UPON THIS ROCK
“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
Matthew 16:13 ESV
Jesus took His disciples all the way to Caesarea Philippi for a reason. And knowing its history is a key to understanding the undercurrent of Matthew 16 and 17 as well as Luke 10 (in my opinion).
It’s a piece of land we haven’t encountered since the book of Joshua really. In the OT it’s called Baal-Hermon or Baal-Gad. And it was part of the territory of the last king of the giants, Og King of Bashan.
Moses was still alive and leading the people when this part of the land was conquered. It’s east of the Jordan River. Just before he dies, Moses reviews the nation’s history and he tells about conquering King Og.
“So we took the land at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the Valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon (the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it Senir), all the cities of the tableland and all Gilead and all Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. (For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.)”
Deuteronomy 3:8-11 ESV
The Rephaim were the tribe of giants first mentioned in Genesis 14:5. If we go back to Genesis 6, we get the only biblical explanation for the origin of these beings.
“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”
Genesis 6:4 ESV
This region had been ground zero for the existence of the Nephilim clans.
The Book of Enoch (First Enoch) was well known to Jesus and the disciples. Jude quotes from it (v6, 14-15). Peter references it, (2 Pet. 2:4).
Here is Enoch’s telling of Genesis 6:1-4.
“And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’ And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: ‘I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.’ And they all answered him and said: ‘Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.’ Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.” 1 Enoch 6:1-7
(Jared was Enoch’s father, Gen. 5:18)
The rebel sons of God “touched down” on a mountain peak that they named “Hermon” which comes from this word:
They bound themselves under a mutual curse, like, “If you’re in, I’m in. And nobody gets out alive.”
Interestingly, that is the same method of occult secret societies. Initiation oaths involve swearing to have one’s throat cut or some other graphically violent death if one betrays the society. Very fallen angelish.
Ironically, the word charam was used to describe what Israel did to the Nephilim offspring of the fallen angels. In the KJV it’s typically translated as “devote to destruction” or “utterly destroy.”
After the Israelites utterly destroyed the Raphaim remnants in Bashan, the land was given to Manasseh. The mountains of that region continued to be places of ancient occult worship.
When the Greeks conquered the Persians, they named the cultic site Panias [pan-yas] after their god Pan. The focus of their worship was a cave which they believed to be a literal entrance to the Underworld.
When the Romans conquered and Herod the Great was put in charge of the territory, since he LOVED building things, he built a temple near the cave for the worship of Casear as a god. This was known as the Imperial Cult.
😒 Ick. I think he was just kissing up to Caesar.
Probably.
Around 4BC (just before the birth of Jesus), Herod Philip the Tetrarch expanded the city that had developed there and renamed it Caesarea Philppi in honor of Caesar and himself and he made it his administrative capitol.
Here is an artist’s depiction of what the cultic temple area would’ve looked like in the first century:
Here’s how the site looks today.
I asked Google to summarize the nature of the worship at Panias in the first century.
When it says “fertility rites” and “uninhibited revelry” it means wild, sexual orgies. The Gate of the Underworld was where the fertility spirits were believed to enter and exit. Let’s not mince words. Pan was the god of lustful instant gratification. I don’t think the “dancing” with the goats was limited to “dancing.” Since we’re all adults here, you actually do need to understand the nature of what was happening at this site.
I don’t know if the out-of-control revelers understood the possible connection between bestiality and the Nephilim or not but I doubt it.
“So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.”
Genesis 6:7, 11-12 ESV
It wasn’t just the DNA of humanity that the 200 on Mount Hermon corrupted. ALL flesh – including the animals – “had corrupted their way.” I put it to you for your consideration that perhaps the fallen angels also experimented widely with animal hybridization. And I don’t think it looked like a lab with eggs and sperm in a petri dish. I suspect that if not the angels themselves, then their nephilim offspring practiced copulation with animals. The idea had to come from somewhere and God strictly forbade it in the Law among all the other perversions of sex. And though it sounds bizarre, the ancient myths and legends about hybrid creatures may point to some vestige of reality. Pan himself was depicted as a human-goat hybrid.
Even if that connection is tenuous, at the very least, we know that Panias at Caesarea Philippi was a place of unchecked sexual perversion and paganism which is connection enough to the fallen angels of Genesis 6.
The association with Pan was so bad, that later Christian depictions of Satan borrowed from Pan imagery – the horns, the pointy beard and shaggy fur, and cloven hooves.
Jesus is not a fallen son of God, or a Nephilim demi-god, but the only begotten Son of God. And He brings His students to this famously pagan place and asks them, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
John the Baptist. Elijah. Jeremiah. One of the prophets…
“Who do YOU say that I am?”
Though he was far from the first to say it, Simon makes his bold declaration, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus gives Simon a new name.
“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 ESV
Peter, as I’m sure you know, means “rock.”
The Catholic Church has long taken Peter to be the “rock” upon which Christ builds the Church but this cannot be. Christ Himself is the Cornerstone of the Church, (Ps. 118:22, Is. 28:16, Mt. 21:42, Mk. 12:10, Ac. 4:11, Eph. 2:20, 1 Pet. 2:6-7). It’s VERY clear in scripture. Jesus is the Cornerstone. Not Peter. The Apostles and Prophets together with Christ form the foundation. Everything does not rest on Peter. But Peter’s revelation will be foundational. And the rock location – the entrance to the Underworld, the “Gate of Hell” – that is where Jesus is going to begin building. Not in country far far away, but smack on the Enemy’s doorstep.
And what exactly is Jesus building? What’s a “church?”
This is the first time in the New Testament we have encountered the “church.”
Jesus did not invent this word. It had been in use for a few centuries already. It was a Greek word for a meeting of citizens, an assembly of the people. The ek means out of, and the kaleo means “to call.”
The ancient Jewish scholars who translated the OT into Greek used ekklesia for the assembled people of Israel.
Just as Israel was called out of the nations by God, the New Covenant assembly of the saints has been called out of the world to be the Lord’s own special people.
The English word “church” comes from a completely different word unrelated to ekklesia. It was never used by the NT writers to refer to the gathering of believers. It came into use later. And while theologically sound, it very quickly came to mean the place where the believers gathered, more than the people themselves. And that meaning is still the one most people think of today.
If you’ve ever encountered the argument that the word “church” is pagan, here is a good article explaining why that is not the case.
SIDE NOTE RANT
The comments section of the article linked above is a fair example of why I do not allow comments on this blog. They are often biased, unfounded, and combative. And I don’t have time to have no interest in responding to people who won’t be convinced by any amount of solid evidence.
The last comment about ekklesia being a corrupted term because it’s “democratic” and not “theocratic” is an example of someone who has eaten a whole loaf of the leaven of the Pharisees.
The commenter has zero understanding of the work and active role of the Holy Spirit to make the Lord’s will known through the many members of the Body. The NT is NEITHER “democratic “ nor “theocratic.” It’s something far more daring.
It’s a divine-human partnership.
Just as Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, and just as the Word of God is both 100% divinely inspired AND 100% penned by humans, so the Church – the Body of Christ – is a coming together of God and redeemed man.
The commenter is in direct opposition to Christ and obviously believes many bogus online theories about how the biblical text was supposedly “corrupted” by nefarious actors who used the “pagan Greek” instead of “holy Hebrew,” etc. (And y’all know how much I love Hebrew!) So God is only capable of speaking in one language? What about the Egyptian loan words? And Chaldean? Cannot the God, Who invented those “pagan” languages at Babel, reach out to those nations in their own tongue? Did He not repeatedly say in the OT that “all the nations” would see His glory? I would say with Jesus, “You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.”
The people who disparage the Greek NT seem to think God incapable of accomplishing His will and preserving His Word in the earth in the face of a few meddling humans. So God preserved the seed of Messiah through all of Israel’s outright apostasy, but fumbled at preserving His Word in the hands of early Christians? It’s a puny God whose will is thwarted so easily.
Just because God’s New Covenant love and grace and mercy, communicated in humble Koine Greek, does not fit some narrow, despotic, OT understanding of Yahweh, DOES NOT MAKE THE NT CORRUPT.
The original autographs and earliest known copies of the NT are in Greek. Get over it.
Go start your own religion with your own made-up Hebrew “new testament” text and leave my Bible alone.
I need a cup of tea…
🫖☕️
Personally, I think the clearest English word that communicates the ideas of ekklesia is assembly. It’s based on the idea of assemble – individual parts coming together into one place and connecting.
(Actual) SIDE NOTE
The proper function of the Assembly of Saints involves more than just being together in one place. I can have a whole box of parts all in one place at the same time, but not have a functional computer. They have to be correctly connected. Assembled. Perhaps after the blog is finished I will be ready to start writing some books. One of the books I want to write will be called “Some Assembly Required.” It will be all about a Biblical Ecclesiology.
So Jesus is going to build HIS parliament, His official covenantal government right on the doorstep of death and there won’t be a thing that the lords of the Underworld can do about it.
BUT IT INVOLVES DEATH…
In a major plot-twist, after telling them He is going to build His government triumphantly on death’s doorstep, Jesus says He’s going to die. And not only will He have to die, so will everyone who wants to follow Him.
Umm…say WHAT?!
If anyone has only heard the pop-culture version of Christianity (God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life), Jesus’ words sound like suddenly dissonant chord.
God’s “wonderful plan for your life” involves you picking up your own instrument of torture and slow death and getting next in line for Calvary.
In verses 24-26 Jesus juxtaposes two ways:
- Not denying yourself the things you want, saving your life, gaining the whole world, and losing your soul
- Denying yourself, losing your life for Christ’s sake, finding your life/soul
Right now, because we cannot see or experience eternity, the present feels bigger. More important. But it’s not. If we were to graph the present (all 7000 years of human history) vs eternity, it would look like this:
It’s like the marshmallow test but on steroids. You can either have 1 good life now with uninhibited chasing your desires and enjoying wealth, fame, pleasure, power, whatever you want. And that’s it. Then you forfeit your eternal soul and spend eternity shut out from true Life.
Or, you can wait. No marshmallow in this life. No “living the dream.” No accumulating treasures on earth. No worldly pleasures. But when the Son of Man comes, He will give you multiple times more of holy delights than you ever could’ve enjoyed in one lifetime on earth.
And you get that for eternity.
Ninety or so years of denial for endless ages of glory? Yes. I’ll take that deal.
To The Reader 