13 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.
Here Peter said something that God had revealed to him and Jesus confirms it. Peter said “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Please understand how ridiculous that idea was to the Jews of that time, and still today. Yes, Yahweh is a Living God but He had no Son. And the Christ was to be the Messiah, a powerful, ruling monarch - not a suffering servant. But yet Peter answered as he did.
Peter didn’t figure it out on his own. NO MAN can say Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God unless it is “revealed” to him (Matthew 11:25-27; Luke 10:21, 10:22; John 17:6) and God does NOT reveal it to all mankind. Why didn’t any of the other apostles say Jesus was the Christ? Do you think that Peter simply beat the others to the punch? No. That is why Jesus told him he was blessed. This information about Jesus being the Anointed One was “revealed” to him NOT by man, which included Peter himself, but it was revealed by God the Father TO Peter. And unless God revealed this information to Peter, He would never know it or acknowledge it.
Even at this point in time there was a LOT of Scriptures Peter did not understand because it had not yet been revealed to him. Jesus did not open his mind to understand these Scriptures about Him until He appeared to him AFTER the resurrection (Luke 24:45). In like manner, God did not reveal the Truth of Who Jesus was until that moment, and then it was to Peter that God gave this revelation.
I know the Arminian will say that once someone hears the Gospel, he is able to say, “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” but that is NOT supported anywhere in Scripture. Nowhere in the Bible will anyone find that a lost man has the ability to understand Truth. In fact, Paul writes the opposite in 1 Corinthians 2:14, he writes a lost man can NOT understand ANYTHING from the Holy Spirit. And not only that, Jesus Himself states that lost men can not even hear what He says (John 8:43-44).
Bottom Line - recognizing Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, is done ONLY by those in whom God works (John 6:29).
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