The Messiah as the Stone

Posted 7/13/15 by Donald Barnhouse
Theme: Parables of Rejection
 
SCRIPTURE
Mark 12:1-12
 
And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country.When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture:
 
“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord's doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
 
And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

LESSON

In quoting Psalm 118:22-23, Jesus is reminding the leaders of the scriptural greeting given to Him by the crowd at His Triumphal Entry. The Messiah, the one who would replace the evil tenants in the master’s vineyard, was, “the stone which the builders rejected”—and they were in the very act of rejecting Him. The Messiah as the Stone is set before us in two passages in Isaiah, which are then quoted in the New Testament (Isaiah 8:13-15; 28:16). This theme appears in all of the gospels and also in 1 Peter. It is understandable that Peter should have been interested in this subject—Peter means “rock,” and this was the name the Lord had given Simon.
 
In fact, it is in an exchange between Peter and Jesus that Jesus is first described as a rock or stone. In Matthew 16, Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:17-19).
 
One important fact to note in this passage is that when Jesus gives Simon his new name, He uses the masculine form of the word, petros; but when He refers to the rock on which the church will be built, He uses the feminine form, petra. “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord,” for that is the doctrine on which the church is built. Facetiously, I once said, “Thank God we do not have to sing, ‘The church’s one foundation is Peter’s bones in Rome.”’ After the meeting a man came to me and said, “Thank you for saying that. I had been wavering, but when you said that, it was as though a drawn shade was snapped back. I saw the horror of that position, and I’ve come back to Christ as my one foundation.”
 
I believe that if Peter had ever known that people were going to build a church on him, he would have reacted in astonished horror. It would be like planning a civic center and saying, “Let’s save money by making the foundation out of Jell–O.” Peter was totally incapable of being the foundation of anything. Christ is God’s foundation stone.

STUDY QUESTIONS

  • What does the name Peter mean? Why is the significant?
  • What does Jesus mean that “on this rock I will build My church”?
  • How do we know he is not referring to Peter?
 

Making God’s Word Plain is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Making God’s Word Plain and the mission of the Alliance.