Luke 9:20

‘And he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

And then came the crucial question that would determine what was to happen from now on. ‘But who do you (all of you) say that I am?' We can sense the tenseness that was in the air as He awaited their reply. The Apostles had now had plenty of opportunity of hearing and observing. They had been out proclaiming that the Kingly Rule of God was here. But what was their view of Him? Were they too still restricted to the views of the crowds? It was inevitable that at some stage such a question would arise.

‘And Peter answering said, “The Christ of God”.'

We can imagine the moment of silence as they all looked at each other. Dare they tell Him what they had been thinking? And then Peter blurted out on behalf of all what they had been saying among themselves. ‘You are the Christ of God.' To Luke, a Gentile, this was the equivalent of ‘you are the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matthew 16:16), for he was not deeply limited by Jewish ideas about the Messiah. He was saying that He was the ‘Anointed One come from God', not only the Messiah but more than the Messiah. In a similar situation in John Peter declares ‘You are the Holy One of God' (John 6:69). All are saying the same thing. They must all be seen in the light of what the voice at Jesus' baptism had said, of Messianic descriptions, and of the higher level of descriptions given to Jesus in the previous Chapter s. He is uniquely the One sent from God, not only the Messiah but an exalted Messiah, One beyond their expectations and outside their reckoning, supremely holy to God.

In these circumstances Peter is regularly the one who blurts things out. He was always the one who could not hold himself back. And the other disciples regularly looked to him to bail them out. But he is never appointed officially as leader. In Acts the twelve are deliberately seen as working as a unit even though Peter is the chief spokesman.