Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

552 Matthew XVI. 22, 23.
They could not endure that the Son of God should he a sufferer.
The manner in which our Lord, however, repels the words of Peter,
who again speaks as the representative of all the apostles, points to
something more than the mere failure to apprehend a difficult idea.
Peter wholly misunderstood his relation to the Lord ; he came forward
to admonish and correct him, and that which Christ had repre-
sented as necessary (for his work) he seeks to put far from him.
(The i'Aew^- aoc, soil, eir] Qeog = '^h nV-^Vri 1 Chron. xi. 19.) But even
this does not exhaust his meaning. The expression GKdvda?.6v ixov el,
thou m^t a snare to me, w^hich follows, shews that Peter's remark
was not merely a sin in him, but a temptation to the Lord.
Peter, we find here, perhaps from vanity at the praise just uttered,
sunk back to the level of the natural man—and along with him the
other disciples whom Jesus here rebukes through Peter, just as, at
ver. 18, 19, he had conjoined them with him in praise. (Mark viii.
33, indicates this by his expression I6i}v rovg ixadrjrdg avrov.) It is
the part of the natural man, however, rd twv dv6pu)iT0)v {ppovelv, to
savor the things of men, and of the new man rd rov Qeov (ppoveiv, to
savor the things of God. It is not the wicked man (uv6po)nog ttovt]-
p6g), who is here s^^oken of, but only the natural man {ipvxticog, 1
Cor. ii. 14), who, incapable of rising to the apprehension of the
Divine, draws it down to his own human level. Where we thus
recognise as intelligible the co-existence of the old and the new man
(in those who are regenerate but not yet perfected), and the alternate
predominance now of the one and now of the other, we also under-
stand how Jesus can rebuke that same Peter whom he had just praised.
This diversity of language is dependent on the varied prevalence of
the new or the old man in the same individual. It still remains for
us to say something more particularly of the vnaye dmau }iov, aaravd,
get behind me, Satan. These words are to be explained by the
following GKdvdaXov ^ov el, thou art a snare to me, by the addi-
tion of which, Matthew greatly facilitates our understanding the
whole of this remarkable scene, and again furnishes proof how exact
he is in the substance, while neglecting the outward features of his
narrative. Unquestionably the Saviour must be conceived as hav-
ing maintained one continuous conflict with temptation. Its great
capital periods, at the commencement and close of his ministry, exhibit
merely in a concentrated form, What ran through his whole
life. Here, then, %v the first time, it assumes the form of suggest-
ing the possibility of escaping suffering and death. It was all the
more concealed and dangerous that it came to him through the
lips of a dear disciple, who had just solemnly acknowledged his
Divine dignity. What we remarked in the case of the history of the
temptation (see on Matth. iv. 1, seq.) must in this instance also be
faithfuRy kept in view. From the clear and pure fountain of