Is Peter the Rock Upon Which the Church is Built?

This passage of Scripture [Matthew 16:13–20] has been the source of a great deal of contention, and of difference of opinion among theologians for many years. In fact, ever since the third century of the Christian era there has been continual debate as to the exact meaning of a number of expressions used here. For most of us commonly known as Protestants these questions have been settled long ago. We do not have any perplexity about them, we have learned to go to the Word of God itself for the explanation of its own terms. We believe with Chillingworth that “the Bible and the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants” and so are not very much concerned about traditions or about the decisions of church councils or the declarations of popes, fallible or infallible. We turn from all these to the Book itself.