“Get behind me, Satan,”
said the Lord Jesus to an entirely earnest Peter.
It sounds a little unkind, but Peter was in need of serious correction. In that moment he was
thinking naturally rather than spiritually: all his standard
defaults had kicked in. In the realm of ordinary human logic, death and
suffering are things to be avoided under virtually every circumstance.
Peter could not conceive of any higher good
such things might make possible.