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If the last few days prior to this confession had been a period of acute significance for the disciples with regard to the question of Jesus’ person, all the more so had they been for Peter, since it had been he who had actually walked with Jesus on the Sea of Galilee. Now on this occasion, presumably only some hours or days later, certainly not weeks (see John 6:22), Peter had just listened to his Lord’s discourse on the Bread of Life, in which Jesus had claimed that he had come down from heaven (John 6:33, 38, 51, 62), was the Giver of eternal life to the world (6:33, 40, 50, 51, 53, 54, 57, 58), and was the Lord of resurrection (6:39, 40, 44, 54). Because of these exalted, exclusive, and universal claims and Jesus’ insistence on man’s inherent inability to believe on him (6:44–45, 65), many of his followers departed and no longer followed him. At this defection, Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked: “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Although the question was put to all of them, it was Peter who answered for the group: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and we know that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68–69).

In light of the several indications in the Gospels of Peter’s growing appreciation of the deity of Christ, though it is true that his term of address here (“Lord”) “could mean much or little” in itself, in this context, Morris writes, “there can be no doubt that the word has the maximum, not the minimum meaning” of the ascription of deity to Jesus (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John 389).

As for his statement “You are the Holy One of God,” while it is certainly a messianic title, several things can also be said in favor of viewing it as including the further affirmation, by implication, of Jesus’ divine origin and character. The first factor is Peter’s growing appreciation of who Jesus was. We noted earlier his confession of Jesus as his “Lord” (and that in the divine sense) on the occasion of his call to become a “fisher of men” in Luke 5 when, awed by Jesus’ supernatural knowledge and power over nature, he acknowledged his own sinfulness over against the majestic and ethical holiness of Jesus. We noted that his title of address there and here (“Lord”) suggests deity, and, once a man has begun to apprehend that Jesus is divine, no title (with the exception of those that clearly mark him out as true man) he ever employs in referring to him can be totally void of intending the ascription of deity.

Second, while this title (“the Holy One of God”) is applied to Jesus on only one other occasion, leaving little room for extensive comparative study of the title, that one other occasion does cast some light on its meaning here. The title occurs in the mouth of the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum, clearly revealing the demon’s awareness of who Jesus was (Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34). The demon was obviously fearful of Jesus and implied that he had the power to cast it into hell, suggesting thereby that Jesus possessed divine authority and power as “the Holy One of God.”

Third, the stress on holiness in the title is significant. It reminds us of the frequently occurring title for God, “the Holy One of Israel,” in the Old Testament. In this connection, Morris writes: “There can be not the slightest doubt that the title is meant to assign to Jesus the highest possible place. It stresses his consecration and his purity. It sets Him with God and not man” (Ibid., 390).

Finally, C. H. Dodd calls attention to the similarity between Peter’s words here, “we have believed and we have come to know” and Yahweh’s words, “that you may know and believe that I am he” (LXX, Isa. 43:10). Dodd writes:

The combination [in Peter’s confession] pisteuein kai ginōskein follows Isaiah closely; but for hoti egō eimi, “that I am” is substituted hoti su ei ho hagios tou theou, “that you are the Holy One of God.” The content of knowledge is the unique status of Christ Himself, which is an equivalent for knowledge of God. (C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 168)

For these reasons it appears likely that Peter’s confession, stressing as it does Jesus’ inward character of holiness, marks him out not only as the Messiah, but also, by virtue of his possessing a majestic and ethical holiness identical to that of God himself (see Luke 5:8), as being divine himself. And again Jesus accepted Peter’s tacit assessment of him as the Messiah and his implied identification of him as divine.

---- R. L. Reymond,

A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith

LIFE, LEARNING & LAUGHTER:

UPDATED 08-15-2008

*** POLITICAL WISEACREAGE ***

Government Realty

When I was a speechwriter for a US Senator, I overheard the following conversation.

Newspaper reporter: "Why don't you cut spending if revenues are down?"

Congressman: "Don't be silly, sport. This is the government, not real life."

Deficit Defined

Christmas is when kids tell Santa Claus what they want, and their parents end up paying for it.

A deficit is when adults tell the government what they want, and their kids end up paying for it.

--Ilana Stern

An Encyclopedia of Humor

excerpts from

Disappointment with God

UPDATED 08-15-2008

Question: Is God hidden? Why doesn't he simply show up sometime, visibly, and dumbfound the skeptics once and for all?

... [T]he hungering desire of our age [is for] proof, evidence, a personal appearance, so that the God we have heard about becomes the God we see.

What we hunger for happened once. For a time God did show up in person, and a man spoke to him face to face as he might speak with a friend. They met together, God and Moses, in a tent pitched just outside the Israelite camp. The rendezvous was no secret. Whenever Moses trudged over to the tent to talk with God, the whole camp turned out to watch. A pillar of cloud, God's visible presence, blocked the entrance to the tent. No one except Moses knew what transpired inside; no one wanted to know. The Israelites had learned to keep their distance. "Speak to us yourself and we will listen," they said to Moses. "But do not have God speak to us or we will die." After each meeting Moses would emerge glowing like a space alien, and the people turned their faces away until he covered himself with a veil.

There were few, if any, atheists in those days. No Israelites wrote plays about waiting for a God who never arrived. They could see clear evidence of God outside the tent of meeting or in the thick storm clouds hovering around Mount Sinai. A skeptic need only hike over to the trembling mountain and reach out a hand to touch it, and his doubts would vanish -- one second before he did.

And yet what happened during those days almost defies belief. When Moses climbed the sacred mountain stormy with the signs of God's presence, those people who had lived through the ten plagues of Egypt, who had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, who had drunk water from a rock, who were digesting the miracle of manna in their stomachs at that moment -- those same people got bored or impatient or rebellious or jealous and apparently forgot all about their God. By the time Moses descended from the mountain, they were dancing like heathens around a golden calf.

God did not play hide-and-seek with the Israelites; they had every proof of this existence you could ask for. But astonishingly ... God's directness seemed to produce the very opposite of the desired effect. The Israelites responded not with worship and love, but with fear and open rebellion. God's visible presence did nothing to improve lasting faith. (pages 51-52)

excerpts from

Pray for Our Nation:

Scriptural Prayers to Revive Our Country

UPDATED 08-15-2008

Part 3: Prayers for the Safety of Our Nation

Peace

Dear Father, I clearly see that it is Your will for us to dwell in peace and safety. In obedience to your Word I continue to pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus, that those in authority will make decisions to keep our nation safe, just as I pray for peace in other nations.

I pray our nation would be a blessing to Israel, that we might continue to be blessed.

I pray that the righteousness of our nation would continue to finance the preaching of the Gospel in all the world. I pray that our sending and our giving would increase.

May our nation continue to help nations that are in trouble and are less fortunate than we are.

I ask You to make our nation a blessing to all the nations of the earth.

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Scripture References

1 Timothy 2:1, 2

Genesis 18:23

Malachi 3:10-12

Proverbs 29:14

Isaiah 43:26

Luke 4:18, 19

Genesis 18:20, 21

Matthew 25:31-40

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Give to us clear vision that we may know

where to stand and what to stand for --

because unless we stand for something,

we shall fall for anything.

-- PETER MARSHALL,

U.S. RELIGIOUS LEADER