Matthew 16:21-23
In the beginning of these verses we find our Lord revealing to His disciples a great and startling truth. That truth was His approaching death upon the cross. For the first time He places before their minds the astounding announcement that “He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer… and be killed”. He had not come on earth to take a kingdom, but to die. He had not come to reign and be ministered to; but to shed His blood as a sacrifice, and to give His life as a ransom for many.
It is almost impossible for us to conceive how strange and incomprehensible these tidings must have seemed to His disciples. Like most of the Jews, they could form no idea of a suffering Messiah. They did not understand that Isaiah 53 must be fulfilled literally; they did not see that the sacrifices of the law were all meant to point them to the death of the true Lamb of God. They thought of nothing but the second glorious coming of Messiah, which is yet to take place at the end of the world. They thought so much of Messiah’s crown, that they lost sight of His cross. We shall do well to remember this: a right understanding of this matter throws strong light on the lessons which this passage contains.