Cornerstone

Monday, April 13, 2020

The stone that the builders rejected
    has now become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing,
    and it is wonderful to see.
This is the day the Lord has made.
    We will rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118:22-24

Author Warren Wiersbe makes the point in his Bible Study on this passage that this Psalm is Messianic, pointing to Jesus, the Messiah:

Under Zerubbabel and Ezra, the Jewish people had been rebuilding the temple, and under the leadership of Nehemiah, they had rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and restored the gates. During these activities, did they find among the ruins a large stone that they rejected, only to discover it was the most important stone of all?[1]

Peter certainly agreed with this view.  When he stood before the builders (the religious leaders of the Sanhedrin council) to explain the healing of a blind beggar at the temple, Peter seized the moment to  hold up the contrast between Jesus, the cornerstone of all human existence, and blind builders who rejected him:

For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says, ‘The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.’  There is salvation in no one else!  God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”  Acts 4:11-12

Peter later makes the point ^{(1 Peter 2)} that this very cornerstone, Jesus, whom the builders (religious leaders) rejected and had crucified, along with all others who reject Jesus’ Lordship would eventually find that, because of their unbelief they would experience the opposite of stability the Creator-cornerstone came to give us; they would find him a stumbling stone laying in the pathway of all their plans.  He would become a crushing rock of judgment.  Of course this imagery points to the coming final judgment of God for all sin, the chief, unforgivable one which is the rejection of Jesus Christ.

Every bit of the praise, joy, and contentment in life to which the Psalm points, is predicated on having the cornerstone in its’ rightful place, the throne, the foundation of right living – the anchor point for a strong building of one’s existence.  It is, to borrow the evangelist’s phrase, to accept Jesus in your heart, making Him Lord over your life.

For You Today

I have stumbled over enough things in the darkness in my life to know it is not wise at all to wait for the judgment stone to roll over me.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Russell Brownworth      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post on Psalm 118:22-24 see Cornerstone or Inconvenient Truth?

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[1] Some information in this post from Warren Wiersbe BE Bible Study Series