1 Peter 2:4-8 Living Stone(s)
Good morning! I don’t know about you but I really enjoy Peter’s use of metaphors in his letter. I especially like the metaphor he uses in our text this morning of house building and construction materials. I am built to build so this really resonates with me.
We are going to look at 1 Peter 2:4-8 this morning, page 1014 in the pew Bibles, and examine Biblical building materials, and also a Wile E. Coyote reference!
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
Let’s pray.
I’d like to begin with a short passage in Matthew to set the stage for our time this morning, Matthew 16:13-18.
13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Now there are two reasons for bringing up this particular passage involving Jesus and Peter. My hope is to alleviate the confusion caused by the Catholic church about the Pope, and to point out some Biblical church construction methods.
Firstly, the Catholic church has taught, based on this passage in Matthew that the rock upon which Jesus said that He would build His church is Peter himself, making Peter the first Pope. This is completely wrong.
The rock upon which Jesus promised to build His church is not Peter, but rather the confession found in verse 16, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
The confession of Jesus Christ as Lord is the bedrock, “petra”, that Jesus promised to build His church upon. Meaning, that you cannot be part of Christ’s church without believing in Jesus, there is no other entrance into His divine building.
I also bring up this passage because I think that this must have been Peter’s favorite metaphor, I mean, why wouldn’t it be?! He wasn’t the first to use it as we can clearly see from the passage itself, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt his feelings at all to use it.
So let’s get back to our passage in 1 Peter.
Peter begins with the phrase, “As you come to Him…”
To be clear, Peter’s meaning here is not the first time we come to Christ, not when we first come to faith in Him, but rather, as we continually come to Him, as we draw near to Him day by day in prayer and fellowship with Him. The verb is present tense, it is continual.
Under the Old Covenant, the priests were the ones who came near to God.
The German theologian Weisinger wrote, “Under the Old Covenant, Yaweh had His house and priests who served Him in His house. The church fulfills both purposes under the New [Covenant], being both His house and His holy priesthood.”
Peter continues with this picture of a holy priesthood of believers later in this chapter as well and we’ll work on it a little more when we get there, but for now we can simply state that believers in Jesus Christ are chosen and consecrated by God, cleansed by the blood of Christ, and anointed by the Holy Spirit to offer spiritual sacrifices for themselves.
Paul echoed this picture in Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [genuine] worship.”
So, as you come to Him, as New Covenant Priests, to the Living Stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious…
Jesus Christ was rejected by mankind, He came to His own people, and His own people knew Him not, and we’ll deal with that a little later.
Peter calls Jesus a “Living Stone.” The word for stone is not the same word for “rock,” that Peter was named after. “Petra,” is bedrock, “lithos,” means a natural or shaped stone.
Peter quotes Isaiah 28:16 when he says, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Jesus is the Living Cornerstone, as a stone he is firm not hard or harsh, absolutely reliable and true, setting the lines of plumb, level, and square for His building, the church, but He is also living, he is alive and makes alive other living stones for His magnificent spiritual house.
Because he is God’s chosen and precious Cornerstone, as living stones ourselves, connected to Him by faith, and built into His spiritual house, we can be assured an eternal state of grace and salvation.
I have had the great privilege of visiting the Western Wall of the temple Mount in Jerusalem when I was at BICS. The walls of the Temple Mount make up the ground that the Temple was built on where the Dome of the Rock stands today. The stones of that wall are huge limestone blocks that are so tightly fitted together you can barely squeeze a piece of paper into the cracks, which people do, tightly rolled up prayers jammed between the stones.
These massive stones needed to be quarried and shaped so that they could be fitted together perfectly, and so do we as living stones, we are joined together in love by the grace of God the Father. Those massive stones rely on one another to support each other in their grand structure and none of them makes the Temple alone, the need each other. Christ’s church is no different.
The church is God’s spiritual house, built by Jesus on the good confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, based on Jesus as the Cornerstone, chosen and precious, to set the lines and the boundaries of the building to which He is continually adding more and more living stones, more and more disciples of Jesus Christ.
But there are two functions of Jesus Christ the Living Stone. The first is to function as the life giving Cornerstone of the Church but the second is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.
Those who believe in Him will never be put to shame, literally meaning, that we will never have to run away like cowards that have thrown down their arms and fled the battle. We have a strong and sure Defender.
6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
Listen to Jesus’ words on this same Old Testament Scripture from Matthew 21:42-44:
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
It’s this last statement that is so troubling, or at least it should be. This is Jesus’ word on the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense.
Stumbling stone is a fairly straightforward interpretation but the “rock of offense” is a little more difficult.
This is the Wile E. Coyote reference. A “rock of offense,” is more literally translated as a trap where a rock is propped up by a stick in order to trap an animal and all I can see in my mind is Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner.
This is why Jesus said, “the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
This rock of offense, doesn’t mean that those who reject Jesus will be offended, it means that they will be crushed. Ruin and misery await those who reject Jesus, as Peter says, they disobey the word, the gospel, and stumble as those who reject Jesus Christ as Lord are destined to do.
All those who reject Jesus Christ as their Savior will one day face Him as their Judge.
I pray that’s not you, and if you have rejected God’s free offer of forgiveness through faith in Jesus up to this point you don’t have to stay that way.
You can still come to Him and ask for forgiveness, turn from your sin and trust Him with your life and He will make you a living stone and add you to His spiritual house, the church!
And for those of us who belong to Christ:
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
Amen.
