The Precious Corner-Stone
“To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe He is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the comer, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the Word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people: that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” — i Peter ii. 4-10.
ETER, “surnamed Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone,” has much to say about his Master as the stone; and weaves together into a beautiful mosaic c/ifl, the many allusions which convey this aspect of his /vV character and work, sparkling as jewels on the page lj of Scripture.
In the hieroglyphed chamber in Egypt, where Jacob lay a-dying, his mind reverted to the massive stones which were strewn over his native land, and which on one occasion had figured so strangely in his dreams; and he spake of the coming Shepherd as being the “Stone of Israel.” Moses in his swan-song, when bidding the people ascribe greatness to God, alleged as the reason, “He is the Rock.” And David, in the last of his Psalms, opened his exquisite delineation of the true King by saying, “The Rock of Israel spake to me.”
New interest was given to the same thought by an incident which is said to have occurred in the building of Solomon’s Temple. The stones were shaped at a distance from the sacred site, that no sound of chisel or stone-saw might be heard during the building of that house for God. As the palm of the desert, or the oak of the forest, grows noiselessly into perfect maturity and beauty, so did that noble pile crown the summit of Zion. But on one occasion a stone was brought up by the straining oxen, which refused to fit into any of the rising walls. And, after repeated attempts to dispose of it, it was placed by itself in a retired spot, and was soon forgotten, perhaps even covered by a luxuriant growth of weeds. At last, as the building neared completion, it was discovered that a stone of special form would be required to knit two walls, and fill a particular corner. The need suggested the forgotten and rejected bit of masonry, which was lying still where it had been discarded. “The stone which the builders refused became the head-stone of the corner.” This incident is said to have suggested that reference of the venerable Psalm, which is quoted by the Lord as applying to Himself, and is referred to in at least two other places in the New Testament besides this (Psa. cxviii. 22; Matt. xxi. 42; Mark xii. 10; Luke xx. 17; Acts iv. ii; Eph. ii. 20).
In a slightly different form, the same thought re-appears in Isaiah. The men of his time were full of the project of a foreign alliance as the best means of bolstering up the kingdom, just then in dire peril of dissolution, through internal dissension and threatening invasion. God, by the mouth of his prophet, compared the attempt, and the peace it gave, to making a covenant with death, and a hiding-place of lies, and foretold the breaking of a storm, in which none of these devices should avail to shield their inventors. And then, in answer to the dread with which his own people foreboded the fury of that hail, and the overflowing of those waters, He said that He would lay in Zion, for a foundation, “a stone — a tried stone — a precious corner stone, a sure foundation “; and that He who believed should not make haste.
Daniel adds one further link to the chain of holy thought, when he likens the kingdom of God to the quarrjnng of a mighty stone in some lone mountain rent. Though no hands are engaged upon it, it assumes shape, disintegrates itself from its rocky home, and begins to roll down the mountain side crushing everything obstructing its path. If that stone is for a moment still, and a man falls over it, he is broken and maimed. It is “a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.” If, on the other hand, it falls on some passer-by it grinds him to powder. In
many a highland valley, standing out amid the green grass, on which the sheep peacefully browse in summer, there are mighty masses of rock which have leapt from the face of the overhanging cliffs. Woe to any man who had been standing beneath at the moment of their fall! Battered — demolished — ground to powder. These are solemn words. But they are adapted from the prophecies of Daniel by the Master hims’elf (Dan. ii. 34; Matt. xxi. 44).
I. Let us try to Understand the Conception of THE Paragraph. — It is full of changing metaphor; image piled on image; thought sliding into thought, and rising in noble sequence to a pitch of sublime magnificence. On a massive bed of Rock, there lies a Stone, which is fitted to be a bond of union, joining lines of building, which had run in opposite directions, making “both one.” It is not only a stone, it is a cortier sto7ie (Eph. ii. 20).
Behold that stone! God looks on it with his sevenfold omniscience; and his hands have engraved on it rare symbols of mystery and beauty, such as no skilled human hand could design (Zech. iii. 9). The carved lily work of Jachin and Boaz even could not vie with that heavenly workmanship. How manifestly is this stone both elect ?iX^ precious. Jesus was elect before all worlds, as the organ of creation, the channel of redemption, the head of the new race, the foundation-stone of the Church. And as to his dignity and worth, He is beyond all price, the pearl of inestimable value, the Koh-i-noor of heaven, the fairest among ten thousand, the altogether lovely, the jewel of God’s heart.
Next: there might be imagined an altercation among the builders. Though the stone lies there ready to their hand, they deliberately reject God’s prepared foundation. Some are inclined to admire the carving, or to praise the situation selected for it. But more criticise it, or deride it, or account it as only suitable to carry part of their scaffolding. And so after some discussion, the builders, wise in their own judgment, pass away. “Disallowed indeed of men “! And then, without foundations, they begin an erection, which is built on a seam of sand, and is destined to stand as an unfinished monument of their folly.
But God’s purpose cannot be foiled. If men will not build on his foundation, yet there shall still stand on it a structure to
spiritual ‘^onzt, 8i
his eternal praise. Here is a marvel indeed! For, lo! the stone h’ves. “A living stone.” “It is full of eyes.” Nay, more, it is attractive as magnetized iron: it draws to itself other stones, dead, heavy, hard, which are lying all around; and as one after another they slowly approach it, they also begin to live. “To whom coming, a living stone, ye also, as living stones.” But even here the marvel does not stay. As in the prophet’s vision, bone after bone disentangled itself from the heaps of the slain, and built itself up into the order and symmetry of the human frame, so here stone follows stone, as if gathered by unseen hands, and together they build up a house, the fabric of which is not material, but spiritual; because, as the stones have passed into life, they have dropped their grosser nature, and have become etherealized into a spirituality of essence, befitting the constituent parts of “a spiritual house.” God’s home is not in the high and lofty place of the heavens, nor in any house built by man, but in the structure composed of saved and saintly spirits, once gross, material, dead as stones, but now, by contact with Jesus Christ, made pure, holy, and, in the deepest sense, spiriiually-minded. “This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.”
But in such a temple there must be priests; and in this also the Divine purpose cannot fail. Those who were once but as the rubble of the hillside, are not only constituted part of a spiritual fabric, but by a rapid change in the thought, they are represented as performing priestly functions, an Jioly priesthood, clad in the appointed garments for holiness and beauty. And since a priesthood must have somewhat to offer, and these occupants of the true temple cannot appear before the altar or tread the inner shrine, with empty hands, there are sac7-ijices prepaj-ed: yet (and the thought changes once more) these sacrifices are not material any more than they need to be propitiatory, since the one all-sufficient sacrifice for sin has been offered once for all; but they are spiritual, and consist in the consecrated lives and jubilant praises of those who have been raised from the dust to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God, by Jesus Christ.
Nor is that all: those who are thus associated with Christ are identified with Him in the esteem and love of God. In the one verse, we are told that our Lord is precious in the esteem of the Father — his beloved; his darling; his only one. But in the original Greek of a following verse, correctly rendered in the R.V., this preciousness is assigned to us; for you therefore which believe is the preciousness. Not only is Jesus precious to us, as our beloved and our friend, but his worth and beauty in the mind of God are passed on to us who believe; so that our dull common natures flash in the excellence of his loveliness. Yes, and we are changed into his likeness from glory to glory. Thus the fishermen of Galilee are discovered in the lowest tier of the foundations of the New Jerusalem, as precious stones. And what is true of them is in a measure true of us all. Iron touches magnetized iron and becomes magnetic. Stones touch the Stone and become jewels. Thus God manufactures his stores of precious stones, the facets of which, cut here in pain, shall flash for ever in the light of his own glory yonder,
And now, ere we turn away, let us look once more at the disobedient and disbelieving builders. Some of them have stumbled over the Divine preparation, and are hopelessly maimed; others wander out on to the dark mountains, where they will meet with many a disaster, falling down precipices, or being otherwise overtaken with death. And their proud building shall stand as a second Babel, for the laughter of the world. They are “confounded” indeed: a fate which is impossible for those who build on God’s elect foundation. Alas that men should abuse the very means which God had prepared for their salvation and blessedness!
II. The Personal Application. Ye arc an elect race (r.v.). — There are elect races in the world, standing in the sunlit circle of civilization, not for themselves only, but for others. The larger the privilege, the greater the responsibility. This is the Divine method of government through the selection of nations or races, which are specially gifted and endowed, that they may be better qualified to help and save their fellows. And the position of the Israelite nation, to whom pertained “the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants,” was expressly entrusted to them, that through them God might bless all the “|l I0I5 Ration.” 83
nations of the earth. But during the present period of rejection the Christian Church has been summoned to this glorious work of becoming the channel for the Divine blessing to mankind.
A royal priesthood. — These two offices were jealously kept apart in Israel, and when Uzziah attempted to combine them he was driven from the Temple with the brand of leprosy on his brow. But in Christ they blend. “He is a priest upon his throne” (Zech. vi. 13). And aJl his followers are constituted kings and priests (Rev. i. 6). As priests we worship in near proximity to God; as kings we rule over men with a rule born of love, which blesses and saves.
An holy nallon. — This expression, like the former, comes from the ancient covenant into which God entered with Israel at Sinai (Exod. xix. 6). Israel failed in keeping it, and, as a nation, they have been temporarily cast aside; but the individuals, whether Jews or Greeks, who have accepted Christ, constitute in their hosts another nation, which, as an innumerable multitude, lives throughout the world, obeying a higher morality, citizens of the city which can never pass away.
A people for God’s own possession. — Love yearns for proprietorship; nor can the heart of God be satisfied unless it can speak of some as its own. Oh, happy they who have obeyed his summons, and have made a complete surrender of themselves to Him! He has already taken them for his own possession. Enclosed as a garden; tilled as a field; inhabited as a home; guarded, kept, used, loved, with an emphasis none others know. Nor is there anything in God Himself which is not at the disposal of those who hold nothing back from Him.
How can we repay Him for all that He has done for us — when we compare what we are, with what we were.’* Once in darkness, now in marvellous light. Once not included among the people of God, now accounted as part of them. Once without hope of mercy, now the happy recipients of untold mercy. What shall we say? Is it not our duty to praise Him, not only with our lips, but in our lives, casting our crowns at his feet, and bearing our part in the song of adoration, which from all creation breaks around his throne. Let us show forth his praise!