At Caesarea-Philippi

157:3.1Early Tues­day morn­ing Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles left Ma­g­a­dan Park for Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, the cap­i­tal of the Tetrarch Philip’s do­main. Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi was sit­u­ated in a re­gion of won­drous beauty. It nes­tled in a charm­ing val­ley be­tween scenic hills where the Jor­dan poured forth from an un­der­ground cave. The heights of Mount Her­mon were in full view to the north, while from the hills just to the south a mag­nif­i­cent view was had of the up­per Jor­dan and the Sea of Gal­i­lee.

157:3.2Je­sus had gone to Mount Her­mon in his early ex­pe­ri­ence with the af­fairs of the king­dom, and now that he was en­ter­ing upon the fi­nal epoch of his work, he de­sired to re­turn to this mount of trial and tri­umph, where he hoped the apos­tles might gain a new vi­sion of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and ac­quire new strength for the try­ing times just ahead. As they jour­neyed along the way, about the time of pass­ing south of the Wa­ters of Merom, the apos­tles fell to talk­ing among them­selves about their re­cent ex­pe­ri­ences in Phoeni­cia and else­where and to re­count­ing how their mes­sage had been re­ceived, and how the dif­fer­ent peo­ples re­garded their Mas­ter.

157:3.3As they paused for lunch, Je­sus sud­denly con­fronted the twelve with the first ques­tion he had ever ad­dressed to them con­cern­ing him­self. He asked this sur­pris­ing ques­tion, “Who do men say that I am?”

157:3.4Je­sus had spent long months in train­ing these apos­tles as to the na­ture and char­ac­ter of the king­dom of heaven, and he well knew the time had come when he must be­gin to teach them more about his own na­ture and his per­sonal re­la­tion­ship to the king­dom. And now, as they were seated un­der the mul­berry trees, the Mas­ter made ready to hold one of the most mo­men­tous ses­sions of his long as­so­ci­a­tion with the cho­sen apos­tles.

157:3.5More than half the apos­tles par­tic­i­pated in an­swer­ing Je­sus’ ques­tion. They told him that he was re­garded as a prophet or as an ex­traor­di­nary man by all who knew him; that even his en­e­mies greatly feared him, ac­count­ing for his pow­ers by the in­dict­ment that he was in league with the prince of dev­ils. They told him that some in Judea and Samaria who had not met him per­son­ally be­lieved he was John the Bap­tist risen from the dead. Pe­ter ex­plained that he had been, at sundry times and by var­i­ous per­sons, com­pared with Moses, Eli­jah, Isa­iah, and Jeremiah. When Je­sus had lis­tened to this re­port, he drew him­self upon his feet, and look­ing down upon the twelve sit­ting about him in a semi­cir­cle, with startling em­pha­sis he pointed to them with a sweep­ing ges­ture of his hand and asked, “But who say you that I am?” There was a mo­ment of tense si­lence. The twelve never took their eyes off the Mas­ter, and then Si­mon Pe­ter, spring­ing to his feet, ex­claimed: “You are the De­liv­erer, the Son of the liv­ing God.” And the eleven sit­ting apos­tles arose to their feet with one ac­cord, thereby in­di­cat­ing that Pe­ter had spo­ken for all of them.

157:3.6When Je­sus had beck­oned them again to be seated, and while still stand­ing be­fore them, he said: “This has been re­vealed to you by my Fa­ther. The hour has come when you should know the truth about me. But for the time be­ing I charge you that you tell this to no man. Let us go hence.”

157:3.7And so they re­sumed their jour­ney to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, ar­riv­ing late that evening and stop­ping at the home of Cel­sus, who was ex­pect­ing them. The apos­tles slept lit­tle that night; they seemed to sense that a great event in their lives and in the work of the king­dom had tran­spired.