Christ is the Rejected Stone (1 Peter 2:7–8)

We’re often influenced by those around us. If they like something, we like something. They don’t like something? We don’t like it either!

And the more people around you are saying the same thing, the more influence it tends to have.

Encouragement to Believers in the Early Church

Just imagine then how it was for those first century believers who were the small minority. They had all these people around them saying “Christ isn’t the cornerstone!”

And so, Peter seeks to lift their spirits with these words – ultimately saying to them not to be discouraged. Although Christ is being rejected by all these people, their rejection of the chief cornerstone does not diminish his glory one bit.

In fact, all the efforts of everyone who opposes Christ are all in vain – and they will always be in vain.

Wasn’t it the efforts of those ancient Jewish leaders that were in vain? In their seeking to put Christ to death they did the very thing that they were called to do. They did the will of God.

Psalm 118:22 in 1 Peter 2:7

Their rejection was foreshadowed by the psalmist in Psalm 118:22. This is what Peter quotes in 1 Peter 2:7.

How did they reject him?

They rejected him by not accepting him as the foundation, but trying to lay another foundation – based upon the ceremonial law. They rejected him trying to lay a foundation of the tradition of the elders.

Modern Pharisees

Today the same thing continues. People continue to reject Christ, trying to lay foundations other than the only and true foundation – who is Christ. They lay a foundation of false deities, of false prophets, of false ideas, of their own works.

But do you know what that goes to show? Not that there is some problem with Christ as the foundation. It goes to show us that there is a problem with them.

Isaiah 8:14 in 1 Peter 2:8

Now, when Peter quotes Isaiah 8:14 in 1 Peter 2:8 saying, “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense” – we need to understand that Jesus makes no one stumble and Jesus is offensive to no one.

In and of himself Jesus is chosen and precious to God. All is dung in comparison to Jesus.

But why do so many people prefer dung to Jesus?

Why Jesus is Offensive to Some

Because the problem is them. The problem is their own hearts. The problem is that they have closed their eyes to him, shut their ears, closed off their heart. Their problem is their worldly thinking and their desire to keep pursuing all of their sinful and evil desires – for which they now find Christ to be a rock of offense and a stumbling block.

They hate Christ. They hate his word because it shines a light upon their depravity. It shines a light upon their sin which they don’t want to flee from or depart with.

And so, it’s that spiritual blindness that makes them unable to see how destructive their sin is and how excellent Christ is. And for this they reject Christ.

They can’t see his glory. They don’t understand why he is to be honored and feared and loved and clung to as the giver of life and bestower of salvation to everyone who comes to him.

What the Believer Sees in Christ

But by the grace of God brothers and sisters the believer does. The believer sees nothing in Jesus that causes us to stumble or that gives us offense.

What the believer sees in Christ is everything that draws our desire and delight away from the things of the world and places it all upon him. Because in him we see that we are made co-heirs of glory.

It is to him we have been wed. It is to him who is our life and our food and our wisdom and our dress and our everything to us.

The Rejected Stone Makes us a Temple

Brothers and sisters, the rejected stone is the only stone. For only this living stone, this cornerstone, this rejected stone can take sinners, bring us to himself, make us fit, give us honor so that we can be the temple of God where he can dwell with man both now and forever more.