<p>16:18 <i>And I also say to you</i>- The theme of :17 has been that human action, faith and response is only part of the overall picture of spiritual work and human salvation. The church is to be built- by Jesus- upon the rock of faith in Jesus as the Son of God. Again, the two aspects come together. Flesh and Spirit, Son of Man and Son of God, &quot;flesh and blood&quot; and Heaven.</p>
<p>The idea was perhaps that the Lord was going to build His church upon Peter and the confession of faith which Peter had made, but the Lord was going to be the builder and not Peter. This would instil into Peter an appropriate humility for his later work of bringing thousands to Christ so publicly.</p>
<p><i>You are Peter</i>- In response to Peter's 'You are the Christ'. We note here the mutuality the Lord was seeking to build up in His dialogues with His followers, and that sense of mutuality between us and our Lord can be felt today too.&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>And upon this rock</i>- The term could refer to Peter personally, as his preaching was chronologically the basis upon which the church began. Perhaps the Lord held the shoulders of Jesus and spoke those words to the disciples- that upon the rock of Peter [&quot;rock&quot;], the future community was to be built. But the context is of declared faith in Him as God's Son. If this confession of faith (see on :16&nbsp;<i>The Christ</i>) is the basis upon which the community was and is built, then we need to ask what else is really required as the basis for Christian faith. That confession is only a beginning- the Lord will build upon it. The Lord is surely alluding to Rabbinic teaching that Abraham was the rock upon which the community of Israel was to be built- and showing that each believer in Him as Son of God was no less than Abraham in the new Israel.</p>
<p><i>I will build</i>- The idea of building upon a rock naturally recalls the Lord's parable of Mt. 7:24-26. As so often, the Lord told that parable to Himself as well as to us; He Himself built a house upon a rock, and He therefore knows how very slow the progress is. In that parable, the ability of the house to withstand the testing storm of judgment day depends upon the builder. We must take the step of faith, and yet the Lord builds upon that and our final passing through judgment day is partially dependent upon His building of us. And yet the metaphor of building is taken over by Paul as referring to the work that&nbsp;<i>we&nbsp;</i>do in building others up (Rom. 14:19; 15:2,20; 1 Cor. 14:4,17 Gk.). The clear implication is that our efforts for others are partially responsible for their entry into the Kingdom. I keep saying 'partially', because as we have seen throughout this chapter, the human factor works together with the Divine factor to achieve ultimate salvation for individuals. The Jewish religious leaders are likened to builders who built without a true foundation (Mt. 21:42; Acts 4:11)- and so the Lord is saying that He has taken over that job, and the leaders of the ecclesia share with Him in doing it (the 'masterbuilders', 1 Cor. 3:10; 2 Cor. 10:8). But not only the leaders- for we each are to build each other up (Rom. 15:2; 1 Thess. 5:11 s.w.). And yet it was Peter himself who speaks of how we are &quot;built up&quot; by the Lord (1 Pet. 2:5)- it's just that in practice He works through others, so that the church in a sense builds itself up (Eph. 4:16).</p>
<p><i>My church</i>- The first reference to&nbsp;<i>ekklesia</i>&nbsp;in the New Testament. The only other usage of the word in the Gospels is in Mt. 18:17, where the Lord speaks of a process of telling a matter unto &quot;the church&quot; in the case of interpersonal disputes. The Lord implied, therefore, that He was confident that despite the failure of John's ministry, the minority who had responded and believed in Him as God's Son would provide the basis upon which He would successfully build a community of believers. Every reference to &quot;the church&quot; in the later New Testament needs to be understood in the context of how the&nbsp;<i>ekklesia</i>&nbsp;is first introduced in the Gospels. It is a community built by the Lord Jesus personally. The Septuagint had used&nbsp;<i>ekklesia</i>&nbsp;concerning the community of Israel; the Lord's talk of building another&nbsp;<i>ekklesia</i>&nbsp;based around faith in Him was radical stuff- for the obvious objection of Judaism would have been that the&nbsp;<i>ekklesia</i>&nbsp;already existed. The Lord's use of&nbsp;<i>ekklesia</i>&nbsp;in this sense was radical, and an effective rejection of the old Israel in order to build a new one- not on Abraham personally, but on faith in Him (which Abraham exemplified through his faith in the promised seed). The LXX of Gen. 28:3 speaks of an '<i>ekklesia'&nbsp;</i>(AV &quot;multitude&quot;) of people' being created from Abraham's seed. And the Lord is now redefining this- as those whom He would build up into a new nation, based upon faith in His Divine Sonship.</p>
<p><i>And the Gates of the grave</i>- An allusion to Rabbinic teaching that Abraham sat at the gates of hell to prevent the circumcised falling into it (mentioned by Edersheim in&nbsp;<i>Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah</i>). The Lord is saying that faith in Him is what shall save us rather than descent from Abraham. And yet the Old Testament speaks of the gates of death as being under God's control (Job 38:17; Is. 38:10), and He can &quot;lift me up from the gates of death&quot; (Ps. 9:13). The &quot;gates of hell&quot; can only not prevail against us through resurrection of the body. Peter's confession of faith was that Jesus was &quot;Son of&nbsp;<i>the living&nbsp;</i>God&quot;, and I outlined the connections between &quot;the living God&quot; and the idea of resurrection under 16:16&nbsp;<i>Son of the living God</i>. We should note that there were many wrong beliefs about &quot;the gates of hell&quot;. The Lord doesn't specifically dismantle nor criticize them, just as He doesn't do so with the wrong idea of demon possession. Instead He places emphasis upon belief in Him and the hope of resurrection, which meant that death, and whatever &quot;the gates of hell&quot; were imagined to be- simply had no power over the believer in Him. His repeated 'casting out of demons' showed the same- however 'demons' were understood, the Lord's power was so great over them that they remained no credible worry for the believer in Him.</p>
<p>This may also be an allusion to a cavern in northern Palestine known as &quot;the gates of hell&quot;. The Lord had just been in that area instructing the disciples- it's likely they had heard of it, or even made a tourist excursion to view it. The Lord is saying that even that much feared precipice, into which the locals threw sacrifices to ward off the powers of the underworld, had no power against faith in Him as the Son of God.</p>
<p><i>Shall not prevail against it</i>- The only other time the word is used is in Lk. 23:23, speaking of how the voices of the Jews &quot;prevailed&quot; to get Christ crucified. He must have recalled His own words here, that the gates [or gatekeepers / rulers] of the grave would not ultimately prevail against Him.</p>