elect, precious; and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded.  Unto you therefore which believe He is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the Word, being disobedient” (1 Pet. 2, 4-8).  Here Peter in the plainest and strongest terms declares Christ to be the rock on which the Church is built.  The scribes and Pharisees rejected Him, as had been foretold, but the common people who heard Him gladly embraced His message of salvation, and rested their faith on what He had taught them and done for them.  Peter evidently did not understand the text in Matthew as the Catholics understand it.  Peter in his Epistle is really a heretic in what he says about the rock, and if the Catholics could spare him from under the Church, they ought to burn him.

Instead of connecting the two parts of the statement:  “Thou art Peter,” and, “Upon this rock I will build My Church,” as closely as Catholics do, the two parts ought to be kept separate.  What the Lord says to Peter may be paraphrased thus:  Peter, there was a time when you were merely Simon, Jonas’s son.  At that time you had thoughts and formed opinions about holy matters such as your flesh and blood, your natural reason, suggested to you.  All that is changed now that you are a Peter, a firm believer in the revelation which the Father makes to men about Me.  What you have confessed is the exact truth; cling to that against all odds; for upon this person whom you have confessed, as upon a rock, I will build My Church.—­And now we may imagine that the Lord, while uttering the words, “upon this rock,” pointed to Himself.  The text does not say that the Lord made such a gesture; we simply imagine this, but our imagination is not only just as good as that of the Catholics, but better, for the gesture which we assume agrees with the teachings of all the Scriptures that speak of Christ’s person and work.

However, the Catholics remind us that Christ gave to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and made him the doorkeeper of paradise.  Yes, so the text reads, and with Luther we should now inquire:  Was it a brass, or silver, or golden, or wooden key?  Is the lock on the gate of heaven a common padlock, or like the cunning contrivances which are nowadays employed in safety vaults?  Catholics are very much offended when one speaks thus of the keys of Peter.  They say sarcasm is out of place in such holy matters.  That is quite true; but, again with Luther, we would urge that the keys of which we are speaking sarcastically are not the keys in Matt. 16, 10, but the keys in the Catholic imagination.  And these latter one can hardly treat with reverence.  The Catholics must admit that no real key, or anything resembling a key, was given to Peter by Christ.  The language in this text is figurative:  the words which follow state the Lord’s meaning in plain