Jesus Christ, The Rock

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

Matthew 16:18-19

And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.
This is the first time Jesus speaks of His Church, and here, as not yet founded. Three terms are to be noted: 

1. Peter, in the Greek, petros, meaning a single stone; 
2. Rock, in the Greek, petra, which means the solid, immovable bed-rock, a great mass like a cliff, and 
3. Church, Greek, ecclesia, those "called out," the fellowship of believers, the organized society of Christ, the kingdom of heaven on earth. 

There is probably no passage in the word of God that has called forth more discussion. The Roman Catholic Church insists that Peter is the rock upon which Christ founded His Church. The Catholic position is based upon the fact that Peter means a stone (see John 1:42), and the Savior's language might be rendered, "Thou art a stone, and upon this rock I will build my church." The Catholic view is lack of biblical reasoning, for

(1) The Savior does not say, "Thou art a stone, and upon thee I will build," etc., or "Thou art a rock, and upon this rock I will build." He changes the word in the Greek from Petros (Peter, a stone) to Petra, a rock, or ledge of rock--a solid bed-rock.

(2) Every Bible-believing Christian (saved by grace) is a stone (see 1Peter 2:5). The Lord declares that Peter is one of these living stones, made such by his confession of faith, and ready to be built into the Church, the spiritual temple, formed of living stones, and built upon the "Rock". So is every confessor of Christ. In order to settle what the Savior does mean by the "Rock", we must consider Matthew 16:18-19 together, and keep in mind the entire figure. This figure portrays:

1. a Builder, Christ;
2. a temple to be built, composed of lively stones, the Church;
3. a foundation for that temple, the "Rock";
4. the gates of an unfriendly city or power which shall seek its destruction, hell, or more correctly, Hades, the unseen abode of the dead;
5. a door-keeper of the church, or spiritual temple, with his keys, Peter. Peter's place in the figure is not that of the foundation, but that of the key-holder, or turnkey.

The only difficulty is in settling what the Lord means by the "Rock". Since this Rock is the foundation of the Church, the central principle, the fundamental idea, we are aided to a correct decision by the teachings of the Word (the Bible) elsewhere. We learn from 1Corinthians 3:11 "That other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." This excludes Peter or any human platform. Christ is often called a stone: "the stone that the builders rejected" [Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17], "the chief corner stone" [Ephesians 2:20], "the stone that is the head of the corner" [Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; 1Peter 2:7], "the spiritual rock which is Christ" [1Corinthians 10:4]. Faith in Christ held in the heart, and confessed with the lips is the very foundation of the spiritual life and of the Church. This constituted the fundamental difference in apostolic days between Christians and unbelievers, the Church and the world. It does still. It is the essence of the teaching of the New Testament that the platform or foundation of the Christian society, the Church, is this belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God (see Matthew 16:16; John 6:69). It is then Peter's grand confession, faith in the Spiritual Rock, the faith that lays hold of Christ, belief that He is the Anointed of God, the Divine Savior, that the Lord pronounces the Rock upon which He will found His Church. That this view is correct is shown by a correct understanding of the declaration,

The gates of hell (Hades) shall not prevail against it.
From the gates of the city always marched forth its armies. The powers of hell are represented by its gates. Hell here is from the Greek word "Hades", the unseen abode of the dead that holds the departed within its gates. Just after these words the Lord talks of His death, or entering "Hades". Six months later the Sanhedrim sent Him to death for making the same confession Peter had just made. See Matthew 26:64-67. They expected to demonstrate that the confession of His divinity which He had made was false by sending Him to Hades, which they supposed would hold Him and prevail against the confession of the "ROCK". He was sent there from the cross, but the gates of Hades did not prevail, for they could not hold Him, and the living Savior, rising triumphant from the tomb, was the unanswerable argument that His own and Peter's confession was a “Rock” that could never be moved. His resurrection demonstrated that He is the "Rock". Hades did not prevail.

I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of the heaven.
That is, of the Church. The office of the keys is to open the doors, or close them. On Pentecost, Peter first opened the doors and declared the conditions of which men could have their sins forgiven, be bound or loosed, and thus enter into the Church. Seven years later at Caesarea (Acts 10) he declared the same conditions to the Gentiles. While Peter took the lead, the keys were also given to all the apostles. Matthew 18:18; "Verily I say unto you (plural-all apostles), Whatsoever ye (plural-all apostles) shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye (plural-all apostles) shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." See also John 20:19-28. All that is here said to Peter is also said to all the apostles.

By B. W. Johnson, The People’s New Testament Commentary, 1891 (Emphasis added)