THE STONE THE BUILDERS REJECTED

Matt.21:42,43 – Jesus *said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures,
‘A STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED,
THIS HAS BECOME THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE;
THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD,
AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’?
Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and on whomever it falls, it will crush him.”

This discourse happens just days before Jesus is crucified. The events of the last three years are finally coming to a head; Jesus would be crucified and God’s kingdom would be established. Here’s the interesting thing about the kingdom of God, it never really quite looks the way anyone expected it to. Jesus is introducing His message not just to the Jewish people but to the whole world. The Pharisees could not accept that even though it was right there in the scripture all along. Jesus began to quote the scripture to them about the cornerstone of God’s true temple but they couldn’t see it. They were so consumed with the physical temple they could not grasp these words, Jesus is the cornerstone and He was there at that very moment. Here is how MARTIN LUTHER describes this.

“First, with the passage “the stone that the builders have rejected,” Christ wants to show the Jews that the time is coming in which the gospel and the kingdom of Christ shall be taken from them and given to the Gentiles, who will bring its fruit, as they themselves answer that the lord of the vineyard will kill the murderers and let out his vineyard to others.
Second, with this verse he wants to confirm the chief article of our Christian doctrine, that we are justified before God only through faith in Christ.”

Luther’s point was what the whole point of this passage is about. The Lord was saying that whoever believed on this cornerstone, Jew and gentile alike, would be saved. He was introducing that the church made up of all nations would now become the temple of God. This was the shocking message that the Pharisees couldn’t grasp, all they could see was power slipping from their hands. Today the message is still the same, Christ is the first stone in the true temple, we become a living stone in that temple only by faith in Him.