“Who do men say that I am?” Jesus asked His disciples. It’s a fair question. The identity of this carpenter’s son from Nazareth had largely been kept a secret throughout the region, and especially as they neared Caesarea Philippi, perhaps as far away from Jerusalem as He had been in His ministry. And the report comes in: “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”

John the Baptist, some say; well, that’s an easy one. Remember that word of John had spread far and wide, so that even “[A]ll the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.” (Mark 1:5) People knew who John was, though they may never have seen the man, and they knew what he had to say: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2) Now, as we heard last week, that when John was thrown into prison, Jesus arrives on the scene and takes up John’s message (cf. Mark 1:15) You might imagine what some of the people are saying, “Even though there were reports of his imprisonment and death, this Jesus sounds an awful lot like that fellow who was baptizing in the wilderness. Maybe John escaped and went on the lam, changed his identity, but continued his trade. Jesus is John the Baptist!”

The prophet Elijah, some say; not too hard either. After being baptized in the Jordan by John, Jesus was cast out into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. He goes into the wilderness, the place where Elijah was assumed in a fiery chariot. Those who knew of Elijah’s message, knew that this Jesus fellow sounded and acted much like this prophet. Elijah’s return had been long expected, and now Jesus appears on the scene preaching and teaching and performing Elijah-like miracles having come from the same wilderness from where Elisha saw Elijah taken. Again, you might imagine the murmurings of the people going along those lines.

Yet others proclaim Jesus to be one of the other prophets. Okay, so Jesus sounds and acts much like Elijah did, but says and does things that the other prophets speak about, too. Maybe this Jesus is one of them. “Perhaps he’s Jeremiah, maybe Isaiah...or could he be Ezekiel? He uses some of the same language as Daniel. What about one of the minor prophets? We’re not expecting any of them, but that doesn’t mean God won’t send one of the other prophets back to us; so maybe Jesus is one of the prophets.”

Was all of this wishful thinking? Perhaps. It’s hard to say as we cannot peer into the hearts and minds of those who were saying these things. It could just as well be that they don’t have a complete picture of who Jesus is or what He is doing; or they could have been misled by others whom they respected, who came to these false conclusions. False conclusions—that’s what they all are; these people are wrong.

“Who do men say that I am?” Jesus asked. It’s a valid question to ask today, and you’ll likely hear a much more varied set of responses. “He’s some guy who lived a long time ago who incited an insurrection, that when he was put to death by Rome, his followers stole his body and reported that he had risen from the dead.” “He’s a great teacher—an example of how to live a good life.” “He’s the son of Elohim and his goddess wife.” “He’s the word from God, a prophet of Allah, second only to Muhammad.” I’m sure there are many other responses.

Again, wishful thinking? Perhaps...perhaps not. At worst, all of these responses, on the way to Caesarea Philippi and in our time, are a denial of who God is, whether recognized as such or not—responses borne from the Great Deceiver himself, the author of all lies. At best...well, there really isn’t an “at best.” Failing to recognize who Jesus is, in light of who He revealed Himself to be, is to go down a road that leads to eternal death and damnation.

So, Jesus asks those to whom He had revealed Himself, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter chimes in, “You are the Christ.” Good job Peter, you got it right. But, as Matthew tells us, Peter did not get this from himself: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17) “Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him.” We’ll get to that in a moment, for we find ourselves in a day and time when they had told others about Him, who told yet others, and still others, etc.

Jesus is the Christ. That’s a response we could get to the question if posed today. “Who do men say that I am?” It’s the confession upon which the church is built, against which the gates of Hades cannot and will not prevail. (cf. Matthew 16:18) But is this a confession others make when they state that Jesus is the Christ?

Sadly, not always. You’ll have those who simply parrot what Christians call Him; when they say that Jesus is the Christ, what they are really saying is, “Christians call Jesus the Christ,” and they have no idea what it means for Jesus to be Christ; they refuse to know what it means for Jesus to be Christ. Those who call Jesus the son of Elohim and his goddess wife will call Him Christ; in fact, they wrangle the title for the name of their false religion. Though they claim to accept what Jesus says it means for Him to be the Christ, they twist it into meaning that His Messiah-ship was to demonstrate the way to salvation, to enlighten men as to how to work out their salvation, since his plan was better than that of his brother, Lucifer. And these are just a couple of the myriad desired meanings of calling Jesus the Christ.

But, what of you, who do you say that Jesus is? And I’m certain, since you are sitting there listening to me, that you would also say that He is the Christ. But do you know what that means? We look to what Jesus did: “And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” That’s what it means to be the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. Jesus is the one anointed to be the fulfiller of the entire Old Testament, encompassing every designation for the promised Savior: Seed of the Woman, Son of the Promise, Son of David, King, Mediator, High Priest, Prophet, Head Shepherd, Suffering Servant, Lamb of God, and so on. Take some time to look these up, and you’ll see that His anointing is summed up in a singular act: His death—the shedding of His blood.

Oh, how quick would we be to act like Peter. And why not? Sure, hindsight is 20/20, and we would like to say that we wouldn’t prevent Jesus from going to the cross to die for the sins of all, but if we were in his sandals, Old Adam—nay, Satan—would certainly have spoken up in us as much as it did in Peter. Yes, we want a Christ, an anointed one, but not in the way that Jesus teaches, throughout His Word and along the way to Caesarea Philippi. To the world, just about everything previously mentioned is what it means for Jesus to be the Christ—that’s what they want the Christ to be, an incomplete picture of what the Scriptures proclaim the Christ to be. And, given the choice, we would want that kind of Christ right along with Peter and the world.

This Jesus fellow is a pretty nice guy. He teaches some pretty neat things. He performs many wonderful miracles. Why can’t He be more like John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets? Why can’t he be a miracle worker, a great teacher, an example today?

Because to be Christ is to suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, and rise again on the third day. This is what John the Baptist says, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) This is what the life of Elijah pointed toward. Indeed, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and even the minor prophets all proclaimed that one would come to suffer, die, and rise again. Jesus is the One anointed to suffer, die, and rise again; He is the very Paschal Lamb of God whose blood sets us free, who takes away the sin of the world! To confess Jesus as the Christ is to go, as R.T. France puts it, “beyond the popular acclamation of Jesus as a prophet to the point of recognizing him as not just one among many, not even, like John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets, but as the one climactic figure in whom God’s purpose is finally being accomplished.” As St. Paul says, “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)

“Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him.” Why was it so important that Jesus’ identity as the Christ remain hidden from the world? Simply put, for the very reason that He gave, “And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” The Son of Man must go through these things, as He had not yet done so. To proclaim Jesus as the Christ before then would only add to the confusion of what it meant for one to be anointed. As Dr. Jeffrey Gibbs comments,

If...in first-century Palestine the title of “Christ” or “Messiah” had come to be connected to all manner of eschatological expectations, many of which ran counter to the true reign of God that Jesus was now manifesting in Israel and in the world, it would be worse than counterproductive for the inner circle of Jesus’ apostles to publicly proclaim him as Messiah now. Indeed, as Peter’s own actions in the unit that immediately follows well illustrate, the meaning and purpose that Jesus himself intends for his own life and work as Israel’s Messiah are shockingly unexpected and spiritually offensive to Simon.

Let Jesus die and rise again first, let Him utter, “It is finished,” (cf. John 19:30) then point to Him as the fulfillment of all that was said of the Christ in Moses and the prophets—then proclaim that Jesus is the Christ...not was, but is the Christ!

And so it has been since the resurrection of our Lord, that the apostles and pastors and teachers have pointed to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of Man who had to suffer at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, and on the third day rise again, just as had been written of the Anointed One since the fall of man into sin. We have the apostles’ teaching.

It is as we heard earlier from the pen of St. Paul,

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Romans 5:6-10)

“Behold! The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!” John the Baptist proclaimed. St. John the apostle echoes, “[T]he blood of Jesus Christ [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7b)

Dear Baptized, Jesus is the Christ, the one anointed from all eternity to bear your sin and be your Savior. His blood cleanses from all sin, even yours. By His death you are reconciled to God. It doesn’t sound pleasant; given the choice, we would have it another way—any other way than the way Jesus taught, and so the Son of God warns:

Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.

“Deny yourself,” Jesus says; take up your cross and follow Him. Jesus is not the Christ you want Him to be, therefore deny yourself. Jesus is the Christ He proclaims Himself to be, the One who went to the cross for you. Take Him at His Word; He has saved you in the way you needed to be saved: by death and resurrection—His death and resurrection!

Take up your cross...oh, you’ll have a cross to bear, too. Crosses kill—the sign of the crushing weight of the Law of God. “The wages of sin is death,” (Romans 6:23a) St. Paul wrote, and, “[All have sinned,” (Romans 3:23a) therefore your mortality will always be before you, even as you believe and confess Jesus to be the Christ. As once stated, aches and pains, illness and cancers all testify to the fact that death looms over us all, and these are constantly at work to lure us away from the confession of Jesus as the Christ, as His Word proclaims Him. “We need healing now,” they are wont to exclaim, “Not a dead Christ on a cross.” And so they lure us to shame in the cross of Christ, to an unholy desire to have Him as Christ in our way, in Peter’s way, to a Christ without a cross, even to an outright, overt denial of Jesus as the Christ.

Nevertheless, Jesus still went to Jerusalem, and there suffered at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, died on the cross, was buried, and rose again on the third day. By His death, through the shedding of His blood, He made propitiation for our sins, for the sins of the whole world. (cf. Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2) “[T]he death that [Christ] died, He died to sin once for all,“ St. Paul wrote. (Romans 6:10a) His cross is the instrument that freed us from the death that sin deserves, eternal separation from God and damnation, though for now our bodies still decay and die. His death on the cross for sin has become our death to sin, as St. Paul continued, “but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:10b-11)

Fully trusting and confident in the death and resurrection of the Christ, we reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Death no longer has dominion over Christ, nor is it an enemy for us who have been baptized into His death to fear, (cf. Romans 6:3, 9) which baptism gives us faith to confesses Jesus as the Christ, and which looks forward to the day when He comes again, and the dead in Christ are raised to incorruption—fully healed and restored. Therefore, saved by grace through faith, we receive Him as the Christ He proclaimed Himself to be, as we also confess:

And [I believe] in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary; Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

“From thence He shall come again to judge the quick and the dead.” The Son of Man will come again in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. As those who confess Jesus as the Christ, you look forward to His return, for you are not ashamed of Him and His Word, nor His cross. There the judgment will be proclaimed of you, who by faith confess Jesus as the Christ, that you are among the quick, because you are forgiven for all of your sins by the blood of the Son of God, the Lamb of God, the Christ.