And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Mark 8:27-33, ESV)
This is a bit of weird one. When Jesus asks what the word on the street is about Him, His disciples say that the general population thinks that He is some reincarnated ghost. And then when Jesus asks His disciples who THEY think He is, then Peter answers on behalf of the team, and says, "You are the Christ." You would think that he got that right, but apparently not.
When Peter refers to Jesus as Christ, he's not referring to Jesus as the Son of God, sent to die. He is referring to Him as the Son of God, sent to liberate Israel from Rome's grasp. Pretty much every Jew was waiting for THIS kind of Saviour. And they're not wrong, Jesus was going to do that, but they're not entirely right either.
This is why Jesus goes on to teach them about how He must suffer, be rejected, die, and then come back to life three days later. Now, this sounds like an awful thing to say about yourself, but Jesus didn't necessarily end that statement on a bad note. AT LEAST He was gonna come back to life, right?
But even then Peter, out of his sincere heart, decides to pull his own Master and Rabbi aside to rebuke Him. The student tries to rebuke his Teacher! But Jesus looks at Peter and His other disciples, and responds with the bold statement, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
I think that if your teacher, let alone Jesus, calls you Satan, then I don't think you really win any points. But Jesus gives a reason for this. It is because Peter and the rest of His disciples are not setting their minds on the things of God, but on the things of men.
In Jesus' time, there was a whole lot of confusion as to who He was. The Pharisees called Him a demon, His own family called Him crazy once, and His own disciples couldn't even fully comprehend who He REALLY was. All of these people probably had the same thing in common though, they were all setting their minds on the things of men.
Colossians 3 lists out a ton of practical things that we can put to death, and things that we can put on, but only after it explains why we have to do these things. We set our minds on things above because we have been raised with Christ. This is why Jesus, when He predicts His death, doesn't leave out His resurrection. Yes, He will die, but so must we. Even better, He will come back to life, and so will we. We set our minds on the things above because we have been raised with Christ.
Now, to set your mind on the things of God is to grow in a deeper knowledge of Christ Himself. Again, there was a huge confusion as to who Jesus was. No one knew who He really was. The only ones that did know who He really was were the demons, when they said in Mark 1, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But when His own disciples can't get it right, it makes perfect sense that Jesus would rebuke them to set their minds on the things of God, a.k.a set their minds on Jesus Himself.
When we set our minds on the things of God, we will know Christ in a deeper way, and it will call us to put to death the things of man in us.
When I'm caught in temptation, I realize that half the battle is setting my mind away from the temptation. I have to mentally tell myself "don't go there, run the other way." The mind is a powerful thing that plays a huge role in how we conduct ourselves. So if we are to follow Christ, we have to set our minds away from sinful things.
But again, it's not enough to just set your mind away from something. We have to set our minds to something else. That's the beauty of this whole process! We are to set our minds away from sin, and set it to Christ, where there is freedom. And all of this is possible because Christ has died so that we can die to our sin, and He has been raised to life so that we can be raised with Him to a new life.
Even though Christ rebukes His disciples, this is ultimately what He is getting at. The Son of Man must die and come back to life, so that His disciples would be able to set their minds on the things of God, and not on the things of man.
I'll end it with this verse...
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1, ESV)
-simon
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