What is everyone’s understanding of this passage?
“Thou are Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church.” The “Rock" of Matthew 16:18
Of course, this is the Catholic perspective. That they found the universal church on:
"We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic because some of his words are preserved for us in the Gospels. Look at Matthew 27:46, where he says from the cross, ‘ Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani ?’ That isn’t Greek; it’s Aramaic, and it means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
“What’s more,” I said, "in Paul’s epistles—four times in Galatians and four times in 1 Corinthians—we have the Aramaic form of Simon’s new name preserved for us. In our English Bibles it comes out as Cephas . That isn’t Greek. That’s a transliteration of the Aramaic word Kepha (rendered as Kephas in its Hellenistic form).
"And what does Kepha mean? It means a rock, the same as petra . (It doesn’t mean a little stone or a pebble. What Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha , and on this kepha I will build my Church.’
“When you understand what the Aramaic says, you see that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock; he wasn’t contrasting them. We see this vividly in some modern English translations, which render the verse this way: ‘You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ In French one word, pierre , has always been used both for Simon’s new name and for the rock.”
For a few moments the missionary seemed stumped. It was obvious he had never heard such a rejoinder. His brow was knit in thought as he tried to come up with a counter. Then it occurred to him.
“Wait a second,” he said. “If kepha means the same as petra , why don’t we read in the Greek, ‘You are Petra , and on this petra I will build my Church’? Why, for Simon’s new name, does Matthew use a Greek word, Petros , which means something quite different from petra ?”
“Because he had no choice,” I said. "Greek and Aramaic have different grammatical structures. In Aramaic you can use kepha in both places in Matthew 16:18. In Greek you encounter a problem arising from the fact that nouns take differing gender endings.
"You have masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. The Greek word petra is feminine. You can use it in the second half of Matthew 16:18 without any trouble. But you can’t use it as Simon’s new name, because you can’t give a man a feminine name—at least back then you couldn’t. You have to change the ending of the noun to make it masculine. When you do that, you get Petros , which was an already-existing word meaning rock.
“I admit that’s an imperfect rendering of the Aramaic; you lose part of the play on words. In English, where we have ‘Peter’ and ‘rock,’ you lose all of it. But that’s the best you can do in Greek.”
Here is some Eastern Orthodox takes:
Let me quote their answer:
In Matthew 16:18, the word “rock” refers to Peter’s confession of faith, and not to Peter himself, despite the fact that Peter/rock is a play on the word for rock in Aramaic [cephas] and Greek [petros]. As we read in 1 Corinthians 10:4, “…they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ,” Who alone is the very foundation, or true Rock, upon which stands the Church. It is on Jesus Christ, the Rock, that the Church’s unchanging faith and confession is firmly rooted
Let me quote a bit:
Various early Christians identified the “rock” in Matthew 16:18 as either Peter himself or the faith confessed by Peter. In support of the identification of the rock as Peter himself, Jimmy Akin, the Director of Evangelization at Catholic Answers, in his book, The Fathers Know Best, quotes, among others, Tertullian of Carthage, Origen of Alexandria, St Cyprian of Carthage, Firmilian of Caesarea, the Letter of Clement to James, the Clementine Homilies, St Optatus of Milevis, St Ambrose of Milan, St Jerome, St Augustine of Hippo, the Council of Ephesus, St Sechnal of Ireland, Pope St Leo I, and the Council of Chalcedon. If I remember correctly, St Augustine of Hippo gave the rock both interpretations.
Jesus uses the word ‘church’ (ekklesia in Greek) only two times in the four Gospels. Both occur in the Gospel of Matthew and one of them is today’s passage (Matthew 16:13-19) for the Feast Day of the Apostles Peter and Paul on June 29th. It is important for us to notice how Jesus uses the word ‘church.’ But first, let us understand the definition of ‘ekklesia.’ It literally means, ‘those who are called out’ and specifically refers to ‘the people called by God’, those who are called to be holy as God is holy (Lev.11:44-45; 1Peter 1:16) and separate from the world in dedication to Him. When Jesus uses the word ‘church’, He says to Simon, “ you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church” (v.18). The rock (petra) that Jesus is referring to is not Peter (Petros) himself but the rock of Peter’s faith because Jesus just asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” (v.15). Peter answered Jesus, “ You are the Christ, the Son of the living God ” (v.16). Thus, the church is built on the faith and belief that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God.
Well, so folks don’t think I have - an EO bias…Here’s the take from Got Questions:
Answer: The debate rages over whether “the rock” on which Christ will build His church is Peter, or Peter’s confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16). In all honesty, there is no way for us to be 100% sure which view is correct. The grammatical construction allows for either view. The first view is that Jesus was declaring that Peter would be the “rock” on which He would build His church. Jesus appears to be using a play on words. “You are Peter (petros) and on this rock (petra) I will build my church.” Since Peter’s name means rock, and Jesus is going to build His church on a rock – it appears that Christ is linking the two together. God used Peter greatly in the foundation of the church. It was Peter who first proclaimed the Gospel on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14-47). Peter was also the first to take the Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 10:1-48). In a sense, Peter was the rock “foundation” of the church.
The other popular interpretation of the rock is that Jesus was referring not to Peter, but to Peter’s confession of faith in verse 16: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus had never explicitly taught Peter and the other disciples the fullness of His identity, and He recognized that God had sovereignly opened Peter’s eyes and revealed to him who Jesus really was. His confession of Christ as Messiah poured forth from him, a heartfelt declaration of Peter’s personal faith in Jesus. It is this personal faith in Christ which is the hallmark of the true Christian. Those who have placed their faith in Christ, as Peter did, are the church. Peter expresses this in 1 Peter 2:4 when he addressed the believers who had been dispersed around the ancient world: “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
At this point, Jesus declares that God had revealed this truth to Peter. The word for “Peter,” Petros, means a small stone (John 1:42). Jesus used a play on words here with petra (“on this rock”) which means a foundation boulder, as in Matthew 7:24, 25 when He described the rock upon which the wise man builds his house. Peter himself uses the same imagery in his first epistle: the church is built of numerous small petros “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5) who, like Peter, confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and those confessions of faith are the bedrock of the church.
In addition, the New Testament makes it abundantly clear that Christ is both the foundation (Acts 4:11, 12; 1 Corinthians 3:11) and the head (Ephesians 5:23) of the church. It is a mistake to think that here He is giving either of those roles to Peter. There is a sense in which the apostles played a foundational role in the building of the church (Ephesians 2:20), but the role of primacy is reserved for Christ alone, not assigned to Peter. So, Jesus’ words here are best interpreted as a simple play on words in that a boulder-like truth came from the mouth of one who was called a small stone. And Christ Himself is called the “chief cornerstone” (1 Peter 2:6, 7). The chief cornerstone of any building was that upon which the building was anchored. If Christ declared Himself to be the cornerstone, how could Peter be the rock upon which the church was built? It is more likely that the believers, of which Peter is one, are the stones which make up the church, anchored upon the Cornerstone, “and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6).
The Roman Catholic Church uses the argument that Peter is the rock to which Jesus referred as evidence that it is the one true church. As we have seen, Peter’s being the rock is not the only valid interpretation of this verse. Even if Peter is the rock in Matthew 16:18, this is meaningless in giving the Roman Catholic Church any authority. Scripture nowhere records Peter being in Rome. Scripture nowhere describes Peter as being supreme over the other apostles. The New Testament does not describe Peter as being the “all authoritative leader” of the early Christian church. Peter was not the first pope, and Peter did not start the Roman Catholic Church. The origin of the Catholic Church is not in the teachings of Peter or any other apostle. If Peter truly was the founder of the Roman Catholic Church, it would be in full agreement with what Peter taught (Acts chapter 2, 1 Peter, 2 Peter).
And here is the CARM perspective:
Matt Slick of CARM…does an excellent discussion, regarding the language uses - IMHO.
So what is everyone’s take, on that passage of scripture?
