Nobody claims that Peter was perfect. If Peter were perfect, there would have been no need for Jesus to promise him (and through him, his successors) the protection of the Holy Spirit when he is teaching on faith and morals.
He is the Rock because he is the one to whom God the Father revealed (and continues to reveal) the truth about Jesus - not because of any personal merit of his own.
Hi jmcrae,
Jesus, as God the Son, revealed the Plan of Salvation to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc., all of whom understood the prophetic meaning, contained in the animal sacrifices. He also revealed Himself in the four cups of the Seder, and in the days of unleavened bread. Also, in Shavuot about the part of the Plan of Salvation which involved Jesus’ sending the Holy Spirit to those who would be His apostles. The other annual feasts, none of which originated in the mind of a Jew (so, calling them “Jewish” is a form of blasphemy since the annual feasts of the Lord, originated with the Lord, not the Jews), were given by God the Son.
The Plan of Salvation began at the gate of the Garden of Eden when God said, aloud, the Ten Commandments to Adam and Eve, and required them to offer the very first animal sacrifice. The Sabbath command was given as part of the Ten Commandments which the denominations of Christianity today claim they follow. Yet, they slice it and dice it in any way they wish, then claim that those same commandments were nailed to Jesus’ cross.
Faith and morals are based on the Ten Commandments which were written by the finger of God, and the rest of the Law of Love, as I call it (the prophet, Isaiah said “Thy Law is a lamp unto my feet.” The only Sabbath that God gave to mankind is found in the Ten Commandments, and backed by the laws God the Son spoke to Moses, along with all the other commandments which come in under at least one or more of the Ten Commandments.
How could God the Son say to Moses, “I will not alter the things which have gone out of My lips,” then come to earth in human flesh, teach His disciples to teach these laws of love to their converts after Jesus’ death and ascension, then turn around again and let the Holy Spirit lead out in allowing the “early church fathers” to change that which He said would not change??
They pick and choose which Torah laws they want to keep. They changed the days and many of the ways of not only the weekly Sabbath day, but the annual festival days and sabbaths, or eliminated the annual holy times, whichever suited their anti-Jewish sentiments at any given time. They claim to say that Jesus was a Jew, but that He allowed His disciples to make changes to His Law after His death. Some claim that the Holy Spirit, one of the Persons of the Godhead, guided them in changing parts of the only Covenant that existed before Christ’s death, the Everlasting Covenant in Exodus 34.
I don’t think there is any mystery to it. Men who have confused other men by saying that one law is “Jewish,” while trying to say that God, through the Holy Spirit, created another law through Himself as the Holy Spirit, simply put, these men despise the ethnic Jews, whether Torah-observant or not, and even try to proselyte Torah-observant Jews into what Torah-observant Jews consider to be paganism.
