By the late Rev. HUGH MARTIN, D.D.
(Continued from page 452.)
“And he 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.”—Matt. xvi. 23.
In the first place, then: How intensely righteous is this severity! Simon Bar-jonah, thou art turned aside from me to Satan. Thou art one with him. Thou dost speak, and counsel, and advise in his interest, as his agent, and for him. To this effect and to this extent thou art to me even as Satan—“Get thee behind me, Satan.”
But, in the second place: Mark the element of hope and evidence of love. Up to this point Jesus does not separate between Peter and Satan; for up to this point they are not separate, but one. Let the separation now take place. There is room for it taking place, notwithstanding the stern word of the Lord. There is room for it taking place consistently with this stern word of the Lord. Nay, this peremptory word, at first sight intimating nought but wrath and retribution, is so framed as evidently to hint at the separation, to invite it, to encourage it, to effect it. Simon, son of Jonas, art thou prepared to leave me? Art thou in love with everlasting banishment from the presence of the Lord, so lately joyfully confessed by thee as the Christ, the Son of the living God? Art thou willing to abandon all the blessedness my Father has given thee in opening thine eyes to see the fulness of my grace and glory as the only-begotten of the Father? Wouldst thou stand aghast at the sentence that should banish thee away from me for ever? And art thou trembling as if I had remorselessly exiled thee for ever from my sight? It is not so. It cannot be so, unless thou cling to thy great enemy and mine. For I said not, Get thee behind me, Peter; but “Get thee behind me, Satan.”
Is not there room here for Peter’s heart to cherish hope, and see his Master’s love? Rebuked although he be, most sternly and most justly—abashed and abased—Peter need not necessarily be banished; need not get behind his Master. Nay, rather, he must stand before Him in shame and sorrow for his offence. He must accept the stern rebuke as justly, deeply merited. He must acknowledge his iniquity and bear this indignation of the Lord. And thus separating from Satan, who has no loving Lord winning him to penitence and pardon—breaking off from that rebuked and condemned tyrant, for whom there is no door of escape—alarmed into breaking off by the very sternness of the doom denounced—encouraged to break off because the doom is uttered in a form which shows that it may be all exhausted on Satan only—returning now to a better and a sounder mind, submitting meekly to anything the sovereign Lord may appoint concerning any cross of his own or any cross to his servant—Peter need not, he ought not, he cannot without tenfold rebellion, depart from his Lord. Peter cannot get behind Jesus. He must break from Satan and leave the doom of banishment on him alone. He must not count himself repulsed from his Master’s presence. That he can be, only by his own determination to continue one with Satan and to share his fate. Rather must he come to his Lord’s feet in returning penitence and loyalty; resisting the devil that he may flee from him; and taking hold by faith and gratitude of his Master’s word to Satan as his comforting assurance that, in coming before his Lord now, the enemy shall not come with him, but his very Lord shall stand between him now and his foe. Yes; let him throw away the wisdom of the flesh; and therewith let him break the snare of Satan. Let Peter stand before his Lord, the new man once more, and worthy of his new name; separate again from Satan and acquiescing in the cross, as the wisdom and power of God. He will find that he is before his Lord’s face now, and Satan is behind his Lord’s back; and that if Satan tried to reach the Lord through Peter, he can now reach Peter only through the Lord—the Lord as his shield and his salvation. And thus this stern rebuke, rightly read and rightly taken, rescues Peter from the snare of the devil, and arouses him to flee from that confederacy, continuance in which must have banished him from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power. “Let the righteous”—above all, let my righteous Lord—let Jesus Christ the righteous—”smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head.” It shall break only the snare of the devil, and bruise the serpent’s head.
Here let us learn how holy is the love of Jesus, and how truly His “grace reigns through righteousness.” The very sternness of this righteous rebuke is what renders it a means of rescuing the falling disciple. A gentle, tender, soothing, apologetic style of dealing with him, far from being the dictate of great love, would have been but the evidence of deficient wisdom. For it is really poor policy, and it is poor and heartless pity, to speak weakly and tenderly of sin; to hint dislike merely, and hesitate a doubt, where obvious presumptuous sin is before you. It is poor charity to the sinner to deal with him as if you thought a great gulf were already fixed between him and the powers of hell, and there were little risk of his ever sharing the habitation of the devil and his angels, while in policy, and spirit, he is joined with them already. Rather let him know that he is quite at one with Satan, if you would see him roused to break conclusively with the prince of darkness. Let him know that he is not separate, if you would have him to come forth and be separate, and be a child of the Lord Almighty. Let him know, that if he will continue one with Satan, he cannot have your countenance and fellowship; that whereinsoever he acts and speaks in Satan’s interest, he must meet with your sharp, and stern, and uncompromising rebuke. In very love, be it yours so to deal with the wicked.
And to the sins even of disciples there can be no leniency shown, as if the flesh in them were anything better than carnal, grovelling, sensual, devilish; as if the sin that dwelleth in them had lost its character of deadly and deep malignity; or as if, when they abate their watchfulness and prayer, and fall a prey to it, they were not responsible for aiding and abetting, to that extent, the powers of darkness. Alike to inspire conviction and to prompt repentance, the stern truth must be faced and known. For both these ends: (1) To inspire conviction; (2) To prompt repentance.
I.—Am I in anything refusing the revealed truth or commanding will of God? Do I avoid the self-denying duty in which Jesus calls on me to follow Him? Do I plead for pleasing myself—for sparing the flesh when the spirit should be willing, and perhaps, by watchfulness and prayer, might, through grace, be found willing, and not altogether unfit, but able in a measure? Then let me realize the saddening fact that in this I am unto Jesus even as Satan. I am acquiescing in the policy of Satan. I am confederate with—I am the guilty agent of—the Evil One himself. And concerning all this compromise with evil and the Evil One, Jesus, my Lord and Master, who has ever loved me with joyfulness since I acknowledged and confessed Him heartily as “The Christ the Son of the living God”—Jesus, who bore generous testimony to my faith as given me by the “revelation, not of flesh and blood, but of the Father”—Jesus, who congratulated me with glad and overflowing welcome on having become a new man, and promised that, as “a living stone” in His temple, I should not be confounded, nor should the “gates of hell prevail against me,”—even this Jesus, in very faithfulness, looks on me with deep displeasure, classes me for the moment with the very Devil and his angels, and says, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Am I not stung, alarmed, ashamed, pained to the heart for the pain I have given Him? How could I grieve Him so? How can I keep from seeking His forgiveness now?
II.—But is there room for repentance? Dare I come into His presence? Dare I, when He has said, Get thee behind me? Oh, the goodness that mingles with the severity of God! Oh, the grace that reigns through righteousness! He has not said, Get thee behind me, Peter. And He has not unsaid His own blessed word, “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” Break, O my soul, with the wisdom of the flesh, which is enmity to God, and confederacy with Satan. Let the Lord speak; and in all that His word utters, be thou in leading-strings and chains of love, and faith, and of obedience. Speak, Lord; thy servant heareth. Speak of thy cross; speak of mine. Rule my proud, presumptuous spirit into full subjection to thy mysterious wisdom—to thy will, ever wise, and holy, and just, and good. Not my wisdom—not my will, but thine be done. I cannot continue joined with Satan. I cannot get behind thee with him. I dare not go away in company with him. Judge, good Lord, between me and mine adversary. I flee not from thee with him. I flee unto thee from him. I flee unto thee to cover me. And let this be my judgment and deliverance—my deliverance from him, even by thy very cross—even this, that “now is the prince of this world cast out, and thou, when lifted up, dost draw me unto thee.” Let him be cast out and cast behind thee—away from thee and from me; while I am drawn unto thee—drawn by that very cross, and all its searchless righteousness and love, which once I misunderstood and misjudged so inexcusably. Thus, I take occasion of thy just rebuke, as graciously thou didst design, to shake off the temptation and the tempter, and draw near to thee. Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee. I identify myself with thee; I join with thee in saying to the enemy, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” And I rejoice in the righteous and successful sternness with which thou dost utter that rebuke. My salvation from the enemy is in it. I grasp the mighty power of thy peremptory uncompromising command; by faith I make its power, and sternness, and certain victory mine. The Lord rebuke thee, Satan. Am I not a brand plucked from the burning? Get thee behind me, Satan.
We may pass very rapidly over the two remaining clauses of Christ’s rebuke of Simon. “Thou art an offence unto me: thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” “Thou art an offence unto me”—literally, a scandal, a stumbling-block, a stone of stumbling. My cross is to thee “foolishness” and a “stumbling-block.” And tempting me with the same views of it which you take yourself, and fain to turn me aside from my path because it is rough, and marked with many a danger, and darkened by a close so sad and sorrowful—so sad, when regarded as the absolute and final close, the joy set before me being unheeded—thou wouldst cause me to stumble and fall. Ah! my disciple, my road is rough and sore enough already, without thee becoming a stumbling-stone, a stone of offence—“Get thee behind me, Satan.”
“Thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” As spoken to Peter, this reminds him that in the present instance he is not acting as the new man, but as the old man; not minding the things of the Spirit, as, born after the Spirit, he ought; but minding the things of the flesh, the things that be of men, who, apart from the regeneration of the Spirit, are only flesh, corruption—only evil, and that continually. As spoken to Satan, “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men,” how terrible a statement is this of the doctrine of human depravity! To say to man, “Thou savourest the things of Satan,” is condemnation enough. But to say to Satan, “Thou savourest the things that be of men;” to make it the devil’s very condemnation, the head and front of his offending, that he should have relish for the things of men! It is perhaps one of the most intense forms in which the fact of the total corruption of human nature could possibly be expressed. But we cannot dwell on the clauses longer. Such, however, is the threefold rebuke addressed to Peter, when he spake, not according to the Spirit, but according to the flesh. “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-stone to me: thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”