death of His Son and He regularly appoints heads of His churches to fulfill His purpose. Examining Matthew 16:15-18, it is shown that Jesus had made Peter His successor after recognizing Him as the Christ and His purpose for coming. We see that death would never swallow the entire church, that people would always carry out Christ's will and carry on the true church to represent His will to the world. There are other examples that show that the apostle Peter had great power given to him by God such as healing the sick with his shadow and other disciples deferring to him at councils. This evidence points to God clearly placing people in charge and that it is for our benefit and God's and our work towards delivering His will.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s when Herbert Armstrong was still alive, he thought that
God was ordered and always established leaders in whatever work he was doing. As I recall from my days in Pasadena under his leadership, I remember that he would emphasize that Peter had been appointed by Jesus to be the head apostle. Now, I realize that there are quite a number of us who resist this idea. Uh, one reason is that the Catholic Church promotes this idea and refers to it as the primacy of Peter. Um, Another reason Is that um Well, you know what? I just thought of this. Just in for the purposes of good health, they have this statue of Peter that people are supposed to go up and kiss his feet. And I was thinking to myself, just on the basis of good health practices alone, I can't recommend this tradition, much less an attempt at honoring the servants of God. Anyway, another reason some of us may reject the idea of a lead apostle is what happened at the
Worldwide Church of God that led to its breakup. I remember quite well the resentment in the United Church of God at the thought of having a single individual as head of that group. Uh, they were not going to let one man fail them again. What I want to bring to the fore in this message is that God's word should always determine what we believe in His church. Hopefully, what I'm trying to uphold here is the very attitude of a
Berean. In other words, God's word is king when it comes to what we base our lives on. I'm pretty sure that none of our groups have a perfect understanding of what we need to know concerning God's word. That's the great thing I appreciate about CGG. Our leadership long ago determined that scripture was going to be should be giving the ultimate voice in what we base our lives and not on just on traditional beliefs. What I'm going to go over in this message is quite simply what I've wondered about for many years, and I do not expect everyone to be in complete agreement with me, but as David Graby has said, I hope we can still be friends. Thanks, David. Please turn if you would to the very scripture that has caused me to wonder whether we ever understood it correctly. We'll start in Matthew 16 and 15, Matthew 16 and 15, and we will be going through to verse 18. Um, Matthew 16:15, I'll read that, he said to them, but who do you say that I am? Of course, this is the occasion when Jesus asked his disciples who men thought he was. They proceeded to offer different identities that people were said to believe on the subject. Uh, so Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock
I will build my church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it. Please understand that I have no doubt whatever that scripture makes it absolutely plain that God's church is built on the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, as we read in Ephesians 2:20, for example. We read in I Corinthians 10 and 4 that the rock which followed Israel and whom they drank from was Christ. Before going on, I'd like to comment on the last half of Matthew 16:18, and the gates of Haiti shall not prevail against it. I understand that many of us believe that Jesus is Saying that the church will never die out, and that's what this is saying. I believe that's true though. Obviously, multiple thousands of church members have died over the past centuries, including those in the
Old Testament. But the church will always exist as the
Book of Revelation shows us in the opening chapters, for example. However, when I read what the scripture actually says, I find room to understand it in just a different way. Gates are there to keep others out. They are a line of defense, if you will. The scripture says that hell's gates will not keep the church from overcoming it. To my understanding, it's pretty obvious that hell represents death and the grave. Why would the church have victory over the graves? Quite simply because of the resurrection. In for example, I Corinthians 15:25 to 26, tell us that Jesus will put all enemies under his feet and that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Hasta lugo death and hell. OK, back to my original subject, which is Matthew 16 and 18, 1st half. What has made me wonder about this scripture is something that Believers Bible commentary mentions about this very portion of scripture. It says, quote, We all know that more controversy has swirled around this verse than almost any other in
the Gospel, unquote. They bring up what most scholars bring up, and that is the point that the simple difference between the name Peter and what it means and what a rock means. My brain, as lowly as it may be, sees something altogether different happening here. I will attempt to explain. What this verse is actually establishing in my simple mind, if you will. Going back to Matthew 16:18, Jesus says, and I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. The sentence doesn't make normal sense if Jesus is merely pointing out that he is the rock on which he will build this church. The first part of the sentence is not needed. He would have simply said, on this rock I will build my church. Point made. It seems to me that Jesus is telling Peter something we can miss in just reading over the scripture. It may help to remember that in the very previous scripture, Jesus calls him Simon Barjonah, not Peter. It seems to me that it's quite possible that Jesus was telling Peter something that Peter himself may not have realized at the time. Could Jesus have been telling Peter that he, Peter, was going to be the human rock or instrument through which God would develop his church? The structure of the sentence then makes sense. Perhaps underlining the meaning of the name Peter. If I may, I think that what the resurrected Jesus tells Peter in the book of John supports this notion. Please turn to John chapter 21 and verse 15. We're all very familiar with this section of scripture, John chapter 21 and verse 15. We need to understand that um on this occasion, Uh, Jesus has already risen. I think this is the maybe 3rd time he's met with him. So when they had eaten breakfast that is by the sea, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you
love me more than these? He said to him, Yeah, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said to him, Feed my lambs. Following verse, he said to him again the second time, Son of Jonah, do you love me? He said to him, Yes, yes, Lord, you know that I love you, he said to him, Tend my sheep. And finally he said to him the 3rd time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the 3rd time, Do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. Jesus said to him, Feed my sheep. We can get the idea that these are two men talking to each other. But we need to realize what Matthew 28 verse 18 says. Where Jesus tells the disciples in Matthew 28 and 18, all authority has been granted to me in heaven and in earth. This is God talking to a man just as he talked to Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob,
Moses, Joshua, and David. Now, that great God of all creation is giving Peter a charge. We can see this in the scriptures that the resurrected Jesus is specifically giving Peter this responsibility. I'm forced to see that. This put Peter in the leadership position among the apostles. There are other indicators, however, On the day of Pentecost, there was Peter who gave the inspired sermon to those in the public at that time. Many were converted that day, and even the mere shadow of Peter healed the sick and the tormented. Clearly, this was God making a huge statement about this one man. Later in the 10th chapter of the book of Acts, we see that Peter is the first apostle sent to the Gentiles when he was chosen to visit the home of Cornelius, the Roman centurion. In the first chapter of the book of Galatians, Paul says that after he trained in Arabia and returned to Damascus, he later went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter. We find Peter very much in a leadership position at the Jerusalem Council of the Book of Acts chapter 15, where he advises the council what should be expected of the Gentile converts and what shouldn't. James seems to put Peter's advice in action. Let's remember also that Peter, who correct, was the one who corrected and condemned the self-serving attitude of Simon, Simon Maggus, who was quite likely the one who started the Catholic Church, at least to my thinking. I believe that it's quite likely Simon's statue that people go and kiss and not Peter's at all. I'm pretty sure Peter would not have appreciated anyone making a statue of him in an effort to worship the true and living God. I see that, that the God we worship is one of order and organization. When Jesus walked the earth, he admitted that His Father was greater than him. He obeyed the will of his father to his own bloody death that was determined before
the world was. Under the Father, Jesus is over all the angels, all the church, all of mankind. Does it really seem like the Father or Jesus would leave the church without leadership and order even to this day? As I begin to close, please turn to Ephesians 4 and verse 11. Ephesians 4:11. Where we read, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. For the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Till we all come to the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We should forever be thankful and humble enough to accept the order of authority whom God continues to set over us. It is for our good and our growth as his children. I remember Peter also saying, Uh, grow in grace and knowledge of that loving and ordered God. I personally am thankful for Peter's leadership, um, and I am thankful for any leadership that God supplies to us as a church because we need them.
