PREACHED BY REV. NEIL MACINTYRE, MODERATOR,
At Meeting of Synod, Glasgow, 19th May 1926.
THIS question—“Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?” was asked by Jesus of His disciples when they had come to the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi. There evidently was a diversity of opinion among the people as to who He was. Some said He was John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. These opinions certainly gave Him a very high place, for these men were not ordinary individuals, but their ideas came infinitely short of expressing who He was, for He was none other than the Eternal Son of God in our nature.
Jesus then puts the question directly to the disciples themselves—“But whom say ye that I am?” It is not enough for us to know and be able to express the opinions of others, for if we are to be among the blessed Simon Bar-jonas we must have a knowledge which flesh and blood cannot give. Peter, who was usually the spokesman for the others, answered the question and said—“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It was in reply to that answer the words of the text were spoken—“Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
The words might be taken as an encouragement to the disciples in view of their future work. They were to be sent forth to preach the gospel and to set up the Christian church in the world. They were but a small, despised body of men, and would meet with many trials and much opposition from Church and State, but He leaves them this promise for their encouragement, “On this rock I will build my church.”
Let us consider—
1. The foundation of this building—“Upon this rock.”
2. The Builder and the building—“I will build my church.”
3. The stability of the building—“The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
I. The foundation of this building—“Upon this rock.”
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You are probably aware that this is the passage of Scripture on which the heretical and blasphemous Church of Rome rests her claim to papal supremacy. She maintains that Peter is the rock, that he was the first Bishop at Rome, and asserts that the Popes are his successors as the vicegerents of God upon earth. For this baseless assumption there is not a particle of evidence. There are two words used in the Greek text—“Petros” and “Petra.” “Petros” is a masculine word, and means a stone or a piece of rock. “Petra” is feminine, and means solid rock. When Christ addresses Peter, He says—“Thou art ‘Petros,’” but when He speaks of the foundation He says—“Upon this ‘Petra.’” The distinction between the two words ought to be plain to any impartial student, and that the Popish claims are only a clear wresting of Scripture and an invention of Satan.
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Let us now notice how Christ the “Petra” is the foundation on which the church is to be built. (1) He is the foundation by the eternal decree of the Father. He was set up from all eternity. Concerning Him the Father says—“Behold I lay in Sion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation” (Isa. xxviii. 16). We must observe here that there was a building prior to this, which was Adam, our first covenant head, with all his posterity, and the foundation of that building was man’s obedience. “Do this and thou shalt live.” Through the disobedience of man the foundation gave way, and the whole building collapsed. God in His infinite mercy and love proposed to build from these fallen stones a spiritual house for Himself, and decreed that His eternal Son should be the foundation on which it should be built—“I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people” (Ps. lxxxix. 19).
(2) Christ is the foundation of this building in His obedience and sufferings. In laying a foundation we are to consider the site on which it is to be laid. Now, the foundation of the first house (Adam and his posterity) was laid on the site of God’s Law—“Do this and thou shalt live,” and so the foundation of the second house (the church) must be laid on the very same site. Not one stone can be laid until first obedience and satisfaction be given to the infinite claims of Law and Justice. If, for example, we take Solomon’s temple, which was typical of the Church of God, the foundation of the second temple was laid exactly on the same site as was the first. Now it was much easier for Solomon to lay the foundation of the first temple than for Zerubbabel to lay the foundation of the second. Solomon probably had little more to do than lay the foundation and proceed to build, but Zerubbabel had much ashes and rubbish to remove from the site. The same is true in this case. When God created man He had only to say—”Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” but this could not be said regarding man as guilty. Obedience and satisfaction must first be given to the law which he violated. No finite creature could meet these claims, but God, in infinite love, sent His Son into the world, who took our nature—”Born of a woman and made under the law”—and by His obedience and sufferings made complete atonement for the sins of His people—”By one sacrifice He for ever perfected them that are sanctified.” This is the Rock on which the Church is built—”No other foundation can any man lay.” All other foundations are but sinking sands, and will leave sinners exposed to the storms of God’s wrath.
(3) Christ is the foundation of the Church, as He is freely offered in the Gospel—”And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone” (Eph. ii. 20). Any gospel which does not set forth Christ to perishing sinners as the only foundation is no gospel, and is only deceiving them for an endless eternity.
Now, when a sinner, through the effectual operation of the Spirit, is enabled by faith to lay hold of Christ in the free offer of the gospel, he is at that moment placed upon the Rock against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. This, then, is the Rock on which the Church is built.
II. Let us now consider the Builder and the building—”I will build my Church.”
- The Builder—”I will build.” (1) We may observe that Christ as Son over His own house is not to delegate the building of this house to any creature—”I will build.” He, no doubt, employs men as fellow-workers—”We then, as workers together with Him” (II. Cor. vi. i.), but these workers are not to fashion and mould the house according to their own fancies. No, they must follow the pattern given in the mount of inspiration. The majority of present-day builders think themselves wiser than God, and that they are at liberty to change His plan and build according to their own carnal imaginations, but when the Chief Inspector comes their work shall be condemned, and they shall be found guilty of interfering with His plan. Let us as a Church seek to build according to the pattern given us in His Word.
(2) There is implied in this declaration—”I will build”—that He will do so in face of all opposition. The powers of darkness, hell and the world do all in their power to stop this building, but they shall not prevail. The heathen may rage and imagine vain things. Kings and princes may plot against Him, but He only laughs at them, and holds them in derision, and goes on to build as if they were not in existence. When Christ will arise in the power of His Spirit to build up Sion, He shall appear in His glory, and who can set the briars and thorns against Him in battle? Men of the world are ready to think unless there are leaders who have a name and place in the estimation of their fellow-sinners, that the Church of God cannot be built. When Christ was about to set up the Christian Church in the world, He did not take men of fame and learning, but a few unlearned fishermen, and sent them out as lambs among wolves, and they turned the world upside down. We ought not to despise men to whom the Lord has given gifts and grace, but the cause of Christ is independent of any man. It is to Him who says, “I will build,” that we should look for the up-building of Sion. Unless He builds the house, all efforts of men are vain.
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We now come to observe the building of which He speaks—”My Church.” (1) The word “church” has been greatly misunderstood and confused by many. It is taken by some to mean stone and lime, by others to be some certain name. These false ideas did a lot of mischief, and led many astray in our days. Many have allowed the Word of God to be torn to shreds and scattered to the four winds in order that they might keep buildings and a name, but the Church of the living God does not consist of such material things. (2) What, then, is the “Church?” The word “Church” comes from “ecclesia,” which means an assembly of people “called out.” The Church of God, then, is “called out,” separated from the world in election and regeneration. Wherever they are, whether in buildings or in the caves of the earth, they are “the Church.” Free Presbyterians are often accused of holding that there are no godly people in any denomination but their own. The charge is false, and should be treated with contempt. In saying this we are not to be understood as minimising the importance of holding a distinctive testimony for truth and principle in these degenerate days. We would also impress upon all our hearers the duty of adhering to that body which holds more closely to the Word of God.
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Let us observe His claim to this building—”My Church.” (1) This is a wonderful structure, for the Builder is the foundation, builder, proprietor, and tenant at the same time. One might be proprietor of a house and not the builder, or he might be builder and proprietor and not the tenant, but Christ claims the “Church” in all these respects.
(2) He claims them by right of gift. They were gifted to Him by the Father in the past eternity—”Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me.” In receiving them He became Surety for them, which meant for Him all the sufferings and wrath which He endured from the stable to Calvary. “They are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from their vain conversation received by tradition from their fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ” (I. Peter i. 18). They are His, therefore, not only by right of gift, but also by right of redemption—”He loved them and gave Himself for them.”
(3) They are His by right of conquest. There can be no building without material with which to erect it. What was the material used in building this house? We have already noticed that man as created was a glorious temple in which God dwelt, but that in the day he sinned that temple became a ruin, the habitation of dragons. Now, it was out of this utter ruin that it pleased the Lord to take the stones by which He is to build this holy temple, which is to be an habitation for Himself through the Spirit.
Now, every stone in this building was among the lost and ruined mass of Adam’s race. When God proposed to build this temple for Himself, He also proposed that all the stones be taken from the fallen race of Adam; yet He did not purpose that all the stones of that ruin should be used. But who can find fault?—”I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” Now, these stones which are to be made “lively stones” and fit for this glorious temple, were all lying dead in trespasses and sins, but the Holy Spirit in a day of power convinced them of their lost, ruined state. He made them able and willing to accept of Christ as their only foundation, and to surrender to Him as their only Lord and Saviour. In this world He polishes and prepares them through many trials and tribulations, and fits them for the glorious temple above. He shall at last present them all holy and unblamable and unprovable before the Father.
This, then, is the building which Christ claims as His own. None can have a place in this spiritual building but those who are made living stones.
III. The stability of the Church—”The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
- What are we to understand particularly by the “gates of hell?” Without entering into a detailed explanation, the expression means that all the strength and resources of hell are aimed against the Church to destroy it.
Satan and his confederates were for four thousand years taking counsel at the gates of hell to destroy not only the Church, but the foundation Rock, but he did not prevail. No sooner did Christ appear on earth than the powers of hell were after Him, but they did not prevail. Christ bruised Satan’s head—”He spoiled principalities and powers, made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it (His cross.)” When the gates of hell did not prevail against the “Child born and the Son given,” they were wroth with the woman, the Church, and “the dragon went forth to make war with the remnant of her seed” (Rev. xii. 17). “He cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood” (Rev. xii. 15).
Though Satan’s power was destroyed, yet not his being nor his enmity, so he now uses all his evil resources to destroy the Church, but he will not prevail. He has been pouring out one flood after another to resist the progress of the Church and to destroy her. He has set up wicked and idolatrous systems in the world, such as Paganism and Mohammedanism and the Church of Rome, which has been well described as “the masterpiece of hell.” He has come with storms of persecution. The Church in this land was hunted as wild beasts on the mountains, but like Israel in Egypt, the more they were persecuted the more they increased. Their blood was freely shed at stakes and on scaffolds, but in all this Satan was foiled, for the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church. She was never more prosperous than when suffering for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
When the great adversary saw that persecution did not succeed, he then came in another form with a flood of errors into the Protestant Churches of Britain. German Rationalism has flooded this land to such an extent that thousands are being swept away to eternal perdition by its force. Our pulpits are crowded with men who solemnly vowed that they believed the Scriptures to be the Word of God, and that they would maintain and defend them, yet they are neither afraid nor ashamed to instil into the minds of their hearers the poisonous doctrine that the Bible is full of errors and immoralities. They teach that there is no future punishment, that all are going to heaven, that Christ died for all, and many more hurtful and erroneous doctrines which are all aimed by Satan for the overthrow of the Church. All the walls and bulwarks which our godly forefathers set up at the Reformation to protect the Church are being broken down with hammer and axe. What has been the result? One is that the majority of the people have become practical atheists, and turned their backs upon the means of grace, and have gone to desecrate God’s Day in the open fields. Can we wonder that the hand of God is so heavily upon us as a nation when we, from the King downwards, show so little regard to His laws? “Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”
In these degenerate days much flippant and superficial talk is heard about Union which is to take place between the two larger bodies in Scotland. This, in my opinion, is another attempt to destroy the Church of the Reformation, and bring the people of this land back to the fold of the Church of Rome. In face of all the declensions and attempts by the gates of hell to prevail against the Church, we have no reason to be discouraged. He who says, “I will build my Church,” sits on the floods, and the Church built on “this Rock” shall yet triumphantly rise and “be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it” (Isa. ii. 2). “Let us,” then, “hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised”—”I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
How little of the sea can a child carry in his hand! As little am I able to take away of my great Sea, my boundless and running-over Christ Jesus.—Rutherford.