Did Peter Realize That Christ Was The Messiah?

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Hi A____,
I cannot express how pleased I am to see that you are applying what you are learning.
Peter and all the apostles lived every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, not by actually doing every sin mentioned in the Old Testament, but by simply acknowledging that it was in their flesh (as it is in yours and mine) to be guilty of all the blood of all the prophets from Abel to Zecharias.
No, Peter had not yet fully realized that Christ was the Messiah at the time Christ told Peter that “flesh and blood had not revealed that to him, but that it had been revealed to Peter by His heavenly Father.” But God had begun showing this to Peter just as He slowly reveals His word to each of us. We simply are not capable of receiving it all at one time. Look at these words Christ prayed to His father just shortly before all of His disciples forsook him and denied even knowing who He was:

Joh 17:6  I manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them to me; and they have kept thy word.

“They have kept your Word?” In a matter of hours they would all forsake and deny Him, yet “speaking of those things that are not as though they were,” Christ says “they have kept thy word.”

Rom 4:17  (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

As Peter and all of the apostles demonstrated on the day of Pentecost, Christ was right.

Act 2:14  But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:

Peter no longer was afraid for his life. Nevertheless, your analysis is exactly right. Mat 16 22-23 is the fulfilling in Peter, and in all of the rest of the apostles, and also in us, of the prophecy in Act 4:26, quoted from Psa 2. But Christ had begun a good work in His apostles, and He performed that work. He will also perform that work in you, and you will be able to say “sin does not have dominion over me, because I am not under the law but under grace.”

Php 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

I really enjoyed our talk, and I am always inspired by your zeal for our Lord and His Word.
Your brother and your friend,
Mike

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