1 Peter 2:4-8
- Rev Norman Cameron

 

INTRODUCTION

Peter in his letter has been keen to establish two things – firstly the centrality of Jesus Christ in our lives and secondly that he is worth following. The hope Christ brings is a real and living hope and we need to build our lives upon him. And it is that idea of building on a good foundation that Peter develops here in this next passage where he uses the illustration of The Temple and the stones in the building to encourage his readers to keep going.

            In this passage we have different kinds of stones mentioned and I want to use these stones as the framework for what I want to say today.  There are four types of stone mentioned:- the living Stone, the cornerstone, living stones and a stumbling stone.

            We will see that three of these types of stone refer to Jesus – he is the Living Stone, the cornerstone and the stumbling stone, and the living stones (plural) applies to the church, the people of God who have trusted in Christ as the living stone. This is a marvellous passage dealing with the theology of the church - the nature of the church and the importance of the church. Many Christians today have a faulty understanding of the church in two ways – 1) a very weak appreciation of the importance of the church and how we as individuals relate to the wider body of believers   2) another problem is that when Christians think of the church they can view it more in Old Testament terms rather than in New testament terms. There is confusion about things like sacrifices, the temple, the priesthood and how we relate to OT Israel today. Peter helps to clear this up – God has moved on in his understanding of his church but many people remain firmly rooted in the Old Testament or stuck somewhere between Old and New and are confused. So let us look first of all at the different types of stone mentioned.  

1. The Living Stone (v.4)

“As you come to him the living Stone…”  Peter describes Jesus as a  living stone. This is an interesting idea because stones are normally cold, hard and lifeless. The idea of God as being like a rock is found throughout the Bible. The idea the Bible wants to communicate is that a large rock is secure, strong, immoveable. God is like a rock, he is safe and sure. In Deuteronomy 32:3-4 Moses sings “I will proclaim the name of the Lord, Oh praise the greatness of our God, He is the Rock, his works are perfect and all his ways are just.”

            Or in the New Testament in 1 Cor.10:3-4 Paul refers to the children of Israel going through the desert being sustained by God, even by providing water from a rock. Paul says “They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.”    Although they did not know it God and his Son Jesus was with his people spiritually providing spiritual refreshment and nourishment. God is a rock, Christ is a rock and this is the idea which Peter develops and says Jesus is a living stone. He also knows scriptures like Isaiah 28:16 “See I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation…”  

            Jesus is a sure foundation and he is a living breathing foundation. He is not an inanimate object he has the qualities of a steady rock but he is a person. Not only is he alive eternally but he gives life to those who trust in him. Peter says “As you come to him the living stone…”   Coming to Christ involves us dying to selfish ways and asking God to save us, but as we do that we find that the life of Christ flows into us and this quality of being alive fully and eternally becomes our quality, but we will come back to this.  Jesus is the living stone.

2. A cornerstone (v.4,6,7)

Peter uses another idea in the Old Testament called the cornerstone – he is especially thinking of the building of the Temple. The cornerstone of a building was vital because it set the direction of the whole building and it held it together. Take away the cornerstone and the building would collapse. John Macarthur says “the chief cornerstone describes the stone that sets all the proper angles for the building. It is like the building’s plumb line in that it sets the horizontal and vertical lines of the rest of the building; it also establishes the perfect symmetry of the entire edifice. To ensure the perfect precision of God’s spiritual house, the main cornerstone had to be flawless.”

            In the building of the physical temple the cornerstone was vitally important. The architect would have ensured that the best quality stone was used for that stone and it had to be flawless. Now the building of the temple was important but God was and is building a greater temple to his glory and that is the temple of his church. The church needs a flawless, perfect foundation stone and that is God’s own Son, Jesus Christ. God is now more interested in spiritual temples and the church, the congregation is now his temple. He is doing a new thing, he has chosen a new cornerstone upon which he is building his church, it is a chosen and precious cornerstone which Isaiah prophesied about 600 years before he walked on this earth. “See I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” An alternative reading of that phrase is “the one who trusts in him will never be disappointed”. Those of us who have trusted in Jesus have I hope not found him to be a disappointment. As His Spirit has come into us we have found that he has brought assurance of sins forgiven, he has brought us hope and peace, he has brought us meaning and significance in our lives, and he has satisfied us where other things in this world have not satisfied us.

When we build our lives on this cornerstone we will not be disappointed. Peter says in v.7 “To you who believe, this stone is precious”. God sees this stone as precious in his purposes and when our eyes are opened and we see Jesus for who he is then we too see him as precious. Jesus is the living stone, he is the precious cornerstone of God’s purposes in calling a people out of the world to himself.

3. We who believe are living stones (v.5)

“As you come to him the living stone you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house…” When we give our lives to following Jesus Christ he wants to make us as he is. He is a living stone therefore he wants us to have the same qualities as living stones. He is a house builder but the house he is building is a church of people, he builds with bodies not bricks.

            Now God is a master builder, and you would need to be a master builder for the bricks, the people he chooses, are awkward shapes and sizes. We are far from perfect, we are sinners. Jesus may well be the flawless cornerstone, but we are not good building material yet he still chooses to use us. His Spirit comes into us and he shapes us, and he knocks off rough edges, and he cements us in place in a local church and sometimes we don’t fit very well and he has to do some more work on us, but he does not throw us away. The church is one vast building site but he has a place for everyone and he is working to a master plan. Living stones have a lot more potential than dead stones but they are more troublesome. God is building a spiritual house and we thank God for his grace because he has some dodgy material to work with.

            In Ephesians 2:19f. Paul also uses this analogy where he says “you are now fellow citizens with God’s people and member’s of Gods’ household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit”.

            Now if we are to apply this truth to ourselves we can see some obvious applications regarding church life.

- to be part of God’s temple, God’s house, God’s building we need to be attached to Jesus Christ. Now this means more than simply attending church, or being born into a Christian denomination. There is value in that, it is good to be on the site where the builder is working, but to be used in the building we need to have a relationship with the cornerstone, we need to be attached to him.

-  when we do trust in Christ we automatically become part of his church. In western culture there is strong trend towards individualism and we see this in the breakdown of family and community life. Although we come as individuals to Christ we become part of a family, a body of believers and we have a responsibility and commitment to them. To extend the analogy of a building if you are a brick but you refuse to be used in the building then a gap appears and the building is weakened. Loose stones or bricks are not good.

As part of the church we have the potential to be used by God for his purposes. Each of us is unique and we bring different gifts to the body of Christ. Some people are sitting on their gifts, not finding them and using them and that means that the building is not as beautiful or as glorious as it could be. Don’t be a loose brick, but be willing to be placed by God into a place where you can bless others and be used to build the house.

Jesus is the Living stone, he is the cornerstone and as we become attached to him through faith then we taken on the qualities of living stones to be used to build the spiritual house.

4. The stumbling stone. (v.7,8)

“Now to those who believe this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe “the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone” and “a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall”.

Peter quotes two OT scriptures – Psalm 118:22 and Isaiah 8:14.

God the master architect and builder has designed the plans and as [part of that plan Israel and then His Son Jesus have a key role. God chose a small insignificant nation called Israel which began with Abraham and he said that this nation would be a light to the nations and they would lead people to God. The cornerstone of his plans was Israel, Jerusalem, Zion. Then in the NT he reveals the next stage of his plan. Everything about Israel, its temple, its laws, its sacrifices, its priesthood, its prophets and kings would be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He was to be the cornerstone of his new Israel, the church, and God wants everyone to see Christ as the cornerstone of his new plans.

It is as if the new cornerstone is on site but many people do not see this cornerstone for what it is. The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day did not even recognise this cornerstone that God had provided – they were tripping over it and saying who put that there. We need to dump that stone, it is getting in the way of the temple we are building. But they had forgotten the plans, they had not consulted the scriptures with an open mind for they would have seen that God was doing a new thing and he was building a new temple and a new Israel. The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, it would cap all that God was going to do.

            Today also this happens as people do not recognise that Jesus is the cornerstone of the master builder’s plans to give us life. In Peter’s day they crucified Jesus, today we simply ignore him. In the hustle and bustle of Christmas the most ironic thing of course is that people will spend more time in the shops than in worship of God, more time reading the TV schedules than reading the Bible, more time physically feeding rather than spiritually feeding.

It happens today – people reject God’s chosen one, people stumble over him and say get that out of the way it is stopping my progress. And God says “Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build…in vain you rise early and stay up late. (Ps.127).

Do you see Jesus as the living stone and as the cornerstone or is he a stumbling stone to you that you want to kick out of the way? Listen to the words of Jesus himself in Luke 20:17f  “What is the meaning of that which is written - The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed”.

We have a choice today – to make Christ a stumbling stone or a cornerstone to greater things. Are you destined to stumble or to stand, to be crushed or to be crowned? The stumbling stone may be rejected by us but one day it will crush us; but if we trust in that rock, then we will we will stand on it before God and he will bless us  - we will not be put to shame and we will not be disappointed in him.