1 Peter 2:4

1 Peter 2:4. To whom coming. The relative form of the sentence indicates its intimate connection with the previous section. The connection, however, is not between an exhortation and a statement of privilege appended in support of the exhortation, but between two exhortations which, while in themselves distinct, have a meeting-point in what is said of ‘the Lord.' This verse, therefore, gives a further explanation of the primary condition of all growth, namely, union with this Lord Himself. They who have tasted that He is good have an irresistible attraction to Him, and it is by giving effect to this attraction that they grow. If the Church, too, is to increase into that which God means it to be, its members must not only feed upon the Word, but come constantly to Christ Himself. Though the verb by which this is expressed is the verb from which the word proselyte is derived, it is fanciful to suppose that Peter had in his mind anything relating to the modes of admission for Gentile converts into Judaism. Neither is he alluding specially to service. It is held, indeed (e.g. by Schott), that Christ being represented here not as the source of the individual believer's life, but rather as the foundation of the structure which is being built up of many regenerate individuals, the ‘coming' naturally refers neither to the first act of faith nor to the daily renewal of personal fellowship, but to the stated coming with all the powers of the regenerate life to Christ for purposes of service. The idea then would be that the giving of ourselves to Christ's service in the great work of rearing the spiritual temple is to be made our recognised mode of conduct. But the construction of the verb (which is unusual here) points rather to something more than a simple approach to one to a close approach or intimate association; while the present tense describes that as a habit. The idea, therefore, is simply this that the upbuilding of the Church on Christ the foundation can be made good only in so far as we, the builders, are ourselves ever coming into close personal union with the same Christ. The verb selected for the expression of this union, meaning as it does to attach one closely to an object, is in perfect harmony with the figure under which both Christ and believers are represented here.

a living stone. The E. V. inserts as unto. The original, however, is bolder. It has no such note of comparison, but designates the Lord directly a living stone; in which phrase the main thing, too, is the noun stone, not the qualifying adjective living. Christ is spoken of under the figure of a stone simply because in relation to the House He is the foundation; as believers are termed stones, because in relation to the same House they are in one point of view the materials to be used in building, while in another they are the builders. The word for stone here is an entirely different word from the term which is identical with the personal name Peter, and this prevents us from supposing (with Bengel, Canon Farrar, etc.) that the apostle was thinking here of the new name (Peter = rock or stone) which he had himself received from Christ. He uses the term simply as a well-understood Old Testament title of Messiah, as he uses it again in his discourse after the healing of the cripple (Acts 4:11), and as Christ Himself employs it in order to point the application of the parable of the wicked husbandmen (Matthew 21:42). Peter, indeed, as some suppose, may have been that ‘one of His disciples' who, as Jesus ‘went out of the temple,' said unto him, ‘Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here,' and who now pointed his readers to that Master Himself as the chief corner-stone of a more glorious temple slowly rising out of more imperishable material. The adjective ‘living' is attached here, as it is also to the subsequent ‘stones,' simply as a note of the figurative application of the noun. It does not refer to the Resurrection of Christ, neither does it express such ideas as that Christ became this ‘living foundation' only through death, or that He lives to make others alive, or that ‘He penetrates and fills with His life the whole organism of believers, and causes it to grow' (Fronmüller). Far less is the expression analogous to the phrase living rock, describing the stone in its natural state as distinguished from the stone broken and hewn.

rejected indeed of men, but with God chosen, honourable. There is no reference here to the Jews as distinguished from others. There is simply a broad contrast drawn between two kinds of treatment accorded to the ‘living stone,' one on the side of men, and another on the side of God. It is much in Peter's habit to draw such contrasts (cf. Acts 2:23-24; Acts 3:13-15; Acts 4:10; Acts 5:30-31; Acts 10:39-40). Hence, too, instead of the ‘builders' of Psalms 118:22, we get the more general phrase ‘men.' The verb which the E. V., following Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Genevan Version, translates ‘disallowed' here (as it does again in 1 Peter 2:7, but nowhere else in the N. T.), conveys the stronger idea of rejection after trial, or on the ground of want of qualification. Here ‘reproved' is given by Wycliffe, and ‘reprobated' by the Rheims, and outside this Epistle the verb is invariably rendered ‘reject' in the E. V. The value which the stone has in God's sight is expressed by two adjectives, one of which describes it as ‘chosen' or ‘elect' (i.e chosen by God as qualified for His object); while the other describes it as consequently ‘honourable,' or ‘in honour' with Him as such (the term being somewhat different from the ‘precious' in 1 Peter 1:19). Other epithets, which in Isaiah 28:16 are descriptive rather of what the stone is to be in the building than of what it is in God's estimate, are omitted.