One marvel of architecture is the new standard of buildings. Architects have examined how stress put on buildings impacts the structure and stability. They have learned from past earthquakes and other events to design many modern buildings to withstand great stress. The design is no accident. The pieces perfectly fit together for maximum stability.
As Peter wrote the book of 1 Peter directly to the people in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, they were a people under great stress and persecution, he wanted to instill within them hope, since God puts people together in a holy temple, perfectly fit to withstand all attacks, threats and stresses.
Perhaps you come here today under stress, with apparent chaos in your life and wonder how Easter, the celebration of the resurrection of Christ makes any difference? How do events that happened two thousand years ago make any difference today yet alone offer great privilege.
For a people who rely on the risen Christ, the Apostle Peter explains in 1 Peter 2:6–9b that this results in four spiritual privileges that believers enjoy today: 1) Security in Christ, 2) Affection for Christ, 3) Election by Christ, and 4) Dominion with Christ.
1) Security in Christ 1 Peter 2:6
1 Peter 2:6 [6]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."
God called His people to behold or view Messiah as the cornerstone that the Father Himself laid in Zion—Israel, and more specifically the mountain in Jerusalem (cf. 2 Sam. 5:7, 1 Kings 8:1, Pss. 48:2, 51:18, 102:21, Isa. 2:3, 4:3, 10:12, 24:23, 30:19, 52:2, Jer. 26:18, Amos 1:2, Mic. 3:12, Zeph. 3:16, Zech. 1:17).
Isaiah 2:3 [3]and many peoples shall come, and say: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
As Christ was put to death on Mount Calvary in Jerusalem, Zion, God the Father was establishing the reality of the new kingdom or His spiritual rule over the hearts of all who believe in Him (cf. Luke 17:20–21). Figuratively, Zion can refer to the new covenant as Sinai does to the old covenant (cf. Gal. 4:24–25), or to heavenly blessings as Sinai does to judgment (cf. Heb. 12:18–23).
We saw in v. 4 that Christ is not dead, but a living stone.
• The central reality that we celebrate today at Easter, is that death could not contain Christ, but the Father raised Him up from the dead
Jesus Explained it to Peter:
Matthew 16:18 [18]And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (ESV)
• Jesus was saying that is was the reality of the new Zion, the kind of faith that Peter displayed upon which Jesus would build His Church.
The word translated cornerstone (akrogōniaios) denotes a chief cornerstone and describes the stone that sets all the proper angles for the building. It is like the building’s plumb line in that it sets the horizontal and vertical lines of the rest of the building, it also establishes the precise symmetry of the entire edifice. To ensure the perfect precision of God’s spiritual house, the main cornerstone had to be flawless. The only one who could set all the angles of God’s house was the living, perfectly prepared cornerstone, Jesus Christ
Christ is uniquely fitted for His task and thus He is cornerstone chosen, God’s chosen One. Peter’s believing Jewish readers would have remembered that during the building of Solomon’s temple, the workers prepared the stones in advance and brought them to the site (1 Kings 6:7). With the help of a careful blueprint of the temple, the craftsmen cut and shaped each stone to its perfect size and determined the exact place each was to fit. With only minor adjustments on site, those temple stones were set precisely together like parts of a large puzzle.
Illustration: There is a persistent legend in connection with the building of Solomon’s temple that perfectly illustrates this prophecy. The stones for the temple were prepared in advance in a nearby quarry. As they were needed, they were raised up to the building site. One day the workers in the quarry sent up a stone of unique shape and proportions. The masons saw no place for it in the building so they carelessly pushed it over the hill where, in time, it became overgrown with moss and surrounded with weeds. As the temple neared completion, the masons called for a stone of certain dimensions. The men in the quarry replied, “We sent that stone up to you long ago.”
After careful search, the discarded stone was found and was set in its proper place in the temple.
• The application is obvious. The Lord Jesus presented Himself to the nation of Israel at His First Advent. The people, and especially the rulers, had no room for Him in their scheme of things. They rejected Him and delivered Him to be crucified.
• Because Jesus Christ is the perfect, exact, precise One on whom God has built His church, all the lines coming from Him in every direction complete the perfect temple of God. No one is ever out of alignment. No one ever falls from the structure. It all fits exactly and permanently together (cf. Eph. 4:16).
How is Christ the Cornerstone and How does this relate to the Resurrection?
Colossians 1:18 [18]And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. (ESV)
• The Resurrection of Christ shows that He is “firstborn from the dead”.
• The Lord Jesus was the first to rise from the dead to die no more, He was the first to rise with a glorified body, and He rose as the Head of a new creation. His resurrection is unique, and is the pledge that all who trust in Him will also rise. It proclaims Him as supreme in the spiritual creation.
• The resurrection of Christ showed the perfect acceptance of atoning for the wrath of God with the Father.
On this John of Damascus Wrote “The Day of Resurrection”
POEM: The Day of Resurrection
The day of resurrection?
Earth, tell it out abroad,
The Passover of gladness,
The Passover of God.
From death to life eternal,
From this world to the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over
With hymns of victory.
Now let the heavens be joyful,
Let earth her song begin,
Let the round world keep triumph,
And all that is therein,
Let all things seen and unseen
Their notes in gladness blend,
For Christ the Lord hath risen,
Our Joy that hath no end.
—John of Damascus
That is why we can describe Christ as:
precious (entimon) means “unequaled in value,” “costly,” or “irreplaceable.” Christ is irreplaceable because He is the cornerstone, the most important stone in any building.
• The more precious Christ is to you, the closer you will get to Him and what He loves.
Please turn to Isaiah 54
From this reality issues one of the great privileges for all who believe: when they place their trust in Christ they will not be put to shame/disappointed. The word rendered shame/disappointed (kataischunthē) denotes being deceived in some confidence, or placing hope in someone and having that hope dashed. Those who celebrate this Easter sincerely believe in Christ as Lord and Savior will never know any disappointment from Him (Rom. 10:11–13, cf. Jer. 17:7–8). Because He indeed rose from the dead, those who believe in this fact will be forever secure in Him (John 10:3–4, 14, 27–28, Rom. 8:16, Eph. 1:13–14, Phil. 1:6, 2 Tim. 1:12, James 1:12, 1 John 5:20, cf. Heb. 4:15–16).
The prophet Isaiah, centuries before Christ’s incarnation, declared that Israel could have supreme confidence in the security God provided:
Isaiah 54:4-5 [4]"Fear not, for you will not be ashamed, be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced, for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. [5]For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.
Isaiah 54:10 [10]For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.( cf. 50:7, 54:1–3)
• Perhaps you don’t want to take the step of faith and commitment of your life to Christ for you fear what this would entail.
• Thousands of years and hundreds of prophecies show that YHWH is true to His word, He provided in the only way of life though faith in His son.
William & Gloria Gaither wrote of this reality in their Chorus “Because He Lives”
HYMN: Because he lives I can face tomorrow,
Because he lives all fear is gone.
Because I know he holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because he lives.
WILLIAM AND GLORIA GAITHER
We have seen the spiritual privilege of 1) Security in Christ 1 Peter 2:6 and just briefly:
2) Affection for Christ 1 Peter 2:7-8
1 Peter 2:7-8 [7]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," [8] and "A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense." They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. (ESV)
Only those who believe manifest a surpassing love for Christ (cf. Matt. 10:37, 2 Cor. 5:14). In utter contrast to that, however, those who do not believe (such as the unbelieving Jewish leaders) do not and will not love Christ. In the immediate context of audience of 1 Peter, Quoting Psalm 118:22, Peter asserted that the Jews were the builders who rejected Christ (the stone). To them Jesus seen as being worthless as God’s cornerstone because He did not fit their preconceived idea of what the Messiah needed to be like (cf. Matt. 13:54–57, Luke 4:20–30, 6:6–11). Such rejection was tragic but not surprising, as Peter indicated when he quoted Isaiah 8:14–15, which predicted that Messiah would be considered “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense” to most of the Jews, as Isaiah himself was (v. 12).
A stone of stumbling was any stone that people could trip over as they moved down a road, and a rock of offense was the rock bed they could be crushed against after they fell over the other stone. In Peter’s symbolism, the Jews threw away the true cornerstone, then wound up falling over it to be finally crushed in judgment by the same rock (Luke 20:17–18, cf. Matt. 13:41).
This of course is not just a warning to the Jews of the immediate context, but a warning to everyone. Verse 8 makes clear that all those who reject Christ stumble and suffer divine judgment because they disobey the word. Unbelievers receive the exact judgment their sinful choice demands—to this doom they were destined/appointed—because they do not believe and obey the gospel.
• Some might think that this lets people off the hook. The Jews of the first century who crucified Jesus and those who reject Him today are just doing what they are destined or appointed to do.
o This misunderstands what God is saying here.
God does not actively destine people to unbelief, but He does appoint judgment on every unbeliever (John 3:18, 36, 8:24, 2 Thess. 1:6–9, Heb. 3:19, 4:11). God judges unbelievers as a consequence of their lack of love for Him, their disobedience to His Word, and their refusal to believe in Him.
We have seen the spiritual privilege of 1) Security in Christ 1 Peter 2:6 2) Affection for Christ 1 Peter 2:7-8 and the next two points only briefly:
3) Election by Christ 1 Peter 2:9a
1 Peter 2:9a But you are a chosen race,
Please turn to Dt. 7
Peter identifies those who believe in Christ as chosen, just as God had chosen Israel for a special purpose within His redemptive plan (cf. Isa. 43:21). Salvation is based on the sovereign, electing purposes of God. Scripture explicitly and implicitly makes that unmistakable (John 15:16, Acts 13:48, Rom. 9:13–16, 11:5, 1 Cor. 1:9, Eph. 1:3–5, 1 Thess. 1:4, 2 Thess. 2:13–14, 2 Tim. 1:9, 2:10, Rev. 13:8, 17:8, 20:15), and election is the great privilege from which all other spiritual privileges derive.
The apostle again drew his terminology from an Old Testament passage:
Deuteronomy 7:6-9 [6]"For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. [7]It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, [8]but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. [9]Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, (ESV)
Jesus, divinely prepared (elect) from before the creation of the world:
2 Timothy 1:8 [8]Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, [9]who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, (ESV)
Scripture suggests at least five truths related to God’s sovereign choice to save certain sinners.
1) First, election is absolutely the solitary decision of God, thus it is the most pride-crushing truth in God’s Word. It devastates humans’ pride since nothing in their salvation derives from any merit in them—it is all of God (cf. Jonah 2:9, John 1:12–13, Eph. 2:8–9).
2) Second, because election is totally by divine grace, it is the most God exalting doctrine (cf. Rom. 9:23, Eph. 1:6–7, 2:7, 2 Thess. 2:13).
3) Third, election is the most holiness-promoting doctrine. Because God set His love on believers before the world began, they should be consumed with gratitude and a passion to obey Him no matter what (cf. Deut. 11:13, Josh. 24:24, Rom. 6:17, 7:25).
4) Fourth, because God’s election is eternal and unchangeable, it is the most strength-giving doctrine in the Bible. Therefore it affords believers genuine peace no matter what circumstances they face (cf. Ps. 85:8, John 14:27, 1 Cor. 14:33, Eph. 2:14–15, Col. 1:20, 3:15, 2 Thess. 3:16).
5) Finally, election is the most joy-producing spiritual privilege because it is the surest hope believers have in the midst of a sinful world (cf. 1:21, Eph. 4:4, Col. 1:5, 23, 1 Thess. 5:8, Heb. 7:19).
We have seen the spiritual privilege of 1) Security in Christ 1 Peter 2:6 2) Affection for Christ 1 Peter 2:7-8 3) Election by Christ 1 Peter 2:9a and finally:
4) Dominion with Christ 1 Peter 2:9b
1 Pt 2:9b a royal priesthood
Peter employed a remarkable symbol when he combined in one metaphor references to royalty and the priesthood. The concept of a royal priesthood comes from Exodus 19:6, where God through Moses told Israel:
Exodus 19:6 [6]and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel." (ESV)
The sad fact is, however, that Israel forfeited her privilege of priestly dominion because of her apostasy and rejection of the Messiah (cf. John 12:37–48, Rom. 10:16–21, 11:7–10, Heb. 3:16–19). But all those who believe in Jesus as Messiah and trust in Him alone for salvation receive the privilege of becoming royal priests (Rev. 5:10).
Two primary elements constitute the image of the royal priesthood.
First, the priests serve the King by having access to His holy presence, into which they come offering spiritual sacrifices to Him, and second, the priests rule with the King in His kingdom.
Basileion (royal) generally describes a royal residence or palace (cf. Luke 7:25), but it can also refer to a sovereignty or monarchy. Peter used the term here to convey the general idea of royalty. The spiritual house he mentioned in verse 5 turns out to be a royal house, the dominion of a royal family. Believers are a ruling priesthood, literally “a royal house of priests.”
The apostle John wrote:
Revelation 1:5 [5]and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood [6]and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (ESV) (cf. 2:11)
Please turn to Rev. 20
• We have already seen the significance that due to the resurrection, what we celebrate this Easter, Christ is the firstborn of the dead and this makes those who trust in Him, a kingdom of priests.
The final and most significant privilege for the kingdom of priests in dominion and security: The Second Death.
Revelation 20:6 [6]Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. (ESV)(, cf. Luke 22:29–30, Rev. 3:21). [14]Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. (ESV) (cf. 21:8)
o Do you notice the language of the second death in Rev. 20:6.
• If you are a priest of the first resurrection, this Easter, then you shall rule with God the Father and His son Jesus Christ. If you have been born twice, you will die once.
For the kingdom of priests:
This Easter is a reason to celebrate. When believers contemplate all our spiritual privileges, from union with Christ to security in Him to dominion with Him, we ought to be transported into unbounded praise and worship. Anything less betrays sinful indifference to these great privileges.
But is this is not you:
• If you have been born once, only of biological birth, then you will die twice.
• The greatest thing you can experience this Easter, is to embrace the resurrected Christ. Acknowledge that you are not perfect, you have sinned against God, and trust in the resurrected Christ, and Him alone for eternal life.
• If you have just done this then let us know and we will celebrate with the angels in heaven who rejoice with such submission. This is what Easter is all about.
