1 Peter 2:4-104To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, 5Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 6Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. 7Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, 8And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. 9But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 10Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. (1 Peter 2:4‑10)
Having shown us in the first chapter that the Christian is redeemed and renewed, the apostle now passes on to unfold our new relationships, and shows that Christians are not only builded together as a spiritual house, but are a holy and a royal priesthood; holy looking God-ward, royal looking man-ward, and this all flows from coming to Christ.
“To whom coming as unto a living stone,” (vs. 4). Peter is very fond of this word living. You will remember his confession of Jesus in Matthew 16 “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” You have come to a living stone, he says here; and this is God’s estimate of Him, “Chosen of God and precious!”
It is to whom coming, i.e., you are brought to have to do with a Person. Do you know what this is? Have you had to do in the history of your soul with a living Person? If you have, what is the result? “Ye also as living stones are built up.”
What is a Christian? You say a “living stone.” And what is a stone? A stone is a bit of a rock. See what security it gives? Where first do we get the illustration? In Peter’s own case. Peter is brought to Jesus, and what does Jesus say? “Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone,” John 1:4242And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone. (John 1:42).
This act of the Lord’s was most significant. He takes the place of being Simon’s Lord, and his possessor. Changing the name always indicated that the person whose name was changed became the possession or vassal of the one who changed his name. How does this change of name take place? The Lord speaks to Peter! How do we become living stones? Because we have heard the voice of the Son of God! “The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.”
A Christian is a living stone, having come to Christ. What a sense of security it gives the soul! You have had to do with the living One! He is a living stone, and you are a living stone; you have rock-life, the same as His. Can you ever be separated from Him? Never! His life is now yours, and “your life is hid with Christ in God.” The spiritual house, of which Peter speaks, is the nearest approach to Paul’s doctrine of the “body.” What Paul calls the “body,” Peter calls the “house,” but that is not at all what Paul means by the house; he is talking of a great mass of profession when using that expression. If you want to see the spiritual house in perfection, you must look at Revelation 21. How beautifully the stones shine there! They are exactly the same stones as are being built up here, but by the time we get there, we have been on the great Lapidary’s wheel to the uttermost; and every bit of dirt and every ugly excrescence has been taken off, and the wheel has rendered the stone translucent. But the stones that shine so brightly there, ought to shine for Christ here! What a beautiful thing it would be if the world could read Christ in you and me here! By-and-bye the nations will walk in the light of that city; they will see Christ coming out then in grace and love, and they ought to see Him now, reflected in our life and ways day by day.
Ye are “an holy priesthood.” The idea of man about a priest is of one who comes between the soul and God, and does the business of the soul with God. That was all true in old Testament times, but who are the priests now? Every saved soul is a priest. Am I then exercising my priesthood? We are not all ministers, for God has not given us all power to minister the word of the Lord, but we are all priests.
Ministry is the exercise of a spiritual gift, and the means of conveying truth from God to the souls of men, therefore every person ought to have the deepest sense in his soul, if he rises to minister, “I have something from God for the people before me.” But while public ministry is limited according to gift, priesthood belongs to the youngest, feeblest, weakest believer, it belongs to women as well as to men.
Worship is the result of the exercise of the holy priesthood; ministry is the exercise of the gift the Lord has given to His servants. Worship is from the soul to God. Ministry is from God to the soul.
The holy priests offer up spiritual sacrifices. Hebrews 13:15,15By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. (Hebrews 13:15) says, “By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.” There should be rising from the hearts of the saints continually blessing, and praise, and worship.
The Lord has put us together first of all to praise and thank and bless God. We must have God first – not even preaching the Gospel first: and this is where Christendom has gone wrong. It has put the world first, and made the salvation of souls the first object. Now this is not what God looks for to be our first object.
What is God’s great work now, from the day of Pentecost onward? What has He been seeking? The Father seeks worshippers, and because the Father seeks worshippers, the Son says, I must go and seek sinners, and when I have found them, turn them into worshippers. When once we are worshippers and holy priests, it is easy to slip into the place of royal priests. Are you a royal priest? Looking to God we are holy priests, passing through the world we are to be royal priests, and what does royalty give? It gives dignity!
I feel we are very apt to lose the sense of our individual responsibility as royal priests. It is our privilege and solemn responsibility to “show forth the virtues of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.” But first we must exercise our holy priesthood. If we are built a spiritual house and given the privilege of being holy priests, are we exercising this privilege? Are our souls answering to the mind of God? The thing is very simple. Peter says these spiritual sacrifices are acceptable to God. It is that which the Lord looks for, delights in, and wants. It is what His blessed Son came into the world for.
What a picture the priesthood in the Old. Testament gives us of our position now. What does God put into our hands now? It is Christ! He puts Christ into our hands to offer up. He does not look for us to be occupied with ourselves, either with our own position or our own blessing, but to be occupied with all that Christ is, as the One that God finds precious, and whom our hearts find precious too.
“Unto you, therefore which believe he is precious,” i.e., what God sees precious, you see precious. Faith sees exactly what God sees.
It would be an immense help, if in our meetings for worship this filled us, that we are there as priests, to offer to God what He delights in, and that is Christ. I press this thought, that our condition individually largely affects our assemblies. Supposing a large proportion of the holy priests are flat and listless, and with little enjoyment of Christ, you must have the whole assembly affected by that. Oh if our souls were bright with God, what meetings for worship ours would be. It would be all Christ and Christ alone. The Lord lead us into the enjoyment of what it is to be holy priests, those whose hearts are satisfied with Christ, and bringing Him to God continually, Whom we find precious and Whom God finds precious.
But if we are to be holy priests we are also to be royal priests. What is the royal priesthood? Clearly of the same nature as the Melchizedek priesthood of Christ. Now the Lord is exercising priesthood after the Aaronic type. He is thinking of us poor weak souls down here. The exercise of His priesthood is Aaronic, its order that of Melchizedek. Now He is meeting weakness and infirmities; when He comes out as the Melchizedek Priest by-and-bye, there is no weakness to meet; all is pure blessing consequent on victory. But now before Christ exhibits the Melchizedek priesthood, He says, You must exhibit it! He is going to be a blessing to everybody by-and-bye, and He says, That is what you may be now in every possible way in which Christian love and grace may carry you out in devotedness to meet every need whether of body or soul. You may have to carry a piece of bread to a hungry person, or to visit a sick ones to comfort a mourning heart, or to speak a word to a troubled conscience; it all flows from the fact of your being a royal priest.
We have seen in Hebrews 13:1515By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. (Hebrews 13:15) our holy priesthood, offering the sacrifice of praise to God continually, and in verse 16 our royal priesthood comes out. “But to do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” The sacrifice of praise is the first thing, and the sacrifice of active benevolence is the next, i.e. reproducing the character of God.
The world is to look at you and me, and to see in us the character of the One whom it cannot see, who is now hidden—by the coming out in us of what He is, in all our words and ways.
Christ says, as it were, I depute you to exercise the Melchizedek priesthood before the day when I come out.
What is the Melchizedek priesthood? A priesthood of unmixed blessing! What is a Christian? person who is blessed, and who becomes a blesser. What are you left in this world for? Christ has left you, in this world to be a person whose heart is always going out to God in praise and thankfulness, in the midst of a thankless world, and going out to men in acts of benevolence and unselfishness, in the midst of a selfish world. To God thankfulness and praise; to men benevolence and unselfishness, that is to be your life. The Lord grant that His grace may so work in our hearts as to produce these spiritual fruits.
Verses 7 and 8. Why do they stumble at the word? Because they will not obey God. “Whereunto also they were appointed.” Appointed to what? Appointed as a nation to have this stone put before them. God gave them the most wonderful privilege possible, to have Christ put before them and they stumbled over Rim. Because He came in lowly grace the nation stumbled over Him.
“But ye are a chosen generation,” &c. Peter is addressing himself there particularly to the believing remnant of Israel, the Jewish believers whom God had turned to Himself. The nation stumbled over Him, he says, but you poor feeble believers have all the blessings that God had promised the nation.
As a nation, God had said of them in Exodus 19 that if they were obedient they should be a peculiar treasure to Him, a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. They were disobedient, and lost it all, and now Peter says, you feeble remnant have got this blessing, in spite of the disobedience of the nation, through the grace of God and the obedience of Christ.
“Which in time past were not a people but are now the people of God.” A word from Hosea 2. Because of their wickedness and sin God had said that they would not get mercy and were not His people. The nation had lost the blessing through their disobedience. In the 2nd chapter, the Lord promises to give it back. In spite of their sin and disobedience and unfaithfulness, and My judgment—too, I will bring them into blessing by-and-bye, God says, and in the very spot where they were judged, there they will be blessed. Judgment had gone by, and mercy rejoices against judgment, for even disobedience cannot frustrate the purposes of God in grace.
God will fulfill His promises to Israel and bless them through His own grace, and they will go to the valley of Achor, the place where the first judgment came on Israel in the land, for profaning themselves with the forbidden thing, and there where they had been judged they get the blessing through mercy, and now, Peter says, you believing remnant get this position before the time comes when God will restore the nation.