Gates of hell

Mat 16:15  He said to them, But who do you say I am?
Mat 16:16  And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Mat 16:17  Jesus answered and said to him, You are blessed, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but My Father in Heaven.
Mat 16:18  And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell (hadēs) shall not prevail against it.
Mat 16:19  And I will give the keys of the kingdom of Heaven to you. And whatever you may bind on earth shall occur, having been bound in Heaven, and whatever you may loose on earth shall occur, having been loosed in Heaven.

Again here hadēs is translated to hell

G86 ᾅδης hadēs hah'-dace
From G1 (as a negative particle) and G1492; properly unseen, that is, "Hades" or the place (state) of departed souls: - grave, hell.

Although not a hell teaching per se, I would like to touch on this portion as it is also a bone of contention between the RCC and Protestants.

The RCC take this as Peter being the rock and the Protestants as the Rock being Jesus.  I see it as neither.

What IMO Jesus referred to here was the rock being the revelation of who Christ is.  Once we have that revelation, we have the keys to the Kingdom of heaven and we too can bind and loose.

Our carnal nature is one of self preservation and hence there is an inherent fear of death.  The fear of hell is a man-made doctrine that replaces the fear of death with the fear of hell. And we know:

1Jn 4:18  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He who fears has not been perfected in love.
1Jn 4:19  We love Him because He first loved us.

Who is perfected Love? Simple; God.

The fear we are to have is reverence toward God not fear as in the sense of a wrathful God.  That is satan’s oldest trick and he did it to the Israelites in Moses’ day.

Exo 20:19  And they said to Moses, You speak with us, and we will hear. But let not God speak with us, lest we die.  (See the self preservation kicking in?)

Once we have deferred to an intermediary other than Jesus Christ, or direct to God, we are in the grips of satan/flesh.  If there is fear of losing one’s salvation as it is commonly taught, then you are into dead works.

Salvation was taken care of by the cross; we cannot add one iota to it by works or lack thereof.

Reconciliation is not the same as salvation.  We are reconciled though the Son to the Father (His way not our way) anything we do even our most righteous works are as filthy rags (the MKJV renders it as used menstrual cloths, in our day and age that would be a used sanitary towel or tampon)


When I speak of revelation, I do not mean carnal knowledge; anyone can read of Jesus and believe He existed/exists.  I am talking of the revelation we receive from the Father that surpasses all carnal understanding.  This is what I term the opening of our Spiritual eyes and ears allowing us to see and hear the deeper things of God.  This again is “dependent” on how we walk after our re-birth.  I have said it before:

We do not find salvation, salvation finds us.

Thereafter we ask, knock and seek and the Father reciprocates.  The Father is responsible in the drawing process of each and every one of us, but thereafter we have co-responsibility.  Sadly, many fail to see this or are taught this.  Bible school may help but 1st hand revelation is so much sweeter; hearing God speak audibly to you is better than what any man may say.  I call it going to the Source.

Now in this account a few verses on we see Peter being admonished by Jesus. 

In fact it took the event at Pentecost, a vision and finally when he saw the Holy Sprit being poured out on Gentiles too, he got it or finally understood.  So if Peter is to be our model, we can see just how frail and pathetic we are.  Even after these events, Paul had to correct Peter again.  Paul had the revelation of Grace; Peter still tried mixing the old with the new.  Grace and Law cannot co-exist or be mixed.  Even the faith we have is a Gift of God and not of our own doing.

Peter, one of the 3 “favourites” blew it so many times yet in spite of that; God still loves him in spite of himself.  And that is the way of all mankind.

Blessings