The First Letter of Peter- 7
Pastor Marty Wednesday, January 7, 2026 at 4:01PM Subtitle: A New Spiritual People- part 4
1 Peter 2:4-8. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, January 4, 2026.
We continue in this section where Peter admonishes us to be a part of the new spiritual people that Jesus is making. He has been doing this through a series of imperatives (commands) that have other admonitions attached to them.
As we pick up today’s portion of Scripture, Peter moves into another section that is not couched in the language of command.
Let’s get into our passage.
You are being built into a spiritual house (v. 4-8)
Peter switches from the image of a baby growing up in the family and needing the milk of the word. This image now is that of a stone building. We could describe these as an organic image and an inorganic image. However, notice that the stones in this section are described as living. This is not just a dead building. This is a living building made of living stones. However, I don’t want to get ahead of myself here.
Though there is no explicit command, there is an implicit one. If this is what God is doing, then we need to cooperate with Him and keep it in mind in all that we do.
One last thing before going into verse 4. The imagery of a spiritual house is very rich in the Old Testament. First, a house was a way of referring to a family. The building itself draws its importance from its aid in the growth of a family. In Ruth 4:11, Rachel and Leah are described as having built the “house of Israel.” This is not about a literal house. They gave birth to the sons of Israel who themselves are the house of Israel.
In fact, Christians enter into and become a part of the House of Messiah Jesus, the family that he is making. This is not a family that is birthed in the natural, thus it is called a “spiritual” house. We are not born into the Family of God by our natural birth but by a spiritual birth when we put our faith in Jesus. This is a real work of the Holy Spirit.
The second image of a house is by further extension a reference to a dynasty. The house of David can refer to his family, but it can also refer to the successive generations of kings that descended from him.
Thirdly, the temple in Israel was called a house. We see an interesting word play on these images in 2 Samuel 7. There, David wants to build God a temple, a house. Up until then, the sacrifices happened at the tent structure called the tabernacle. The presence of God was there above the ark of the covenant. God questions David. “Do you want to build me a house? When did I ask you to do that?” God then goes on to tell David that He would make David a house (a dynasty) and that one of His sons (Seed) would build Him a house (temple) for His Name. Furthermore, God would establish the throne of this Son’s house forever. Clearly, Solomon was not the fulfillment of this prophecy. Instead, Solomon gives us a glimpse that falls short of one who would come and be the Greater Solomon (or the One Greater than Solomon).
Peter is picking up on this prophecy and its imagery. Jesus was and is now building a spiritual temple out of God’s spiritual people. We are individually and corporately a place where His Presence dwells.
Because every house, family, grows through the offspring (the Seed), we can also see the connection to the many prophecies of the Seed of the Woman who would crush the serpent’s head, the Seed of Abraham who would bless the nations, the Seed of David who would build a temple for God and rule forever, etc.
A Jewish person in the first century who heard these things would be troubled. How could Messiah build a spiritual temple and let the natural temple Jerusalem be destroyed?
Now, let’s look at our passage. Peter describes believers as “coming” to Jesus as to a Living Stone. So, before we even get to the building of this spiritual house, we see that Jesus is a Living Stone. This is the merging of the two images surrounding a house, that of the Son of the Father and yet a foundational Stone to God’s spiritual temple. Jesus is a spiritual stone that is not just alive, but full of the Life of God. God’s source of life is within this Living Stone.
Peter then details that this Living Stone was rejected by men. Of course, he is thinking of the rulers and elders of Israel as a group (some of them did believe) and also the larger group of society that followed them, though some did believe. Jesus was essentially rejected by Israel as a nation.
Peter then reminds them of how God saw that Living Stone. God does not reject him. Rather, to God this Living Stone (Jesus) is choice and precious in His sight! The idea that Jesus is choice is the idea of chosen by God. He is what God has chosen. The fact that he is precious refers to how much God valued him. He is highly valued by God.
This is reminiscent of Psalm 2. There we have the rulers and nations of the earth complaining that they will not have God’s Messiah ruling over them. However, God laughs. “I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.” He is not going to change His mind. He has chosen this One. This One is highly valued by Him.
So, we are coming to this Chosen, Highly Valued Stone (Messiah), which makes us living stones as well. Of course, we are not a living stone in the same way that Jesus is. It is his life flowing into and through us. It is His Life taking up residence within us. Like the branches connected to the vine in John 15, we need to be connected to Him in order to live and have life.
Verse 5 then speaks of the fact that we are being built into a spiritual house as living stones who are in connection to The Living Stone. This “coming to” and “being built up as” is harkening back to when Solomon’s temple was built or when the 2nd Temple was built. Stones would be brought to the master builder on the temple mount and placed in the appropriate place. Of course, Jesus as a Master Builder places us among his family who are both individually and corporately a spiritual temple of God. This is what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 3:16. Don’t you know that you are the temple of God?
So, what is great about the temple? It is not how great the stones are. Rather, it is great because this is the place that God has chosen to place His Presence. The Presence of God is there! Why is His Presence there? He is there to shine the light of God to the ends of the earth!
In keeping with us being a spiritual house (temple of God) we are also a holy priesthood offering up spiritual sacrifices to God that are holy and acceptable to Him. Our sacrifices are no longer sheep and calves, but rather, they are the sacrifice of praise to Jesus. They are the sacrifice of the desires of our flesh and the pride of life for the sake of God’s purposes. They are the sacrifice of enduring persecution and mockery for His Name’s sake. It is ultimately a whole life worship in sacrificing our whole life for the sake of His purpose.
What makes us holy and acceptable to God? It is clearly not our perfection. Rather, it is the perfection of Jesus and our faith in him that makes us acceptable. Our service to the world as priests of God’s Messiah, Jesus, is not always accepted by man, but it is choice and precious in the eyes of God because it is done by faith in His Choice and Precious Living Stone.
In verse 6, Peter turns to make a case from Scripture for this. He is not just making this up. It is what the Scriptures foretold. It was God’s plan all along to make a new spiritual people serving as His spiritual temple on earth out of the Jews and Gentiles becoming one people by faith in the One Living Stone.
He first quotes Isaiah 28:16. In that passage, God is rebuking the leaders of Judah. Verse 14 says, “Hear the word of the LORD, O scoffers, who rule this people who are in Jerusalem!” He goes on to declare that He is going to lay down, i.e., establish or set in place, a tested and precious cornerstone in Zion. Those who believe on this cornerstone will not be put to shame. I know that the KJV uses the phrase “shall not make haste.” The idea is that they will not be put to flight (shame) by enemies or by judgment from God.
The leaders were refusing to trust in God’s ways, so He would send a foundation cornerstone. This sets up a situation in which everyone will need to choose. Will I believe on this stone or not? It doesn’t matter what man says or does. What matters is what God says and does. He will always have the final word.
Then, in verse 7, Peter stops to comment. This stone is not just precious to God. He is precious to us who believe in him. The Messiah Stone has been given by the Father to His people. Of course, when you give a precious gift, you hope for the recipients to understand and to treat it with the proper value it deserves.
This would not have been a surprise to any of the Jews. What was a surprise is that there would be some who do not believe, who do not see it as choice and precious.
In verse 7b, Peter quotes from Psalm 118:22. This prophesied cornerstone shows up again. We are told there that the builders would reject a stone, but that it would become the Cornerstone. That is, they would be overruled by the Master Builder Himself, God the Father. The builders would refuse to set, to install, Him in His proper place, but God would do it.
Peter then quotes from another passage, Isaiah 8:14. It starts by stating that Messiah will become a sanctuary, which is connected to the Temple. However, to both houses of Israel, he would be a stone of stumbling and a stone of falling away. Peter stops there, but let me take us further.
“14 Then He shall become a sanctuary; but to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, and a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 “Many will stumble over them, then they will fall and be broken; they will even be snared and caught.”
This is what Simeon was referencing when he described the baby Jesus in the temple. “This Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against.” (Luke 2:34).
The warning is given by the prophet Isaiah so that people would believe and be ready. Simeon and Anna were of those who believed the Word of God and were ready when Messiah appeared. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who do not fall away because of me.” He spoke this to the disciples of John the Baptist.
This brings us to our last point.
Peter explains in verse 8 that they stumble at Jesus the Messiah Stone because they are disobedient to the Word. God warned them, told them in advance. They have no excuse. We shouldn’t blame God when we fail the tests that He told us we would have.
When it says that they were appointed to this stumbling, we should not read this as if they had no choice. It is not as if they wanted to serve Messiah, but God wouldn’t let them. Rather, they are appointed to stumble because they refuse to listen to the teaching of God. We can choose to reject God’s Word, but we do not get to choose where that takes us. Of course, one who stumbles can recognize their error and get back on track. Saul of Tarsus is one such person. But if we refuse to acknowledge our error, then the Stone of Stumbling becomes a Stone of Falling Away.
Ask yourself this. Is Jesus no longer a Stone of Stumbling? As Christians, we can fool ourselves into thinking that this was only for the Jews. Yet, Hosea 14:9 is still true today. “The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them. It is not enough to be in the right group, saying the right things, and headed in the right direction. The Word of the Lord is given as a litmus test. Do you trust Him, or do you trust yourself more? The Pharisees would have said that they were embracing God’s Word and doing it. Yet, those same Scriptures were given to prepare them for Messiah. We cannot co-opt God’s word for our purposes and think that He will be okay with that. Our challenge is not to do the same thing as the Pharisees. Our challenge is to believe the Word of God and respond to the goading of the Holy Spirit with faith. Otherwise, we will just be another group exalting the traditions of our fathers over the top of God’s Word.