(23) He turned, and said to Peter.--St. Mark adds, significantly, "when He had turned about and looked on His disciples." They, we may believe, stood behind, watching the effect of the remonstrance which Peter had uttered as their spokesman, and therefore, the Lord reading their thoughts, the rebuke, though addressed to him, was spoken so that they too might hear.

Get thee behind me, Satan.--The sharpness of the words indicates a strong and intense emotion. The chief of the Apostles was addressed in the self-same terms as those which had been spoken to the Tempter (see Note on Matthew 4:10). It was, indeed, nothing less than a renewal of the same temptation. In this suggestion, that He might gain the crown without the cross, and attain a kingdom of this world as the princes of the world obtain their kingdoms, the Christ saw the recurrence of the temptation which had offered Him the glory of those kingdoms on condition of His drawing back from the path which the Father had appointed for Him, with the associations that had gathered round its original.

Thou art an offence unto me.--The Greek word is, of course, to be taken as meaning a stumbling block, an impediment. So taken, it presents a suggestive contrast to the previous promise. Peter is still a stone, but it is as "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence" (Isaiah 8:14; 1Peter 2:8). He is hindering, not forwarding his Master's work. For one who loved his Lord as Peter did--his very love in this instance prompting the rash words--this was at once the sharpest and yet the tenderest, and therefore the most effective, rebuke that could have been uttered.

Thou savourest not the things that be of God.--The verb, though found in all English versions from Wiclif downwards, and suggested by the sapis of the Vulgate, was never a very happy one, and is now so archaic as to be misleading. It may help us to understand it, to remember that our savour and the French savoir are both forms derived from the Latin sapere, and that the translators were so far justified in using it to describe a mental state, or rather act. Elsewhere the word is rendered "mind," or "set affection on," as, e.g., "mind the things of the flesh," or "of the spirit" (Romans 8:5), and "set your affection on things above" (Colossians 3:2); and this is obviously a more satisfactory rendering. Peter's sin lay in the fact that his mind was set on the things of earth, its outward pomp and pageantry, measuring the future by a human not a divine standard.

It is hardly a needless divergence from the work of mere interpretation to suggest that the weakness of Peter has been again and again reproduced in the history of Christendom at large, most conspicuously in the history of the Church which rests its claims on the greatness of the Apostle's name. The annals of the Papacy, from the colossal sovereignty, which formed the ideal of Hildebrand, down to the last struggle for temporal power, is but the record of the zeal not according to knowledge of those who "savoured not the things that be of God, but those that be of man." So far as this was so, they were working, though they knew it not, for evil and not for good, even as the chief of the Apostles when he thus became of one mind with the spirit of the world, which is also the spirit of the Tempter, placed himself for the moment on a level with the disciple whom our Lord had hinted at as a "devil," because the seeds of treachery and greed of gain were already working in his soul (John 6:70).

Verse 23. - He turned. Peter and the rest were following Christ, as he walked onward. Now Jesus stops, turns, and faces them. Get thee behind me, Satan. Jesus uses nearly the same words in rebuking Peter that he had used to the devil in his temptation (Matthew 4:10); and justly, because the apostle was acting the adversary's part, by opposing the Divine economy, and endeavouring to persuade Jesus that the way he proposed was wholly unnecessary. The lively stone has became a very Satan in opposing the Divine will; hence the sharpness of the rebuke administered to him. An offence unto me (σκάνδαλον ἐμοῦ); my stumbling block. Petros, the stone, to maintain the metaphor, is now "a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence" (1 Peter 2:8). He stood in the Saviour's way, and impeded his onward progress in the course ordained. He who would turn him aside from Calvary is the enemy of man's salvation, which was to be won there. Thou savourest (φρονεῖς) not; mindest not (as Romans 8:5); thy taste is not for the Divine plans, but for human considerations; thou art not promoting the great purpose of God, but worldliness and self-pleasing. "Peter," says St. Chrysostom, "examining the matter by human and earthly reasoning, accounted it disgraceful to him [Christ] and an unmeet thing. Touching him therefore sharply, he saith, 'My Passion is not an unmeet thing, but thou givest this sentence with a carnal mind; whereas if thou hadst hearkened to my sayings in a godly manner, disengaging thyself from thy carnal understanding, thou wouldst know that this of all things most becometh me. For thou indeed supposest that to suffer is unworthy of me; but I say unto thee, that for me not to suffer is of the devil's mind;' by the contrary statements repressing his alarm" (Oxford transl.).

16:21-23 Christ reveals his mind to his people gradually. From that time, when the apostles had made the full confession of Christ, that he was the Son of God, he began to show them of his sufferings. He spake this to set right the mistakes of his disciples about the outward pomp and power of his kingdom. Those that follow Christ, must not expect great or high things in this world. Peter would have Christ to dread suffering as much as he did; but we mistake, if we measure Christ's love and patience by our own. We do not read of any thing said or done by any of his disciples, at any time, that Christ resented so much as this. Whoever takes us from that which is good, and would make us fear to do too much for God, speaks Satan's language. Whatever appears to be a temptation to sin, must be resisted with abhorrence, and not be parleyed with. Those that decline suffering for Christ, savour more of the things of man than of the things of God.But he turned,.... Either to Peter, changing his countenance, and looking sternly upon him, or rather to the disciples; for Mark says, "when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter": Peter had took him aside, and was arguing the case privately with him; but what he said was so offensive to him, that he chose to reprove him publicly before the disciples; and therefore turned himself from him to them, in a way of resentment,

and said unto Peter; in their hearing, and before them all,

get thee behind me, Satan. The Persic version renders it, O infidel! as he was at present, with respect to the sufferings, death, and resurrection of Christ: some take the word Satan, to be a general name for an adversary, or enemy, as it is used in 2 Samuel 19:22 and think that Christ calls Peter by this name, because he was against him, and opposed him in this point; which sense abates the harshness of this expression. But it seems rather to mean the devil, who took the advantage of Peter's weakness and ignorance; and put him upon dissuading Christ from suffering, for the salvation of his people: though it should be known, that the word Satan, is used by the, Jews (w), to signify the vitiosity and corruption of nature; of which they say, , this is Satan; so the messenger, or angel Satan, 2 Corinthians 12:7 may be thought to be the same; See Gill on 2 Corinthians 12:7 And then our Lord's sense is, be gone from me, I cannot bear the sight of thee; thou art under the influence of the corruption of thy heart, and nature; thou talkest like a carnal, and not like a spiritual man; and therefore Christ denominates him from his carnality, Satan, one of the names of the vitiosity of nature, whom a little before he had pronounced blessed; being then under the influence of another spirit, as appeared from the noble confession of his faith in Christ: this change shows the weakness of human nature, the strength of corruption, the inconstancy and fickleness of frames, and the imperfection of grace in the best of saints.

Thou art an offence unto me; or a stumbling block to me, a cause of stumbling and failing; not that he really was, but he endeavoured to be, and was as much as in him lay; and had he given heed unto him, would have been so. It may be observed, that nothing was more offensive to Christ, than to endeavour to divert him from the work his farther called him to; he had agreed to do; what he came into this world for, and his heart was so much set upon; namely, to suffer and die in the room of his people, in order to obtain salvation for them: never were such words uttered by him, and such resentment shown to any, but to the devil himself, when he tempted him to worship him.

For thou savourest not the things that be of God; meaning his sufferings and death, which were the appointment of God, the counsel of his will, the provision of his covenant; what he foretold in the prophecies of the Old Testament, and what he had an hand in, and in which the glory of his grace, power, and justice, was concerned, and were the end of the mission of his Son into this world; which things were out of sight and mind, and were not regarded by the apostle at this time;

but those that be of men: he thought of nothing but worldly grandeur in the kingdom of the Messiah, as a temporal prince and Saviour; and of the continuance of Christ's natural life, for his own carnal and worldly advantage; which showed him to be, at this time, greatly under the influence of corrupt nature. So, though the blood, righteousness, sacrifice, and death of Christ, are savoury things, things to be savoured, minded, and regarded by believers, and accounted precious; and they do mind them, so the word signifies, Romans 8:5 when being blessed with a spiritual and experimental knowledge, and application of them to themselves, they exercise faith, hope, and love upon Christ, with respect unto them; when they remember them aright in the ordinance of the supper, the love from whence they spring, and the benefits that come hereby; and when they discern the Lord's body in it, a crucified Jesus, and the blessings of grace which come by him, and ascribe their whole salvation to his sufferings and death, and taste the sweetness there is in these things, eating his flesh and drinking his blood by faith; yet being left to themselves, they do not savour, mind, and regard these things, but carnal things, and human schemes; as when they are dilatory to profess a crucified Christ, and submit to those ordinances of his, which set forth his sufferings and death; or are negligent in their attendance on them, their place being often empty at supper time; or if they do attend, their hearts go after other things.

(w) T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 16. 1. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 6. 2, 3. & passim.