Truth Unites - Augustine on the "Rock" of Matthew 16 (This Will Surprise You)

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Gavin Ortlund discusses Augustine's view of the "rock" of Matthew 16, drawing from Jesus' words to Peter, and its relevance to the papacy. Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

Perhaps the most important biblical passage that comes up in discussions about the papacy is Matthew 16, where Jesus says to Peter, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. He gives him keys for binding and loosing. You can read through this on the screen. Now, there's so much in this passage we could work through. Libraries have been written about this important text. But one question we can pose is this. Is Peter being singled out here?

Or is Peter being given responsibilities that he ultimately shares with the rest of the apostles? You might say Peter exclusively versus Peter representatively. Okay, those aren't even the only options, but that's one distinction we can draw attention to and kind of work through a little bit in this video. And the reason that's not a stubborn question or something like that, the reason that's a natural question that's totally fair to ask is threefold. First, the responsibilities that are mentioned here in Matthew 16, the binding and loosing, references to earth and heaven are reiterated to all the disciples just two chapters later in Matthew 1818.

So that raises the question here. It's like, okay, wait a second. Is it just Peter or is it all the disciples? And that seems true with the broader New Testament, where you get, you know, the responsibilities that seem to be envisioned here generally seem to be shared conjointly among the apostles, like in John 20. A second reason is that Peter often is the spokesperson for the disciples. So even, even here in Matthew 16, for example, Peter is responding to Jesus' question in verse 15 that is put to all of the disciples. The word you in verse 15 is in the plural there. A third reason is that this comes right on the heels, not of Peter being given a specific office. He's already been a disciple for some time, but rather on the heels of his confession of Christ's identity. So the context of this

passage is this confession that he makes. And so it raises the question here of what's the relationship between Peter's confession of Jesus in verses 16 and 17, you see there in blue, versus what you see in red, which is Jesus's confession to Peter, versus 18 and 19. So that doesn't resolve things, but it just makes the question fair. You know, is Peter being given a kind of unique supremacy here that ultimately puts him in authority over the other apostles in some sense, or are the responsibilities being given to Peter here ultimately shared by the other apostles? So he's more like a first among equals. Is Peter the boss or the first among equals? Is it Peter exclusively or Peter representatively or something else? Well, again, huge question, but one of the

things we can do to try to get some traction is just look at how the church fathers and other generations of Christians prior to us worked through this. And so in this video, let's just work through Augustine's exe Jesus of this passage. And so, specifically this question, this exclusively versus representatively question with Matthew 16. Historically, there have been three proposals for how to understand the rock here. Sometimes it's seen as Christ, sometimes it's seen as Peter, sometimes it's seen as Peter's confession of Christ. But what we can recognize and what is widely recognized today is that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

And in the early church, for example, you can find all three options are held, and a lot of times they're combined. So one of the common views is that it's, the rock is Peter in his confession of Christ, who is the rock. And this view is surprisingly common. I think this represents Augustine's mature view. We'll call it a representational view,

and I'll unpack it and explain it. This is a little tricky because Augustine writes so much and he preaches so much so you can find a lot of different things that he says about this passage throughout his career. But I think a fair approach is to, look at his retractions because this is going to give you his sort of final mature view of the matter. His retractions or reconsiderations are written around 426 or 427 somewhere in there. So this is at the very end of his life, the final years of his life.

And there he says, Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the church, which is built upon this rock, and has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. For thou art Peter and not thou art the rock was said to him. But the rock was Christ in confessing whom as also. The whole church confesses Simon was called Peter. So I'll leave this up for a second. You can see the logic here. First of all, the rock is Christ.

You see that in red here. This is from 1st Corinthians 10, which is being quoted here. And then second, you see in blue, Peter confesses Christ, and therefore he is the rock in that confession. And that also explains the sentence there in the middle, and the logic of this sentence that I put in purple, for thou art Peter and not thou art the rock was said to him. So the idea seems to be something like this. Christ is the rock. Peter confesses Christ,

therefore Peter is the rock in that act of confessing the rock. It's like the greater rock and the lesser rock or something like that. You have this interplay between Peter confession and Christ. It's not necessarily mutually exclusive. Maybe we can get some clarity and progress in understanding this if we look at some of his other language from earlier in his sermons, for example, you'll find Augustine speaking of Peter as rocky. He's rocky because he draws our attention to the rock. And if you read the lower parts of this, that I put emboldened here, you can see he's really emphasizing in this sermon, Peter's confession as that rock on which the church is built. So this further raises the question. Okay, to what extent is Peter exclusively the rock then? And on that point, Augustine seems

very clear. He thinks Peter is functioning in a representative role in this passage. It's not Peter exclusively, it's Peter representatively. And that from this same passage from the retractions, I put in red here, so you can see that stated very explicitly twice. Peter represents the entire church in this act of confession. And that's the case in some other passages in Augustine's writings as well. It's not Peter being singled out to the exclusion of the rest of the church. And that's why earlier in his sermons, Augustine can say things like this with reference to the keys given here in Matthew 16. Did Peter receive the keys and Paul not received them? Did Peter receive them and John and James and the other apostles not received them? What was given to Peter was given to the

whole church. So this is broadly the view of Matthew 16 that I think is most sensible. It's a tough passage, but this is probably how I would take it, that Peter is the rock in this act of confessing Christ, in the apostolic confession of Christ, not as the first holder of an ongoing office to the exclusion of the rest of the church or something like that. Now, one strength to this idea is that it is able to sort of just fit with the rest of the New Testament. This is my basic approach to Matthew 16, as I say, look, here's a tough passage. Rather than put all the weight on this one passage to do something unique, let's just read it in line with the rest of the New Testament. Because you have the same imagery all throughout the New Testament.

And consistently, Christ is called the rock or the cornerstone on which the church is built. We've already seen 1st Corinthians 10 quoted by Augustine, and you have this imagery from Psalm 118 about Christ as the stone of stumbling and rock of offense. This is from this language about the stone that the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone. And then at times in the New Testament, you have the apostles participating in that imagery. Sometimes all of the apostles, as in Ephesians 220, sometimes certain of the apostles, as in Galatians 2.9, with sort of the inner three of James and Peter and John. So there seems to be a tension here between Augustine's way of thinking about the passage

and what you'll find, for example, at Vatican 1 and the way this passage is used as a sort of proof text for a primacy of jurisdiction being given immediately and directly to Peter by Christ. One of the reasons that this is significant is that Augustine is not eccentric in this. This is a common way of thinking in the patristic era. Edmund Hill, who's a well-known translator of Augustine, has a note on this passage where he talks about the great Petrine texts. So that includes like at the end of John and at the end of Luke, where Peter's given a commission being interpreted in this representational manner by practically all the fathers before Leo the Great. Now, I don't have enough knowledge to verify

whether that's correct or not. But Ed Szynski, Ed Sachinsky, who's a great scholar as well, comes to a similar conclusion. He says, with few exceptions, Petristic exegesis of Matthew 16 had nothing to do with the existence of an ongoing Petriene ministry in the church. So in other words, Augustine is not completely way out and left field here. Now, my goal is not necessarily to settle this or say everyone has to agree with Augustine, but more actually to just put out categories for the interpretation of this passage. Because I find a lot of times people approach this more simply thinking, well, if the rock is Peter, that supports the Roman Catholic view. And if the rock is Christ, that supports the

Protestant view or the Eastern Orthodox view or something like this. But the reality is Protestants can speak of even a kind of petrine succession. Okay? You know, when origin says, be a rock like Peter. Okay. So again, try to put out categories like this. Let me try to explain. So now just to finish off here, pivoting from this specific exegetical question with Matthew 16,

to try to, again, put out categories for how Protestants think about not just apostolic succession, but even a kind of petrine succession. Here's how Carl Bart puts it. He's talking about the Roman Catholic conception of apostolicity, and he says the difference between the evangelical view and the Roman Catholic view is not in respect of the that, but the how. The protest of Protestantism in this question of succession is directed solely and simply against the fact that the U.R. Peter, etc., is mechanically transferred over Peter's head to every succeeding Roman bishop as a second, third, and hundredth Peter, as if the succession and tradition of the Peter of Matthew 16, to whom flesh and blood had not revealed such things, could be related to any succession but a spiritual one, or as if being spiritual

could be tied to the secular circumstance of a list of bishops of this kind. The reason for the protest is that in these circumstances apostolicity necessarily ceases to be a divine gift and human task and becomes an assured human possession, that it is pre-eminently understood in a mechanically historical and legal way, that it no longer can be a norm which confronts the church with direction and judgment, that in contrast it falls completely under the judgment of the church, that's what that Latin phrase means, the control of the second or third or hundredth Peter. Do you see what he's getting into here? He's talking about the nature of apostolicity, and he's saying, apostolicity is not the kind of thing. You can hand somebody on a sheet of paper.

And just, you know, here it is, mechanical transfer, here's the legal documents that show the list of bishops. They all laid hands and so on, so forth, therefore you're apostolic. He's saying, no, apostolicity, now that list of bishops might be helpful to the end of apostolicity. That might be a structure that supports and helps you protect the gospel. But first and foremost, apostolicity is a matter of fidelity to the apostolic gospel, the petrine confession of Jesus. us. And that must always stand above us and hold us accountable to it. We are never in possession of it. So that's a little bit of a Protestant view on these things. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Short video targeted, specific on this one issue. Hopefully it helped somebody.

Thanks for watching everybody.