As we move along in our exposition in Luke we will note that there is a lot that has happened between the events recorded in Luke 9:17 and verse 18. Between this time that Luke does not record, Jesus makes His way back across the Sea of Galilee. He does this as He sends the disciples across first then meets them in the middle of a storm where Jesus is walking on the water(Matthew 14:22-32; Mark 6:45-52; John 6:15-21). Of course we know that Peter as well steps out to walk on water by the power of the Lord. Then there is the healings in Gennesaret recorded in Matthew 14:34-36 and Mark 6:53-56.
During this time Jesus continues to travel around the area of Capernaum, Bethsaida, Gennesaret, Tyre, Sidon and the Decapolis. He preaches, heals the sick, makes the deaf hear, the mute speak, the feeding of the 4000 and He continues to expose the religious leaders hypocrisy. There is also the great message that Jesus taught where He shared that He is the bread of life. This message confused some of His followers to the point that many quit following Him. John 6:66 says As a result of this many of His disciples went away and were not walking with Him anymore.
What is happening at this point is that Jesus is exposing the superficial followers from the true followers. Jesus knew who it was that was following Him in truth. After Jesus had fed the 5000, John 6:15 says So Jesus, knowing that they were going to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.
As Jesus and His disciples have left that area the people followed them back to Capernaum from Bethsaida. Jesus exposes their hypocrisy and superficiality in John 6:25-26 that says And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You come here?” 26 Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
The truth is that many people have been following that are no longer following but Jesus still has many people following Him. With that Jesus begins to question the disciples motives as well. Of course we know that Jesus knows their hearts but He questions them for their own self examination. Many of the now former followers of Jesus have exposed their own hypocrisy by walking away and now it is time for the disciples of Jesus to be tested as well. This will be what sets us up to look at our text for this study.
1.Who does the crowds think Jesus is?
Look with me at Luke 9:18-19 And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him, and He questioned them, saying, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” 19 And they answered and said, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen again.”
I love the fact that we often see our Lord praying. Even though He is God incarnate, He is in prayer often. He was in prayer as an example to us. If our Lord who is the Son of God spent time with the Father in prayer we too need to follow in this since we are so bent to do what we want. Of course Jesus never needed to be in prayer to ask for forgiveness of sins seeing that He was sinless but rather to pray against the weakness of the flesh. God the Son had lived as the sovereign Lord and never experienced hunger, tiredness, temptation to submit to the flesh and therefore He needed this time to strengthen Him physically and spiritually as a human.
In our text Jesus is praying alone even though the disciples were present. This was not a group prayer but a time for the Lord to get away to pray alone. Luke does not give us a location of these events but Matthew and Mark both gives to us a general location. Matthew 16:13 and Mark 8:27 says that Jesus begins to question the disciples on their way to Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi is about 30 miles north of Bethsaida which would be about a 10 hour walk. I believe that after the feeding of the 5000, Jesus finds a quiet place to pray and to get alone with His disciples. Then after prayer they depart away from the crowds to the location towards Caesarea Philippi.
It is during this time that Jesus brings about the question of “Who do the crowds say that I am?”
We must remember that Jesus is never asking these questions because He doesn’t know the answer. He asks this question to bring them to a place of recognizing and proclaiming who He actually is. This was for the purpose of revealing to His disciples who He is. In our text we see that they all were answering Him with “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen again.”
We remember earlier in this chapter that we made the point that this was the case that many thought this seeing that Herod had heard this very thing. Luke 9:7-8 says Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was happening, and he was greatly perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead, 8 and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen again.
The fact is that many people had heard of what Jesus was doing but they did not know exactly who He was. They associated His work with just another prophet or one of the prophets that had risen from the dead. They may had seen the miracles, they may had only heard of what He was doing but there was still a lot of confusion concerning who Jesus really is. The logical conclusion should have went beyond the idea that this was John the Baptist because he didn’t even do any miracles or signs. To some the things they heard about Jesus or even saw first hand seemed to be something like Jeremiah, Moses, Elijah, Elisha or one of the many other prophets had done.
The thing is they had got right that Jesus was from God but they did not get that He was the Son of God, that is God in the flesh. It is highly important to realize that Jesus is not just some manifestation of God but that He is God the Son who is a distinct Person on the Trinity of God. John 1:1-4 says of Jesus, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
John 1:14 says And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The thing is that you can say you believe in Jesus but if you don’t believe in the Jesus who is the Son of God, God incarnate, the One distinct in Person but not in deity with God the Father then you have a different Jesus. The counterfeit Jesus is one that had to empty the throne to become a man in which the Oneness Pentecostals worship. Nowhere do we see that happen but what we do see is Jesus pray to the Father, and return to the right hand of the Father.
I say all of this to show that you can think highly of Jesus but just thinking He is a god or a prophet is completely wrong. He is God and came to Earth for a specific reason. This is what Jesus is trying to get the disciples to think about here as He continues to press them with questions. This will be what we look at in our next point.
2.Who do the disciples think Jesus is?
Look with me at Luke 9:20 And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”
What an amazing proclamation of Peter. He clearly says and does not hold back that indeed he along with the others believe Him to be the Christ of God. Peter has proclaimed here that Jesus is in fact the Christos, the Messiah or the Anointed One of God. This proclamation means much more than just some simple profession of faith but that they believe that Jesus is the Messiah that they have been waiting for.
For many in that time they had a wrong view of what the Messiah would do when He came along. They had the idea of the fulfillment of their oppressors being their slaves, they believed they would at that time receive the full inheritance of the land and the kingdom promised to Abraham. They did not see their Messiah as a suffering Messiah that would give them beyond some earthly inheritance. But still with this statement 11 of the 12 of Jesus’ disciples were on the right way of thinking. I believe that Judas could have believed that Jesus was the Messiah but I believe that his idea of Messiah was from a sense of personal gain or prosperity. His greed got the best of him when he realized that Jesus was not looking to overthrow the government and give them free health and food forever.
What we clearly see in other passages from the other Gospel writers is that they give to us even more detail of this conversation. Matthew 16:16-17 says And Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
Here we see the truth that no person in their own natural state could ever come to the conclusion that Jesus is the real Messiah. Only by God’s revealing this to Peter and us as well, can we ever know the things that bring to us the truth of who Jesus is. Many people claim to follow Jesus, many different religions believe Jesus to be a good teacher or some type of prophet. Mormons believe Jesus is deity but that He came to that deity from a path He chose which empowered Him to become a god. But none of these are true. You can say you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, that He is your Lord but if you are not living in a way that shows that He is your actual Lord then I’m afraid there is no truth to that.
Only a true believer will confess these truth because of the reality of those truths in their life. 1 Corinthians 12:3 says Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
So we see here in our Luke text that clearly Peter makes this confession as he did in John 6:68-69 that says “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. 69 And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”
With this confession Jesus needs to make clear that He is not the Messiah that most believe Him to be from their wrong view taught to them. This is what we will look at briefly in our next point.
3.Jesus tells His disciples that He will die.
Look with me at Luke 9:21-22 But He warned them and directed them not to tell this to anyone, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”
Here is one of those times that Jesus clearly tells His disciples to not spread this news of Him being the Messiah. He did this because of what He says in verse 22. He will suffer, be rejected and killed but that will not be the end, He will also be raised the third day. Jesus is letting them know what is going to happen before it happens. Directly after this account in Matthew we see even more detail. Matthew 16:21-23 says From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. 22 And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” 23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
Here we see Peter go from a confession that Jesus is the Messiah to telling Jesus that He will not suffer. Jesus’ hard rebuke shows to Peter and to us that Peter had confessed Jesus as the Messiah but he still had a lot to learn concerning what was going on. It is like a new Christian that may understand the truth of Jesus and His sacrifice but still has a lot of work to remove the world from his or her life. Of course that is all of us still and this just shows us that we can at times be living out the Christian life like we should be then turn away because of our own desires and ignorance in an instance.
In our next study Jesus will show them the truth of what being a disciple of His really means.
Disciple's Direction 