“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Matthew 16:18

This is a battleground text on the matter of ultimate authority in the Church. Apologists of either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism will major on the minor details of the passage to make their case. Although I do not think that the matter is settled in those details, taken in isolation, they are still important.

Specifically, we must say that the rock is on the basis of Peter’s confession. It is not that Jesus is not addressing this to Peter. He clearly is. But there are three issues that converge in the Roman Catholic interpretation of this verse. The first regards Peter’s change of name, the second regards the specific use of the building imagery, and the third regards difficulties that emerge if we were to understand this terminating on Peter’s person, rather than his confession. Let’s take each of these in turn.

First, as the name: ’And I tell you, you are Peter’ (v. 18a). Petros is his Greek name, whereas Shimon was his Hebrew. People will argue the significance that the second use of “rock”—AND ON THIS ROCK (petra)—in the feminine. In other words, it is not simply the same word in the dative case, whereas petros is in the nominative case. The word itself is different.1 The word petra tended to mean “solid mass of rock,” whereas petros would be a smaller “free standing” rock or stone. Part of the trouble here is that the New Testament tends to use that feminine word predominantly for regular “rock,” but the masculine only for Peter.

Another problem arises from the question of whether the Aramaic had two such words. After all, Jesus spoke in Aramaic here, even if the Gospel of Matthew comes to us in Greek. The trouble with arguing that there was no nuance at all in the Aramaic expression is precisely in the fact that there is in the Greek. Whether unwittingly or not, the argument is an argument that the text is incorrect and so undermines itself. Nolland makes this same observation in the positive form: “so it is likely that something similar was already present or implied in an underlying Aramaic original.”2

In any event, that very distinction already presents a problem for the Roman Catholic interpretation. Jesus was intentionally creating distance between Peter as a man and the real substance of the foundational rock. Now, we need more context for more information; and the nearest circle of context is the immediate use of the word. 

Second, as to the use of imagery: ‘and on this rock I will build my church’ (v. 18b). As always, context, context, context. What were the immediate words between Peter and Jesus right before? It was the right confession of Christ. In fact this is just the second part of the same sentence in Jesus’ response to that. Paul tells us, “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). When the Apostles are considered foundational in the same sort of imagery, they are still subordinate to Christ. So Paul says,

“built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20).

When Peter himself utilizes building imagery, he calls all Christians “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5) and reserves for Christ alone the designation “chief cornerstone” (vv. 6, 7). To be clear, there is no need for Protestants to deny that Jesus is talking to Peter or even about Peter. France references “Protestant overreaction” in his commentary,3 which we may comfortably allow exists, though one can still envision Jesus’ statement to all of the disciples through Peter even while there is a special place in leadership for Peter over the Jerusalem Church. The notion that this is an either-or dilemma begs the question.

Where Peter is addressed, there is nothing in substance that does not apply to all of the Apostles. So again,

“And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:14).

Now the number of foundational stones is not one but twelve. So, the real issue ought to be this: What about Peter? Is it his DNA? We’ve already been told “flesh and blood did not reveal this to you.” Is it his geographical location? That’s in Galilee right now anyway, not Rome. That’s where the confession is so important. Even Aquinas adds to this,

“Are both Christ and Peter the foundation? It must be answered that Christ, in and of Himself, is the foundation, but Peter is the foundation insofar as he confesses Christ, and insofar as he is vicar.”4

Thomas proceeds from there to cite Ephesians 2:20 and Revelation 21:14 to bring in all the apostles. True, he then does go on to speak of how Peter’s house especially is destined to stand. However, at most this would show a favor to Peter in perseverance through history rather than an intrinsic ground of revelatory, or even interpretive, authority.

Third, as to other difficulties that emerge, let us consider that, just further down in this chapter, when Peter says that Jesus must not go to the cross, notice the similar “rock” imagery, but now in calling him a “stumbling block” (v. 23), though the ESV translates this “hindrance.” Then there is the fact that the powers associated with the keys in the next words are given to all and not only Peter (cf. Mat. 18:18; Jn. 20:23). But another fact that gets lost in the shuffle is that, even on the most generous interpretation of Peter’s unique status, he cannot be shown to be the first bishop of Rome in any event; and that on three main counts:

(1) Christians, and thus the church, from Rome first appeared at Pentecost. The sense is not that they remained, but were “visitors from Rome” (Acts 2:10). So there was a church in Rome from the earliest days, while Peter was leading the Jerusalem church.

(2) No record of Peter’s ministry in the Roman church has ever existed. That he wrote his two epistles from Rome, under its euphemism “Babylon” (1 Pet. 5:13) is possible,5 yet there is no indication that he shepherded the local flock. Rather, this occurred during his final imprisonment under the Neronian persecution. He wrote to the “exiles” (1:1), as he himself was exiled.

(3) When Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans in the year 58, it is scarcely believable that he would not address Peter if he was present at all, let alone the bishop of that church. And yet he is never mentioned.

The first interpretation of Peter uniquely being the rock (rather than his confession) does not show up until the third century by the Roman bishop, Stephen I.6 That is early, no doubt, but still over two centuries after the New Testament was written. And it was not shared even by later Roman bishops, like Gregory. Augustine’s final view in his Retractions was “that this passage may be explained in multiple ways, and he left his listeners to adopt the explanation that they prefer.”7

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1. John Nolland chronicles how the word petros fell into disuse over the period of time from before the LXX to the first century; cf. The Gospel of Matthew: The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2005), 669.

2. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew, 668-69.

3. R. T. France, Matthew (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 257.

4. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (Dolorosa Press, 2012), 565.

5. Leithart argues the standard preterist position that “Babylon” refers not to Rome but to Jerusalem (Jesus As Israel, II:70). In either case, the same point will be preserved.

6. Stephen I was the Roman bishop from 254 to 257 AD.

7. Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew, 564.