About this sermon
1. Christ as the chosen cornerstone of our Salvation (v. 6).
2. Christ as a rock of offense to the unbelieving (vv. 7-8a).
Sermon transcript
Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word. This evening we continue our consideration of 1 Peter, St. Peter’s first epistle, chapter two, verses six through eight. I’m going to read verses four through 10 to fill out the context a little bit. You’ll find that in your pew Bible on page 1204. 1 Peter 2, verses 4-10, but our focus will be on verses 6-8. Let us hear God’s holy word. As you come to Him, a living stone, rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 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. 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.
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 and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of his word. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you for Christ, the rock of our salvation, our refuge, our strength, a very present help to us in our time of need.
We ask that by your Spirit you would grant us insight as we learn more of Christ this evening, as we learn from these truths that are revealed in this portion of your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. And we ask, Heavenly Father, that by your Spirit you would cause us to embrace these truths and to see their relevance to our day-to-day lives and to your church, and help us, Lord, to live out these truths in our lives. Set a guard over my lips, Lord, that I might speak only that which is faithful and edifying to your people. We pray these things through Christ our Lord and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. Once again, if you’re following along in your sermon outline, I’d encourage the young people especially to keep track of the number of times that I use the words, the key words that are listed in your sermon outline.
Well, here we are, brothers and sisters, as we continue to make our way through 1 Peter, we find ourselves in chapter two. And in this section of 1 Peter chapter two, Peter is addressing the doctrine of the church. This is a doctrine that is much neglected among God’s professed people today, but it’s a doctrine that we need to understand biblically. Now on the last several Lord’s Days, We’ve seen from verse 4 that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is described metaphorically by Peter as a living stone. A living stone upon which his church is founded. Christ and Christ alone is the living foundation stone of the church which bears his holy name. And then we also saw in verse 5 that Peter endeavors to explain the nature and the function of the church. Just as Christ our King and Head is the living stone, we who by grace through faith are united to Him, we are living stones in union with Christ our Lord.
In verse five, we saw that the nature of the church is likened to a spiritual house, meaning a holy temple unto the Lord, a dwelling place for God in the spirit, as Paul would describe it. And we saw that we who through grace are members of this house, we ourselves are living stones who are being built up into this spiritual house, this holy temple of the church. We also considered what our functions as living stones in the church involve. Namely, we are told in this passage that the church is a holy priesthood. And here we get the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers from passages such as this one. And therefore, as a holy priesthood, we are holy priests who are called upon by God to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through the merit and mediation of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, just think about this language here that Peter uses. Think about it from a broader biblical perspective. You see, in Old Testament times, God’s special presence dwelt in a temple of lifeless stone. The Shekinah glory of God dwelt in Solomon’s temple. Solomon’s temple was a type, a picture of God’s dwelling place amongst his people. It is a symbol, a sign and symbol of paradise restored and God’s gracious presence, his kingly and covenantal presence dwelling in the midst of his people. But in Old Testament times, God dwelt in a temple of stone, lifeless stone. But now under the new covenant, the true temple is made up of living stones, like you and like me, not lifeless physical stones, as was the case under the old covenant. Because Christ himself is the living temple. Christ the living temple, the word made flesh who came to tabernacle to make his dwelling place in our midst.
He has come and therefore Christ is himself the living temple, the true temple of God. And in union with Christ, we as the church are a true temple of God in him. And we are living stones, not lifeless stones. Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, we are a living temple in union with Christ. And as a holy priesthood of believers, we have both the duty and the privilege of offering up spiritual sacrifices to God, our Heavenly Father, through the merit and mediation of His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What a high calling, what a high and holy privilege we have. Now, as we’ve considered in recent weeks, this does not mean, of course, that we are qualified to offer up atoning sacrifices for sin. Those are not the kinds of sacrifices that we are qualified to offer because we ourselves are sinners who need atonement for our sins.
Only Jesus, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God, only Christ was qualified to do that. And He did that once and for all and forever when He died on the cross for our sins. And we celebrated that this evening in some of our hymns. Hymns that proclaim that indeed it is finished as Jesus Himself said from the cross as He was about to commend His Spirit to the Father. It is finished. So it’s not that we can offer atoning sacrifices for sin. Rather, it means that we are to seek to glorify God in all of life, that we are to offer God sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving and obedience. We offer spiritual sacrifices to God. We seek to glorify God in all of life, both in our acts of religious worship and also in our daily work and our secular callings.
Everything that we do, brothers and sisters, is to be an offering of service unto the Lord as a way of expressing our thanks and praise to God for His wonderful gift of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now all of this brings us to our passage for this evening as we consider verses six through eight. And there’s so much here that we’re gonna have to take two Lord’s Day evenings or two Lord’s Days to consider this. Of course, next Lord’s Day, we have our afternoon service after the fellowship meal. But the first part of considering this passage is this evening. And as we look at verse 6, the first thing I want us to consider is how Peter presents Christ as the chosen cornerstone of our salvation. Here we find Christ presented as the chosen cornerstone of our salvation.
Peter, the apostle, as he has just spoken of Christ as the living stone and we as living stones in union with Christ, he gives Old Testament scriptural support to what he’s been teaching. He says in verse six, for it stands in scripture. Here the apostle Peter shows the proper attitude that we as God’s people are to have towards the scriptures. And obviously he’s speaking of the Old Testament scriptures in this context because the New Testament had not been completely finished at this point in redemptive history. And so he quotes from the Old Testament, he says, 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. Now, I want you to notice, brothers and sisters, notice how true to character Peter is in this verse.
Well, what are you talking about, pastor? What do you mean true to character? Well, what I mean is that here we notice the inspired apostle presenting us with Old Testament scriptural support for the statement which he has made about Christ back in verse four. In verse four, we are told that Christ is a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious. In verse 6, the apostle quotes from the book of the prophet Isaiah, from Isaiah 28, verse 16, which describes the predicted Messiah as, quote, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. So clearly, Peter had this passage from the Old Testament in mind when he described Christ in verse 4 as the living stone. Now, The reason why I say that Peter is showing himself here to be true to character is because Peter was, after all, an apostle to the circumcision.
Just as God had called St. Paul to be an apostle with a special focus on ministering the gospel to the Gentiles, so God had called St. Peter to be an apostle with a special focus on ministering the gospel to the Jews. And the apostle Paul brings out this truth, for example, in Galatians 2, verses 7-9. Let me just quote that to you briefly, and you’re welcome to turn there. if you would like. Galatians 2, verses 7-9, Paul writes, on the contrary, when they saw, he’s talking about the leaders of the Jerusalem church that he had shared the gospel with, that he had given his credentials to, he says, On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, that would be to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me. for mine to the Gentiles.
And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.” And so we see there was a division of labor and different callings, even amongst the apostles. And Peter was given a special calling to take the gospel to the Jews, the circumcised. Although Peter was used by God, obviously, to bring the gospel to Gentiles as well, such as Cornelius, as we can read in Acts chapter 10. But nevertheless, Peter has a special focus on ministering the gospel to his Jewish brethren. And as a Jewish man who was steeped in the Old Testament scriptures, and as an apostle to the circumcision, it was common for Peter to sprinkle his teaching and his preaching profusely with Old Testament references.
And we see him doing that here. in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening. Well, let’s dive into verse six and the details of this passage quoted from Isaiah chapter 28. And the first word we read here in this passage is the word behold. Children, what does that word behold mean? Basically means, and parents ask your children later what this means, the word behold means pay attention. It means this is important, listen up, this is important. Behold, I am laying,” God is speaking here through Isaiah, as Peter is quoting from Isaiah. God says, I am laying in Zion a stone. God says, I am laying this stone. What does this show us? This shows us that the sovereign God is the one who appointed His son, Jesus, to be the foundation and cornerstone of His church.
And let us remember, friends, that it is not our church. It is God’s church. The church was God’s idea, not man’s idea, because God is the one who has laid the foundation of his church. And the cornerstone of that foundation is none other than Jesus Christ himself. He says, behold, I am laying where? In Zion, a stone. In Zion. What does this mean? Well, this is an Old Covenant title for God’s people, an Old Testament way of speaking of the church under the Old Covenant. Beloved God in His Word tells us that we who are followers of Christ, we are the true Zion. We are the true Jews. I’m reminded of what the Apostle Paul writes back in Romans 2, verses 28 and 29. Remember, Paul himself was a Pharisee of the Pharisees before his conversion.
He himself was of Jewish stock, of Jewish background. But notice what Paul says here. In Romans 2, verses 28 and 29, he writes in the context of this passage, he says, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from men, from man, but from God. And so this applies to the church. Peter applies this to the church. God the Father has laid in His church in Zion a stone, a stone, a cornerstone. The New King James Version translates it, a chief cornerstone. And friends, indeed, Jesus is the chief cornerstone of his church. He is chief because he alone is the king and head of his church.
There is no other king. There is no other head of the church. There’s no vicar of Christ on earth, if you will, other than the Holy Spirit, if you will. Jesus is the chief cornerstone. He is the chief, he alone is the king and head of his church. He is the cornerstone because think about what a cornerstone does. A cornerstone determines the direction and the stability of the structure that it serves as a cornerstone for. It serves as the structure, it gives stability and direction to the structure of a building. Jesus is the cornerstone of His church because He determines the direction and the stability of the entire building of the church. Just like a physical cornerstone in a structure of a building determines the direction and the stability of such a building. And then notice also how Jesus is described.
Christ, the promised Messiah, is described in this passage from Isaiah not only as a cornerstone, but a cornerstone what? Chosen and precious. Jesus the Son was chosen by God the Father to be the Savior and Lord of His church. And by sovereign grace, we, brothers and sisters, have been chosen in Him. Indeed, as the scriptures say in passages like Ephesians 1, we have been chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world. Jesus is not only chosen, but He is precious, precious. Is Jesus precious to you? Jesus the Son is highly valued and precious to God the Father, and therefore he ought also to be precious to his people, to you and to me. And then in this passage quoted by Peter from the prophet Isaiah, we read this wonderful gospel promise. and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
There’s this misconception out there in the world, including even the professedly Christian world, that, well, in Old Testament times, they were saved by keeping the law, but in New Testament times, were saved by faith. Well, passages like this show the lie to that belief. The truth of our salvation and justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is not just a New Testament truth, it is a biblical truth. It’s a whole Bible truth. It’s taught from Genesis to Revelation. It’s a truth that is clearer now that Christ has come. It was a truth that maybe was not grasped to the degree that we should grasp it today with the coming of Christ, but it was always there, and it was promised there in the scriptures. Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
This is a declaration of the wonderful promise of the gospel. And when it says, whoever believes in him will not be put to shame, If those who trust in Christ alone for salvation from sin can have the absolute assurance that they will be spared the everlasting shame and contempt of hell. because Christ has taken that hell upon himself so that all who believe in him might be redeemed from the penalty of their sins. Oh, may God grant to each and every one of us the grace to have this blessed assurance and to know that we will not be put to shame. Dear friends in Christ, our Lord Jesus is indeed the chosen cornerstone. He is the rock of our salvation. Indeed, he is the rock of salvation to all who by sovereign grace come to trust in him.
Dear listener, is Jesus your rock? Is he the cornerstone of your salvation? In the gospel, he offers himself to you as the rock and refuge of your salvation. By his grace, may you come to take refuge in him. While our passage points to Christ as the rock of salvation to those who believe in Him, faith is not the only response. to the gospel of Christ, sadly. And this brings me to my next point. As Christ is presented as the cornerstone and rock of salvation to those who believe in him, to his people, Christ is also presented here as a rock of offense to the unbelieving. This is the second main point in your sermon outline. Consider Christ as a rock of offense to the unbelieving. Peter goes on to write in verse seven, He writes, 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 and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And then these sobering and fearful words at the end of verse eight, they stumble because they disobey the word, they’re responsible. They’re morally culpable for their rejection of the gospel. They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. We’ll talk about that in a few moments. But let’s focus now, first of all, in verse seven. It says, 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, and so forth. Now, according to one Bible commentator, here the Greek literally reads, for you, therefore, who believe is the honor. The honor for Christians is linked to their union with Christ.
It’s not like we’re honorable in and of ourselves, but in Christ, the honor is for us. Since Christ is honored by God, this commentator says, so will all who participate in Christ. Friends, oh, how precious Christ is to us who believe, especially since God in His grace has honored us in Him and has spared us from everlasting shame and contempt. But what about those who are unbelieving and disobedient? Well, there’s some irony here in this passage. Ironically for them, The stone which the builders, meaning the religious leaders in Israel, rejected as being unfit to have a place in Zion, this very stone has become the chief cornerstone. Now in this verse, Peter is quoting from Psalm 118, verse 22. Now think about it. God chose His Son, Jesus Christ, to be the Messiah and Savior, but for the most part, the religious leaders of Israel, the leaders who ought to have known better, ended up rejecting Him.
For them and for those who follow in the footsteps of their disobedience to the gospel call, the Living Stone, Jesus, is made the cornerstone to their confusion and their ultimate stumbling and destruction. Well, Christ is indeed precious to believers. He is a source of great consternation and great confusion to those who reject him. To them, he is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, as we learn in verse eight. And again, as we come to verse eight, Peter, again, quoting from the Old Testament scriptures, he says, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. In the case of those who are disobedient to the gospel call to repentance and faith, Christ is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.
How differently the biblical Lord Jesus Christ is viewed by the unbeliever in contrast to the believer. Now, of course, there are many false ideas about Jesus out there in the unbelieving world, and there are many Jesuses, worldly Jesuses, that are acceptable to the unconverted, the unbelieving. But when we’re talking about the Jesus Christ revealed in the Bible, this Lord Jesus is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to those who reject Him. To us, He is precious, but to the unbeliever, He is an offense. To us believers, Jesus Christ, He is our cornerstone. He is the source of our stability. He is the source of our security. He is the source of our strength. He is the source of our salvation. He is the solid rock of our salvation. As we sing in one of our hymns, on Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is what?
Sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. but to the disobedient, to those who reject the gospel. He is a stone of stumbling. Now up to this point, most who would profess themselves to be Bible-believing Christians will have no problem with what is being said in this verse. But then we come to the last sentence of verse eight, which says this about those who are disobedient to the gospel. It says, they stumble because they disobey the word. So there’s human responsibility there. There’s genuine human responsibility there. But then it goes on to say, Peter doesn’t just stop there. He says, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. Oh, how many commentators and theologians try to wiggle their way out of what is being said here. This is one of those statements of Holy Scripture which of course has produced controversy and disagreement among theologians and Bible scholars.
Now some would argue that Peter is only meaning to say that they who themselves willfully choose to reject Christ and his gospel are appointed by God to stumble over Christ because of their own disobedience, because of their own unbelief. According to this view, God as a righteous judge judicially appoints the persistently impenitent to stumble over Christ. In other words, God sovereignly decrees for you to stumble over Christ if you refuse to obey the gospel call to faith. Now there is certainly truth to this view as far as it goes, but is this all that Peter is intending to communicate in these words in this passage? Well, according to other commentators and theologians of a more Reformed and Calvinistic leaning, what Peter is meaning to tell us here is that not only are the disobedient destined to stumble over Christ due to their own disobedience, that is true as far as it goes, but he also means to convey to us that the very disobedience of the disobedient is itself sovereignly appointed by God.
In other words, according to these theologians and commentators, the non-elect are destined, destined by God, to disobey the gospel. Yes, they are fully responsible for their choice to reject Christ, and they do indeed freely choose to reject him. God is not forcing them against their will to reject him. But they freely choose to do so because God has sovereignly destined and decreed for them to do so, and that’s a hard view. It’s a hard truth. Now, this does not mean, of course, that God forces them like puppets against their wills to reject Christ, but that he sovereignly decrees to permit them to remain in their fallen unregenerate condition and their freely chosen impenitence and unbelief without intervening in sovereign grace to give them the grace of repentance and faith and to save them. This, I believe, friends, is the correct understanding of Peter’s statement here at the end of verse eight, where it says, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.
This, my friends, this I believe is the correct understanding, and it supports the biblical and reformed doctrines of reprobation and double predestination. Again, very difficult, challenging doctrines, but we are not to reject uncomfortable doctrines simply because they’re uncomfortable, or simply because our puny, limited, finite minds cannot fully grasp them, or we can’t wrap our brains around them. We are to believe what God has revealed, whether it’s comfortable or not. Now, this is a bit of a cliffhanger. We’ll get more into this subject on the next Lord’s Day in the Second Service. But in the meantime, friends, let me leave you with this question. Is the Lord Jesus Christ the cornerstone and the rock of your salvation and therefore precious to you? Or is he a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense? If you’re here this evening or if you’re watching over the internet and the Spirit has opened your mind to understand that actually the biblical Jesus is a stumbling block to me, he does offend me, what am I to do?
Cry out to God for mercy. cast yourself upon his infinite mercy in Christ. Christ does freely offer himself to all in the gospel. So pray that the Lord would grant you the grace of faith and repentance and thank the Lord that he has awakened you and opened your mind and heart to understand your condition. Oh may God in his sovereign mercy grant that you may receive and rest upon Christ as the rock of your salvation so that for you, Christ will not be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, but instead, he will be the chosen precious cornerstone, the rock of your salvation, and your refuge tonight. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, sovereign and eternal God, we thank you and praise you for Jesus Christ, our precious cornerstone, the rock of our salvation, May we build our lives upon Him as the solid rock foundation of our faith.
And may we proclaim Him to others as the rock of salvation. We pray these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, Amen. As we close our time together, let’s rise and we’ll sing as our closing hymn, number 452, Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me, 452.
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