22. Here the people magnify God for bringing his chosen servant to the honorable office which had been allotted him by divine decree. A wise king and valiant leader is a stone by which the national fabric is built up. David had been rejected by those in authority, but God had placed him in a position of the highest honor and the greatest usefulness, making him the chief cornerstone of the state. In the case of many others whose early life has been spent in conflict, the Lord has been pleased to accomplish his divine purposes in like manner; but to none is this text so applicable as to the Lord Jesus himself; he is the living stone, the tried stone, elect, precious, which God himself appointed from of old. The Jewish builders—scribe, priest, Pharisee, and Herodian—rejected him with disdain. They could see no excellence in him that they should build upon him; he could not be made to fit in with their ideal of a national church; he was a stone of another quarry from themselves, and not after their mind nor according to their taste; therefore they cast him away and poured contempt upon him, as Peter said: “This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders.” They reckoned him as nothing, though he is Lord of all. In raising him from the dead the Lord God exalted him to be the Head of his church. Since then he has joined the two walls of Jews and Gentiles into one stately temple, and is seen to be the binding cornerstone, making both one.
Jesus in all things has the preeminence; he is the principal stone of the whole house of God. Still the builders refuse him: even to this day the professional teachers of the Gospel are far too apt to fly to any and every new philosophy sooner than maintain the simple Gospel, which is the essence of Christ. Nevertheless, he holds his true position amongst his people, and the foolish builders will see to their utter confusion that his truth will be exalted over all.
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