After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. 4 Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ 5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!’ 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground, terrified. 7But Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ 8 When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus. MATTHEW 17:1-8.
12 So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. 13 I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, 14 because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things. 16For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty. 17 He received honour and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ 18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. 2 PETER 1:12-18.
Peter’s Second Epistle is understood to have been written between 64-68 CE, probably after Apostle Paul’s death. In his two epistles, he reflects on the two great experiences of his life: the declaration of the building of the church written in Mt.16 (examined in our last letter) and the transfiguration in Mt.17, where Peter emphasises that true faith is founded on historical facts.
As examined in our last letter Peter became the first disciple to preach the gospel to both the Jews on the day of Pentecost and to the first Gentile, Cornelius, whose household became believers in Christ. Thus the special privilege given to Peter by the Lord in Mt. 16:19, ‘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’ was first fulfilled on those specific situations, later followed by all His disciples.
Peter’s original name was ‘Simeon’ in Hebrew and ‘Simon’ in Greek, and it was after he was given a new title as a disciple by Christ that he came to be called ‘Cephas’ meaning “rock” or “stone”, whose Greek form was “Petros”, i.e., ‘Peter’. His brother Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist and it is likely that both had been very much interested in his movement. It was in such a time when Christ called both to His intimate band of the twelve disciples, saying: ‘Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men’ (Mk.1:17). At once they followed.
In Mark’s Gospel Peter is called ‘Simon’ up to chapter 3, verse16, and thereafter always ‘Peter’. Therefore, it was apparently not at the declaration of the building of the church by Christ in Mt. 16:17-18, that the name “Petros”, i.e., ‘Peter’ was first bestowed to him. Actually in Mt.16:18 Christ meant: ‘You are “Petros” (a little stone, “Peter”), but upon the big rock I will build My church’. It is important to note the fact that no article is used before “Petros”, while a definite article is used before “petra”, i.e., ‘rock’ in Greek text. Furthermore, the tense of building the church is in future tense implying that it is Christ that will actually build it. In this context ‘the rock’ upon which the church should be built is Christ and not Peter and everywhere else in the Scripture ‘the rock’ refers to Christ or God. For example, Paul taught: ‘They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ’ (1Co.10:3-4, Lines added), and ‘For we are fellow workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ’ (1Co.3:9-11).
Peter was one of the first disciples called into Christ’s ministry and also one of the three members of His inner circle. He was the representative of the whole band of the twelve disciples. After his apostolic confession of Christ: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ (Mt.16:16), the event of the transfiguration took place as quoted above. This experience made a lasting impression upon Peter’s life and ministry, which is reflected both his epistles. After Christ’s resurrection, Peter’s name was especially singled out by the angel who gave the message of the risen Lord to the disciples: ‘But go, tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”’ (Line added), and then, the risen Lord personally visited Peter as recorded in their books by both Paul and Luke: ‘It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon’ (Lk.24:34).
After the restoration of Peter from his previous three-fold denial of Christ, he was newly commissioned by the Lord at the sea of Tiberias, i.e., Galilee. This was where Jesus performed several miracles, including that of a catch of 153 fish, in which Peter was given enormous strength to draw up the net by himself, which seven other men were not able to draw up, and also the net remained miraculously intact despite its huge load.
After Pentecost, Peter exercised leadership and supernatural powers through the church so as to make a strong influence on the community. He went to Samaria for the church’s first mission as a representative with Apostle John. After the death of Stephen there are only few references to Peter and he seems to have moved around in Palestine such as Joppa and Caesarea, to accomplish the Lord’s Great Commission, while James took a role of leadership in Jerusalem. Just as Patriarch Jacob’s life switched between two natures; as ‘Jacob’, his old nature trusting in his own abilities and as ‘Israel’, his new nature putting his trust in God and living in obedience, so Peter’s life also seemed to switch from being ‘Simon’, his old nature and ‘Peter’ as new man in Christ. The Bible reports an incident where Peter was openly denounced by Paul because he had yielded to pressure from the circumcision group, i.e., the Judaisers, who believed the necessity of circumcision for salvation and Peter ‘began to draw back and separated himself from the Gentiles’ (Ga.2:12), although he had previously eaten and associated with them. This incident in the life of Peter exemplifies the inconsistencies within him.
There are some who claim that there was persistent rivalry between Paul and Peter. However, there is neither a hint of theological difference between the two, nor definite evidence of any contention. On the contrary, Paul clearly mentioned their different commissions from the Lord: ‘As for those who were held in high esteem – whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favouritism – they added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they recognised that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognised the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised’ (Ga.2:7-9, Lines added).
Peter was once imprisoned in Jerusalem and after the Lord’s miraculous deliverance, the Scripture reads: ‘Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,” he said, and then he left for another place’ (Acts 12:17, Line added). After this supernatural escape out of Herod’s hands, who had had James, the brother of John put to death and who intended to bring out Peter for public trial after the Passover, it is not clear where Peter went. It may have been Corinth and North Asia Minor. The fact that Paul was prohibited to enter ‘Bithynia’ by the Holy Spirit in his second missionary journey, might imply that Peter was at work in that area.
Whether or not Peter actually visited Rome or lived there has been disputed. The majority denies his residence in Rome. Actually there is no suggestion of his residence in Rome found in the Scripture except for a passage in his First Epistle, in which he used ‘Babylon’ as a code name for Rome: ‘She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark. Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ’ (1Pe.5:13-14). This epistle was probably written just before or during Nero’s persecution and there is a possibility that Peter was martyred there.
Having briefly traced Peter’s ministry from the Scripture, how can we conclude on the issue of Peter as the first Pope in the Catholic Church? Most of the evidence points to the contrary.
- According to the Lord’s commission to Peter he was apparently designated as chief minister to the circumcised but not to the uncircumcised. Thus, he could not have been sent to Rome to evangelise to the Gentiles.
- It was Paul that was directly commissioned from the Lord to minister the gospel to the Gentiles and also it was Paul that officially founded, or helped to establish the true church of Christ in Rome.
- Paul planted the church wherever he went but strictly according to his policy, which he puts it: ‘I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles… It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written: “Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.”’ (Ro.15:18-21, Lines added). This statement excludes the possibility of Peter having founded the Roman Church before Paul as long as it was Christ’s true church.
- There is no reference to Peter in the names to whom Paul sent greetings at the end of his letter
in Ro.16. This is evidence that Peter was not in Rome at that time when Paul wrote the epistle to
the Romans from Corinth, at the close of his third missionary journey in late winter or early
spring of 57, or 58CE. Paul did not address his letter to a particular church but to ‘the saints’ in
Rome, probably because there were several churches in Rome. Decades previously, on the day of
Pentecost ‘visitors from Rome’ (Acts 2:10) were in the crowd, who witnessed the miracle that
happened on the day and who heard Peter’s sermon. Some of them returned home as believers in
Christ and probably founded churches in Rome. Subsequently other believers migrated to Rome
from other regions, including Aquila and Priscilla whose church met in their house (so-called
house-church).
In the Epistle, Paul sent numerous greetings to 28 individuals and also several groups, which shows the great impact of his ministry on the establishment and development of the church in Rome. Among the believers there must have been Paul’s converts or associates in other regions. Even if he had not founded a church there, Paul would have considered it as his own. - When Paul was sent to Rome as a prisoner to stand trial before Caesar, the Christian brethren in Rome who heard of it went to meet him but significantly, among them Peter is not referred to. Luke usually mentions important apostles by name in his narration in Acts and yet, there is no mention of Peter meeting with Paul.
- Paul, having arrived in Rome and been allowed to live by himself with a soldier to guard him, he called the leaders of the Jews to share his sufferings for the kingdom of God with them. Amazingly, they were very little informed about Paul and even the basic teachings of Christ. Then Paul had to start with basic teachings until only some of them were converted while others remained in disagreement with him as written in Acts 28:16- 28. Paul quoted the passage from Isaiah 6:9-10 to their spiritually very poor condition, exactly as Christ had used it in connection with His parables of the kingdom in Mt. 13:13-15 and in other places. This clearly indicates the fact that Peter had not been in Rome at least to spiritually lead and shepherd them.
- During his stay in Rome for these two years Paul wrote the epistles to the Philippians, the Ephesians, the Colossians, and the letter to Philemon, the so-called “prison epistles”. While he mentions others as being in Rome during these years he does not mention Peter.
- According to tradition, Paul appeared before the Roman emperor and this time, the case was dismissed and released. He went to Crete where Titus was left in charge and probably to Ephesus as well where Timothy was left in charge, and travelled to other places. But some years later, he was arrested again and spent some more time in prison until he was beheaded outside the walls of Rome, during which he probably had time to write his last one, the Second Epistle to Timothy. In that epistle, Paul said: ‘At my first defence, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them’ (2Timothy 4:16). Here he mentions that all men in Rome forsook him at his first defence. If Peter had really been in Rome, he would have been one of the deserters but such a betrayal would be unthinkable, which simply means Peter was not in Rome.
- Even Paul himself, having written several epistles in Rome and also an epistle to Rome from ‘Cenchrea’, clearly said in the end, only Luke was with him (2Timonothy 4:11).
- Lastly, Peter gives us some specific warnings in his epistles concerning the coming apostasy; false teachers and false doctrine through deceptive means and twisting of the Word to suit their promotions and fancies that will sweep over Christendom.
Among them, his warning to the Lord’s appointed shepherds is significant in that he emphasises that any shepherd should not be exalted: ‘Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them – not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock’ (1Pe.5:2-3).