Matthew 16:20

‘Then he charged the disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Christ.'

Having declared His Messianic purpose Jesus now urged on His disciples the need to not, as yet, proclaim Him as the Messiah to the public. The reason for this was almost certainly because Israel's view of the Messiah was such that the people might gain the wrong idea and seek to raise men to arms in support of His cause, while the Roman authorities would gather from the claim that He was an insurgent. So it would not only bring down on Him the wrath of Rome, but was also misrepresent the purpose for which He had come. He had come to save and to bless, not to destroy.

It was not that Jesus was not ‘the Anointed One' (Messiah), for He constantly made clear in one way or another that He was. It was because the expression ‘Messiah' gave to the people the wrong impression of Him because of men's misconceptions. It had become a misrepresentation of the truth that it was intended to proclaim, and we must always be ready to drop terms that have begun to give misconceptions. However, once it had been reinterpreted after the resurrection, it would become a central plank in the Gospel. Jesus could then openly be proclaimed as ‘the Christ'.