Built

A living stone is the epitome of an oxymoron. Stones are inert and lifeless, not alive and growing. But it's no less provocative to speak of Jesus as a crucified Savior. Who has ever heard of a King who conquers by dying? This is what makes Peter’s metaphor for both the Christian and the church so powerful: if Christ was rejected yet raised, and if our life is bound up with his, then Christians too can be called “living stones.”

Drawing together several Old Testament texts, Peter presents Christ as the Cornerstone of God’s redemptive work. In the ancient world, the cornerstone established the alignment of the entire structure; if that first stone was not true, everything built upon it would be distorted. So if Jesus really is the Son of God and the risen Lord, he is not merely one religious option among many but the decisive reference point for reality itself. He is unavoidable. To refuse alignment with him is like refusing to reckon with gravity: our lives will either be built upon him or broken over him.

Shockingly, Peter applies God’s description of Israel in Exodus 19 to the NT church. The people of God, both Jews and Gentiles alike, are the true Israel, a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” God has called a people out of darkness and into his marvelous light so that, together, they might visibly embody and verbally proclaim the excellencies of his grace and mercy to the world. And here’s the big idea: a Christian is both being built and in service to the building itself.