1 Peter 2:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Peter 2:4

Comments

This doesn’t refer to our coming for conversion. The context here is that we as believers are coming to pray to him, to worship him, ‘as unto a living stone.’ First of all, Christ is the chief cornerstone, the rock of our salvation. He went to Calvary and he suffered and died to bear the punishment of our sin on our behalf, and he offered up his perfect righteousness to deserve heaven for us, and that makes him the foundation of salvation for all who come to him. It is only because of what he has done in laying that foundation and securing salvation for us, that we can come to the Father and be saved. We come to him as the chief foundation stone, which determines the shape, the direction, and the stability of the building. But he is also a living stone. He is the risen Lord. He went to Calvary. he was buried and he rose from the dead. Death could not hold him because he was not only man, able to suffer as we deserve to suffer, to take the punishment of our sin, but he was God also and death could not contain him.‘Disallowed’ – which means from the original, rejected; even more strongly, repudiated – ‘indeed of men.’ The chief priests and the scribes and the rabbis, but not only them – we also in our time – ‘disallowed him’, rejected him. The term means, ‘repudiated him’. We said, ‘He is no Saviour’, and so we rejected him. The Jewish leaders disallowed him because he was not the earthly Saviour they wanted. He came for souls; he came to bring forgiveness and spiritual life. They rejected him, because he rejected them. He stood for holiness of life and purity before God. They knew that if he were to triumph, they had come to an end of their tenure. They were finished, because they were hypocrites, false teachers. But ‘chosen of God’. You could make the word a noun: made the elect of God. This is not about a choice between two options, but he was the supreme one, elect of God and precious. We think of these things in some shape or form whenever we come to pray formally and properly before God. We revere him; we admire him afresh; we love him: full of value and worth and treasure of every possible kind – that's our Saviour and our Lord.

Application

What a contradiction in those words! A stone is an inert thing, a dead thing, a motionless thing. But this is living stone. It pulsates with life. Think of the great foundation stones of the temple. Some of them were over thirty feet long: huge slabs of marble. They were carefully chiselled and worked off-site before they were dragged on rollers into position. They were perfect in shape and symmetry, valuable and precious. Christ is our foundation stone: his suffering and death on Calvary, his life of perfect obedience, secured heaven for all his people. The person and work of Christ is the foundation of the salvation for ever and for ever of every one of his blood-bought people.

What is in our minds as we come to him? Perhaps we come in prayer with thankfulness for all that God has done for us. That has its place, but we should not begin with ourselves. The council here is: ‘To whom coming as unto a living stone.’ This is objective. We are looking at him; we’re extolling him, worshipping him. Apart from emergency prayer, you have the Lord of glory in mind and Christ in particular.

We advance in the Christian life as individuals, but it is the will of God, that we should chiefly advance together, as a fellowship of his people, that we should grow along with others and we should worship and serve him with others. The wilfully, lonely Christian (although there is mighty grace for any Christian isolated due to the circumstances of life) cannot fully please the Lord, because God sets us in families, in churches.

What a contrast. ‘Rejected indeed of men,’ – not just the Jews, all men – ‘but chosen by God.’ Well, of course, the Father chooses divinity; he chooses Christ his Son! He observes what he has done. He pours out the punishment of sin upon him on Calvary’s cross. He sees him suffering and dying for his people in infinite love. The Father sees it all and he chooses the work of Christ, whereas man chooses what? The here and now, fallen man, the creature! The Father chooses the Creator; man chooses the creature. ‘Don’t give me Christ; give me fellow human beings, give me man and the things we can do.’ What a difference. The Father chooses perfection, because Jesus Christ, equal with the Father, entered into human flesh, lived a perfect life, with not the slightest shadow or taint of sin, to earn salvation for us. The Father chooses the one who is holy; man chooses the sinful, the fallen, and the disobedient. The Father chooses kindness, the amazing kindness of Christ and his mission; man chooses ongoing cruelty and oppression. The Father chooses this wonderful purchase that Christ made to purchase a people for all eternity; man chooses theft, in stealing his life from God. God chooses life for the people through Christ, but man chooses short, uncertain, earthly life, terminated by death and then eternal punishment. Of course, he does not believe that the latter is going to happen to him.

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1 Peter 2:4 Commentary and Bible Study