sole arbiter of
their faith and the exclusive dispenser of divine grace, and, last, not
least, that it says one word about the Pope. Luther makes, indeed, a
clean and sweeping denial of every claim which Catholics advance for the
God-given supremacy of their Popes. Inasmuch as the papacy stands or
falls with Matt. 16, 18.19, he has put the Catholics in the worst
predicament imaginable.

Catholics believe that Peter was singled out for particular honors in
the Church by being declared the rock on which Christ builds His Church,
and by being given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Peter's supremacy
as Primate of the World, they hold, passed over to Peter's successor and
is perpetuated in an unbroken line of succession in the Roman Popes.
Three questions, then, confronted Luther in the study of this text in
Matthew. First, does the "rock" in Matt. 16, 18 signify Peter? The Lord
had addressed to all His disciples the question, "Whom say ye that I
am?" Instead of all of them answering and creating a confusion, Peter,
the most impulsive of the apostles, speaks up and says, "Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God." With these words Peter expressed the
common faith of all the disciples. Not one of them dissented from his
statement; he had voiced the joint conviction of them all. Peter was the
spokesman, but the confession was that of the apostles. Any other
apostle might have spoken first and said the same, had he been quicker
than Peter. If there is any merit in Peter's confession of Christ, all
other disciples, yea, all who confess Christ as Peter did, share that
merit. In replying to Peter the Lord takes all merit away from Peter by
saying to him: "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood
hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven." He
addresses Peter by the name he had borne before he became an apostle:
Simon, son of Jonas, and tells him that if he were still what he used to
be before he came to Christ, he could not have made the confession which
he had just uttered. In his old unconverted state he would not have
formed any higher opinion concerning Christ than the people throughout
the country, some of whom thought that Christ was John the Baptist risen
from the dead; others, that he was Jeremias; still others, that he was
one of the ancient prophets come back to life. The deity of Jesus and
His mission as Christ, that is, as the Messiah, our Lord says, are
grasped by men only whe