[29-7] The Church of God Built on the Faith of Peter (Matthew 16:18–19)

When Peter answered Jesus’ question, “You are the Christ” what kind of faith was he confessing with this answer?

         The confession of Peter in Matthew 16:16, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” is the most complete confession of faith about who Jesus is.
This short sentence contains the entire essence of faith.
Its meaning can be described in three parts as follows.

         First, the confession “You are the Christ” is the confession of faith that Jesus is the Messiah whom God promised.
The word “Christ” has the same meaning as the Hebrew word “Messiah” which means “the Anointed One.”
Peter did not regard Jesus as merely a prophet or a righteous teacher, but believed Him to be the Messiah sent by God to save mankind from sin.
Jesus, as King, overcame the power of sin and death and reigns over our hearts and the world.
Also, as the High Priest, He offered His own body as the atoning sacrifice and took away the sins of mankind once for all, and as the Prophet, He proclaimed the Word of God and clearly showed the way of salvation to mankind.
Therefore, Peter’s confession is the proclamation of faith that Jesus is my Savior and the One who fulfilled all the Law and the Prophets.

         Second, the confession “the Son of the living God” is the confession of faith that acknowledges the divinity of Jesus.
Peter did not see Jesus as merely an agent of God or a holy person, but believed Him to be the Son of God who possesses the life and essence of God.
This confession is the confession of faith that Jesus is one with God, that is, that God Himself came in the flesh.
In Jesus, Peter saw the living presence, power, and eternal life of God.
Also, the expression “the living God” is a declaration that, among a world serving idols, only God is the true source of life.

         Third, this confession is a faith revealed from God the Father.
Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17).
These words show that Peter’s faith did not come from human reason or knowledge, but is a faith of revelation that God made him realize through the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, Peter’s confession is not mere knowledge but a confession of faith given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and it is because upon that very faith Jesus said, “I will build my church.”
This confession of faith is the faith that becomes the foundation of all true churches, and it becomes the foundation of faith.

Was Peter a disciple who believed the fact that Jesus took on the sins of the world by receiving baptism from John the Baptist?

         To state the conclusion first, Peter was a disciple who believed that Jesus took on the sins of the world by receiving baptism from John the Baptist.
However, his faith was not something that was completely understood from the beginning; rather, it was a faith that was gradually confirmed and matured through revelation in the process of working together with Jesus. 
If we examine the process step-by-step according to the flow of the Bible, it is as follows.

         First, the meaning of Jesus’s baptism was not a simple sign of repentance, but an event that fulfilled all righteousness. 
When Jesus was being baptized by John in the Jordan River, He said, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). 
Here, ‘all righteousness’ means the righteousness of salvation that God planned. 
In other words, it was an event of transferring all the sins of humanity onto the body of Jesus. As the sinless Lamb of God, Jesus bore the sins of the world through the baptism by John. 
That is why John the Baptist, looking at Jesus, testified, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

         Next, Peter knew this fact and began to follow Jesus. 
If we look at John chapter 1, we can see that Peter’s brother, Andrew, was a disciple of John the Baptist. 
When John pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”, the two disciples who heard him followed Jesus, and one of them was Andrew. 
Andrew went to Jesus and confessed, “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:41), and brought Peter to Jesus.
Therefore, at the starting point of Peter’s coming to Jesus, the seed of faith—namely, the gospel testimony of John the Baptist that “Jesus is the Lamb of God who bore the sins of the world”—was already in place.

         After that, Peter gradually confirmed that faith by seeing Jesus’s ministry firsthand.
Jesus healed the sick and proclaimed the remission of sins, and these were events in which His authority as the ‘bearer of the world’s sins’ after being baptized in the Jordan River was actually revealed.
By watching all this ministry at His side, Peter came to realize that Jesus was not a mere human but the Son of God who has the authority to remit people’s sins.
And finally, in Matthew 16:16, he confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
This confession went beyond the level of simply acknowledging Jesus’s divinity; it was a confession of faith containing the inner conviction that Jesus was the one who fulfilled God’s plan to save sinners through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.

         This faith was completed through Jesus’s cross and resurrection.
Peter denied Jesus three times right before the event of the cross, but after meeting the resurrected Lord, he was completely changed.
After receiving the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, he boldly preached the gospel. Proclaiming, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32), he testified that Jesus died for the sins of humanity and was resurrected.
Also, confessing, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust” (1 Peter 3:18), he clearly revealed the meaning of Jesus’s substitutionary atonement.

         Peter later explained the meaning of baptism in his epistle like this:
“There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21).
This word clearly shows that the ministry of Jesus’s baptism is connected to a single truth of salvation.
In other words, Peter was an apostle who fully realized the gospel that the ministry of salvation, which began through baptism, is completed through the cross and resurrection.

         In conclusion, Peter was the one among Jesus’s disciples who first believed and confessed the fact that Jesus was the Lamb of God who took on the sins of the world by receiving baptism from John the Baptist.
Although his faith was partial at first, he became an apostle who completely realized the gospel of the water and the Spirit through the cross, the resurrection, and the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Peter was an apostle who testified to the gospel of saving humanity through the baptism of Jesus and the blood of the cross

         Peter was an apostle who testified to the gospel of saving humanity through the baptism of Jesus and the blood of the cross.
His faith was a faith that connected the baptism of Jesus that began at the Jordan River, that is, the event of taking on the sins of the world, and the shedding of blood on the cross, that is, the truth of salvation of having paid the price for those sins at once.
This faith was not a simple understanding of doctrine, but stemmed from the experience of the gospel, which was directly seen and realized through the life and ministry of Jesus.

         First, Peter’s gospel started from the ministry of Jesus’s baptism.
The ministry in which Jesus received baptism from John the Baptist in the Jordan River was not a simple sign of repentance, but the beginning of the ministry of transferring the sins of humanity to Jesus.
Jesus received baptism, saying, “For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15).
Here, ‘all righteousness’ means God’s plan of salvation, that is, the completion of righteousness in passing over all the sins of humanity to the sinless Jesus.
At this time, John the Baptist testified, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
Peter came to meet Jesus through his brother Andrew, who heard this testimony, and at that time, he already came to hold in his heart the truth of the gospel that Jesus was the Savior who shouldered the sins of the world.

         Afterwards, after Jesus resurrected and ascended, Peter was established as an apostle who preaches the gospel.
If we look at his sermons recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, we can see that the gospel of salvation—that Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world through baptism, and washed away those sins by the shedding of blood on the cross—is always placed in the center.
He proclaimed, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32), and “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:30–31).
The gospel that Peter preached was not simply “Jesus died,” but was the truth of the gospel that “because Jesus took upon Himself the sins of mankind through baptism, atonement was made through His death.”
In other words, he was an apostle who proclaimed together the imputation of sins, which began with the baptism that John the Baptist gave to Jesus, and the completion of the remission of sins, which was accomplished by the blood of the cross.

         If we look at 1 Peter, we can see that he explained baptism, the cross, and the resurrection by connecting them as one work of salvation.
The statement, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust” (1 Peter 3:18), presupposes that sins had already been imputed to Jesus.
As for where those sins were imputed, it was precisely when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.
And he continues, saying, “There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism” (1 Peter 3:21).
Peter did not see baptism as a simple religious ritual.
He understood it as the symbol of salvation by which Jesus took upon Himself the sins of mankind, and as an event that testifies that this salvation was completed through the resurrection.
Therefore, in his structure of faith, a single flow of redemption
—‘baptism, cross, resurrection’—was clearly established.
Also, the verse recorded in John 19:34, “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” is an event that shows Jesus’s baptism and the cross as salvation.
The ‘water’ signifies Jesus’s baptism, and the ‘blood’ signifies the sacrifice of the cross.
In 1 John 5:6 as well, it testifies, “This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood.” and clearly reveals that Jesus’s ministry consisted of the baptism He received from John, the shedding of blood on the cross, and His death and resurrection.
Within such apostolic testimonies, Peter also preached the same gospel of the water and the Spirit.
He is one who clearly testified that Jesus became the Savior who bore the sins through the baptism He received from John, atoned for those sins with the blood of the cross, and gave eternal life through resurrection from death.

         In conclusion, Peter was an apostle who testified to Jesus’ baptism and the blood of the cross as the gospel of the water and the Spirit, connected as one.
At the center of his sermons and epistles, there always flows the structure of faith that “Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world through His baptism, atoned for those sins once for all on the cross, and made us righteous through His resurrection.”
This is precisely the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Peter preached, and it is the truth of salvation completed by Jesus’ baptism, cross, and resurrection.

Jesus said that He would build the church upon the word of the gospel that Peter believes in; what does this statement mean? 

         When Jesus said, “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church” (Matthew 16:18), it does not mean that He would build the church on the person named Peter.
It means that He would build the church upon the faith of the gospel that Peter confessed, that is, on the confession of faith, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
In other words, it meant that Jesus would build the true church of God upon the completed truth of mankind’s salvation, that is, upon the word of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, accomplished through the baptism of Christ and the blood of the cross.

         First, in the expression ‘on this rock’ Jesus spoke of the ‘confession of faith’ as the rock, not a ‘person.’
In the original Greek text, ‘Peter’ (Πέτρος, Petros) means a small stone, and ‘rock’ (πέτρα, Petra) means a large, solid rock. That is, Jesus did not build the church on the individual named Peter, but He built the church on the content of the faith that he confessed.
Peter’s confession was not a simple confession of faith, but became the rock of faith that believes in the gospel of salvation completed by Jesus receiving baptism from John, shedding His blood on the cross, and resurrecting from the dead—that is, the gospel of the water, the blood, and the Spirit.

         Next, the foundation of the church that Jesus established is the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is made of the water and the blood.
Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world by receiving baptism from John in the Jordan River, paid the price for those sins once for all by shedding His blood on the cross, and gave new life to mankind through the resurrection.
This order, namely, the baptism, the cross, and the resurrection, is the foundation of the church’s faith, and Peter’s confession of faith contains precisely this gospel of the water and the Spirit.
When he confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” it included the faith that believes in the ministry through which Jesus, as the High Priest, took upon Himself the sins of the world, shed His blood and died on the cross, and accomplished righteousness by resurrecting as the very essence of God.
Therefore, the church is not something that exists simply as a building or an institution, but it means a community of faith built upon the truth of this gospel of the water and the Spirit.

         Also, when Jesus said, “I will build my church” He was clearly revealing that the owner of the church is not a person or an institution, but Jesus Himself.
The church of God does not belong to Peter, nor does it belong to the apostles, and it is not built upon human tradition or authority.
Only the community built upon the gospel that Jesus completed with the water and the blood is the Lord’s church. Therefore, a church that has departed from the gospel of the water and the Spirit can no longer be called the Lord’s church.
Through these words, Jesus taught that if anyone believes in the gospel that Jesus accomplished with the water and the Spirit, the work of the Lord is with them in their hearts.

         And the words, “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” are a promise that the church built upon the gospel will never be overthrown.
The ‘power of Hades’ means the power of sin and death, that is, the power of Satan.
However, because the church built upon the gospel was established not by human strength but by the saving work of Jesus, no power can overthrow it.
Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world with the baptism He received from John, overcame death on the cross, and revealed eternal life through the resurrection.
The church of God, built upon this power of God, will never be shaken, even if the times change and the world changes.

         In conclusion, the words Jesus spoke, “On this rock I will build my church” mean that “He builds the true church upon the word of the gospel through which Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world by the baptism He received from John, atoned for those sins with the blood of the cross, and accomplished righteousness through the resurrection.”
The church of Jesus is not a religious organization built on human authority or tradition, but a community of faith built upon the gospel made of the water and the blood.

Is the church established on this earth built upon the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Peter believes in?

         To be precise, the true church that Jesus established is the church built upon the gospel that Peter believed, namely, “the gospel made of Jesus’s baptism, the blood of the cross, and the resurrection.”
However, not all churches that exist in the world today are built upon that gospel.
The “church” that the Bible speaks of and the “religious church” made by humans with institutions and traditions are essentially different, and we must clearly understand that difference.

         First, the true church that Jesus established was built upon Peter’s gospel confession.
When Jesus said, “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18), the meaning was not that He would build the church upon the person named Peter, but that He would build it upon the faith of the gospel of the water and the Spirit that he confessed.
When Peter confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), he had the faith that Jesus, going beyond simply being the Messiah, was the One who took upon Himself the sins of the world by receiving baptism in the Jordan River, died on the cross bearing those sins in their place, and justified all who believe through the resurrection.
Jesus built the church precisely upon the confession of faith in this gospel—that is, the truth of salvation of the water and the blood.

         Next, the early church was built upon this gospel of Peter.
Looking at the sermons of Peter that appear in the book of Acts, he always testified to Jesus’s baptism and blood, and death and resurrection.
In his words that proclaimed, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32), and “Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31), was contained the core of the gospel that Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world with the baptism He received from John and atoned for those sins by shedding His blood on the cross.
The faith of the early church was not based on human tradition or law. They were a gathering of believers in the gospel that Jesus completed by receiving baptism from John, being crucified and shedding His blood on the cross, and resurrecting from death. That very faith was the faith that is the foundation of the church.

         However, as time passed, the essence of the church was gradually corrupted.
Especially after the 4th century AD, as the Roman Emperor Constantine officially recognized Christianity, the church began to change from a gospel-centered community into a political institution and an organization of power.
In that process, the core truth of the gospel—that Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world through His baptism—disappeared in an instant, and the incomplete doctrine that “atonement was accomplished by the death on the cross alone” took the central place of the so-called orthodox church.
Baptism became merely a formal ritual, and people came to believe that they receive forgiveness of sins through prayers of repentance or confession.
These changes were the beginning of a religious church made with human doctrines and institutions, not the church established by God.
These churches were not the church built upon Peter’s gospel confession, but organizations built upon the Catholic Church tradition created by Constantine.

         Even today, there are many communities in the world with the name ‘church’, but within them, two kinds of churches exist.
The first is the true church, which is the church that believes the gospel that Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world by receiving baptism in the Jordan River, atoned for those sins by shedding His blood on the cross, and completed salvation through the resurrection.
This church is a spiritual community built on the rock of the gospel that Jesus established.
The second is the religious church, which is the church that regards Jesus’s baptism as a simple ritual, emphasizes only the blood of the cross, or seeks to obtain salvation through human acts of repentance.
A church like this is not the subject of the words Jesus spoke, “on this rock I will build My church.”

         In conclusion, the true church that Jesus established was built upon the gospel that Peter believed, namely, the gospel of the water and the Spirit made of the baptism Jesus received from John, the blood of the cross, and death and resurrection.
However, not all churches that exist in the world today are built upon this gospel.
The true church is not one that exists as a building or an institution, but is a spiritual church established in the hearts of the people who believe this gospel.

Are those who created and believe in the Nicene Creed and the Seven Sacraments the ones who have inherited the faith of Peter?

         This question deals with the fundamental issue, “Is the faith of the church that Jesus established truly the same as the faith of the institutionalized church in history?”
To state the conclusion first, those who have taken the Nicene Creed and the Seven Sacraments as the basis of their faith are not the ones who have inherited the faith of Peter.
They are those who have abandoned the gospel that Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world by receiving baptism in the Jordan River—that is, the gospel of the water and the Spirit—and have come to stand on man-made religious doctrines and institutions.

         Examining this biblically, historically, and theologically, it is as follows.
First, the faith of Peter was the rock of faith that believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Peter confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). In this one phrase, the entire plan of God’s salvation is contained.
Jesus took upon His own body the sins of the world by receiving the baptism given by John in the Jordan River (Matthew 3:15–17), was crucified, shed His blood, and died (John 19:30), and through the resurrection, gave righteousness and new life to mankind (Romans 4:25).
Jesus established the true church right upon this confession of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Therefore, the foundation of the church is only “the gospel of the water and the Spirit,” and this was the gospel that Peter believed and the faith of the early church.

         However, in AD 325, the Nicene Creed, which was established at the Council of Nicaea held under the leadership of Emperor Constantine, completely eliminated the truth of Jesus’s baptism, which is the starting point of the gospel.
This creed was made for the purpose of defending the divinity of Jesus, but the word of baptism, the fundamental truth of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, was missing.
The Nicene Creed confesses, “He, by the Holy Spirit, took flesh from the Virgin Mary and became man, and was crucified for us…”
In other words, it omits the process of salvation that Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world by receiving baptism from John in the Jordan River.
Because of this, it indicated that ‘atonement was completed by the death on the cross alone,’ and as a result, they ended up becoming those who had damaged half of the gospel.
They are those who came to believe only the result that He was crucified and died on the cross, without knowing how Jesus bore the sins of the world.

         Afterward, the Catholic Church established the system of the “Seven Sacraments” (baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, matrimony, holy orders, and extreme unction) on the basis of the Nicene Creed.
This system changed the salvation that God completed once for all through Jesus’s baptism and blood into a structure where it must be maintained repeatedly through human acts and rituals.
The sacrament of Baptism was institutionalized as a ritual to wash away original sin, the sacrament of Penance as an act of having to confess sins each time, and the sacrament of the Eucharist as a ceremony that repeatedly re-enacts the sacrifice of Jesus.
However, the baptism of Jesus was the truth by which He transferred all the sins of mankind once for all, and the blood of the Cross revealed that He paid the price of mankind’s sins.
On the other hand, the system of the Seven Sacraments corrupted it into an unbiblical structure that seeks to maintain salvation through human acts and religious procedures.
As a result, the truth—completed through Jesus bearing the sins of the world with His baptism in the Jordan River and paying the price for those sins on the cross—was obscured.

         As a result, the gospel of Peter and the faith centered on the Nicene Creed began to walk fundamentally different paths.
The gospel of Peter taught that the sins of the world were transferred at the baptism of Jesus and that perfect atonement was accomplished through the blood of the Cross.
However, the faith centered on the Nicene Creed omitted the Word of the truth of baptism and explained atonement only through the death on the Cross.

         Peter’s faith was based on the Word of Scripture and the revelation of the Holy Spirit, but the faith of the Nicene Creed followed the authority of creeds and papal doctrines.
The church of Peter was built upon the gospel—that is, upon the water and the Spirit—but the church after Nicaea was built upon institutions and traditions.
In the end, the Nicene Creed and the system of the Seven Sacraments damaged the truth that the sins of the world were transferred through the baptism of Jesus.
However, God in this present age is once again establishing the church of God upon the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
The gospel of the water and the Spirit, which had been hidden within doctrines since Nicaea, is now being restored through the Word of the Bible.

         Jesus said to Nicodemus,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
This word teaches the core of the gospel—that one must be born again by believing in the baptism of Jesus (the water) and the work of the Holy Spirit (the blood and the resurrection).
This is precisely the faith that Peter confessed and the very rock upon which Jesus said, “On this rock I will build My church.”

         In conclusion, those who have built their faith upon the Nicene Creed and the Seven Sacraments are not the ones who have succeeded Peter’s faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
They are the ones who abandoned the baptism that Jesus received from John—the beginning of the gospel—and tried to replace salvation with human systems and rituals.
On the other hand, those who have succeeded Peter’s faith are the ones who believe in the gospel word of the water and the Spirit, in which Jesus bore the sins of the world through His baptism in the Jordan River, atoned for those sins once for all by shedding His blood on the Cross, and gave new life through His resurrection.

Does a church built upon the faith that inherited the gospel which Peter believed still exist in the 21st century today?

         Yes, even in the 21st century, there are those who believe in the same gospel that Peter believed—the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which was accomplished through the baptism of Jesus, the blood of the Cross, and the resurrection—and there truly exists a church built upon that faith.
However, these churches are not organizations established by systems or traditions like most religious churches of the world, but they exist as true communities of faith built upon the gospel that Jesus bore the sins of the world at the Jordan River and atoned for those sins on the Cross.

         Above all, the standard of the church that Jesus established is not ‘organization,’ but the ‘gospel.’
Jesus said, “On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
Here, ‘this rock’ does not refer to Peter himself, but to the faith of the gospel that he confessed.
The confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), is the very foundation of the church.
Therefore, the true standard of the church does not depend on its size, system, or tradition, but on whether it stands upon the gospel that believes in the baptism Jesus received from John.
The place that believes that Jesus was baptized by John at the Jordan River to bear the sins of the world, shed His blood on the Cross, and saved those who believe by His resurrection from the dead—this is indeed the church that has inherited Peter’s faith in this present age.

         Looking back at history, the gospel of believing in Jesus’ baptism and the cross together was gradually erased after the Apostolic Age by those who created the Nicene Creed.
However, in every age, God has raised up people who came to realize the Word of the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
In the apostolic age, Peter, John, and Paul preached the gospel of water and the Spirit, and even in the dark ages of the Middle Ages, the light of truth was not completely extinguished. 
In the era of the Reformation, a movement to return to the Bible arose, but the meaning of Jesus’ baptism was still hidden.
However, after the 20th century, in the midst of deeply studying the words of the Bible, those who came to understand again the essence of the gospel—that “Jesus’ baptism was the very ministry of transferring sin”—began to emerge.
This was not an orthodox denominational movement made by man, but the mercy of God, who revealed again the truth of the gospel of the water and the Spirit at the end of the age in the 21st century.

         Even today in the 21st century, the true church of God still exists.
There are numerous churches in the world, but most of them, without knowing the meaning of Jesus’ baptism, emphasize only “the blood of the cross.”
However, a church that believes the gospel exactly as it is in the Bible—that is, the truth that “Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world by being baptized by John, atoned for all those sins at once by being crucified, shedding blood, and dying on the cross, and gave us new life through His resurrection”—clearly exists.
They call themselves “the church of those born again by the gospel of the water and the Spirit,” and are upholding a Bible-centered faith and a gospel-centered life.
Their faith, rather than on external institutions or traditions, focuses on the salvation that is received by the faith which believes in the truth of salvation—accomplished by the blood He shed on the cross after the sins of the world were transferred to Him through the baptism He received from John.

         In the 21st century, those who have inherited the faith of Peter have the following common confession of faith.
Jesus’ baptism is the ministry in which the sins of the world were transferred to Him (Matthew 3:15–17, John 1:29), and the death on the cross is the ministry that paid the price for those sins at once (Hebrews 9:12, 1 Peter 3:18).
And the resurrection is the ministry that confirmed eternal life for those who have received the remission of sins (Romans 4:25), and the Holy Spirit dwells within the hearts of those who believe this gospel (Acts 2:38, John 3:5).
This faith is the very substance of the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Peter confessed, and the church that believes the gospel exactly as it is is what still exists today as the “Church of God.”
The promise Jesus made, saying, “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” does not simply mean the survival of an organization.
It is God’s covenant that the true gospel, that is, the gospel of the water and the Spirit, will be preached until the end of the world.
Therefore, even in the 21st century, those who believe this gospel exist, and their gathering is the very church that has inherited the faith of Peter, the church that Jesus Himself established.

         In conclusion, the church that has inherited the faith of Peter clearly exists even in the 21st century.
They are those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, completed by Jesus’ baptism, the blood of the cross, and the resurrection, and it is a church established by faith in the righteousness of God, not by human doctrines or traditions.
This church may not be large by the world’s standards, but within it, the true gospel of salvation and the work of the Holy Spirit are alive.

         To summarize, the confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” is the very confession of faith of the 21st-century church.
Jesus took charge of the sins of the world by being baptized, atoned for those sins on the cross, and made us righteous through His resurrection. The gathering of those who believe this gospel—that is the very true church built upon the faith of Peter that still exists today.
By faith, I give thanks that God has established His church on this earth. Hallelujah!
I hope that you too will meet the Church of God, discover the gospel of the water and the Spirit, be born again by faith, and obtain eternal life. Amen.

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