At Caesarea-Philippi

157:5.1The new and vi­tal fea­ture of Pe­ter’s con­fes­sion was the clear-cut rec­og­ni­tion that Je­sus was the Son of God, of his un­ques­tioned di­vin­ity. Ever since his bap­tism and the wed­ding at Cana these apos­tles had var­i­ously re­garded him as the Mes­siah, but it was not a part of the Jew­ish con­cept of the na­tional de­liv­erer that he should be di­vine. The Jews had not taught that the Mes­siah would spring from di­vin­ity; he was to be the “anointed one,” but hardly had they con­tem­plated him as be­ing “the Son of God.” In the sec­ond con­fes­sion more em­pha­sis was placed upon the com­bined na­ture, the su­per­nal fact that he was the Son of Man and the Son of God, and it was upon this great truth of the union of the hu­man na­ture with the di­vine na­ture that Je­sus de­clared he would build the king­dom of heaven.

157:5.2Je­sus had sought to live his life on earth and com­plete his be­stowal mis­sion as the Son of Man. His fol­low­ers were dis­posed to re­gard him as the ex­pected Mes­siah. Know­ing that he could never ful­fill their Mes­sianic ex­pec­ta­tions, he en­deav­ored to ef­fect such a mod­i­fi­ca­tion of their con­cept of the Mes­siah as would en­able him par­tially to meet their ex­pec­ta­tions. But he now rec­og­nized that such a plan could hardly be car­ried through suc­cess­fully. He there­fore elected boldly to dis­close the third plan—openly to an­nounce his di­vin­ity, ac­knowl­edge the truth­ful­ness of Pe­ter’s con­fes­sion, and di­rectly pro­claim to the twelve that he was a Son of God.

157:5.3For three years Je­sus had been pro­claim­ing that he was the “Son of Man,” while for these same three years the apos­tles had been in­creas­ingly in­sis­tent that he was the ex­pected Jew­ish Mes­siah. He now dis­closed that he was the Son of God, and upon the con­cept of the com­bined na­ture of the Son of Man and the Son of God, he de­ter­mined to build the king­dom of heaven. He had de­cided to re­frain from fur­ther ef­forts to con­vince them that he was not the Mes­siah. He now pro­posed boldly to re­veal to them what he is, and then to ig­nore their de­ter­mi­na­tion to per­sist in re­gard­ing him as the Mes­siah.