The period upon the consideration of which we have now entered was a time of spiritual ups and downs for the Apostle Peter. He seems to have been too easily elated, though as easily abased. He now began to feel his importance, and was doubtless somewhat exalted in spirit by our Lord's emphatic commendation of him in the presence of the Twelve. He had declared Jesus to be the Christ, but a Christ who learned obedience through sufferings was as yet unthinkable to him. This crude perception is the explanation of the mistake into which he immediately fell. No sooner had Jesus elicited the declaration that He Himself was the Christ than, after charging the disciples to say nothing to any man in regard to it, He began to teach them the true nature of Messiahship. In their several accounts of what follows the Synoptists differ a little. Matthew (xvii. 21) implies that some time may have elapsed ere Jesus began to systematically instruct His disciples concerning His vocation and death. Luke (ix. 22) states that He continued at once in the same interview to prepare them for His coming humiliation, shame, and death. Luke--who, as Dr. Bruce remarks always spares the Twelve--says nothing about any further interference of Peter in the conversation. It is to Mark that we must turn this time for the clearest account of what took place. Peter, at any rate, never spares himself in his narrations. In chapter viii. 31, Mark tells us that after Peter's avowal, "Thou art the Christ," Jesus began to teach them that "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." It is noteworthy that in this Gospel Peter says not a word about the extraordinary blessing and promise bestowed upon himself in consequence of his acknowledgment of the Messiahship of Jesus. He does, however, faithfully and humbly tell us of the severe rebuff he received for his presumption. He was very sorry to hear Jesus predict His own sufferings and death. Such a fate did not at all accord with Peter's idea of the destiny of the Christ. He could not understand it, and we may suppose he loved Jesus too much to be willing that He should suffer anything at all, either of humiliation, rejection or failure. He was not prepared, either, to believe that his own new primacy over the Apostles was to result in nothing better than tragedy and defeat. He clung, as we shall observe, for a long time to the notion of worldly honour and advancement. Such rewards he conceived to be in the natural order of things; they were the result of his preconception of the functions of the Christ of God.