Reading: Matt. 16:13-25;
Luke 22:31-34.
"Blessed art
thou, Simon... My Father (hath revealed it unto
thee)" (Matt. 16:17).
"He... said unto
Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan" (Matt. 16:23).
"Simon... Satan
asked to have you... but I made supplication for
thee" (Luke 22:31-32; A.S.V.).
We have before us the
spiritual history in the making of a servant of God, and
this can be seen in the representative and very human
case of Simon Peter.
The thing which comes
out of the passages above is the fact that, in the life
of one who stands related vitally to the Lord's
interests, heaven and hell have a very great concern, and
such a one becomes the battleground of both realms; God
and Satan, heaven and hell. You could hardly have
anything which more vividly illustrates that than the
tremendous contrasts here. At one moment - "Blessed
art thou, Simon BarJona: for flesh and blood hath not
revealed it unto thee, but My Father Who is in
heaven"; and, it would seem, within a few minutes -
"Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art a
stumbling-block (an offence) unto Me: for thou mindest
not the things of God, but the things of men" (Matt.
16:23; A.S.V.). Then in connection with this we have the
other passage in Luke. Literally the words are,
"Satan obtained you by asking, that he might sift
you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee." You
hardly know what to make of such a swing of the pendulum
in one man, but it has its lessons, and the very
seriousness of the case accentuates the lessons which it
teaches.
The
Ground Of Satan's Power
(a) The
World
You see it is a matter,
in the first place, of the ground which is taken and
occupied by the one concerned. When Peter took heavenly
ground - "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God" - he was in a very strong position. The keys of
the kingdom of heaven, binding on earth and binding in
heaven, were his. He was weak, and in a very weak
position, when he took earthly ground, the ground of men,
the ground of his own judgment and of his own selfhood.
The ground taken decided whether he was spiritually
strong or weak, and whether Satan had power over him or
not. It would seem that, when the Lord was speaking to
them about what was going to take place in Jerusalem as
to His death, Simon just took Him apart quietly, and in a
very kindly and consolatory way, and yet with a certain
amount of patronage, one would feel, told the Lord that
He must not be so depressed and gloomy, that He must take
a brighter view of things, and that this sort of thing
would certainly not happen to Him. But in Peter's
attitude, on Peter's ground, the Lord saw quite
distinctly a recurrence of what He had met so terribly in
the wilderness in His temptation, when Satan had offered
Him the kingdoms of this world without the Cross - had
sought, that is to say, to divert Him from the way to
which He had committed Himself. Peter became but the
voice and instrument of that same arch-enemy to turn the
Lord away from the Cross. Hence the word following about
saving the life. But taking this ground of having the
Kingdom and the Throne on any other line but God's
ordained line, which is the way of the Cross, is alliance
with Satan, and will put anyone in that alliance into the
power of Satan and destroy them spiritually.
Firstly, then, it is
very evident that any ground of the world, which in its
nature is a kingdom without suffering, without the Cross,
without the setting aside of natural life, is the realm
of Satan's power and authority. It is perfectly clear
that, in the case of the Church, speaking fairly
generally, and in the case of countless individual
Christians, the weakness, defeat and dishonour which
characterize them, and which became so manifest in
Peter's case, are due to occupying the ground of Satan's
strength. That ground may be said
to be compromise with the world in its principle.
(b)
Uncrucified Self
In the second place,
there was Peter's own self-strength, self-confidence.
"Lord, with Thee I am ready to go both to prison and
to death." (A.S.V.). He later found out how unready,
how unprepared, he was for that, but at the time it was a
case of self-confidence, and that ground brought his
undoing and Satan's power. The self still alive and
dominant instead of dead, put to the Cross, is the ground
of Satan's power. Not until the soul has been denied and
laid down is the power of Satan destroyed and spiritual
power established in the life of the child and the
servant of God. It is a question of the ground - whether
it is the world or whether it is the self (another word
for the flesh) - that determines how far Satan has power
and how far we have spiritual power.
The
Need For Persistent Determination
Now, what the Lord says
here to Peter is very indicative and, I think, very
helpful. "Thou art a stumbling-block (an offence)
unto Me." The Lord had fought out this battle, had
taken His ground, put both His feet down upon this way of
the will of God for Him, namely, by the Cross to the
Kingdom; and it was for Him no easy way. It was not just
the being crucified and being killed, but being made sin
and all that is involved of ultimately suffering the
forsaking of God. It was no easy way, and He had to keep
Himself rigidly in that direction, and anything that came
along to influence Him otherwise only brought up the new
demand for resolution and persistence. Thus it offended
Him in the sense that it made it difficult for Him, it
made it hard for Him, it was not helping Him. It may have
been intended to help, so far as Peter was concerned, not
knowing what he was saying, but behind it the Lord saw
that it only raised the old issue again, the old battle,
and therefore it offended His sense of the will of His
Father and stood across His path to make the way more
difficult.
I think that does say to
us that a position has to be taken inclusively and over
many things where the will of God is concerned. We have
to come very definitely and positively to such a
position, and then realize that from time to time there
will be, by one means or another, an effort of the enemy
to change our minds, to weaken us in that course, to make
other suggestions, to get us to reconsider it in the
light of various issues and interests. We shall meet this
offending, this stumbling, this hindering thing and have
to be very ruthless with it. The way the Lord dealt with
Peter was, in a sense, ruthless. Really there was no
weakness in His attitude over that. Discerning its true
nature, He saw clearly that, if He yielded to this
suggestion, then He would go neither to Jerusalem nor to
the Cross. It is a question of whether we have settled
that such and such is the way of the will of God, and
then, will this or that arising mean in the long run that
we never get there, never do that will? If so, it has to
be handled very ruthlessly and put out of the way and put
behind us. The Cross comes to us in many connections and
different terms.
Then, if we are really
going to come through to the place of spiritual power as
did Peter, that ground of the enemy must continually be
forsaken and refused. The enemy has to be robbed of that
which will destroy us and give him power to destroy us,
and we have to be very ruthless with anything that arises
to give him that position and defeat God's intention
where we are concerned. This battle of heaven and hell,
God and Satan, goes on in our souls, but there is for us
this consolation, that we have a High Priest ever living
to make intercession. We have a great asset in the
continual intercession of the Lord Jesus for us. Let us
close on that note of encouragement and assurance.
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1948, Volume 26-5