How would you respond if someone called you Satan?
That would be quite a shock, right? Did you know that at one point Jesus called His apostle Peter Satan?
This may sound like Jesus lost His temper or misspoke, but He did not! Why would He say such a thing? To understand this, we need to go back to the very beginning of Scripture, to the garden of Eden. Consider Genesis 3: 1-5:
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”
At his core, Satan’s main purpose is falsehood, chaos, and rebellion. If God says something is one way, the Devil will say it is another. If God says you should go right, Satan will do everything he can to make you go left. If God says something will kill you, Satan will make you think it will enlighten you. The thing about Satan though, is that while circumstances and world landscape may have changed, his tactics have not. There are so many sins in modern times that people think may them enlightened or brighter than those around them in one way or another, but God has always made it clear: if we do something He says not to do, we WILL surely die! Satan’s game in Genesis 3 is to make the fruit look “good,” “delightful,” and “desirable,” to Eve, by outright lying about what God had told her. Unfortunately, as we well know, he succeeded; she ate, her husband ate, they were expelled from Eden, and the rest, as they say is history.
Which brings us to the New Testament. Again, all throughout the ages, Satan’s tactic of sowing doubt, sorrow, and lies where God has planted surety, hope, and truth has not changed. When Jesus comes to earth and begins His ministry, Satan not only attacks Jesus directly (Matthew 4:1-11), but does what he can to get at the apostles as well. Luke 22:3 and John 13:27 for example, both describe the moment Judas decided to betray Jesus as “Satan entering into him.” Other than the example of Judas’ betrayal though, one of the clearest moments we see Satan’s influence on Jesus’ inner circle is in Matthew 16:21-23, which says:
“From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’” (See also Mark 8:31-33)
Now, returning to our original question: why does Jesus call Peter Satan? Is that language too strong? I do not think so. Do you notice what Peter is doing here?
Jesus said multiple times that He was going to die. As His ministry continued, in fact, He was even clearer about what was going to happen, even indicating above that it would be the Jewish leadership that was primarily responsible for having Him killed. Mark 8:32 even tells us that “He said this plainly.” Jesus often used parables or metaphors to teach, but His prediction of His death was a prediction, not an analogy. But how does Peter respond? Similar to Satan in the garden, saying, “you will not surely die.” God said that if Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they would die, and they did regardless of how Satan tried to twist what God had said. With Peter and Jesus, what Peter lost sight of in that moment, was that difficult as it may be, if Jesus said He was going to die, then He in fact was going to die, no matter how upset Peter got, no matter how much he tried to rebuke Jesus for saying such a thing. Jesus had to come to earth to die for our sins, and not even Satan himself would stand in the way of Jesus accomplishing His Father’s will.
Jesus’ summation of Peter’s shortsightedness is that his mind was set on earthly things, not the things of God. The “things of man,” are pride, fear, anger, revenge, and self-preservation. The things of God are humility, sacrifice, service, and love. When we look at our lives and how we can be tempted to react when Scripture says something difficult, counter-cultural, or counter-intuitive, we must remember Peter and Jesus’ interaction here. As Christian’s, we take the route of sacrifice. We pick up our cross and follow Him, without letting anyone or anything stand in our way.
When trials, temptations, and bad influences cloud our vision of the cross, we have to recognize where those obstacles come from and say what our Lord said: “Get behind me Satan!”
And then keep moving forward. Onward and upward.
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