“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.'” (Matthew 16:15-17)
The great questions of life focus on spiritual matters. Jesus asks Peter such a question, the most important one ever: Who do say that I am? How one answers that question determines the course of one’s life in this world as well as in eternity. Why is the answer one gives to this question so important? Jesus is, as Peter attests, the Messiah and the Son of God, a term which means Jesus is equal level to God the Father Almighty. So Peter, whether he knew the it or not, was acknowledging that Jesus was (and is) God in the flesh come to redeem all humans from sin and death.
In Matthew’s day as now people had different opinions about who Jesus was and is. Down through the millennia people have debated and fought over the nature of Jesus and why what we believe about Him is of eternal importance. Yet many people who claim to agree with Peter, who recite the Apostle’s creed as we do, do not understand the implications of the words, nor do they believe them. They live their lives as if they were accountable to no one but themselves. Since Jesus is Almighty God then we really ought to pay attention to what He says and follow Him with every ounce of our energy and passion.