WE still speak of Jesus Christ the Nazaræan as "the STONE disallowed indeed of men," but as now—
1. "BECOME THE HEAD OF THE CORNER." —God would have Him there because He delighted in Him, and He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in glory. Man gave Him, a cross and "open shame." God gave Him a throne and the highest glory. Israel would not have this STONE of salvation when He was presented to the nation before the cross; nor would they have Him when He was preached in the power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; for it was when Peter was thus preaching that he and John were arrested and put in prison, and it was when Stephen was testifying to all God's interventions in grace, and their refusing and resisting Him in everything He set up for blessing, that they stoned and killed him!
They disallowed Him when He was preached to them as "the head of the comer." They would not have Christ either in life or as raised from the dead and exalted to heaven. But God would have His Son! He will not let men set Him at naught without giving the fullest manifestation of His delight in Him, whatever man does to prevent His purpose being fulfilled. When he charges them with their wicked rejection and crucifixion of Him, he testifies of Him as "a man approved of God;... whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death;" and now the Holy Ghost has descended that He may be preached as "the head stone of the comer." Man set Him at naught in His life and death—and He was the stone of shame—a refuse stone on earth; but He is now the exalted Stone, "the head stone of the comer" in glory! and "the gospel of the glory of Christ" is "the gospel of God." When presented in grace it is as the Stone of salvation for our souls; our sins were laid on Him on Calvary, and He bore them there; and now in this "day of salvation" which God has made by exalting Him, He is preached in the power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. "And salvation is in none other, for neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men whereby we must be saved." What name? The name written over the Lord Jesus on the cross, as "The stone disallowed of men," "Jesus of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead." "We must be saved" by believing on this "disallowed" Stone. Since he has been rejected by His nation, He has been preached to al' the world as God's salvation. "We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-stone, and to the Greeks foolishness" (1 Cor. 1:2323But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; (1 Corinthians 1:23)). If you do not see Jesus as the "disallowed" but God-exalted Stone, you do not see Him as a Saviour. Peter and the rest of the apostles preached Him thus on the day of Pentecost and onwards: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ," i.e. "head stone of the comer.”
Paul very definitely declares His resurrection and glory, as in Acts 13; and when he speaks of Him as "raised up again," he says, "Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all that believe are justified from all things." Man, because he hated righteousness, nailed Jesus to the cross; God, because He loves righteousness, and would display it in Christ, raised Mm to His throne; and while "grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life," God is saving righteously, and declaring righteousness in justify ing the ungodly. Grace calls the lost, washes from sin, and justifies the ungodly through the "disallowed" Stone, the slain Christ; while it likewise quickens, raises together, and seats together in the heavens, in the exalted and glorified Christ. He was once the rejected Christ on earth, but He is now the accepted and glorified Christ in the heavens; and it is through the preaching of this rejected and disallowed but God-glorified STONE, that God is now saving sinners who believe in Him. Beloved, are you disallowing Him, or are you receiving Him by faith, and trusting in Him as your only Stone of salvation? Are you taking Him for your soul's salvation, or are you refusing Him whom God has raised up and exalted? The majority refuse Him and are "not saved!" Oh! see to it that you refuse Him not, lest the wrath come upon you to the uttermost; but take Him as your "cure foundation," for salvation, preciousness, life, and glory (Psa. 118)
Peter in his first epistle refers to the foundation stone as laid in Zion and rejected by the "disobedient;" but after his quotation of Isa. 28:1616Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. (Isaiah 28:16), ending with— "He that believeth on Him shall not be confounded," he adds, "Unto you therefore which believe He is precious;" or, as the literal meaning is, "the preciousness." Faith takes in God's estimate of Christ; and by this divine inlet all that He is in His person, obedience, life, blood, death, and resurrection: all that He is in His finished work: all that He is as ever living One, "the chief comer stone" in heavenly glory, flows into us (and God's foundation-stone was tried to the uttermost because He could bear it, and glorified to the uttermost because He deserved it); for we, and the "precious" Stone of grace and glory are one: for "unto you who believe is the preciousness." Faith is the Holy Ghost's channel by which He makes His preciousness flow into you, so that you become "precious' " living stones 1" All that is known on earth of the Lord Jesus, now that He has been made Head of the comer" in glory, is known by faith alone; and what a reality faith gives us in giving us the knowledge of oneness with Him in the heavenly glory! He in us and we in Him!
2. JESUS IS NOW IN GLORY, "A LIVING STONE."— By coming unto whom we become "living stones," and "are built up a spiritual house." This leads us to the confession of Peter, as you find it in Matt. 16, where that apostle confesses Jesus as "the Christ, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD." He is the Head of Life, etc.: the Father reveals Him as such: and "Jesus answered, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Peter delights in this word "living" (a Father-revealed word about Christ), and in his epistle he calls Him "A LIVING STONE," and he calls us who are built upon Him "LIVING STONES." Christ has been received up into heaven "as the Son of the living God," in the power of life, manifested in the resurrection which declared Him to be such (Rev. 1:55And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, (Revelation 1:5)); and it is on Him as the living Stone in the heavenly glory "the Church of God" is built; a glorious Christ in risen life, that has vanquished death and hell, is the stable foundation of "the Church of God." Peter carne by faith and the Father's revelation to this "living Stone," and participated of the nature of the Christ—the Rock;—and hence Christ says, "Thou art Peter," i.e. a rock-man, "and on this rock will I build my Church;" and Peter, remembering this, admits now the disallowance of the Stone, and encourages all to be "coming" to Him as to a living stone, that, being all Peters or living stones, they may be built up a spiritual house. This advance with the Holy Ghost is beautiful. That same Peter who, with decision and strength, denied that the Lord should ever be rejected, delights in the thought of the "disallowed" Stone, and with decision and strength he takes Him up as such, and tells us that we shall never build on Mm aright if we do not build on Him as a "disallowed" Stone. As such, He tells us that pilgrimage and persecution must be our lot.
“To whom coming, as unto a living stone." He is raised from the dead, and is set as the "head stone of the comer" in the glory of God; and He is there permanently as the "LIVING STONE," as He himself says, "1 am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of death and of hades" (Rev. 1:1818I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. (Revelation 1:18)). It is this living Christ, whom John saw invested with all authority, that Peter presents to us, and says, "To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." The holy house of God is being built of "living stones," in spite of man's disallowance of the Living Stone which God himself had laid as the chief comer stone. And we become living stones and precious stones by coming to the Stone of life—the risen and glorified Christ—raised from the dead by the glory of God the Father, and made "Head of the comer." We are made alive with the life of the living glorified Christ; disallowed on earth, but accepted in heaven. How great the privilege, dignity, and glory! How great the love that places us in Him! Have you become a living stone, or have you but a name to live while you are dead?—a dead stone, a stone not in contact with the "Living Stone"—not in the building, not on the rock, but on the sand! Let all come to the Living Stone, and be built up a spiritual house, for it is only by doing so that all His "preciousness” flows into us, and He is" our life." “Our life is hid with Christ in God; and when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then ye shall also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3:33For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)).
3. THE STONE FALLING IN JUDGMENT is also part of the divine history of this "disallowed" Stone. He shall fall in judgment both on nations and on individuals. He carne into our world in love and grace; "He was despised and rejected of men," and sent out of it by the cross and the grave. But He has been taken up by God to His throne of righteousness; and He shall yet descend from heaven in judgment to take vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel, and to crush ecclesiastical and political apostasy. “Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." This is the awful doom that is momentarily hanging over the despisers and rejecters of God's Christ! God will not suffer Christ to be always the "disallowed" and "refused" One. He is now the absent Righteous One, because men have cast Hira out, but He is coming again, and it will be for judgment! Daniel speaks of the different kingdoms that were to be set up; the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman; and when the last-named kingdom shall be resuscitated under the immediate inspiration and direction of Satan, as we read in Rev. 13. then Christ shall come in judgment on these ten toes of the image, and the whole image shall be broken in pieces. Christ, the Stone of rejection, is exalted to the throne of God in heaven, and that Stone will one day fall from the highest heaven, descending in awful 'judgment upon the avowedly anti-christian world, in a state of hopeless rebellion and apostasy from God. He shall come in His own glory, and in the glory of His Father, and of the holy angels. He will descend in terrible majesty, and in ineffable glory: and we read that He will trample His enemies in His fury—He will stain all His raiment (Isa. 63) He will come in person to judgment, as the august rider on the white horse, as we have it in Rev. 19 This is the judgment of war on the apostate nations, led on against God and His Christ by "the beast and the false prophet:" "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He doth, judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written, that no man knew but He Himself: and He was clothed with, a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed Him, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He might smite the nations" (verses 11-15). If that is said to refer to the gospel, it is certainly very strange gospel! Folly could hardly go farther than to try to make out that such predictions of unsparing wrath contain "the gospel of the grace of God." It is wrath consuming wrath, "wrath unto the uttermost" — the full cup of God's vengeance on an utterly apostate world! The New Testament has its Book of Joshua as well as the Old; and that is the Book of Revelation, which give the judgments of God and the wars of the Lamb and His armies in taking the inheritance of the earth out of the hands of Satan and his rebel hosts. And just as surely as earth's nations, in their proudest rebellion and in the height of their glory (like the Babylonian king), shall have the Stone upon them, breaking them in pieces, and scattering them in atoms as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor (Dan. 2), so surely will it fall on individual unbelievers in wrath and crushing! Christ is Judge as well as Life-giver; and if you will not have Him as your Life, you must have Him as your Judge! And so we read in such a passage as Matt. 21:4444And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. (Matthew 21:44), "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”
Oh! pause and think of this awful word: it is not mine, it is the word of the all-precious Christ, who carne into this world to suffer and die for sinners,—the word of Mm who said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He warns every man that, if he rejects Him as a Saviour, He will "grind Him to powder.”
He is preached now for salvation, life, and preciousness; but, if refused, He will descend on His rejecters in wrath, judgment, and crushing! Which will you have, O unsaved one? Delay not in your decision;— say not that you cannot settle it just yet; if you continue in unbelief it is settled for you by "the word of Christ" that unsparing judgment is your portion, "for he that believeth not shall be damned." SHALL GRIND HIM TO POWDER.”
In Switzerland, among the great Alps, there was in one place, some time ago, a huge mass partially detached from the mountain, and there was just below this a village that had been threatened by it with impending destruction for I do not know how long, perhaps for centuries. And there were people living on in the doomed village, and when any one spoke to them of their danger they said, "Oh! it has not come yet; it did not come in our fathers' days, and it will last all our time also." But one day the great mass began to move; the villagers saw it and fled, but those who delayed to take their effects with them were crushed to death in the ruins of their buried homes! O dear unsaved one! remember Jesus' word, "On, whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him, to powder." How foolish, you may say, of those Swiss people to dally, delay, and be destroyed. But how much more foolish it is to hear of Christ, in all His preciousness and loveliness, His death for sin and His life in heaven, and yet not to receive him for life, salvation, and glory! What have you been doing all your days, if not yet saved, by being built on this foundation-stone? How often you have heard of this Stone of salvation! We have nothing else to do but to tell you of Christ—of the sufferings and glories of Christ; and all who have received our word will rejoice with us in the fact that the once disallowed Stone is now the accepted Stone in heaven, and will soon be displayed as the reigning Stone in glory. "To whom coming, as unto a LIVING STONE, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as LIVING STONES, are built up a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:4,54To 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. (1 Peter 2:4‑5)).
4. THE STONE BECOMES A GREAT MOUNTAIN, AND FILLS THE WHOLE EARTH.— We have now to contemplate THE STONE in GLORY. After “THE STONE that was cut out of the mountain without hands" had "broken to pieces" the whole "image" of Dan. 2, representing the whole course of empire in the four great world-kingdoms, so that "no place was found for them," it is added, "and THE STONE that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." This is explained at verse 44, "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, that shall never be destroyed; and it shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces, and shall consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." "A great mountain," at verse 35, is the "kingdom" of the God of heaven which fills the whole earth, and stands forever; and which Rev. 11:1515And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 11:15) tells us is given at the sounding of the seventh trumpet into the hands of Christ. "Great voices" in heaven announce this,— "The world-kingdom, of our Lord and His Christ is come, and He shall reign forever and ever." All the prophets point to this, and declare its universality, and glory, and blessedness; while the Apocalypse tells us how it will be introduced, who they are that shall be associated with Christ in the administration of it, and that it will last a thousand years (Rev. 20) Christ will fall in judgment on the nations, and utterly annihilate their power; and then, being here in person, God will judge the habitable world in righteousness (according to Ps. 72.), by that Man whom He hath appointed, whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead "(Acts 17:3131Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. (Acts 17:31)). The knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall then cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." O let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon the earth" (Psa. 67:44O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah. (Psalm 67:4)). This will be the day of the earth's millennial glory, when "the Stone of Israel" will be "brought again into the world," and they shall be built upon Him as the very center and seat of government, worship, and blessing for the whole earth. God has determined, spite of man's refusal, to have Zion founded securely in life, salvation, government, and glory, on this precious Corner-Stone. "This is the Lord's doing, and marvelous in our eyes," Isa. 2:1-5; 11;12; 59; 60; 61; 62; 65; 661The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. 3And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 5O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. (Isaiah 2:1‑5) Zech. 14; Rev. 11. 12., etc. The "disallowed" Stone will be the GLORIFIED STONE by-and-by; He will be the enthroned STONE, like the jasper or the sardine (Rev. 4) What a history does Jesus, "the Stone of Israel," go through Pierced by the archers, —lifted up by the God of Israel, —offered as a foundation, —disallowed of men, but so precious all the time to God that He has exalted Him to His own right hand, —at length brought forth in power and glory to smite the image, and then to shine in glory as the enthroned Stone forever and ever.
He is "the Chief Corner-Stone" in grace, and He will be displayed as "the Head of the comer" in glory. And Rev. 21 shows us, under the symbol of a heavenly city, our place and glory with Christ when He is displayed in His glory. The holy city descends from heaven, having the glory of God, and its sheen is said to be "like a stone most precious, as a jasper-stone, crystal clear;" and "the building of its wall was of jasper." The enthroned Lamb was seen as a jasper-stone, for He displays the divine glory, and the luster of the whole city is "like a stone most precious, as a jasper-stone, crystal clear;" "and the foundations of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones; the first foundation jasper." Every character of beauty is brought out, according to the power of the various stones to reflect the light falling on them. We become precious stones in being united to the Precious Stone of God, and we shall shine with dazzling glory when the Lamb takes the throne, and is the light of the golden city. In every variety of spiritual beauty shall we shine around Him in the day when the world-kingdom shall be His; and the different rays of His glory, which His people shall reflect, are indicated by these precious stones. The Lamb is the light of the heavenly city, and all the saints of God shall shine in the dazzling blaze of His glory, as gems and precious stones sparkle in the light of the summer sun.