There has been a lot of ink spilled over the issue of which “rock” Jesus is talking about in Matthew 16:18. Why not spill some more? First let’s have a look at the text. [To the left a picture of the Gates of the underworld in Caesarea Philippi.]
“13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
Possibilities:
- Our view in Churches of Christ and protestantism in general has traditionally been that the rock Jesus was talking about was Peter’s confession.
- The Roman Catholic view is that Peter himself is the rock (their basis for him being the first Pope). The second view does have its merit, although quite a weak one, that it makes sense of the word play between Peter and rock.
- Ray Vander Laan offers up a third possibility that I had never considered. He mentions that in Caesarea Philippi there was a rock that had a cleft in it that people believed was the gates to the underworld. They believed evil spirits associated with the Greek god Pan would travel through those gates back and forth to Hades. Vander Laan believes that Jesus was referring to that rock that his church would be built upon. I believe his point is that the church is going to take supremacy over the gates of Hades and not so much that evil is going to be the basis for his church.
This is a little puzzling because the traditional filter we have used to evaluate this verse is that Jesus is talking about using a rock as a foundation and that only makes sense if the foundation is worthy to serve that which is built upon it. So the foundation and what is built upon it work in unison to accomplish a unified purpose. Vander Laan’s view doesn’t pass through this filter very well as a demonic gate into Hades where evil spirits live just doesn’t seem a very likely foundation for the church. It does challenge us to not read this story flat. It challenges us to stand in Caesarea Philippi, view what they viewed, and recognize some of the obvious parallels Jesus is making with the culture of the area. But we have to be careful and not stretch what Jesus intended to say into something catchy or nuanced in order to make it come to life more in a video.
I am still of the opinion that it only makes sense for the foundation and the building built upon it needs to fit together. It still doesn’t make sense to me to build the church on the rock of a pagan cult, even if the intended message was God wants to bring redemption to Caesarea Philippi and the pagan practices there. The bedrock of our Christian faith and the church is not some rock in Israel or the person of Peter. The foundation of our faith is the true message of Jesus Christ as messiah and Son of God. In my mind, that is the only conclusion we can come to that really makes sense in this passage. Peter’s confession still stands as the foundation for our faith. I think that is something Peter would agree with and I believe he would cringe at attempts to make himself or the stones of Caesarea Philippi the object of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 16:18 of what the church would be built upon. If Jesus really meant C.P. as the foundation of the church, wouldn’t you think the early Christians would have understood that and used it as home base more so than Jerusalem?
What do you think Jesus means when he speaks of the rock he will build his church upon? Do you think Vander Laan is off base based on the above summary of his view?
12 Responses
Interestingly enough, I was just listening to RVL on Saturday while driving. I’m not convinced either. I especially have trouble with the Gates of Hades part of the interpretation. Even if some in that region referred to the spring in that way, I find it hard to believe that the term would have been known widely enough to be used without comment by the gospel writers.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Great post and thank you for taking the time to do so. The problem you point out is one that is all to familiar in American Christianity today. We really want these deep and mysterious truths to become evident to us, even to the point that we begin to read certain things into scripture. For RVL’s point to be made scripture would have to exsist showing where Christ was pointing to or even standing on the place mentioned. Thank you for your discernment on this matter as well as your confession that Christ alone is the hope of our salvation.
Why is “the gates of Hades” thought to be the foundation?
I have understood this phrase to refer to death, which is the gate to Hades (Greek word for “place of the dead”) or the grave.
Jesus was going to die – which He immediately began to tell them for the first time. He also told them that He would rise again on the 3rd day. Ergo, death would not prevent Him from building His church!
Jerry Starling
Paul identifies the foundation pretty definitively in 1 Cor. 11 when he says, “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ.” It was not Peter, nor even Peter’s faith or confession. It was Christ himself.
Yes, Eph 2 speaks of the “foundation of the apostles and prophets.” Look at that in view of Paul’s comment in Rom 15:20 that he did not want to “be building on someone else’s foundation” – meaning a foundation laid by someone else. This leads me to believe that “the foundation of the apostles and prophets” is the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets – which was Jesus Christ and Him crucified!
If we would get back to that as the foundation for the church and the source of our preaching, we’d all be a lot better off!
Jerry S.
Jesus is referred to as corner stone and also parallels himself to the temple itself (composed of stones). So you could have a lot of ammo to advance your position. I think you are certainly on the right track.
Thank you Jerry, I am with you. It seems quite obvious that Jesus Christ is our foundation. I think He was making a point by bringing the disciples all the way to Caesarea Philippi, to that spot. Since their culture of the time was so Hellenized they would know the beliefs about the gates of hades there. I absolutely think Jesus was making the point that even at the gate to death He would triumph, and nothing will overcome Him. Even in the very midst of evil, He reigns. And yes, He has proven this through His death and resurrection, Amen!
Amen – my very thoughts which is the teaching of the Word of God
I listened to this exact teaching last Sunday night. It really made me sit back and think he was wrong (at first). After all, why hadn’t I heard this before? But then the morning, during my study time, it just hit me about the Bereans. They searched the scripture daily to find out whether (or not) these things were so. Acts 17:11;
It was one of those selah moments…
Then, the big clincher for me, was in going back to the beginning of that little section from where this is preached in Matt 16 – starting at vs. 13. WHY, I asked myself,WHY would God include this in His word about Jesus coming into the region of Caesarea Philippi…prior to Him asking His disciples WHO do men say that I am? Talk about it now being an amazing thing to think of Peter’s response! And WHY he said what he did.
This isn’t some weird or wild teaching thrown in to confuse anyone. This really opened up the way I read scripture completely.
I recommend every believer in Christ get ahold of the DVD and listen to it. It was amazing and I don’t say that very often.
Interesting timing of this… I believe the Rock is either Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ or Jesus himself – either way, the both really relate. It’s interesting timing because I’m preparing a multimedia presentation to my “legalist” parents and this is a key part of the message – they have focused on “church” in that quote to say all denominations are wrong because church was singular not plural. The problem is, they have built their church on “rocks” not the rock. Those rocks being their works and doctrines beyond the gospel to earn their salvation. Please pray for them to see the wrong in their version of the gospel.
I always thought “the rock” was Jesus. Recently, however, I listened to Ray Vanderlaan teach on it and was totally taken aback at the profoundness of his message. ← Renewing Our Worship: AuthorityRenewing Our Worship: Frontier Revivalism and the Invitation →
Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan: The Gates of Hell
Posted on February 4, 2009 by Jay Guin
The lesson is taught at Caesarea Philippi, a city that was notorious for its evil.
The Jordan River begins with three springs at the foot of Mt. Hermon in the city.
In 2 BC, Herod Philip became tetrarch of this area and built Caesarea Philippi. But even earlier, the tribe of Dan relocated in the area from their original inheritance, the Philistines being too tough to root out. So they moved to this area and built the city of Dan. This is where Jeroboam built the golden calf. The “high place” where the calf was located is still there.
Dan was a religious center because of all the water coming out of the ground, as they worshipped fertility gods and the springs symbolized fertility. The Greeks had stopped infant sacrifice, but the locals continued to practice fertility rites, worshipping Pan, a Greek fertility god. At the time, a spring flowed from a cave, where Pan was worshipped through orgies and bestiality with goats. The source of the spring was known to the Greeks as the “gates of Hades,” that is, they believed the streams flowed from underground, the location of Hades.
The pagan idea was the gods would spend winter underground, that is, in Hades, and return in the spring to return fertility to the land and the animals. Fertility rites were practiced to encourage the gods to come out and begin spring.
To the south some 20+ miles, Jesus had ministered near the Sea of Galilee. Before going to Jerusalem, Jesus took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, a place famous for its paganism — and place so evil that the rabbis taught that the Messiah would overthrow its power.
(Mat 16:13-19) When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Notice Peter’s reference to the “Living God,” evidently in contrast to the pagan idols that were there.
RVL argues that “this rock” refers to the very rock where the idols sat and fertility practices took place. In effect, Jesus said, my church will come and overtake this paganism.
Jesus said the “gates of hell” would not stand against his church. But gates are defensive structures. Therefore, the image is that the gates of hades would not defeat conquest by the church. We are to be on the offense. We are called to go into the very heart of hell.
Our attitude is often to be defensive, to build gates, rather than to challenge and knock down gates.
Thus, Vander Laan, argues, Christian churches and schools should be training grounds for challenging and defeating Satan. (At the time these lessons were taught, RVL was a teacher in a Christian high school.)
Now, Jesus spent 3 years training his disciples in a controlled setting, and then he sent them out into the world — equipped with the Spirit. Christian schools need to be staging areas for how to go out into the world and confront evil, not defensive structures to protect us from the world.
Additional notes
Jesus spoke of “Hades,” not hell (the KJV is mistaken). In the New Testament, the writers borrow “Hades” from Greek mythology to refer to what the Old Testament calls “Sheol.” “Sheol” refers to the grave or, metaphorically, where the dead exist. In Greek thought, Hades is whether the dead exist. The Greeks considered the righteous dead to be in the Fields of Elysium or Elysian Fields, a paradise that is in Hades. The unrighteous dead dwell in Tartarus, a part of Hades where the dead suffer torment. Therefore, “Hades” is neither a good place nor a bad place, just the place where the dead are.
Hence, the most literal intepretation of the “Gates of Hades” would be the gates of the grave, that is, Christ’s church will rescue souls from the grave. And if we properly understand our eschatology (the study of last things), this makes sense. The promise of Rev 21-22 is that we’ll exist in the New Earth with God in a re-formed earth without night or death. The saved will never die again — we’ll be rescued from the grave, receiving a bodily resurrection. We considered this in detail in the Surprised by Hope series.
And while this is a very appealing interpretation, it doesn’t deal with the fact that Jesus chose to make this announcement at Caesarea Philippi, a place containing a grotto known as the “gates of Hades.” As Vander Laan points out, the pagans saw the springs as welling up from deep within the earth and thus from Hades. They saw the cave from which the spring flowed as literally a gateway into the underworld.
If Jesus meant by “gates of Hades” this very place where he stood, well, he meant that his church would offensively challenge the very heart of paganism and conquer it. And as a matter of fact, it happened. There aren’t many Pan worshipers left. Notwithstanding the Da Vinci Code, fertility rites are largely forgotten. Bestiality is considered perversion, not worship, even today.
In either case, “gates of Hades” plainly refers to the mission of the church to be on the offense, to confront and defeat the false claims of paganism and to even defeat death. Plainly, Jesus is not calling us to hunker down and defend.
This clip from Return of the King gives a good picture of breaching the defenses of an enemy hidden behind a gate. Of course, in the movie, the good guys were the ones defending, but you get the picture.
Now, Vander Laan draws the outline of a conclusion regarding private Christian schools and colleges. He warns against our separationist tendencies, and urges that our schools become staging areas from which we launch assaults against an evil culture, rather than defensive positions in which we hide from the culture.
I’m reading a book by Kary Oberbrunner, The Fine Line: Re-envisioning the Gap between Christ and Culture. The author notes the tendency of churches (and their schools) to become either conformist, becoming just like the surrounding culture, or separationist, seeking to hide from the culture. He urges his readers to become transformationist, that is, to engage culture and capture it for Jesus.
However, Oberbrunner does not see culture as the enemy. Rather, Satan is the enemy, and he sometimes uses culture as a tool. But culture is not, in and of itself, wicked. There is nothing inherently wrong with movies, music, art, TV, politics, science, or whatever cultural expression there may be. The key is to neither flee from culture nor to defeat culture. The key is to transform culture.
Now, in the context of a private school or college, how do we do that? The usual answer is to show only G-rated movies and to block pornography on the internet. But these are not at all transformational strategies. Consider these questions –
* Why aren’t Christian universities noted for being on the cutting edge of science — when science is the study of the handiwork of God?
* Why aren’t Christian universities noted for excellence in music and art?
* Why aren’t Christian high school noted for making the communities in which they exist better places?
* If the public schools were safe, well-disciplined, and provided an excellent education, would we need Christian schools? In other words, are our Christian schools simply a way of getting what everyone wants — a good education? And how does that make us any different from the world?
* What measures do we use to judge how good Christian schools are? How are these measures different from worldly measures? ACT scores? Admissions to medical school? Why aren’t we asking how many students participate in church plants? Become missionaries? Become fulltime ministers? Work to relieve the suffering of the poor?
I certainly agree with Vander Laan that there’s a time when we need to separate ourselves for preparation. Paul spent three years in Arabia getting ready to be a missionary. The 12 spent three years with Jesus. But the value of their preparation is not tested by their degrees or honors. The value is measured by lives changed and souls saved. Why do we not think of our own institutions in this way?
Finally — it’s easy to pick on our schools, and it’s a conversation we need to be having. But the same arguments and questions also go for our Sunday schools. How do we judge the success of our children’s, teen, and campus ministries? By attendance? By excitement? Or by discipleship? And just what would discipleship look like if we were to achieve it?
Related Posts:
To Change the World: A Reader’s Comment
The Age of Accountability: Conditional Immortality: The Rich
Atonement: Introduction
Acts 2:22-37 (The Prophets Speak of Jesus)
The Age of Accountability: Conditional Immortality: The Rich
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This entry was posted in All, Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan and tagged All, Christian education, hades, Ray Vander Laan, sheol. Bookmark the permalink.
10 Responses to Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan: The Gates of Hell
Kary Oberbrunner says:
February 4, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Glad you’re enjoying the book.
Jay Guin says:
February 4, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Kary,
I’m about half way through and very excited about it. I’ll do a series of posts on it when I get done, Lord willing.
Tom Lutke says:
February 5, 2009 at 4:56 am
Jay,
I totally agree that the church should be on the offensive. What is scary to me is that when we have gone on offense, we so frequently have used the weapons of the world. As you have pointed out in The Political Church, that by using the tools of the world, we put ourselves on the same landscape as any political action group— allying with those who agree with us and becoming enemies with those who don’t. It is so difficult for us to understand that the Kingdom of God will not be established though government or politics.
mark says:
February 5, 2009 at 10:31 am
Para church organization has always been more about the demarcation of spiritually systems rather than fighting the enemy. It is the quest for a new autonomy away from elderships and cultural ties. How we solve it is to disconnect the word “para” away from church. Is the church so Biblically limited in its organization that it cannot deal with anything outside it own tradition?
Then again can a Elder embrace a churches limited by laws and infrastructure and also sit on a board of Trustee of the affiliated Christian school? Is in one setting he being a spiritual leader and another time a volunteer of a non profit organization where decision and bias never cross!
For who wants to pay a 100,000 dollars to be educated for the sake of laying our hands out on the same cross Jesus did? The reality is our investment in ourselves is for the sake of living better and prospering beyond those around us. Can institutionalism be self sacrificing? I don’t think it can. But this is the world we live in a juxtaposed concept of melding business models with Christian pragmatism.
Jay Guin says:
February 5, 2009 at 2:00 pm
mark,
I’m not sure I entirely agree. I do agree that institutions are sometimes self-seeking, in the sense that institutional survival and competition can overcome their sense of mission at times.
But I do think many parachurch organizations are highly missional. I mean, consider Kairos, which cooperates with churches to plant new churches, or Agape, which cooperates with churches to find parents for children, provide foster parents, and counsel pregnant women not to have abortions.
Of course, it’s easy to think of examples that are less missional — many of our periodicals are downright anti-Christian. Our preaching schools are often very anti-missional.
Many of our Christian colleges are highly missional.
On the other hand, sometimes our colleges are not as missional as they should be. They sometimes give free educations for Godless football players while forcing future missionaries to carry huge school loans. But, on the whole, I’m a fan of our colleges (most of them).
I see no conflict between being an elder and serving on a college board (and, no, I’m not volunteering).
mark says:
February 5, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Jay
said
“I see no conflict between being an elder and serving on a college board.”
I don’t see a problem either. But this is my point if there no problem then why would “church” be represented by two types of spiritual systems? How can we have the injustice which exist in our institution and ask some to sacrifice as you put in indebtedness? What I’m saying isn’t para church a defensive measure to shield the church from being offensive?
Jay Guin says:
February 5, 2009 at 4:25 pm
mark,
Sometimes, yes.
A church on the offense will want to do things such as send out missionaries (church planting teams, really). But few churches are largely enough to assemble a team. Few churches have the skills needs to recruit, train, and support a team. Half of all churches have fewer than 75 members.
Therefore, almost all churches need the help of a para-church organization to do missional church planting.
However, some churches figure that a $100 check per month to a missionary constitutes fulfillment of their mission to evangelize. We are much better at writing checks than actually doing evangelism ourselves, and so para-church organizations give us an excuse to avoid personal responsibility.
Just so, we often relegate teaching our own children about Jesus to the Sunday school program, the youth minister, or the church school.
These are all good things, but should be used as crutches to avoid our personal call to God’s mission.
nick gill says:
February 6, 2009 at 5:56 am
I’m listening to this lecture right now — I’m simply floored.
Anonymous says:
January 30, 2011 at 5:31 pm
What was the source for the Rabbinic tradition, which Ray Vander Laan used concerning when the Messiah came the gates of hell at Caesarea Philippi would collapse?
Jay Guin says:
January 30, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Rmoseley,
I don’t know Vander Laan’s source. You may be able to find it at followtherabbi.com.
You have to figure that it’s from the Talmud or a midrash, but that’s conjecture on my part.
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