of the defection from their Master. Here at Caesarea Philippi,
however, the word was spoken immediately after an acknowledgment that the
people had no more thought of finding in Jesus their Messiah. It was
spoken after the disciples had had repeated evidence of the determined
hostility of the leaders to Jesus. All the disappointment he had given to
their cherished ideas was emphasized by the isolation in which the little
company now found itself. One after another their ideas of how a Messiah
should act and what he should be had received contradiction in what Jesus
was and did. Yet after the weeks of withdrawal from Galilee, Peter could
only in effect assert anew what he had declared at Capernaum,--that Jesus
had the words of eternal life. It was a faith chastened by perplexity, and
taught at length to follow the Lord let him lead where he would. It was an
actual surrender to his mastery over thought and life. Here at length
Jesus had won what he had been seeking during all his work in Galilee,--a
corner-stone on which to build up the new community of the kingdom of God.
Peter was the first to confess openly to this simple surrender to the full
mastery of Jesus. He was the first stone in the foundation of the new
"building of God."

156. In his commendation of Peter Jesus revealed the secret of his method
in the work which, because of this confession, he could now proceed to do
more rapidly. He cuts loose utterly from the method of the scribes. He,
the new teacher, commits to them no body of teaching which they are to
give to others as the key to eternal life. The salvation they are to
preach is a salvation by personal attachment; that is, by faith. The rock
on which he will build his church is personal attachment, faith that is
ready to leave all and follow him. Peter, not the substance of his
confession, was its corner-stone, but Peter, as the first clear confessor
of a faith that is ready to leave all, a faith whose very nature it is to
be contagious, and associate with itself others of "like precious faith."
His faith was as yet meagre, as he showed at once; but it was genuine, the
surrender of his heart to his Lord's guidance and control. This was the
distinctive mark of the new religious life inaugurated by Jesus of
Nazareth.

157. If anything were needed to prove that the idea that he was the
Messiah was no new thought to Jesus, it could be found in the new lesson
which he at once began to teach his disciples. Th