Expert: J.M.J. West - 10/30/2008

Question
What are the main differences between Catholic & Protestant beliefs about "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church?" Thanks.

Answer
Barbara,

Thank you for your question!  The chief difference between the Catholic and Protestant interpretation of this passage is whether or not Simon Peter is the self-same rock upon which Christ will build his church; or if rather the confession of faith he made the verse before that is.  Naturally I'm going to lean towards the former, and I'll tell you why in a minute.  This will be long, but hopefully thorough!

The scene goes like this (I added some tags to reference below):
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"When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"  They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, 10 others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

Jesus said to him in reply,

"(1a)Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
(1b)For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.  
(2a) And so I say to you, you are Peter,
(2b) and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  
(3a) I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  
(3b)Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."  (Matt 16:13-19)
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This is an interesting passage, but it needs to be understood in the context of what Jesus came to do.  God has always had a church (i.e. a formal, hierarchical body) for his "kingdom of priests".  Thus Israel had the Aaronic High Priesthood, and the ministerial Levitical Priests, who served Israel in a unique capacity.  When Christ came, many of those who held such positions were abusing their powers.  Thus Jesus sees that the Israelites are like "Sheep without a shepherd", prompting him to call for "new laborers" (cf. Matt 9:35-10:3).  And even in the face of abuse - because their positions were instituted by God, the people were to obey them until God himself removed them from their authority (cf. Matt 23:1-3), which Christ was in the process of doing (hence the "new wine into new wineskins, not the old wineskins which could not hold it and would burst" (cf. Matt 9:17)

So Jesus began giving authority (which was his to give) to his apostles.  Two chapters later in Matt 18, he says to all of them "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven".

Here, two verses earlier, he gives a similar authority to Peter alone, in the form of a three-fold blessing, each part itself in two parts, which explains the other part.

(1a)Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
Why is he blessed?
(1b)For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.  

(2a) And so I say to you, you are Peter,
Why call him Peter (which means "rock")?
(2b) and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  

(3a) I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  
What do these keys mean?
(3b)Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Peter alone is given this special authority of the Keys, to which we'll return momentarily.

So what about this second part.  It seems pretty clear that Peter is the rock Jesus is referring to.  But sometimes people will look at the Greek and take issue with the terms.  Jesus says "You are PETROS, and upon this PETRA I will build my church" in Greek.  PETROS and PETRA are not necessarily analogous, but are not necessarily not, either.

In Greek, words have gender often, and PETRA is a feminine word which means "large boulder".  PETROS is a masculine word.  As a mere word, it can mean simply a smaller stone, or a larger stone.  Often a protestant apologist will make the claim that here Jesus was actually calling Simon an insignificant pebble, and was making "this rock" a reference to the confession of faith that Peter had made.  This unfortunately doesn't fly for a number of reasons.

First, Jesus is clearly honoring Simon.  Parts one and three of the three fold blessing are praising him and giving him honor and authority.  It doesn't make sense to in the middle of it insult him.  "Blessed are you...you insignificant pebble...have the keys to the kingdom."

More over, from a linguistic standpoint, having "this rock" refer to the confession of faith doesn't make sense.  "There is a car and following it is a truck, which is blue." Would you expect the unstated subject of "which is blue" to be the car or the truck?  The truck, right?  Same reasoning makes "this rock" hard to apply to the confession of faith (at least as a primary meaning, though even the Catholic Church is willing to concede both that this is a reasonable co-interpretation and that the confession of the divinity of Christ IS utterly important and the base of our faith!).  But in this passage that's not what is going on.

Jesus is honoring Peter clearly, and he is giving him a new name (the only apostle who got a name which replaced this given name).  Matthew makes the switch from "petra" to "Petros" precisely to NOT give Simon the name "Ms. Rock".

Moreover, Jesus and the apostles spoke Aramaic primarily, not Greek.  The Aramaic phrases of Christ are often recorded in scripture (cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_of_Jesus), and the Name given to Peter is recorded for us in various places.

Primarily John 1:42, which has Jesus giving the Aramaic name of "KEPHA" (transliterated "CEPHAS" in Greek) to Simon the first time he meets him.  St. John even does the job of clarifying for us what "CEPHAS" means ("PETER").  "Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter."

So it seems that Simon Peter himself is the "ROCK" upon which the church is built, along with the other apostles and Revelation (21:14) confirms this - with Christ as the corner stone.

This also fits with other facts about Peter that stand out as odd if he weren't viewed unanimously as the leader of the Church. (see: http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/03/50-new-testament-proofs-for-petrine.html )

So, what about those Keys?  Well, in the Davidic Kingdom, the king's job was to be away fighting for his kingdom.  In his stead he would have ministers who could act with his authority - and he had so many ministers that he needed one who could make final decisions and keep them in line when necessary.  To this one "Prime" minister, he gave a symbol of authority.  Can you guess what it was?

The KEY to the KINGDOM.  Along with the key came authority which stayed with the office, even when the office bearer was removed.  For example, Isaiah 22:20ff presents us with a "defrocking" ceremony for a bad steward, and it references the keys clearly.  "I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open."  Sounds familiar, doesn't it?  In fact, to any first century Jew who was awaiting a messiah to set up his kingdom, this would have been a flashing light that read "Oh, so this is who this guy is going to pick to be his [first] prime minister."

And, just as the office doesn't dissolve when the office holder passes on.  In fact, none of the apostle's offices ended with them.  Heck, the first thing they did after seeing Christ ascend to heaven was to elect a SUCCESSOR to Judas (who had killed himself), saying 'another must take his OFFICE'.

So, after all of that, it seems that Peter and the Apostles had a special authority in the church not shared by all (but shared by some!), and that it is real authority to make decisions for the church (hence "binding and loosing"), and to expect the obedience of the faithful (precisely because they are guided and guarded by the Holy Spirit).  And Peter most especially is given authority even over the other 11, and is clearly the visible leader of the Church.  When he died, those in his office took over and retained a similar authority, and we can see this historically:

"The church of God which sojourns at Rome to the church of God which sojourns at Corinth ... But if any disobey the words spoken by him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and in no small danger." Clement of Rome, Pope, 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, 1,59:1 (c. A.D. 96).

"Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere." Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3:3:2 (A.D. 180).

Incidentally, for more on Caesarea Phillipi, where this scene took place, you might enjoy this article:
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0504fea3.asp
See also: http://www.scripturecatholic.com/primacy_of_peter.html

Hope that helps!  Feel free to ask any follow up questions that might arise.

Peace of Christ,

-J.M.J. West