What does it mean that Jesus and believers are living stones in 1 Peter 2:4-5?

The coming formation of this spiritual house was revealed to Peter by the Lord, when He said, “Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Christ is the living Stone, the foundation of this spiritual house. As the living Stone He is rejected of men, but chosen of God, and precious. Coming to Christ as the living Stone, believers as living stones are built up “a spiritual house”. It is true that the Christ to whom we come is the living Stone, rejected of men; but we may ask, How many have come to Christ in the realisation that He is rejected by man and in reproach? Coming to Him in the consciousness that He is in rejection will of necessity involve that we leave behind the corrupt religious world that in practice denies His rejection. We go forth to Him, bearing His reproach.

(V. 5). Having spoken of the character of Christ as the living Stone, the Apostle passes on to speak of the character of believers viewed as stones in God's house. They are “living”, partaking of the life of Christ, the living Stone, a life that death cannot touch. They are formed into “a spiritual house”, of which we know from the Gospel of Matthew that Christ is the builder. Nothing unreal enters into that which He builds. The Builder is perfect; His work is perfect; the stones are living. Throughout the Christian period the building grows, apart from all human instrumentality.

Then we learn that God's great object in forming a spiritual house is to have an holy priesthood offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Believers, in contrast to an earthly and carnal order of priesthood, form “an holy priesthood”. It is not only that they are priests, which might imply praising individuals; they are a priesthood, involving a praising company.

In verse 5 the apostle refers to them as "living stones" (the better translation of the word "lively" is "living"). As such they formed part of the "spiritual house" of which Christ Himself is the "chief corner stone," (v. 6). "Living stones" describes the saints as having both the nature and the life of Christ, and so formed to have their place in this new "spiritual house." Thus this third appellation "a spiritual house" describes them as "builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit," (Eph. 2:22).

And who and what is the Lord to whom we have come? He is the "Living Stone." This is a remarkable title of our Lord. It sets Him forth as the One in whom is life, who became Man, and who, by death and resurrection, has become the Head and Foundation of this new structure which God is building composed of men who live through Him and in Him. He is the "chief corner stone, elect, precious" (verse 6), "the head of the corner" (verse 7). The men who, as "living stones," have been built into this "house" of a living sort, became such by coming to Christ, the Living Stone.

Now, it is evidently to this magnificent passage that the apostle Peter refers in the second chapter of his first epistle, when he says, "To whom coming, as to a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as living stones [the same words], are built up," &c. All who believe in Jesus are partakers of His risen, victorious rock life. The life of Christ, the Son of the living God, flows through all His members, and through each in particular. Thus we have the living God, the living Stone, and living stones. It is all life together — life flowing down from a living source, through a living channel, and imparting itself to all believers, thus making them living stones.

Now, this life having been tried and tested, in every possible way, and having come forth victorious, can never again be called to pass through any process of trial, testing, or judgment whatsoever. It has passed through death and judgment. It has gone down under all the waves and billows of divine wrath, and come forth, at the other side, in resurrection, in divine glory and power — a life victorious, heavenly, and divine, beyond the reach of all the powers of darkness. There is no power of earth or hell, men or devils, that can possibly touch the life which is possessed by the very smallest and most insignificant stone in Christ's assembly. All believers are built upon the living Stone, Christ; and are thus constituted living stones. He makes them like Himself, in every respect, save of course, in His incommunicable Deity. Is he a living Stone? They are living stones. Is He a precious Stone? They are precious stones. Is he a rejected Stone? They are rejected stones — rejected, disallowed of men. They are, in every respect, identified with Him. Ineffable privilege!

I now know the Lord Himself: I have tasted that which He is. Moreover this is still in contrast with the legal condition of the Jew, although it is the fulfilment of that which the Psalms and the prophets had declared (the resurrection having plainly revealed in addition a heavenly hope). It was they themselves who were now the spiritual house, the holy priesthood. They came to the Living Stone, rejected indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, and they were built up on Him as living stones. The apostle delights in this word "living." It was to him the Father had revealed that Jesus was the Son of the living God. No one else had then confessed Him as such, and the Lord told him that on this rock (that is, on the Person of the Son of God in power of life, manifested in the resurrection, which declared Him to be such) He would build His assembly. Peter, by his faith, participated in the nature of this living rock. Here then (1 Peter 2:5) he extends this character to all believers, and exhibits the holy house built on the Living Stone, which God Himself had laid as the chief corner-stone elect and precious. Whosoever believed in Him should not be confounded.

It is being builded of living stones; not like the temple that Solomon built, which, though the wonder of the world, was built of stones cut out of the natural rock; all lifeless material; this house is instinct with the life of the Son of the living God.

But the apostle writes in the gap of Christ's rejection, before the day of blessing and glory dawns on Israel, the land, and all the nations; and he shows us Christ, dead, risen, and ascended, the object of God's delight, and the hinge of all that is good for the believer now. He is a living Stone, rejected indeed by men, but with God chosen, prized. So he preached at Pentecost: Him given up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye through hand of lawless men did crucify and slay, Whom God raised up… Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God made Him, this Jesus Whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ. And as Peter received a new name from the Rock which Christ alone was, so the saints who believe acquire a new nature from what He is, as he here tells us; "yourselves also as living stones are being builded up a spiritual house."

The question as to whether "coming" to Christ, in verse 4, refers to our first coming to Him as the Saviour, can be best answered by a consideration of the context, and of the character of the truth presented in the passage. The words, "to whom coming," follow, "If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious," and this connection supposes, we judge, that those who "come" already know the Lord. And then it is to be observed that the "coming" is not to Him as Saviour, or as Lord, but to Him as a foundation, a Living Stone, as the foundation of the spiritual house which is composed of those who have become "living stones" through faith in Him, the Son of the living God, who, as risen out of death in the power of resurrection, is the rock on which, according to His word to Peter, He builds His church. (Matthew 16:16‑18.) In support of this interpretation, the meaning of the word "coming" may be remarked. It is the word often used in the Hebrews (see, for example, Heb. 4:18; Heb. 7:25, etc.), and signifies "approach." It is quite true that it is only by contact with Him who is a living stone, that believers become living stones; only it must be remembered that the apostle is presenting to those, who had once been Jews what is now God's house, and who are now God's priests, in contrast with the temple and the priests of a dispensation which had for Christians for ever passed away. This explains the reason of Peter's solitary allusion to the church in the aspect of the house; and it shows, at the same time, the vast importance of understanding the truth of our being living stones, and what it is to be built up on Him who is the Living Stone, "a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."

We come now to that rejection of the Living Stone on the part of Israel, which disqualified them as the builders of God's spiritual house. It was about those who were prominently builders that the Lord spoke at the time of His last proffer of Himself to them as Israel's King, as well as of their foreseen rejection of it. In a matter of such fundamental importance it was necessary that God should have provided for His people the assurance of what was coming with regard to those to whom they looked as their spiritual guides. "The house of God" was that which distinguished Israel from all the nations of the earth. It was that dwelling-place of God with man which, although as yet only in type, declared the desire of His heart to be with man abidingly. Thus it was the place of that glory which, though already unseen by man, yet Ezekiel saw, as having lingered with them in love as long as possible, until finally forced out by their abominations. Yet their house, as we know, was not, after the manner in which the apostle speaks here, a "spiritual house." It was "a house made with hands," which could not, therefore, set forth God's design in the full way in which He desired. Forsaken of God, it became, like a vacant tomb, the witness only of the life which had departed. Yet God could not give up His thought. Thus, He who came seeking God's treasure upon earth always proclaimed that house (though in the idea of it, not the then reality) His Father's house; and it was there that He presented Himself when He came as King to His own, and His own refused Him. It was then entirely their own house (Matt. 23:38) which He had to leave desolate. But God had not given up His thought; and, driven back in His love, He only, according to His constant manner, declared that love, and the purpose of it, in a fuller way than ever. Thus the Lord could say to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up; but He spake of the temple of His body." In Him was indeed the perfect Witness of what was in the divine heart, and that for man; and in Him God really possessed a dwelling-place among men that could not be set aside. He was indeed rejected, and as such went back to the Father; nevertheless, the divine thought was not thus frustrated, but as the fruit of His own work the Spirit of God came down upon earth to build a habitation for God which should never cease to be this. The house was now "a spiritual house." The Lord had spoken of it to Peter when He said that upon that Rock which Peter had confessed, He would build His assembly; but as yet the thought of a habitation of God could not come fully out. Peter now explains the Lord's word to him, as we see here, in the clearest way. He sets aside all possibility of men saying, with any real semblance of truth, that Peter was himself the foundation of what the Lord spoke. It is Christ, he says, who is the Living Stone, the Foundation upon whom alone the living stones (of whom was Peter himself, according to the meaning of his name) are built up. The living stones here are the assurance of the Lord's promise that the gates of Hades should not prevail against that which He would build. They live in a power of life which cannot be touched of death; and of Himself also was this true, who, if He went down into death, was only to lay there the foundation of all blessing, and to reveal in Himself that which abolished death and brought "life and incorruption to light through the gospel." Thus, the whole building stands upon this Foundation, which is that from the beginning, "chosen of God" as "precious," and now in the present time revealing, as the apostle says directly, its preciousness. The house is "a spiritual house," the fulfilment of the promise by the prophet: "I will dwell in them and walk in them:" the Spirit of God filling and energizing that in which He dwells, so that it is not a mere shrine of the Spirit, but itself a spiritual reality; and this connects, according to the thought which we have already traced in Hebrews (Heb. 3), of a "spiritual house," with a "holy priesthood." Here we have the activity of those brought near to God in this way. They are revealed as those who, while God manifests Himself in them, have themselves, as one may say, their faces Godward and in their hearts the Spirit of relationship — a holy priesthood, capable, therefore, of this, with spiritual sacrifices now replacing the sacrifices of old, acceptable to God by Him who has made, once for all, that which was the true sacrifice in atonement for sin. Thus, the altar stands only inside the house now, the antitype of that golden altar which was in Israel's sanctuary. The brazen altar has had its fulfilment, and has thus disappeared, while the power of that acceptable sacrifice, which abides ever in its value before God, is that by which all spiritual offerings alone become acceptable.

The Person of Christ, then, the Son of the living God — in His resurrection-glory — is the foundation, the solid and imperishable foundation, on which the church is built. As alive from the dead He communicates life in resurrection to all who are built on Him as the true foundation-stone. This is plain from what Peter says in his first Epistle. "To whom coming, as unto a living stone .... ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house." And further down in the same chapter he says, "Unto you therefore which believe, He is precious," or "an honour." (See margin.) May both reader and writer note well these two most precious truths in connection with our "Rock-foundation" — divine life and divine preciousness. These are communicated to, and become the possession of, all who put their trust in Christ. "To whom coming," not to what coming; it is the Person of Christ we come to, and have to do with. His life — life in resurrection — becomes ours. From that moment He is our life. "To whom coming, as unto a living stone .... ye also, as lively [living] stones, are built up a spiritual house." Christ's own life, as the risen Man, and all that He is heir to is ours. Oh, wondrous, marvellous, blessed truth! Who would not desire, above all things, this life, and this life beyond the power of death — the gates of hades? Eternal victory is stamped on the risen life of Christ, it can never more be tested, and this is the believer's life.