Matthew 16

20. Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ--Now that He had been so explicit, they might naturally think the time come for giving it out openly; but here they are told it had not.

Announcement of His Approaching Death and Rebuke of Peter ( Matthew 16:21-28 ).

The occasion here is evidently the same.

21. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples--that is, with an explicitness and frequency He had never observed before.
how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things--"and be rejected," ( 8:31 , Luke 9:22 ).
of the elders and chief priests and scribes--not as before, merely by not receiving Him, but by formal deeds.
and be killed, and be raised again the third day--Mark ( Mark 8:32 ) adds, that "He spake that saying openly"--"explicitly," or "without disguise."

22. Then Peter took him--aside, apart from the rest; presuming on the distinction just conferred on him; showing how unexpected and distasteful to them all was the announcement.
and began to rebuke him--affectionately, yet with a certain generous indignation, to chide Him.
saying, Be it far from thee: this shall not be unto thee--that is, "If I can help it": the same spirit that prompted him in the garden to draw the sword in His behalf ( John 18:10 ).

23. But he turned, and said--in the hearing of the rest; for Mark ( Mark 8:33 ) expressly says, "When He had turned about and looked on His disciples, He rebuked Peter"; perceiving that he had but boldly uttered what others felt, and that the check was needed by them also.
Get thee behind me, Satan--the same words as He had addressed to the Tempter ( Luke 4:8 ); for He felt in it a satanic lure, a whisper from hell, to move Him from His purpose to suffer. So He shook off the Serpent, then coiling around Him, and "felt no harm" ( Acts 28:5 ). How quickly has the "rock" turned to a devil! The fruit of divine teaching the Lord delighted to honor in Peter; but the mouthpiece of hell, which he had in a moment of forgetfulness become, the Lord shook off with horror.
thou art an offence--a stumbling-block.
unto me--"Thou playest the Tempter, casting a stumbling-block in My way to the Cross. Could it succeed, where wert thou? and how should the Serpent's head be bruised?"
for thou savourest not--thou thinkest not.
the things that be of God, but those that be of men--"Thou art carried away by human views of the way of setting up Messiah's kingdom, quite contrary to those of God." This was kindly said, not to take off the sharp edge of the rebuke. but to explain and justify it, as it was evident Peter knew not what was in the bosom of his rash speech.

24. Then said Jesus unto his disciples--Mark ( Mark 8:34 ) says, "When He had called the people unto Him, with His disciples also, He said unto them"--turning the rebuke of one into a warning to all.
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

25. For whosoever will save--is minded to save, or bent on saving.
his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake "A suffering and dying Messiah liketh you ill; but what if His servants shall meet the same fate? They may not; but who follows Me must be prepared for the worst."

26. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul--or forfeit his own soul?
or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?--Instead of these weighty words, which we find in Mark 8:36 also, it is thus expressed in Luke 9:25 : "If he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away," or better, "If he gain the whole world, and destroy or forfeit himself." How awful is the stake as here set forth! If a man makes the present world--in its various forms of riches, honors, pleasures, and such like--the object of supreme pursuit, be it that he gains the world; yet along with it he forfeits his own soul. Not that any ever did, or ever will gain the whole world--a very small portion of it, indeed, falls to the lot of the most successful of the world's votaries--but to make the extravagant concession, that by giving himself entirely up to it, a man gains the whole world; yet, setting over against this gain the forfeiture of his soul--necessarily following the surrender of his whole heart to the world--what is he profited? But, if not the whole world, yet possibly something else may be conceived as an equivalent for the soul. Well, what is it?--"Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Thus, in language the weightiest, because the simplest, does our Lord shut up His hearers, and all who shall read these words to the end of the world, to the priceless value to every man of his own soul. In Mark and Luke ( 8:38 , Luke 9:26 ) the following words are added: "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words [shall be ashamed of belonging to Me, and ashamed of My Gospel] in this adulterous and sinful generation" him shall the Son of man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of His Father, with the holy angels." He will render back to that man his own treatment, disowning him before the most august of all assemblies, and putting him to "shame and everlasting contempt" ( Daniel 12:2 ). "O shame," exclaims BENGEL, "to be put to shame before God, Christ, and angels!" The sense of shame is founded on our love of reputation, which causes instinctive aversion to what is fitted to lower it, and was given us as a preservative from all that is properly shameful. To be lost to shame is to be nearly past hope. ( Zephaniah 3:5 , Jeremiah 6:15 , 3:3 ). But when Christ and "His words" are unpopular, the same instinctive desire to stand well with others begets that temptation to be ashamed of Him which only the expulsive power of a higher affection can effectually counteract.

27. For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels--in the splendor of His Father's authority and with all His angelic ministers, ready to execute His pleasure.
and then he shall reward, &c.

28. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here--"some of those standing here."
which shall not taste of death, fill they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom--or, as in Mark ( Mark 9:1 ), "till they see the kingdom of God come with power"; or, as in Luke ( Luke 9:27 ), more simply still, "till they see the kingdom of God." The reference, beyond doubt, is to the firm establishment and victorious progress, in the lifetime of some then present, of that new kingdom of Christ, which was destined to work the greatest of all changes on this earth, and be the grand pledge of His final coming in glory.