Matthew 16:18

And I also say, unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

Some have made much of the fact that the word "Peter" means rock, and from this have affirmed that Christ built the church upon Peter. This text is inscribed in letters of gold four feet high inside the massive dome of the Basilica of St. Peters; and it is feared that many have been deceived by this false claim.

It is true, of course, that the word [@Petros] (Greek for Peter) means "stone" (John 1:42); but the Greek text itself dispels any possibility of Peter's having been the rock upon which Jesus built the church. In appealing to the Greek, this author does not defer to the opinions of learned men, nor, for that matter, profess any knowledge of Greek; but God's truth is not subject to the arcane and ambiguous dissertations of the learned. Even an ignorant man, in relative terms, can, with the aid of a Greek lexicon or a common device such as the Emphatic Diaglott, see for himself that Christ did not build the church upon Peter.

In Matthew 16:18, above, the rock upon which Christ proposed to build the church is not the same kind of "rock" that constitutes the name of Peter. There are several differences of the most marked and significant nature; and attention is called to the little diagram herewith which sets forth those differences, emphasizing the impossibility of their being under any conditions IDENTICAL.

Jesus said, "Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church."

The words "Peter" and "rock," as used above, are translated from two different Greek words:

<LINES><MONO>

[@Petros] and [@petra]

This word has six letters This word has five letters

This word is masculine This word is feminine gender gender

This word means PEBBLE This word means LEDGEMONO>LINES>

Yes, the words are similar, but what of it? Similarity of words does not even imply similarity of meaning, much less identical meaning. An old rancher requested his son to take one of his favorite horses and have him SHOD. A little while later he heard gunfire back of the corral and learned to his dismay that his son had shot the horse! The son said, "I'm sorry, Dad, I thought you said have him SHOT, and I thought I could do it as well as anyone else!" Certainly, there is more resemblance between the two key words in that mix-up than there ever was between the two Greek words noted above. Yet it is on the preposterous premise that those words are IDENTICAL that the whole fallacy of the church on Peter is made to depend.

Nor do we allow that the conscience of Rome is easy about this. The well known truth that the Greek text does not allow, and indeed refutes, their contention gives rise to all kinds of speculations and appeals to the so-called Aramaic Original (see introduction); however, it must be allowed by all that the Greek text of the New Testament is all that has come down from antiquity. Therefore, all arguments from the Aramaic should be rejected until it can be produced and authenticated. Certainly, it is evil to make an argument, upon so vital a point as this, from a version that does not exist except in theory, which has never been seen, and which, in all probability, if it were to appear, would doubtless confirm rather than deny the difference in those two words. All appeals to the Aramaic are, by implication, a repudiation of this text; and why repudiate it if, as some say, it makes Peter the rock on which Jesus built the church? He that has eyes to see, let him see!

What, then, is the rock upon which Christ proposed to build the church? It is the supreme fact of faith just confessed by Peter, namely, that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God.

A moment later Christ mentioned Peter, giving him (and later the others) the keys of the kingdom of heaven, thus making him, not the foundation, but the door-opener of the kingdom. To have made him both the foundation and the porter of the same building would have been a gross abuse of metaphor.

The gates of Hades, mentioned by Christ, is variously understood, as follows: (1) Some believe they refer to death and the fact that death would not prevent our Lord's carrying out the noble design announced on that occasion. (2) Others think they refer to the various sins by which men go to their spiritual doom. Thus, Origen made the gates of Hades to be such things as fornication, blasphemy, and other sins. (3) Another thinks they refer to Satanic opposition to the church throughout history, and that they contain a prophecy that Christ will triumph, not Satan. The meaning and import of the passage are so profound that there is more than enough room for all of these views without violence to the word of God. There may even be other meanings which men cannot know until the judgment.