"Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus replied, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." (Matthew 16:16-18 NIV) This passage is very important to Christians. Jesus had just asked who the people around were saying He was. After the answers of Elijah or one of the other prophets returned from the dead, Jesus asked the disciples who they thought He, the Son of Man, was. The reply Simon gave, and Jesus' answer, tells us a lot. Simon knew Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed One, who had been awaited for so long by Israel, but he knew it only by having it revealed to him by God.
There was NO OTHER WAY to know! It was revealed knowledge from Heaven, right from God. Jesus called Simon "Petros", meaning a large, movable hunk of rock, detached from the living rock. The rock He says He will build His church upon is "Petra", or huge, immovable rock, the living rock which the first came from. He didn't say He would build His church on Simon, but the solid ROCK of revealed knowlege. What Jesus was saying to Simon was that he had received something as solid as a rock, revealed knowledge from God. It made Simon solid like a rock, so Jesus nicknamed him "Rock". The revealed knowledge in this case, of course, was that Jesus was the Christ.
Jesus said He would build His church on this rock, revealed knowledge from God, and not even death itself would defeat it. Nothing can overpower it! When God tells something to your spirit, nothing else can dislodge that from you. Nothing in the natural world can shake the foundation of God and what He reveals to you. Nothing in the natural world told Simon Jesus was the Christ, only God and God’s Word, but it took God to open the Word to him. So Jesus was saying that His church would be as solid as a huge Rock, which He Himself was symbolized as in Scripture (Num chpt. 20, 1 Cor 10:4), because it has the solidity of revelation knowledge from God. Nothing in this universe is more sure than that. When God tells you something, you know it. It is the Solid Foundation upon which we build our soul, and a sure Foundation it is. Jesus referred to it in a parable in Luke. Luke 6:47-48 declares,
"Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock." The stream will rise up and beat against you, but if you are founded upon that Rock, you have nothing to worry about.
You see, you cannot, I repeat CANNOT trust in men. You cannot trust me. I am just a man. I can tell you what God told me through His Word, but you have to go to God to get it confirmed by His Word. That is why I provide Scripture references in my writings, so you can look them up and study them for yourselves (hint hint). God is the only one you can trust. I might be wrong, but God is never wrong, so trust and believe God to reveal His Word to you. Paul said, by the Holy Spirit, in Ephesians 4:14,
" That we [henceforth] be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, [and] cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;" The reason we are not tossed about, or admonished not to be, is because of that foundation. If Martin Luther had not believed he had revelation from God, he would not have stood alone against the established church of his day, but he knew that he knew. You have to know that you know that you know, and the only way to know is let God teach you Himself. He said He would, so let Him. Get into the Word, dig around in it and let God show you what it means. Then you will know, and if someone comes up to you and says this or that, you will be able to determine if it is truth or not. God will not reveal something to someone else and not to another because He is not a respecter of persons. What He reveals to one, He will reveal to another if they ask in faith. God created the universe, so how much easier is it for Him to reveal what His Word means to you. That way you don’t have to worry about being deceived by false teachers. Just ask God and study the Scriptures, and He will show you if they are right or wrong. That way they are as easy to tell apart as grapes are from thorns (Matt 7:15-16). M.F.