Who Do You Say Jesus Is?

Three of the four Gospels record a story of Jesus asking the disciples this question, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter, ever the one not afraid to step up boldly, responds saying, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

How do you answer that question? Who do you say that Jesus is? When Peter responded that Jesus was the Christ, he was stating that certainly Jesus was the Messiah, the expected one whom the Old Testament prophesized of. Throughout His earthly life Jesus declared Himself to be the Son of God, a title that also claimed deity. Isaiah 53 is a clear prophesy of the Christ to come. Take time today to read this beautiful passage that describes our dear Lord Jesus. I call attention to two of the verses that tell our story and what He means to us.

Isaiah 53:5-6
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Reading this, how do YOU answer the question from Jesus, “Who do you say I am?”

If like Peter, you answer that Jesus is the Messiah, then the Gospels have a warning for you. Just moments after having declared that Jesus was the anointed one from God, Peter has the audacity to rebuke Jesus. Take a look.

Mark 8:31-32
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.  And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

Peter didn’t like the plan. He was unwilling to accept the divine and sovereign way that God was going to save men from their sins, so Peter rebuked Jesus. We read this story amazed that Peter could be so foolish. You see Peter wanted things his way.

What if we pause now and look deeply into our own hearts? Are we really all that much different than Peter? Do we read our Bibles and find some way to alter the things Jesus said so that we don’t have to obey Him? Do we look upon our own sins and gloss them over? Maybe we admit them but mitigate them in some way. No, we don’t boldly rebuke Jesus for telling us to love our enemies; we just say Jesus wasn’t talking to me. Or maybe we simply declare the commands of scripture as outdated and not fitting the modern culture. There are a million and one ways we find a way around living the Holy life Jesus calls us to. In essence, anything but total surrender to the commands of Jesus is a silent rebuke of who He is.

Here is Jesus’ response to Peter’s rebuke.

Mark 8:33
But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Then Jesus called others to hear what He had to say.

Mark 8:34-36
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

It’s time we looked hard at the question from Jesus, “Who do you say I am?” If we say Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, then we need to obey Him. I will say it again, because I need to hear it, anything but total surrender to the commands of Jesus is a silent rebuke of who He is.

Will we fail at times? Of course. But we must stop rebuking Jesus and take up our cross and follow Him. He is our shepherd and where does our shepherd lead us?

Psalm 23:3

He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake.

Who do you say He is? If He is our shepherd, then we must follow Him.