Watersheds provide the major path ways for water flowing down from mountains. The US Continental divide is the ultimate watershed of North America, that rocky line which divides rain water runoff that ends up in the Pacific Ocean versus that which finds its way to the Atlantic Ocean. So also is Matthew 16:13-26 provides the ultimate, spiritual watershed of eternal proportions: the disciples have moved from those who end up simply being hearers of Jesus to being those who are fully committed to Christ and His purpose. Other places in the Bible describe this as those having spiritual life versus those spiritually dead, sons of the light versus sons of the darkness.

The disciples had proclaimed, in the words of Peter, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” They had received their sobering rebuke, directed to the person of Peter, “Get behind me, Satan,” for being at cross purposes with Jesus. Now, spring-boarding on their statement of faith and that terse lesson of loyalty, they are ready for the core principle of discipleship: Self-denial.

The only true way to follow Christ is to stop following one’s own natural inclinations and self-centeredness. Genesis 3:5-6 signaled this to be the earthly struggle of humankind, when Eve along with Adam took the fruit thinking it would make them like God and therefore becoming independent of God. Proverbs 14:12 presages the dilemma, “There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” Jeremiah 17:9 captures the stark reality, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” The apostle John wrote of the inclination to not follow Christ, “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). The momentous problem is captured by Paul, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie …” (Rom. 1:25). He quotes Psalm 14:1-3, “All have turned aside … There is none who does good, There is not even one” (Rom. 3:12).

To follow Christ means to diametrically oppose that innate core of our rebellion against God. Jesus can only describe it as a denial of oneself. Like a condemned man who expresses his final submission to Rome in carrying his own instrument of crucifixion, disciples are those believers who willingly submit to Christ as Lord and Master, even to death. This only has meaning for those who have first come to Christ in faith.