And, gradually, he seems to have become the spokesman for the other apostles.  When they wished to ask our Lord anything, we generally find St. Peter asking; and when (as in the gospel for to-day), our Lord asks them a question, St. Peter answers for them all.  Whom say ye that I am?  And Peter answered and said, ’Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’

This is what St. Peter had learnt; because he had kept his eyes and his ears open, and his heart ready and teachable, that he might see God’s truth when it should please God to show it him; and God did show it him:  and taught him something which his own eyes and ears could not teach him; which all his thinking could not have taught him; which no man could have taught him; flesh and blood could not reveal to him that Jesus was the Son of God; flesh and blood could not draw aside the veil of flesh and blood, and make him see in that poor man of Nazareth, who was called the carpenter’s son, the only-begotten of the Father, God made man.  No.  God the Father only could teach him that, by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit:  but do you think that God would have taught St. Peter that, or that St. Peter could have learnt it, if his mind had been merely full of thoughts about himself, and what honour he was to get for himself, or what profit he was to get for himself, out of the Lord Jesus Christ?

No:  St. Peter loved the Lord Jesus; loved him with his whole heart.  When afterwards our Lord asked him, ’Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?’ He answered, ‘Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.’  And because he loved him, he saw how beautiful and glorious the Lord’s character was; and his eyes were opened to see that the Lord was too beautiful, too glorious, to be merely a mortal man; and, at last, to see that he was the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of his Father’s person.

But, as I said just now, St. Peter’s great and excellent gifts might have made him only the more dangerous man, if he used them ill.  And this seems to have been his danger.  He was plainly a very bold and determined man, who knew his own power, and was ready to use it fearlessly:  and what would he be tempted to do!  To fancy that his power belonged to him, and not to Christ; that his wisdom belonged to himself; that his faith belonged to himself; his authority belonged to himself; and that, therefore, he could use his excellent gifts as he liked, and not merely as Christ liked.  He was liable, as we say in homely English, to ‘have his head turned’ by his honour and his power.

For instance, immediately after our Lord had put this great honour on him, ‘I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ we find Peter mistaking his power, and, therefore, misusing it.  ’From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.