PETER CONFESSES THE CHRIST.

(Mark viii:27-38; Matt, xvi:13-21.)

I. The Analysis.

1. The folly of human opinion about Jesus (verses 27, 28).—For more than two years our Lord had pursued a ministry of extraordinary publicity and activity in a small and densely populated land. He was the most conspicuous figure of His time. Every one had heard of Him, or at least heard about Him. His own account of Himself as the Sent One of the Father, the Messiah, the Saviour, was well known. And these were the opinions of the public concerning Him —"John the Baptist, Elias, one of the prophets," What a comment on the truth of our Lord's words in John vi:44!

2. The great confession (verse 29; Matt, xvi:16).— "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Our Lord's answer was two-fold. He first points out the source of Peter's faith, "flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father in heaven." Flesh and blood said: "Elias or one of the prophets"; the Father said: "This is my beloved Son." So much, and so little, is mere human opinion, however scholarly, worth in the sphere of faith. Secondly, our Lord announced the church to be built upon Himself the Rock, in His character of "the Christ the Son of the Living God."

3. Satan rebuked through Peter (verses 31-33).—Compare Gen. iii:14, 15; Isa. xiv:4, 12. In the first instance Satan is addressed through Peter; in the second, through the serpent; in the third, through the king of Babylon. It is the way of Scripture. But the deeper lesson is that the servant of the Lord is never in greater danger of becoming the mere mouthpiece of the devil than in the moment of some peculiar spiritual revelation.

4. The great law of the Christian life (verses 34-38.) (See below.)

II. The Heart of the Lesson.

The Christian, like Peter, is a confessor—which is quite another thing from being a professor. Like Peter, he believes that Jesus is ''the Christ, the Son of God," and, so believing, he "has life through his name" (John xx:3i), and he confesses that faith before men. But to believe on Christ implies vastly more than to believe that He interposed between the sinner and the doom of perdition. The act of faith identifies the believer with Christ; he becomes a branch in that Vine—a member in that Body (John xv:1-4; 1 Cor. xii:12, 13), sharing His nature (2 Peter i:4), His life, His" future (Col. iii:3, 4).

And because of this absolute identification of the believer with "the Christ, the Son of God," he is committed to live the Christ life on earth. In its perfection, indeed, he may not hope to reproduce that life, but what he may do is to accept its basal principle.

When our Lord began to open that principle as applied to Himself, and "to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed," Peter cried out (Matt, xvi:23), "Pity thyself, Lord." It was Satan's word, as our Lord declared, but, also, it was, and ever is, the word of the old self-life within.

What Peter passed over in his haste was our Lord's closing word, "and after three days rise again." Ah, that may make all the difference! Yes, it is that linking of eternal consequences to actions done in life that does make all the difference. Christ "endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God" (Heb. xii:2), and He endured for that "joy set before him."

That, precisely, is the principle, the philosophy, of the law of the Christian life enunciated in our lesson: "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's the same shall find it." When? "When He cometh in the Glory of His Father with the holy angels."

Here, then, is the heart of this lesson. To confess Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, is not only to find a Saviour, but to accept the Christ theory of life. That theory takes account of two worlds, and finds the life that now is to be incomparably the most precious and valuable thing which the believer possesses. The garmenture of life—wealth, learning, power, position—these are mere dross compared with life itself. The believer may do two things with his life: he may use it for self—and use it up. So used it is gone. Or he may invest it in others for Jesus' and the Gospel's sake. So used every moment of it is transmuted into the gold of the eternal kingdom—"he shall find it again."