“ ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone;’ This was the Lord’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.” (Psalm 118:22-23. NKJV). “Jesus answered and said to them ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Then the Jews said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?’ But He was speaking of the temple of His body.” (John 2:19-20. NKJV). “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (I Peter 2:4-5. NKJV).
A new order of spiritual house was badly needed. The old system of the law, and the many interpretations the Jews had placed upon it, was cumbersome, indeed. The sacrificial system, likewise, was flawed in both interpretation and execution. Christ came with new revelation, new life, the makings of a new spiritual house. And He Himself was designated by God Almighty as the chief cornerstone in the new spiritual building.
What are the characteristics of a cornerstone? In a building it is the stone laid at the corner to bind two walls together and strengthen them. Applied spiritually, the Messiah is the only sure foundation of faith. Unfortunately, He came to His own, the Jews, and they rejected the Cornerstone. The idea of Christ as Cornerstone should not be too hard for us to grasp. He, the Cornerstone, was chosen by God for the work of bringing the old wall of the law into the new wall of grace and tying them together. And the subsequent spiritual building is made up, as Peter so aptly stated, of “living stones”—of which you and I are ones if our faith is securely set on Jesus Christ as Cornerstone and Savior. Isaiah centuries before the coming of Christ prophesied that the chief cornerstone would be rejected: “He will be as a sanctuary. But a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble; They shall fall and be broken, Be snared and taken” (Isaiah 8:14). Jesus said that He did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it—to make it more meaningful in our lives. And, set as the Cornerstone of the new Spiritual House in which we find refuge, Christ invites us to enter the house by God’s grace. Once we are safely inside, we will want to obey the laws of God for our own good, righteous living, and as an example to others of the difference Christ makes in our lives. We thus become “living stones” ourselves and tied to the Cornerstone! Praise be to God!
c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Wednesday, December 8, 2010
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