Luke 9:18-20

CAESAREA-PHILIPPI

Matthew 16:13-16; Mark 8:27-29; Luke 9:18-20. This is the northern terminus of our Savior's ministry, two days' journey on horseback from the Sea of Galilee up the Jordan Valley to the foot of Mt. Hermon, where a great spring is one of the principal sources of the Jordan. This city is just over the border of Galilee in Iturea, at the time of our Savior under the tetrarchy of Philip. M.: “And Jesus having come into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, asked His disciples, saying, Whom do the people say that I, the Son of man, am? And they said, Some say, John the Baptist; others, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or One of the prophets. He says to them, But whom do you say that I am? And Simon Peter, responding, said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus responding, said to him, Blessed art thou, Simon, the son of Jonah; because flesh and blood did not reveal it to thee, but My Father who is in the heavens.” About twenty-eight months have rolled away since our Lord entered upon His ministry, meanwhile He has flooded Galilee with His miracles; visited, in person or by the Twelve, nearly all the cities and villages in Israel. Despite all efforts, John the Baptist sending his disciples, with the avowed purpose of bringing Him out into an unequivocal proclamation of His Christhood, He simply sent them back, to tell John about the mighty works which they had seen.

a. Doubtless our Lord felt that it was better for His works to proclaim His Christhood than that He should publicly avow it. Here was the trouble: the prophets had wrought miracles, especially Elijah and Elisha, even raising quite a number from the dead. Consequently some, and among them King Herod, thought He was John the Baptist risen from the dead. As Elijah had wrought such stupendous miracles, bringing fire from heaven and raising the dead, on the very ground traversed by Jesus, many thought that He was some one of the old prophets who had risen from the dead. During these twenty-eight months, while the whole country has been flooded with miracles so stupendous as at once to beggar all cavil, the people have had an opportunity, by the irresistible fact of His mighty works, corroborated by His inimitable preaching, to settle down in the conclusion of His Christhood without an open proclamation.

b. The simple fact is that the Jews, having endured the galling yoke of a foreign despotism thirty-two years, and all settled in the prophetical revelation that the Christ is to be King of the Jews, are eager to crown Him the very moment that matter is settled, while the Roman soldiers were holding the gates of every city, ready to kill any man who would claim to be king, without having received the crown from the hands of Caesar. This was the very accusation written over His bead on His cross when He was crucified) “This is the King of the Jews.” Hence the necessity of postponing the open avowal of His Messiahship to the latest practical date.

c. I trow, this was the reason for His going away off to Caesarea-Philippi, out of the circle of His old audiences, and away from the multitude, who had crowded after Him, professing discipleship. When I visited Caesarea- Philippi, I went up on one of the peaks of Mt. Hermon, hanging over the city, where there is a great military citadel, about two thousand feet long and three hundred wide, built of solid masonry, though in ruins, the walls mainly yet intact, which had been occupied during the ages of Roman, Saracen, Crusade, and French rule, within which there is an old temple, said to have been built by Herod the Great. Tradition says that in this temple, when Jesus preached to the people, He proclaimed His Christhood, propounding the above questions to Peter, the apostolic senior, and in this, as well as other cases, the representative and speaker of the Twelve.