Jesus cannot be properly known apart from the saving work of God in the Passion (suffering, crucifixion, death, resurrection). Why is this important? Does anyone actually assume to know Jesus while simultaneously ignoring the passion? I believe this is much more common than you'd think; I believe it is not only the easy thing to do, it is the "default" view of Jesus.
In Matthew 16:13-23 the main point is that Jesus "began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day." This point is common to the synoptics. We may read this and *yawn* because everyone knows this, silly.
Yet Peter became Satan over this. Some early versions of Christianity tried hard to explain this away. The Epistle of Barnabas denies the whole scenario for Islam's sake. People have claimed Jesus' goodness, virtue, and divinity while jettisoning the miraculous from the NT texts. Many great & good call Jesus the good man who said great things we all should follow. Even Sam Harris points to the Jesus "as revealed in the Sermon on the Mount" and urges all to follow him.
But Jesus is clear in Matthew 16:21, and He understood this was God's agenda (23) that would not be popular for his disciples. So we may agree with Peterson on the point, "Jesus is not a god of our own making and He is certainly not a god designed to win popularity contests."
Do we embrace Jesus' suffering, crucifixion, death, and resurrection as the saving work of God? Or do we agree with Peter who said, "God forbid it"? May we pause, consider, and believe that Jesus' life was as he said, that his sacrificial work was the work of God, and so realize that to truly know Jesus we must know his sufferings on behalf of the world. And that is the beginning.
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