LIVING STONES
[p. 330] LIVING STONES
The teaching of this chapter is undoubtedly founded on the Father’s revelation to Peter recorded in Matthew 16. The point of this epistle is the Church as the subject of God’s moral government down here, coming in between the sufferings of Christ and the glories which should follow. Hence the Christians to whom Peter wrote were a suffering people. They are, however, exhorted to recognize human institutions, rulers, kings, and other dignities as being ordained of God. (Chapter 2: 12 - 17.)
The portion which I read unfolds the spiritual privileges to which they were entitled. I say entitled, because they had hardly entered on them yet. But the epistle was written that they might do so. There is nothing as to which we are so slow as entering upon our spiritual privileges, and this cannot be brought about by any amount of lecturing. It requires much exercise and a measure of self-abnegation. When we fail as men down here, we lose everything of this world, and there is nothing left to us but the “calling of God”. Hence, if the calling of God is the only thing left, it is of all importance that we should enter into it not simply mentally, not as a creed, but to be built up in our privileges as well as to know them.
It is the object of Scripture to make known to us what we have by the work of God. No one can know what new birth is until he has it, what it is to be “born of God” until it is a fact; and no one knows what the new man is until he is formed in it. We need to be built up in order to apprehend our spiritual privileges. It is well to be intelligent about God’s work in us, but this work precedes our apprehension of privilege. When you are created in Christ, then you understand something about new creation.
Peter’s first epistle gives us the spiritual house subject to God’s moral government. But it is not my object to go into this thought. I want to make clear the spiritual privileges of the saints. In previous lectures I have been presenting the platform of resurrection, and this is a point of great moment. There can be but little progress until it is accepted. Christians who remain in the place of men in the flesh upon earth make no progress. God’s calling and new creation are outside it all. “All things are of God” (2 Corinthians 5: 17, 18). The same thing is true in regard to the new man, he belongs to another creation (Ephesians 4: 24): “which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness”. The old man belongs to this creation, but the new man belongs to new creation, and new creation brings you on to resurrection ground.
The points we have here are taken from Matthew 16; 2 Peter is connected with Matthew 17, for Peter there presses the certainty of the kingdom, and alludes in confirmation of it to the vision on the Mount of Transfiguration, saying that they “were eye-witnesses of his majesty”, etc. (See 2 Peter 1: 16, 18.) This confirms the kingdom. But 1 Peter is connected with Matthew 16, where we have the Father’s revelation to Peter as the result of Peter confessing Christ as the Son of the living God. The Lord then says to Peter, “Blessed art-thou, Simon Bar-jona”, and adds, “Thou art Peter, and up on this rock I will build my Church”. (See Matthew 16: 13 - 20.) Now this thought is in mind in the chapter before us. I know the word that Peter uses for stone differs from that used in Matthew 16, but the thought is, I judge, the same. Peter apprehended the import of the revelation when he wrote this epistle, though I do not think he did at the time he received it. This is shown by what follows (Matthew 16: 21 - 23), where we find Peter rebuking the Lord when He speaks of His sufferings, and the Lord has to say to him, “Get thee behind me, Satan”.
[p. 332] But I only allude to this in passing. The point is that 1 Peter 2 is connected with the Father’s revelation to Peter of Christ as the Son of the living God. That confession was the rock on which the Church was to be built, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. It is therefore most important.
Now Peter’s confession represents Christ as outside of everything here. It was not Christ after the flesh. I believe this to be the force of the word “living”. Everything here was under the power of death save Christ. The Lord was about to go into death, but He was outside of it as the Son of the living God. Hence the Lord tells Peter that the gates of hell should not prevail against what was built on the confession. So here Peter says, “To whom coming, a living stone ... yourselves also as living stones”. (verse 4.) It is a wonderful thing that there has been a Man here who entered into death and yet was the Son of the living God. The living God is not affected by death, and here was His Son who was, so to say, of another generation than of man. He was according to and of God, and hence outside of death and Satan’s power.
Early in the chapter (verse 2) the apostle recognises those He is addressing as babes who were to desire the sincere milk of the word that they might grow thereby up to salvation. You must add the last three words to the text; they ought to be there. The saints were to grow and to be built up. We do not get faith in this chapter as in chapter 1. We get here, first, “growth”, and then, second, “built up”, We all begin with faith, the pleasure of God is apprehended. Man is justified by faith, for it is the pleasure of God to justify man. The mind of God is unchanging, and faith enters into it. The same thing is true of saints being risen together with Christ. This is the pleasure of God, and it is apprehended by faith. The two thoughts are not similar. Justification clears one from every reproach connected with what I am in by nature, the world and the flesh [p. 333] for example. Risen with Christ means that God views me now on a new platform in association with Christ. This is His mind.
But in this chapter we first get growth. “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby”. In the first chapter the saints are viewed as called, redeemed, begotten again; but here we are to grow. The first thing here is the knowledge of the Lord, that He is gracious. I do not think people would confess Christ as Lord unless they had tasted His grace. All will confess Him Lord by and by when they cannot help it, but no one could do it now but in the sense of His grace.
The point is that you grow to the consciousness of salvation so that it is available to you down here.
I think consciousness may be illustrated by a child. A newly-born infant is not much conscious of anything, but as it grows it becomes conscious of all around. A newly-born child is not conscious of its mother’s love, but the child grows up into the consciousness of the affections in which it is placed. In the same way the Christian grows, so that, he becomes conscious of what he has believed. He has the justification of life.
The next verses (4, 5) bring Christ before us in a different character. “To whom coming, as unto a living stone”, etc. I want to dwell on this a little. I think “to whom coming” is a further step. It is a movement of the soul. You come to Him as the living stone, as the Son of the living God, as in Matthew 16. The soul apprehends Christ as the living stone, and as such He is disallowed indeed of men, but with God chosen and precious.
Death is the extreme expression of man’s disallowance. There are marks of disallowance short of it, and these came out in the Lord’s pathway on earth. He had no place with men; they despised Him, sought to stone Him, and so on. The Lord was Himself conscious of it, as seen in the parable of the husbandmen ([p. 334] Matthew 21: 33). This spirit of disallowance came out clearly enough before the Lord’s death, but death was the extreme mark of it. We see the same thing with regard to the prophets; the Jews showed their disallowance of Jeremiah, for example, in many ways, in imprisonments, etc., but if they wanted to express fully their disallowance of a prophet they killed him. This mark they stamped upon the Lord.
On the other hand, He is chosen of God and precious and the mark and proof of this was resurrection. It was just as true before His death that He was elect of God and precious, but resurrection expressed it, “declared to be the Son of God with power ... by the resurrection from the dead”. (Romans 1: 4.) “Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father”. (Romans 6: 4.) Christ was the living stone the moment He became man, but resurrection expresses it. Now you have the platform of resurrection. He is disallowed of men, but chosen of God and precious, and this shown by resurrection. This is important for us. We have to come to Him in this light. What part, then, have I with men? I am disallowed of man if I come to Christ as the living stone. If Christ has been crucified, so have I, if He is dead, so am I. It is only right that the Christian should enter in mind into what Christ suffered in fact. We may not have to enter into it actually, but we should do so in mind. When the Lord Jesus was on earth He never led His disciples to look for any portion but His own. “The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you”. (John 15: 20.) So in Hebrews 13: 12, “Jesus ... suffered without the gate”. Then follows, “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach”. Hence I am content to be disallowed of men. I do not want honour here, nor recognition, nor to be inconsistent with the death of Christ. We are in the fellowship of Christ’s death. We ought to be conscious of being disallowed [p. 335] of men. It is not pleasant, and naturally one would shrink from it; but the Christian must accept it.
But if disallowed of men, we are chosen of God and precious. God takes out of death that which is precious in His eyes, and as risen together with Christ we are agreeable to God. Resurrection is the pleasure of God. It is of His power, but His power is the servant of His love. We are risen with Christ, we are viewed as elect. This connection is apparent in Colossians 2: 12, Colossians 3: 1 and Colossians 3: 12. Christ is first apprehended as the elect and precious one, and then we understand that the saints as risen with Him are viewed too “as the elect of God, holy and beloved”. This is the reality of the resurrection platform.
Christ is the living stone, disallowed of men. He was man to perfection, presented man perfectly to God, but He also presented God to man. He is the only declaration of God we have. We must come to Him in that light. “For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God”. (Luke 16: 11.) Naturally one shrinks from being disallowed of men. It is disagreeable to one’s spirit; still, it was Christ’s place, and therefore it must be ours. There is antagonism of mind between man and Christ, and Christ is the perfect expression of God. Are we to have man or God? If we are to have God we must be apart from man, for God and man have come to an issue in regard of Christ, and we must accept the issue. You cannot go on with God and with man.
Now we get the effect. “Ye also as lively stones are built up”. We have here a generation entirely outside of man. These born of God must be of a different generation to those born of man. If I am a living stone I am of the generation which is born of God. The effect of that is that I disallow myself as well as man.
The next step is that you “are built up a spiritual house”. The privileges which belonged to a special [p. 336] family in Israel in an outward way now belong to all Christians in a spiritual sense. Aaron and his house were typical of Christ and the Church. We are “built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”. The house would have been of no use without the priesthood in Israel, and so it is now. The presence of God in the house of God down here can only be apprehended spiritually, that is, by those who are priests. The reason for this is found in the first and second chapters of 1 Corinthians. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned; but he that is spiritual judgeth” [discerns] “all things”. The glory of God in the midst of Israel was seen by everyone without any spirituality, but now you need to be delivered from the natural in order to apprehend the spiritual. God is here, and there is approach to Him. This is seen in Ephesians 2: 2 - 22, “For through him we both” (Jew and Gentile) “have access by one Spirit unto the Father”. Jew and Gentile are built together for a habitation of God by the Spirit. Hence Christians are to be lowly and meek, because they are where God dwells. (See Ephesians 4: 2 and 3, etc.)
I think Peter was assuring Jewish Christians that they had lost nothing by faith in Christ. Outwardly they had lost everything; they were scattered, and had lost the temple and priesthood, but the apostle shows them that what they had lost outwardly they had more than gained spiritually. They were a spiritual house as Christians, and as a holy priesthood could offer up spiritual sacrifices. The Jews could not properly offer sacrifices now. But these spiritual sacrifices are “the fruit of our lips”. God does not want carnal sacrifices. He has had one sacrifice before Him which is enough for Him. Christians then need to be built up in the sense of these privileges.
[p. 337] But besides these privileges they had others also, which in figure belonged not exclusively to the priesthood, but to the nation of Israel. (See verses 6 - 10.) Priesthood was connected with the house of God and with approach to God, but the nation was a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and so on. It is not here a question of sacrifices, but of collective testimony in the world. This is to be fulfilled in the Church: to “shew forth the praises”, (excellencies) “of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light”.
Israel failed as a peculiar people, and now it is Christians who are a peculiar people. This is God’s way of testimony to man. The Church is the vessel of God’s testimony in this world. It is in the light of the Lord.
The passage is to my mind beautiful and complete. Christ is the Living Stone, the Corner Stone, but a Stone of stumbling, a Rock of offence. There seems to be a reiteration here of the word “stone”. The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner. It is a stone of stumbling to those who stumble at the Word, being disobedient, “whereunto also they were appointed”. That is, they have been appointed to stumble over the stone because they were disobedient. They were not appointed to disobedience.
It is important to apprehend the platform of resurrection and to be conscious of being risen with Christ. You are thus built up. God has provided thus not only for His own service, but for testimony down here. May He give us to see His mind, and may His pleasure be fulfilled in us. We shall have great gain if it is so.