One stone, and the Rock it points to
The Living Stones
Stone is the emblem of what does not move. It is what we build on precisely because it is lifeless, fixed, unchanging under load. So there is a deliberate shock in the phrase living stones. Peter takes the hardest, deadest of building materials and calls it alive, then tells ordinary believers that this is what they are, and that they are being built into a house where God dwells. The surprise is anchored in a person. Before Peter calls anyone else a living stone, he gives the title to Christ, the living stone rejected by men but chosen and precious in God's sight. Everything the passage says about the people flows from what it first says about him. To understand living stones we begin with the one Stone who lives.
“Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”1 Peter 2:5
“Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.”1 Peter 2:6
The stone in Scripture
The heart of this image is 1 Peter 2:4-8. Peter invites his readers to come to Christ as to a living stone, disallowed by men but chosen of God and precious (1 Peter 2:4). Then he turns to the believers themselves. They too, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5). The picture is architectural and worshipful at once. A temple made of people, offering sacrifices of a spiritual kind. Peter grounds the claim in a chain of Old Testament stone texts. He cites Isaiah 28:16, that God lays in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect and precious, and whoever believes on him will not be confounded (1 Peter 2:6). He adds Psalm 118:22, the stone the builders rejected made the head of the corner (1 Peter 2:7). He then joins Isaiah 8:14, the stone of stumbling and rock of offence, over which the disobedient fall (1 Peter 2:8). Three stone prophecies, braided together and read of Christ. The language of a spiritual house echoes the whole biblical movement from a temple of stone to a temple of people. Jesus spoke of the temple of his body (John 2:19-21). Paul told the Corinthians that they were God's temple and that the Spirit dwelt in them (1 Corinthians 3:16), and wrote to the Ephesians of a building fitly framed together, growing into a holy temple, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20-22). Peter's living stones belong to this same architecture. The titles that follow in 1 Peter 2:9 complete the thought. The people built on the stone are called a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, language lifted from Exodus 19 and Isaiah 43 and now applied to the church. The stone is not only a foundation to rest on. It is the beginning of a whole new house and a whole new priesthood.
What it comes to mean
Of all the stone passages, this one leaves little to inference, because Peter does the interpreting for the reader. He names Christ as the living stone and the chief cornerstone explicitly, and he explicitly gathers Isaiah 28, Psalm 118, and Isaiah 8 as testimonies to him. There is no need to argue the church into these texts. Peter has already read them of Christ and told us he is doing so. What rewards careful thought is the paradox of the phrase itself. Stone is by nature dead and static, yet Peter calls both Christ and the believers living stones. The point is that this house is not a lifeless structure but an organism. The stones live because the cornerstone lives, and they are joined to him. A building normally grows by addition of inert blocks. This building grows by the sharing of a life that flows from its foundation. It is worth being precise about what is happening theologically. Peter is describing the transfer of temple language from a physical sanctuary to a people. In the Old Testament God dwelt in a house of stone in Jerusalem. Peter says that in Christ God now dwells in a house made of persons, and that these persons are also the priests who serve in it. The one image carries two roles at once. Believers are simultaneously the building and the priesthood, both the temple and those who minister there. We should also hold on to the sober note Peter refuses to drop. The same stone that is precious to those who believe is a stone of stumbling to those who reject it (1 Peter 2:7-8). Being built into the house is not automatic or presumptuous. It comes by coming to Christ in faith. The living stones are living because they are joined to the living Stone, and the whole passage turns on that connection rather than on any worth the stones possess in themselves.
How it points to Christ, the Rock and the cornerstone
This passage says outright what many stone texts only imply. Christ is the living stone and the chief cornerstone, chosen by God and precious, however men may have judged him (1 Peter 2:4, 2:6). Peter does not build up to this by hint. He opens with it and reads the prophets in its light, quoting Isaiah 28:16, Psalm 118:22, and Isaiah 8:14 as explicit testimonies to Jesus. The wonder of the passage is what Christ does to those who come to him. He does not merely stand as a foundation beneath a separate structure. He communicates his own life to the stones laid upon him, so that they become living too. Rejected himself, he makes a home for the rejected. The stone the builders refused becomes the beginning of a whole new temple, and the outcasts who trust him become its walls and its priests. So the shape of the gospel is written into the metaphor. Christ the living Stone was disallowed by men and chosen by God. Those who come to him share both realities. They may be overlooked by the world, yet in God's building they are precious, load bearing, essential. And because the cornerstone lives, the house is not a monument but a body, growing, worshipping, alive. To be a living stone is simply to be joined by faith to the One who lives and to receive his life as your own.
Questions people ask
Why call stones living when stone is lifeless?
Peter uses the paradox on purpose. He first names Christ the living stone (1 Peter 2:4), then calls believers living stones because they are joined to him. Ordinary building stones are inert, but this house grows by sharing the life of its cornerstone. The stones live because the Stone they rest on lives.
Are believers the temple or the priests in this passage?
Both at once. In 1 Peter 2:5 the living stones are built up into a spiritual house and are also a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices. The one image carries two roles. Believers are the temple God dwells in and the priests who serve within it, all through Jesus Christ.