Christ guided his disciples to maturity in faith until they recognized who he was. He led their growing faith gradually to confess him openly that they might decide their walk with determination, and follow him firmly.
The multitudes called Christ a prophet, signifying Moses’s successor, or the second Moses. Some thought he came in the spirit of John the Baptist, who came in the spirit and power of Elijah, the zealous prophet who was promised to come before Christ. But Christ pierced the hearts of his apostles and incited them to confess straightforwardly the truth of his essence.
What about your faith in Jesus? What do you say that he is? Do you say superficially that he is the Christ? Did you know the different meanings in this profound name? The title “Christ” means he who is anointed with the Holy Spirit, as God had already anointed the chief priests, faithful kings, and notable prophets. Yet, Jesus Christ is the perfect Anointed of all the anointed, for in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. All the attributes, powers, and gifts of the Holy One are included in this unique name.
The Jews thought that the Christ to come was a political king to be sent by God at the end of time in order to deliver them, through his miracles, from the yoke of the Roman occupation, and make them a leading nation of the whole world. Their belief in a political king was a deception of Satan, who interpreted the promises of the Old Testament with great subtlety.
However, Christ knew and taught us that all nations founded on armies, taxes, and laws are unable to change the hearts of men. He wanted to set up a spiritual kingdom where God lives with men in an everlasting covenant. But all men moved away from the Creator. Our sins are heavier than the sand of the sea, and our frame is spoiled. This is why Christ took away our sins, and reconciled us to the eternal Judge that we might live in the peace of heavens. Peter spoke for the other disciples, and confessed Jesus as the true Anointed of God. He did not obtain this knowledge through reasoning, or free determination, but through an inspiration by God the Father who, in compassion, revealed to him the truth of Christ Jesus. Inspiration is not revealed through flesh and blood, but through the Spirit of God from the outside of our world.
Probably Peter did not understand the profound meaning of confessing the title of Christ at that time, but thought that he was a spiritual Savior, and political king at the same time. Therefore, Jesus began to explain to his disciples the necessity of his death at the hand of the elders and chief priests, as being refused by the nation.
Then Peter flamed up with rage. He wanted to save the Son of God from the evil ones, and tempted to dissuade the Lord from going to the cross. With such human thought he was drawn, opening himself to the insinuations of the devil, who had already tempted Jesus in the wilderness to dissuade him from going to the cross, and failed. Therefore, he came back now and dwelt in Peter who, shortly before this saying, was the mediator of God’s revelation instead of all the disciples.
We learn from Peter that the testimony to Christ may soon turn into a devilish curse if we were not established in the design of Christ’s coming, i.e. his reconciliation of men to God on the cross, for he became incarnate to open for us the door to the Father, and he purchased us with his death as children of God.