Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
1 Peter 2:6
“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.’”
Salvation, Scripture tells us, pertains to the individual and to the group. God redeems particular persons, and He also knits them together as His people, saving the collective body of the redeemed. This interplay of the salvation of individuals and the group can be seen in texts such as Romans 9–11, where Paul speaks both of the election of individuals unto salvation and of the redemption of all Israel—His redeemed people as a whole. The Apostle Peter also refers to salvation in terms of particular men and women as well as the entire assembly of those who trust in the Lord Jesus. As 1 Peter 2:4–5 says, we come as individual living stones to Christ, the living stone, but we are joined together as a “spiritual house,” as God’s true and final temple. Both the stones (individuals) and the entire edifice (the full body of redeemed people) are saved.
Peter has referred to Jesus as the living stone, the implication being that the other stones in the temple draw their life from the Savior and that He is the key component that holds the whole structure together. In today’s verse, Peter makes this point explicitly by quoting Isaiah 28:16, a prophecy of the cornerstone fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ. In the original context, Isaiah is speaking of God’s work to judge the faithless leaders of ancient Israel and the reestablishment of His blessed kingdom. Isaiah’s words find their truest fulfillment in Jesus, for His appointment as King of kings and Lord of lords was God’s ultimate act of rejecting the false shepherds who had led His people astray and raising up the true Shepherd to unify and protect His people (John 10:1–18; see Ezek. 34).
Because Jesus is the true cornerstone of God’s true temple, all those who believe in Him will not be put to shame (1 Peter 2:6). Isaiah warned the Israelites not to trust in foreign powers such as Egypt, for they would be unable to provide true shelter, and he promised that those who trusted in the Lord would find refuge (Isa. 31; 57:13). Trusting in the one true God then would be the only way to escape the shame of destruction, and trusting in the one true God through the Lord Jesus Christ today is the sole way to avoid eternal shame and destruction. We are tempted to find safety and security in lesser things—material goods, earthly relationships, sex, reputation. These things are good in their proper place, but they cannot provide the security of eternal life. That can be found only in our union by faith alone to Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Matthew Henry comments: “Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone that God hath laid in his spiritual building. The cornerstone stays inseparably with the building, supports it, unites it, and adorns it. So does Christ by his holy church, his spiritual house.” We are secure eternally only through our being built into God’s house through our union with Jesus Christ. Let us put Him first in our hearts this day and always, shunning idols.
For further study
- Psalm 22:3–5
- Zechariah 10
- Romans 10:5–13
- Ephesians 2:18–22
The bible in a year
- 1 Samuel 29–31
- Luke 18:35–19:10