2. Peter Rebukes Jesus Privately
When you look at verse 22, the Bible says that Peter pulled Jesus aside and began to rebuke him. Peter was telling Jesus, this is not going to happen. This can’t happen. He was also really saying, I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want you to suffer and die. Peter was thinking of his own self-interest.
3. Jesus’ Response
Jesus follows up Peter’s response with the words “Get behind me, Satan.” Peter unwittingly had come into agreement with Satan. We said earlier that Satan’s agenda and God’s agenda are in direct opposition to each other. That is what Jesus was referring to. Notice what he said, “you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
I am sure Peter’s concern was genuine because he loved Jesus. However, any human concern that does not line up with the concerns of God would therefore line up with the concerns of Satan. I know you don’t often look at it this way, but if it doesn’t agree with God’s agenda, then it is opposed to it. Anything that is opposed to God’s agenda is part of Satan’s.
4. The Stumbling Block
One of the things that I find very interesting is that Jesus told Peter, “you are a stumbling block to me.” Within these verses, we see the full deity of Christ and the full humanity of Christ on display. Jesus, being fully God, knew he must go to Jerusalem and die for the sins of the world. Yet Jesus, being fully human, also understood the great pain and agony he was about to endure, and it probably weighed on him, because he was human. In this moment, the thing he didn’t need was someone in his ear telling him this will never happen.
Peter was speaking to his humanity and therefore became a stumbling block. We know later that Jesus would pray in the garden asking God if there is another way but nevertheless let your will be done. With Peter telling him this can’t happen, he was feeding the part of Jesus that agonized over what was about to happen. Get behind me Satan was Jesus telling Peter that his thinking is wrong, it agrees with Satanic thought. Furthermore, Jesus can’t listen to him because if he does, Peter will become a stumbling block.
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