Living Stones

1 Peter 2:4-9 gives an analogy of the Christian life as a spiritual house fitted together by living stones:

And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture: "Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, and he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed." This precious value, then is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve,"The stone which the builders rejected, this became the very corner stone," and, "A stone of stumbling and rock of offense", for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom they were also appointed. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 

The question that one must ask is what is a living stone and how does this analogy fit to describe the New Covenant life? From my meditations, I've come to understand this passage doesn't just speak of the body of Christ, but it also has deeper meaning for an individual's spiritual life. If we look at a house, the first aspect that most people focus on would be the superstructure of the house. Many will notice how large the house is, how large the property is, and other external things. Only skilled workers who construct homes will notice what foundation the house built on; furthermore, even the most skilled workers will only ask about the foundation if the house itself is defective. Otherwise, the assumption is that the foundation of the home is built well. Most people will learn about the strength of the foundation of the home only if the house collapses. The same is quite true for the lives of many believers. Most believers will evaluate the spiritual condition of another by looking at the external activities that a person does; only spiritual discerning people will ask the question of whether or not the person built the Christian walk on the foundation of Christ. As Matthew 7:24-28 describes, there are 2 general ways that a person can build their Christian life- they can build it based on hearing and obeying the Word of God or they can build it simply by hearing the word of God and acting on their own desire. To many people, this has an obvious outcome that is expressed through the motives for their actions. However, Paul looks at a deeper issue in 1 Corinthians 3

According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But let each man be careful how he builds upon it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.

Paul indicates here that it is one thing to build upon the foundation of Christ since no other foundation can be laid, but it's a deeper matter to build on the foundation of Christ with materials of the same strength and value as the foundation. After all, what is the purpose of spending lots of money building the foundation of a house if the superstructure of the house is made of cheap materials? However, this is the testimony of some; a believer may sincerely come to Christ and receive forgiveness of sins and justification through Him, but then after this process, he may begin to pursue his own personal ambitions that are not established in Christ. In this way, they have stunted their Christian development and in essence, they have put cheap, temporal materials over their foundation. Our Father knows that we are prone to this type of activity so in His grace, God presents us with circumstances and trials early on in our Christian walk to test the quality of these endeavors, knowing that these useless and dead works will be shown to be worthless. Consider how great of a grace this is! God doesn't wait for a long time until the near end of our lives to test the quality of our work, but He evaluates these works as soon as our hearts are open to Him. He does this because He knows that it's much better to endure the pain of removing dead works sooner rather than later. A warning should be given here- it's a dangerous thing to rebuild our lives with the same materials that God has judged as worthless and invaluable. There comes a time where God will stop evaluating these works that we cling to and will simply allow us to build a monument made of worthless materials. It will be a sad day for that person to invest his life with a spiritual house made of worthless materials.

So what should our life be built upon? Our life should be built upon with the same materials that our foundation is built upon: the life of Christ, faith in His life, and the fruit that come from His life. What separates an ordinary stone that is used for building any house and the living stones that build the Christian life is that living stone do not decay overtime. No matter how meticulous a person is in building a home and no matter how much money was spent on the home, an ordinary house will eventually decay and fall apart as the cumulative effects of weather and erosion takes its toll on the house. However, a house of living stones can never decay because the life within the stone, so to speak, keeps the house firm against the effects of weather and erosion. This is a picture of the Old Covenant life versus the New Covenant life. The Old Covenant life was built upon by dead stones, which were our righteousness and by extension, the righteousness of the high priests of the Old Covenant. No matter how much we try to meticulously control our behavior and to come to a pure life in God by our own strength, it's only a matter of time before the trials of life will destroy our life and defeat us. This is why Paul and Peter tells us to build our house with precious stones, just as Christ Himself is a precious stone.

Peter states that God purposely laid the precious cornerstone of Christ in the Church, not so that we can only establish our foundation, but so that we can understand how to build our lives. Our lives are built by our continuous growing faith in Him and in the grace that He freely gives us. The important emphasis is that it is through the power of the Holy Spirit and the continual filling of the Holy Spirit that we can be living stones- not a Christian life that is alive one day and dead the next day, but alive forever with Him. Understanding the precious value of Christ gives us this victory and enables us to withstand the snares of the enemy. Consider the words of apostle Peter

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 1 Peter 4:8-10

Notice that the emphasis is that our resistance here against Satan is through the God of all grace. He is the one the strengthens and establishes us as believers. His grace is greatly ab so that we continue to be living stones. As a final note to this topic, consider the words of the prophet Jeremiah:

Ho! Everyone who thirsts come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy, and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live... Isaiah 55:1-3

This passage gives the picture of a believer coming to the river of God and feasting on the abundance of His presence. Notice that Isaiah exhorts believers to drink from the only source that will satisfy you and give you strength, which is God Himself. Many people drink from "broken cisterns that cannot hold water" and as a result, they deal with perpetual frustration in their Christian life, as they fall in defeat time and time again. In times past, I use to read this passage without looking at the context and the audience. If we look back in the previous chapter, we see that the audience that this passage was intended to were those who were afflicted, storm-tossed and not comforted (Isaiah 54:11). Many can relate as they are afflicted by the attack of Satan, tossed around by the trials our life because their foundation is unsure, and deal with perpetuate anxiety because they haven't experienced the comfort of the Holy Spirit. To this audience, Isaiah says that

No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord... Isaiah 54:17

To the ones that are afflicted, storm-tossed, and not comforted, the Holy Spirit says that no weapon targeted towards you will prosper. This has the implication that a person sees the weapon formed against them, yet knows in faith that the weapon will not prosper. The picture that I have in my head is a large army of spiritual darkness who have all of their weapons at me. The question is: do I have the faith that these weapons by this formidable army, which is the temptations of sin, will prosper? The Holy Spirit says that this is our heritage- this is the inheritance that we are given as believers and the way that we practically enjoy this inheritance is by feasting on the grace and presence of God, which is the topic of Isaiah 55. What a promise from scripture this is! The temptations of this world can bombard me day in and day out and I do not have to yield to them at all... this is the promise of the New Covenant. We can come to the river of God and drink continuously. In my experience, this is the only way that we can continue to be living stones built up by the chief cornerstone of Christ. My prayer is that we live our lives in this way as living stones, knowing that we can live a life completely free to God continually.