“Now at last, therefore, the foundation is laid, and the building of the spiritual temple is begun. The words which follow (Matthew 16:18) are quite natural and free from most, if not from all, the difficulties in which perverse human ingenuity has entangled them, if only we bear in mind the circumstances and surroundings. The little group is standing on one of the huge rocky flanks of mighty Hermon, great boulders here and there around them; and in all probability, well in sight, some great stones cut out of the rock and made ready for use in building, like those still to be seen in the neighbourhood of Baalbec, to the north of Hermon; for this region was famous for its great temples. Now, when we remember that the two words our Lord uses (πετρος and πετρα) for “rock” in our version have not precisely the same meaning-the one (Petros, Peter) signifying a piece of rock, a stone, the other (Petra) suggesting rather the great bed-rock out of which these stones are cut and on which they are lying-we can understand that, while the reference is certainly in the first place to Peter himself, the main thing is the great fact just brought out that he is resting, in the strength of faith, on God as revealed in His Son. Thus, while Peter is certainly the piece of rock, the first stone which is laid upon the great underlying foundation on which all the faithful build, and therefore is in a sense-the common popular sense, in fact-the foundation stone, yet the foundation of all is the Bed-Rock, on which the first stone and all other stones are laid. Bearing this well in mind, we further see that there is no inconsistency between this and those other scriptures in which God is represented as alone the Rock of our salvation. The Bed-Rock, “the Rock of Ages,” is here, as elsewhere, God as revealed in His Son, and Peter is the first stone “well and truly laid” upon it.

If the surroundings suggest the use of the words “Petros” and “Petra,” stone and rock, the circumstances suggest the use of the word Ecclesia, or Church, which is here employed by our Lord for the first time. Up to this time He has spoken always of the kingdom, never of the church. How is this to be explained? Of course the kingdom is the larger term; and now it is necessary that that portion of the kingdom which is to be organised on earth should be distinguished by a specific designation; and the use of the word “church” in preference to the more familiar “synagogue” may be accounted for by the desire to avoid confusion. Besides this, however, the word itself is specially significant. It means an assembly “called out,” and suggests the idea of separateness, so appropriate to the circumstances of the little band of outcasts.

To see into this more fully let us recall the recent teaching as to the true Israel (chap. 15.), no longer to be found in the old land of Israel. If there is to be an Israel at all, it must be reconstituted “outside the camp.” In view of this, how strikingly significant is it that just as Abraham had to leave his country and go to a strange land to found the old theocracy, so Christ has to leave His country and go with His followers to those remote northern regions to constitute “the Israel of God,” to inaugurate His Church, the company of those who, like these faithful ones, come out and are separate to be united by faith to Him! Christ with the Twelve around Him is the Israel. of the New Testament; and we can imagine that it was on this occasion especially that in the prayers which we know from St. Luke’s Gospel He offered in connection with this very conversation, He would find these words of devotion especially appropriate: “Behold, I and the children which God hath given Me”. {Hebrews 2:13} The family of God {see Matthew 12:49} are by themselves apart, disowned by those who still bear unworthily the name of Israel; and most appropriate it is that on this occasion our Lord should begin to use that great word, which means first “called out” and then “gathered in”: “on this rock I will build MY CHURCH.””