This avowal of Peter’s belief that Jesus was the Messiah, to which
the other apostles gave their assent, silent or loud, was so clear
and hearty, that Jesus plainly perceived their persuasion of his
divine authority to be so strong, that they might now bear a decisive
and open explanation of those things which he had hitherto rather
darkly and dimly hinted at, respecting his own death. He also at this
time, brought out the full truth the more clearly as to the miseries
which hung over him, and his expected death, with the view the
more effectually to overthrow those false notions which they had
preconceived of earthly happiness and triumph, to be expected in the
Messiah’s kingdom; and with the view, also, of preparing them for the
events which must shortly happen; lest, after they saw him nailed to
the cross, they should all at once lose their high hopes, and utterly
give him up. He knew too, that he had such influence with his disciples,
that if their minds were shocked, and their faith in him shaken, at
first, by such a painful disclosure, he could soon bring them back
to a proper confidence in him. Accordingly, from this time, he began
distinctly to set forth to them, how he must go to Jerusalem, and
suffer many things from the elders, and chief priests, and scribes,
and be killed, and be raised again the third day. There is much room
for reasonable doubt, as to the manner in which those who heard this
declaration of Christ, understood it at the time. As to the former
part of it, namely, that he would be ill-treated by the great men of
the Jewish nation, both by those ruling in the civil and religious
government, it was too plain for any one to put any but the right
meaning upon it. But the promise that he should, after this horrible
fate, rise again from the dead on the third day, did not, as it is
evident, by any means convey to them the meaning which all who read
it now, are able to find in it. Nothing can be more plain to a careful
reader of the gospels, than that his disciples and friends had not
the slightest expectation that he would ever appear to them after his
cruel death; and the mingled horror and dread with which the first news
of that event was received by them, shows them to have been utterly
unprepared for it. It required repeated positive demonstration, on
his part, to assure them that he was truly alive among them, in his
own form and character. The question then is――what meaning had they
all along given to the numerous declarations uttered by him to them,
apparently foretelling this, in the distinct terms, of which the above
passage is a specimen? Had they understood it as we do, and yet so
absolutely disbelieved it, that they put no faith in the event itself,
when it had so palpably occurred? And had they, for months and years,
followed over Palestine, through labors, and troubles, and dangers,
a man, who, as they supposed, was boldly endeavoring to saddle their
credulity with a burden too monstrous for even them to bear? They
must, from the nature of their connection with him, have put the most
unlimited confidence in him, and could not thus devotedly have given
themselves up to a man whom they believed or suspected to be constantly
uttering to them a falsehood so extravagant and improbable. They
must, then, have put some meaning on it, different from that which our
clearer light enables us to see in it; and that meaning, no doubt, they
honestly and firmly believed, until the progress of events showed them
the power of the prophecy in its wonderful and literal fulfilment. They
may have misunderstood it in his life time, in this way: the universal
character of the language of the children of Shem, seems to be a
remarkable proneness to figurative expressions, and the more abstract
the ideas which the speaker wishes to convey, the more strikingly
material are the figures he uses, and the more poetical the language in
which he conveys them. Teachers of morals and religion, most especially,
have, among those nations of the east, been always distinguished for
their highly figurative expressions, and none abound more richly in
them than the writers of the Old and New Testament. So peculiarly
effective, for his great purposes, did Jesus Christ, in particular,
find this variety of eloquence, that it is distinctly said of him, that
he seldom or never spoke to the people without a parable, which he was
often obliged to expound more in detail, to his chosen followers, when
apart with them. This style of esoteric and exoteric instruction, had
early taught his disciples to look into his most ordinary expressions
for a hidden meaning; and what can be more likely than that often, when
left to their own conjectures, they, for a time, at least, overleaped
the simple literal truth, into a fog of figurative interpretations, as
too many of their very modern successors have often done, to their own
and others’ misfortune. We certainly know that, in regard to those very
expressions about raising the dead, there was a very earnest inquiry
among the three chief apostles, some time after, as will be mentioned
in place, showing that it never seemed possible to them that their Lord,
mighty as he had showed himself, could ever mean to say to them, that,
when his bitter foes had crowned his life of toil and cares with a
bloody and cruel exit, he――even HE, could dare to promise them, that
he would break through that iron seal, which, when once set upon the
energies of man, neither goodness, nor valor, nor knowledge, nor love,
had ever loosened, but which, since the first dead yielded his breath,
not the mightiest prophet, nor the most inspired, could ever break
through for himself. The figure of death and resurrection, has often
been made a striking image of many moral changes;――of some one of which,
the hearers of Jesus probably first interpreted it. In connection with
what he had previously said, nothing could seem more natural to them,
than that he, by this peculiarly strong metaphor, wished to remind them
that, even after his death, by the envious and cruel hands of Jewish
magistrates, over but a few days, his name, the ever fresh influence
of his bright and holy example――the undying powers of his breathing and
burning words, should still live with them, and with them triumph after
the momentary struggles of the enemies of the truth.
The manner, also, in which Simon Peter received this communication,
shows that he could not have anticipated so glorious and dazzling
a result of such horrible evils: for, however literally he may have
taken the prophecy of Christ’s cruel death, he used all his powers
to dissuade his adored master from exposing himself to a fate so dark
and dreadful,――so sadly destructive of all the new-born hopes of his
chosen followers, and from which the conclusion of the prophecy seemed
to offer no clear or certain mode of escape. Never before, had Jesus
spoken in such plain and decided terms, about the prospect of his
own terrible death. Peter, whose heart had just been lifted up to the
skies with joy and hope, in the prospect of the glorious triumphs to
be achieved by his Lord through his means, and whose thoughts were even
then dwelling on the honors, the power, the fame, which were to accrue
to him for his share in the splendid work,――was shocked beyond measure,
at the strange and seemingly contradictory view of the results, now
taken by his great leader. With the confident familiarity to which
their mutual love and intimacy entitled him, in some measure, he laid
his hand expostulatingly upon him, and drew him partly aside, to urge
him privately to forget thoughts of despondency, so unworthy of the
great enterprise of Israel’s restoration, to which they had all so
manfully pledged themselves as his supporters. We may presume, that
he, in a tone of encouragement, endeavored to show him how impossible
it would be for the dignitaries of Jerusalem to withstand the tide of
popularity which had already set so strongly in favor of Jesus; that
so far from looking upon himself as in danger of a death so infamous,
from the Sanhedrim, he might, at the head of the hosts of his zealous
Galileans, march as a conqueror to Jerusalem, and thence give laws from
the throne of his father David, to all the wide territories of that
far-ruling king. Such dreams of earthly glory seemed to have filled
the soul of Peter at that time; and we cannot wonder, then, that every
ambitious feeling within him recoiled at the gloomy announcement, that
the idol of his hopes was to end his days of unrequited toil, by a
death so infamous as that of the cross. “Be it far from thee, Lord,”
“God forbid,” “Do not say so,” “Do not thus damp our courage and high
hopes,” “This must not happen to thee.”――Jesus, on hearing these words
of ill-timed rebuke, which showed how miserably his chief follower
had been infatuated and misled, by his foolish and carnal ambition,
turned away indignantly from the low and degraded motives, by which
Peter sought to bend him from his holy purposes. Not looking upon him,
but upon the other disciples, who had kept their feelings of regret
and disappointment to themselves, he, in the most energetic terms,
expressed his abhorrence of such notions, by his language to the
speaker. “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a scandal to me; for thou
savorest not the things which be of God, but the things which be of men.
In these fervent aspirations after eminence, I recognize none of the
pure devotion to the good of man, which is the sure test of the love
of God; but the selfish desire for transient, paltry distinction, which
characterizes the vulgar ambition of common men, enduring no toil or
pain, but in the hope of a more than equal earthly reward speedily
accruing.” After this stern reply, which must have strongly impressed
them all with the nature of the mistake of which they had been guilty,
he addressed them still further, in continuation of the same design, of
correcting their false notion of the earthly advantages to be expected
by his companions in toil. He immediately gave them a most untempting
picture of the character and conduct of him, who could be accepted as a
fit fellow-worker with Jesus. “If any one wishes to come after me, let
him deny himself, and let him take up his cross, (as if we should say,
let him come with his halter around his neck, and with the gibbet on
his shoulder,) and follow me. For whosoever shall save his life for
my sake, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake,
shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the _whole
world_, and lose his own soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the
glory of his Father, with his angels; and THEN, he shall _reward_
every man according to his works.” “I solemnly tell you, there are
some standing here who shall not taste of death, till they see the Son
of Man coming in his kingdom.”――“In vain would you, in pursuit of your
idle dreams of earthly glory, yield up all the powers of your soul, and
spend your life for an object so worthless. After all, what is there
in all the world, if you should have the whole at your disposal――what,
for the momentary enjoyment of which, you can calmly pay down your soul
as the price? Seek not, then, for rewards so unworthy of the energies
which I have recognized in you, and have devoted to far nobler purposes.
Higher honors will crown your toils and sufferings, in my service;
――nobler prizes are seen near, with the eye of faith. Speedily will
the frail monuments of this world’s wonders crumble, and the memory of
its greatnesses pass away; but over the ruins of kingdoms, the coming
of the MAN to whom you have joined yourselves is sure, and in that
triumphant advent, you shall find the imperishable requital of your
faithful and zealous works. And of the nature and aspect of the glories
which I now so dimly shadow in words, some of those who now hear me
shall soon be the living witnesses, as of a foretaste of rewards,
whose full enjoyment can be yours, only after the weariness and misery
of this poor life are all passed. Years of toil, dangers, pain, and
sorrow,――lives passed in contempt and disgrace,――deaths of ignominy,
of unpitied anguish, and lingering torture, must be your passage to the
joys of which I speak; while the earthly honors which you now covet,
shall for ages continue to be the prize of the base, the cruel, and the
foolish, from whom you vainly hope to snatch them.”