The Chief Cornerstone
Introduction
It seems like every generation from Adam forward is doomed to take that which is rightly God’s or rightly defined by God and twist. Consider, in our modern times, the push for homosexual marriage. God grants us a huge blessing in the provision of the relationship of marriage. Indeed God was not bound to give us this great gift. Yet, not content with this gift, we have to twist God’s order, preferring rather, the perversion of man to the blessing of God. Consider, Adam and Eve themselves. They were more than occupants of the Garden of Eden, they were king and queen. They richly shared in God’s abundant providence for them, through-out the Garden and yet it wasn’t enough for them.
So too the Israelites when given the opportunity, preferred the bondage, slavery and brutality of Egypt to the freedom of being God’s covenant people for the sake of Leeks, Onions and Garlic (Numbers 11:5). You would think that those who had seen God part the Red Sea; those who had tasted of God’s provision in manna; whose eyes had witnessed the destruction of the entire Egyptian army and the slaughter of the first born and each one of the plagues having been poured out by the hand of God, would desire God’s way and not elevate man’s way. These same people were given God’s decrees in the Mosaic covenant. His meticulous and lovely Law was given to them on Sinai. He had established an order like no other. This order was orders of magnitude more humane, more gracious, more just than all other known to man. Yet they preferred the capricious genocidal wickedness of the tyrant Pharaoh in exchange for a bite of meat.
God establishes via the wisdom of Moses’ father in law; Jethro, the order of Judges in Exodus chapter 18. God codifies the Law. Moses and the order of Judges, seek His face for wisdom and justice and God is in a real sense their King. So much time went on for the Israelites. Moses grows old and dies, having only glanced across the valley at the promised-land from the top of mount Nebo. The system of Judges implementing the laws of their heavenly King, God Himself continued. God sent them Judges and Prophets. But as with all other fallen men, the Israelites grew tired of God’s ways. They wanted a king according to their order, their desires. They longed for one who would rule over them as the nations around them. God warns them in 1 Samuel 8 of the cost of this King. He makes it abundantly clear to Samuel that it is not his authority that they are rejecting, but God’s. He warns them of the wicked tyranny that was to come at the hand of their unrighteous king. And so He gives them the wicked king Saul. Saul’s heart is quickly led away from the order of the true King of Israel: God. God allows Saul to accumulate for himself wicked deed on top of wicked deed. In so doing God demonstrates to Israel and in fact all of mankind the outcome of man’s kings.
Wicked Kings and Thrones
Saul is by no means the last of the wicked kings of Israel. However, Saul is replaced by the hand of God and His choosing of the young shepherd: David the son of Jesse. David is anointed king of Israel in the 2nd chapter of Samuel. God makes a promise to David, that He would establish David’s throne forever. He says: “And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.” – 2 Samuel 7:16 Again David speaks of the Lord’s promise to him and prophesies the Lordship of Christ in Psalms 110: “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” David is not entirely faithful to God. In fact his sin is grievous and ugly. Similarly, Solomon sits on the throne after David and yet is also wicked. In fact, all of the kings that follow David, in the line of David, comprise a rogue’s gallery of mostly tyrannical, faithless wicked men.
History records few kings who weren’t tyrants. In fact, even, often and especially the kings in Christendom were immoral men and brutal tyrants. In part due to their often unchecked power and due to their fallen nature as fallible men, these rulers and authorities abounded in the wicked treatment of their subjects and in their own personal, incredible immoralities. In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, using the name of Jesus, in their zeal banished all Jews from Spain.
Mans Wicked and Lesser Government
Daniel says of God: He removes kings and sets up kings – Daniel 2:21. Paul says “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God”- Romans 13:1 God does raise up kings and authorities as His instrument of protecting the world from slipping into utter murderous chaos: “for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.” Romans 13:4. Paul nor Daniel is insisting that as God allows kings to establish their kingdoms and reign for a time, that these kings represent the order that is God’s perfect and wonderful righteous reign. Though David was sinful, in David’s throne we see a glimmer of hope for those who have suffered the consequence of unrighteous authority, however.
Fallen men often believe that if only we were able to establish the right order here on earth, then everything will be made right and we would live, well governed, in peace. Most, if not all revolutions, at least in the modern era are rooted in the notion that it is possible to setup the ideal, or at least a more ideal, form of government in the current order of things. Few are less than incredibly murderous and tragic marches toward tyranny, where the end of idealism is the same, but more brutal and tyrannical an order than the first. Communism in modern times has given us example after example of this, as the rallying cry of its foot soldiers is always justice for and the benefit of the people. Then quickly the very government that was intended to bless the people soon becomes the instrument by which the people are even more brutally repressed.
Even the American form of government, probably the most successful at preventing tyranny, has vast and profound problems and will no doubt, not last forever. In fact, our founding fathers assumed the wickedness of men and so as a means of enforcing the more objective view of the people over the view of unrestrained leaders, they built a form of government in which revolution was an ongoing process. One in which leaders good and bad were always subject to removal, through the process of democratic elections.
And just as all forms of government and all previous crowns, so to even the American form of government will one day meet its destiny on the scrap heap of history. No matter what man’s best intention in placing himself on the throne of government, he is bound to fail. This is directly because of our sinful nature.
The Promise
So it is that God makes a promise to David. Though Israel had chosen the wickedness of an earthly king, God sent them a fallible and weak, yet anointed king in David. But David himself was not the fulfillment of God’s promise. David was actually merely a shadow of the one who was to come. Though David was a man after God’s own heart: 1 Samuel 13:13 “The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince over his people” David was a fallen man, like his father Adam and each subsequent generation, he was bound for the grave and would make tragic and sinful mistakes. God’s promise to David was far bigger than any earthly king could ever bare.
The promise made to David is really a promise made to the entire world. In the same way that Israel had lived out much of its existence as a nation under the hand of wicked kings, so too has all of mankind. We have, as a part of our nature submitted to and sought after lesser kings. In contrast to these wicked rulers and kings, God makes a promise to send a far different king. And with this king a far more significant kingdom. During the season of advent, we observe the first candle bearing in mind those who looked forward to the birth of Jesus, in regard to the Salvation that He would bring, but also, in His kingly reign.
A King on the Throne
In Acts chapter 1, as Jesus is preparing to ascend to the right hand of the Father, the disciples who had waited all of their lives and whose entire culture was based upon the anticipated coming of the Messiah, the King who would restore the glory of Israel during the time of David, ask Him: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Peter had put words to it in Matthew 16 when Jesus asks him: “But who do you say that I am?” Peter responds, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This Greek word here is the same word as the word used in Psalms 2 (Meshiakh – Messiah – Anointed one): “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed” Peter, as the disciples all knew, understood that Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise to David and to Israel.
In fact, the charge against Jesus by the Jewish council before Pilate was that He was: “saying that He Himself is Christ, a king.”
“and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.” – Isaiah 9:7
They knew that Jesus was to reign in righteousness and justice forever. They knew that Jesus would assume the crown of David, and establish it forever. Unlike David’s descendants before Him, He would establish a throne of righteousness.
They knew that Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise to His people. He was the humble King fulfilling Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
At His birth the angel Gabriel confirms that He would be the Messiah, the one who would sit forever on David’s throne. “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." – Luke 1:32
A Kingdom Established
In Jesus was the Kingdom that was established upon the throne of David. It was established and inaugurated during Jesus ministry here on earth. Jesus says in Mark 1:14: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” This kingdom is established in Jesus founding of the church. As Paul said in Colossians 1:18, And He is the head of the body, the church. Jesus in this verse in Mark ties the truth that the Kingdom has come down to man in His coming to earth in the flesh directly to the gospel. It is truly good news, for those under the reign of unrighteous governments, who would believe that Jesus came to establish the kingdom of God amongst men, by way of His death and resurrection. The good news, that is what “Gospel” means, is that the promise that God made so long ago has come to pass in Jesus. That He came and established a kingdom. Three times in Matthew, the Gospel is described as the “Gospel of the Kingdom”. In fact, the last of these this phrase is found in Matthew 24: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” So it is that the kingdom of righteousness is established in the person and the work of Jesus.
The disciples in Acts chapter 1, have yet to see that what is about to take place is the expansion of Christ’s reign and authority in His kingdom. They still see a small kingdom. One that is restricted to the physical land boundaries of Israel. They don’t see the explosion which is about to happen. We are going to cover in our next session, Jesus imperialistic conquest of all of mankind, but it is important to see that as Jesus is resurrected from the dea d, all authority is His and He therefore inaugurates the ensuing conquest of the earth through His body, the church. He tells them that shortly, power would come upon them in the form of the Holy Spirit, to equip them for the conquest that was to come. Then He gives them the scope of that conquest, He says: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’ – Acts 1:8
Read 1 Peter 2:1-11
We need to go back in time. We need to travel all the way back to Genesis chapter 11.
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech." So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
Reversing Babel
In Genesis, Moses describes for us the wickedness of mankind in his glory-seeking and self-serving attempt to unify. Man is for all intents and purposes a single people. They share a single language, but they are disordered and not quite a single nation and they desire to come together in this twisted unity to avoid being dispersed and to “Make a name for themselves”. And God’s response to this also tells us of their hearts, to accomplish whatever they desire. They are attempting to establish a unified order, as it were to abandon any need for God’s providence and to order things in such a way to no longer have any need of Him. And Peter here demonstrates for us that what has occurred in Jesus and His kingdom is the undoing of this very curse. We were indeed many different and often conflicting peoples. We were scattered across the earth, we came from many different languages and cultures. We were the consequence of the curse that was poured out on the people when they were scattered and their language was confused. As Peter says in verse 10: Once you were not a people. But now you are God’s people, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. In so doing Peter shows us how Jesus by His act of giving us, His people, His blessed mercy destroyed the boundaries that were inflicted in the curse at Babel. HE joins us and we become a mighty nation. Where the tiny and wicked hopes of the occupants of Babel to rule and to reign to build failed, in Jesus our King, He has and is building us into a nation, not for our purposes. Not so that we would receive blessing, though we do, infinite blessing. But so that we become a people who rather than being radically committed to ourselves are the possessions of our mighty king: Jesus. And that in this nation, our objective would be to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus. These excellencies are NOT personal triumphs rewrapped in words about Jesus. They are however, the glories of His kingdom in salvation, in wrath and judgment to come and in the final resurrection. So this glorious nation, built upon and rooted deeply on the foundation stone, the king of the nation; Jesus is called in direct reversal of Babel, to proclaim not its independence, not its unity and solidarity to accomplish what it desires, but to proclaim the wonders and the glories of its founding and preeminent member and king. This living stone: Jesus.
And though the rulers of Babel, selected solid stones, capable of providing ultimate structural strength and integrity for their city their stones failed, because they were cursed by God. SO it is that God placed in Zion, the city of David a stone, His stone. And just like the builders of Babel rejected God as their center, their founding member and King. So too, the Pharisees and most of the religious of Israel rejected this stone. They didn’t want God as their king, as the rock upon which they built their nation. But God in His grace, placed His Son right in the heart of that apostate city. This so that those who would reject Him would stumble on this very stone and be put to shame. But for those of us who have believed, this wonderful living stone, became the foundation piece, the very king of this nation.
Peter builds on this analogy, of Jesus as cornerstone. He wants us to see that we, those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, are being built into the very temple of God. This is the nature of the kingdom: that God would dwell with man. We see this nature in the great consummation as we spoke of it last week: Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. – Revelation 21:3 This is the analogy, that Jesus, the firstborn of the resurrection, the preeminent member, the founder and originating point of the church is the one upon Whom each one of us as living stones are being built. And just as no temple was built on radically misshapen and malformed stones, so too Jesus is forming, that is con-forming us by the Spirit into the same glorious shape as our King. He is doing this so that this temple might bring Him ultimate glory. This holy nation is the same one that Abraham, the writer of Hebrews tells us in chapter 11:10, was looking forward to as he became a sojourner and headed out into the desert.
And just as the nation being built at Babel was committed to accomplishing a name for themselves so too, this nation our nation is and ought to be radically committed to bring glory to a name. The same name that is above every name: Jesus the Messiah, the reigning and conquering King.
But this temple, that is being built, requires a priesthood that is an order of priests who serve the God seated at the center of this temple. Just like the priests of the Mosaic covenant who were consecrated, or set apart for service in the temple and called holy, we too are priests, from the least to the greatest. But unlike the Levitical order of priests, who were consecrated by the blood of animals, we have been consecrated, or made holy, or made clean by the blood of the founding member of this priesthood; Jesus. You see we always tend to get it backwards, we’d like to think that the temple was made for us. We draw false analogies and assume that the temple was made with us at the center, when in fact this temple, this kingdom, this dominion, this church was created to bring glory and honor to Jesus Christ.
Citizens of the Kingdom
Finally, this nation is defined and formed by those who are like newborn infants, longing for the pure spiritual milk, that by it they might grow up into salvation. We must be those who have and are tasting of God’s good gift of grace, in salvation and in His word. We must be those who are taking in the spiritual milk and longing and hungering to filled with more. This is the defining characteristic of those in this holy nation, we are those who have taken Christ’s gifts in the word and tasted of His goodness, and truly taken it in. Additionally, Peter exhorts us those who live as sojourners and exiles. That is as those who belong are citizens of another nation, Jesus kingdom. This fact makes us sojourners and exiles, for a time. We long for the full consummation and arrival of this Kingdom and our King. But Peter says that we are to live as those who are exiles, where the ways of this fleshly world are always assaulting us. Our own flesh, longs for leeks and onions and longs to taste at times of the sin that we left behind. These passions are waging war on Jesus nation and we are to fight. We have received, and are receiving His mercy. We were called out of darkness into His marvelous light (9), let us do away with lesser things and press into this kingdom, into our glorious King.
