Cracking the Da Vinci Code:
There is Only One Church
Matthew 16:13-20
So, it wasn’t the Apostle Peter whom Jesus called to lead the Church. That is the revelation made by Sir Leigh Teabing in the novel The Da Vinci Code. No, we discover that it was actually Mary Magdalene that Jesus charged to carry forward the church and become its leader. Listen to Teabing:
“According to these unaltered gospels, it was not Peter to whom Christ gave directions with which to establish the Christian Church. It was Mary Magdalene.” (268)
and,
“Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene.” (268)
The wisdom, according to Teabing, was that Peter was jealous of Mary Magdalene, and coordinated events to co-opt the leadership role from her. The early church leaders, feeling male leadership essential, went along with Peter’s plan, and the belief was solidified a couple hundred years later as Constantine embraced the Church, and confirmed its early leadership as a means of maintaining power. Oh, the politics of power. No matter what area of life we study, we almost always come down to a struggle between power bases, and the one who is able to claim power writes the history.
Our Scripture this morning seems to indicate something just a little different, though. Let’s listen to this passage once again, and let the Holy Spirit speak to us as we seek to discover why The Da Vinci Code cannot be right.
Matthew 16:13-20
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
[14] "Well," they replied, "some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets."
[15] Then he asked them, "Who do you say I am?"
[16] Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
[17] Jesus replied, "You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. [18] Now I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. [19] And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you lock on earth will be locked in heaven, and whatever you open on earth will be opened in heaven." [20] Then he sternly warned them not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
This is not the first time this passage has ignited a fire-storm of debate among Christians. Of course, it has served as the Roman Catholic foundation of the position of the Pope and of the Church. It is taken by the Roman Catholic Church that to Peter was given the authority to exclude or include persons into heaven, and also the power to forgive sins. The Roman Catholic Church further argues that Peter, with these tremendous rights, became the bishop of Rome; and that same power descended to all the bishops of Rome, and that it exists today in the Pope, who is head of the Church and the Bishop of Rome.
So it really isn’t hard to see how impossible such a doctrine is to Protestant believers, and it isn’t hard to see how Protestant and Roman Catholics approach this passage, not necessarily to determine its meaning, but to prove their point and destroy the position of the other. Likewise, it was in the early days of Christianity, particularly in the second century. The Gnostics, with their secret knowledge, believed it was Mary Magdalene to whom this authority was given. As a matter of fact, it is the Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene that Dan Brown has his character Sir Leigh Teabing quoting in The Da Vinci Code. Like the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
The problem for the Roman Catholics, for the early Gnostics, and for we Protestants is that we focus on the wrong person. Instead of focusing on Peter, or even Mary Magdalene, let’s focus on Jesus and see if we can find its true meaning.
No one can argue that Peter played an integral role in the foundation of the church. It is Peter who makes the confession that Jesus is the Christ, and it is to Peter that Jesus speaks directly, and gives incredible authority. So how are we to understand that authority in order to understand the meaning of the text? First, let’s look at Peter’s name. In Greek, Peter is Petros and a rock is petra. Peter’s Aramaic name was Kephas, and wouldn’t you know it, the Aramaic word for rock is Kephas. In either language, there is a great play on words. Immediately after Peter made his great confession Jesus said, “You are petros, and on this petra I will build my Church.” It is a word of great praise, indeed, and it has its roots deep in Jewish history and thought.
Abraham, the great father of the Jewish faith, was called by the rabbis “a rock.” They had a saying: “When the Holy One saw Abraham who was gong to arise, he said, ‘Lo, I have discovered a rock to found the world upon’ Therefore he called Abraham rock, as I is said: ‘Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn.’” The rabbis believed that Abraham was the rock on which the nation and the purpose of God were founded.
But the Jewish people also understood that the word rock was applied again and again to God Himself.
(Deut. 32:4) He is the Rock; his work is perfect.
(Deut. 32:31) But the rock of our enemies is not like our Rock,as even they recognize.
(2 Samuel 22:2) These are the words he sang:
"The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior;
(Psalm 18:31) For who is God except the Lord?
Who but our God is a solid rock?
For Jesus to call Peter a rock was a great compliment, and no Jew could ever use the phrase without his thoughts turning to God, who alone was the true rock of salvation. So in what sense was Jesus meaning that Peter was the rock?
I believe Jesus is referring to Peter in a very special sense. Not in the sense that he is the foundation of the Church, that is Jesus Christ himself. What did Jesus say: “Upon this rock I will build my church.” Jesus is the one foundation, and the one builder. Peter was the first person (man, woman or child) to discover who Jesus was; he was the first person to make the leap of faith and say that Jesus was the Son of the Living God. Jesus was saying to Peter: “You are the first to grasp who I am. You are the first stone, the foundation stone, the very beginning of the Church which I am building.” Whenever you or I make that same discovery, another stone is added into the eternal building Christ is building. Peter’s place is special because he was the first.
Maybe this will help to clarify what I mean. When we hear the word church, our minds immediately think of a building made of bricks and mortar. The New Testament repeatedly uses the image of a building to describe the Church, but it is not a building of brick and mortar. The Church is a building not made with hands. Let’s take a journey through the New Testament and see. In Ephesians 2:20, Paul tells us the apostles and prophets are the foundation of the Church. It is on their work and witness and fidelity that the Church depends. In this passage, Jesus is described as the “chief cornerstone.” Jesus is the force who holds the Church together. Without Christ, the whole building crumbles. Even Peter, in 1 Peter 2:4-8, describes all Christians as “living stones” who are to be built into the fabric of the Church. And Paul again says in 1 Corinthians 3:11, that Jesus is the only foundation, and no one can lay any other. No matter how the writer used the image of a building, behind the image lay the fact that Jesus is the foundation of the Church.
When Jesus said to Peter that on him he would found his Church, Jesus did not mean that the Church depended on Peter. Jesus did mean that the Church began with Peter, and in that sense Peter is the foundation of the Church, and that is one honor no one, Protestant, Catholic, or even Gnostic can ever take away from him.
Then there is that wrong impression we get even if we don’t think of the church as a building. We think of the church as an institution and organization. It meets in buildings and has offices, it holds services and conducts meetings, and has all sorts of activities. The word Jesus used was “ekklesia,” meaning “called out ones.” Lying behind that Greek word was the Hebrew “quahal,” which is the word the Old Testament uses for “congregation of Israel,” the gathering of the people of the Lord. Here is what I believe Jesus was saying to Peter: “Peter, you are the beginning of the new people of Israel, the new people of the Lord, the new fellowship of the people who believe in my name.” Peter was the first of the fellowship of believers in Christ. Let me put it another way: Peter was the first member of the Church, but it was not a Church in the human sense, still less a Church in the denominational sense. What began with Peter was the fellowship of all believers in Jesus Christ, who met anywhere or who meet everywhere, for all time, not identified with any particular Church, and not limited to any institution, but embraces every person who loves the Lord, and proclaims with Peter, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
There has only ever been one Church. From the day of Pentecost until now, there continues to be one Church. That one church is bound eternally together by its confession of Jesus as the Christ. That one Church has had many institutions arise as a result of our struggles for power, and our varying interpretations of Scripture, and our understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ, but it is still one church. When we understand that Jesus was paying Peter a great compliment and acknowledging Peter’s place as first among many, it makes room for all persons to come into leadership. There was never one person designated to lead the church apart from Jesus Christ—not Mary Magdalene, not Peter, not James or John. As you think about it, when the Church began on earth, the Pastor was being executed as a criminal; the chairman of the board was out cursing and swearing that he had never even been a part of it. The treasurer was committing suicide. Most of the rest of the members had run away. And about the only ones who showed any signs of faithfulness were a few ladies from the women’s auxiliary. No, the special place of leadership is not given to one person in the early church, but to all of them. And no special place is given to any of us, but to all of us because we are the Church, and we are each called to lead in the way God has gifted us to lead and be a part of the only Church there has ever been.
