THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
Life and Building
Message Five—Life and Building in Peter’s Epistles
Scripture Reading: 1 Pet. 1:8; 2:1-5, 9; 2 Pet. 1:3-4
I. The central thought of Peter’s Epistles and of the entire Scriptures is life and building—1 Pet. 1:23; 2:2-5; 2 Pet. 1:3-4:
A. Life is the Triune God embodied in Christ and realized as the Spirit dispensing Himself into us for our enjoyment, and building is the church, the Body of Christ, God’s spiritual house, as the enlargement and expansion of God for the corporate expression of God—Gen. 2:8-9, 22; Matt. 16:18; Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:16.
B. Christ, as the seed of life, is the power of life within us that has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness for the building up of the church as the rich surplus of life and the expression of life through the growth and development of life—2 Pet. 1:3-4; cf. Acts 3:15; cf. 3:15; Hymns, #154, stanza 4.
II. God’s goal is to have a spiritual house built up with Living stones—1 Pet. 2:5:
A. As life to us, Christ is the incorruptible seed; for God’s building, He is the living stone—1:23; 2:4.
B. At Peter’s conversion the Lord gave him a new name, Peter—a stone; and when Peter received the revelation concerning Christ, the Lord revealed further that He was the rock—a stone; by these two incidents Peter received the impression that both Christ and His believers are living stones for God’s building—John 1:42; Matt. 16:16-18; 1 Pet. 2:4-8; Acts 4:10-12; Isa. 28:16; Zech. 4:7.
C. We, the believers in Christ, are living stones as the duplication of Christ through regeneration and transformation; we were created of clay, but at regeneration we received the seed of the divine life, which by its growing in us transforms us into living stones—Rom. 9:21; 1 Pet. 2:5.
III. Since God’s building is living, it is growing; the actual building up the church as the house of God is by the believers’ growth in life—Eph. 2:21:
A. In order to grow in life for God’s building, we must love the Lord, take heed to our spirit, and guard our heart with all vigilance to stay on the pathway of life—1 Pet. 1:8; 2:2, 5; 3:4; 15; Prov. 4:18-23; Deut. 10:12; Mark 12:30.
B. If we want Christ’s life to be unhindered in us, we must experience the breaking of the cross, the killing death of Christ in the all-inclusive Spirit of Christ as the Spirit of glory, so that the following obstacles within us can be dealt with and removed—1 Pet. 1:11; 4:14; Psa. 139:23-24:
1. Being a Christian means not taking anything other than Christ as our aim: the obstacle to this is not knowing the pathway of life and not taking Christ as our life—Matt. 7:13-14; Phil. 3:8-14; Col. 3:4; Rom. 8:28-29.
2. The second obstacle is hypocrisy; a person’s spirituality is not determined by outward appearance but by how he takes care of Christ—Matt. 6:1-6; 15:7-8; John 5:44; 12:42-43; cf. Josh. 7:21.
3. The third obstacle is rebellion; we may be very active and zealous in doing things but still imprison and disobey the living Christ within us by ignoring Him—Lev. 14:9, 14-18; 11:1-2, 46-47; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor 15:33.
4. The fourth obstacle is our natural capabilities; if our natural capabilities remain unbroken in us, they will become a problem to Christ’s life—2:14-15; 3:12, 16-17; Jude 19; cf. Lev. 10:1-2.
D. In order to grow in life for God’s building, we must be nourished with the guileless milk of God’s word—v. 2:
1. The guileless milk is conveyed in the word of God to nourish our inner man through the understanding of our rational mind and is assimilated by our mental faculties—Rom. 8:6; cf. Deut. 11:18.
2. Although the nourishing milk of the word is for the soul through the mind, it eventually nourishes the spirit, making us not soulish but spiritual, suitable for being built up as a spiritual house of God—cf. 1 Cor. 2:15.
3. In order to enjoy the milk of the word, to taste God with His goodness in the word, we must receive His word by means of all prayer and muse on His word—1 Pet. 2:3; Eph. 6:17-18; Psa. 119:15, 23, 48, 78, 99, 148.
4. By feeding on Christ as the nourishing milk in the word, we grow unto full salvation, unto maturity through transformation for glorification; salvation in 1 Peter 2:2 is a matter of transformation for God’s building.
IV. The holy priesthood, the coordinated body of priests, is the builtup spiritual house; God wants a spiritual house for His dwelling and a priestly body, a corporate priesthood, for His service—1 Pet. 2:5; Exo. 19:5-6.
Minstry Excerpts:
GROWING UNTO SALVATION
According to Peter’s word in 2:2, by the pure milk of the word we may grow unto salvation. The Greek word rendered “unto” also means resulting in. To grow in life results in salvation. Salvation here, as the result of growth in life, is not initial salvation. God’s full and complete salvation has a long span—from regeneration, including justification, to glorification (Rom. 8:30). At regeneration we received initial salvation. Then we need to grow by feeding on Christ as the nourishing milk in the word of God unto full salvation, unto maturity for glorification. This will be the salvation of our soul, which will be revealed to us at the unveiling of the Lord Jesus (1:5, 9-10, 13). However, according to the context, “unto salvation” here refers directly to “being built up a spiritual house, into a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices” in verse 5, and to telling out “the virtues of Him” in verse 9.
THE BASIS OF ALL SPIRITUAL GROWTH
Nourishing food will cause transformation only when it is given to something living and organic. If you try to give nourishment to something lifeless and inorganic, that thing would become corrupt and unclean. It is impossible for something lifeless to receive help from nourishing food. Obviously it is useless to try to feed a dead person. No doubt, the guileless milk in the word can feed us and nourish us. However, it can only feed and nourish those who are living and organic. Without life, there would not be anything in us to cooperate with this nourishment.
Peter begins 2:2 with the words “As newborn babes.” The word “newborn” indicates a living organism. A newborn babe is living and organic. As such newborn babes, we need to drink the guileless milk of the word. Then the milk will afford us living, organic nourishment. Spontaneously the life within us will work together with the nourishment of the milk so that we may grow. However, if we did not have a living, organic element in us through regeneration, the nourishment in the milk of the word would not have any effect, for there would not be any cooperation on our part.
In 1:23 Peter says that we have been regenerated. In 2:2 he urges us to be as newborn babes longing for milk. Both regeneration in 1:23 and the newborn babes in 2:2 point to the same matter—regeneration with the divine life. This regeneration is the base for our growth in life and for the purification of our inner being. We all have within us the divine life that we received in regeneration as the basis of all spiritual growth. In order to grow and be purified, we must have this base. Therefore, as newborn babes, we should long for the guileless milk of the word so that by it we may grow unto transformation.
TASTING THAT THE LORD IS GOOD
In verse 3 Peter continues, “If you have tasted that the Lord is good.” The Lord can be tasted, and His taste is pleasant and good. If we have tasted Him, we shall long for the nourishing milk in His word. The Greek word rendered “good” in this verse also means pleasant, kind.
THE LIVING STONE FOR GOD’S BUILDING
In verse 4 Peter goes on to speak of Christ as a living stone: “To whom coming, a living stone, having been rejected by men, but with God chosen, held in honor.” A living stone is one that not only possesses life, but also grows in life. This is Christ for God’s building. Here Peter changes his metaphor from the seed of the vegetable life (1:23-24) to the stone of minerals. The seed is for life-planting; the stone is for building (2:5). Peter’s thought has gone on from life-planting to God’s building. As life to us, Christ is the seed. For God’s building, He is the stone. After receiving Him as the seed of life, we need to grow that we may experience Him as the stone living in us. Thus He will make us also living stones, transformed with His stone nature so that we may be built together with others a spiritual house upon Him as both the foundation and the cornerstone (Isa. 28:16).
The Greek word translated “held in honor” also means precious. It differs from the word found in 1:19. There it denotes preciousness in essence. Here it indicates preciousness as recognized and held in honor.
In verses 6 through 8 Peter has more to say concerning Christ as the stone. Verse 6 says, “Because it is contained in Scripture: Behold, I lay in Zion a chosen stone, a cornerstone held in honor, and he who believes on Him shall by no means be put to shame.” This indicates that Christ is a stone chosen by God as the cornerstone for His building (Eph. 2:20). In Ephesians 2:20 Paul speaks of “Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” In that verse, as here, Christ is referred to not as the foundation, but as the cornerstone, because the main concern is not the foundation but the cornerstone that joins together the two walls, one of the Jewish believers and the other of the Gentile believers. When the Jewish builders rejected Christ, they rejected Him as the cornerstone (Acts 4:11; 1 Pet. 2:7), which would join the Gentiles to them for the building of God’s house.
EXPERIENCING CHRIST AS THE MILK AND THE STONE
According to verse 4, we need to come to Christ as the living stone. But what is the way to come to Him? We come to the Lord by drinking the milk of the word. Have you ever realized that when you are drinking milk from the word, that is your coming to the Lord? What is the milk in the word? That milk is the Lord Himself. Therefore, when we drink the milk, we come to the Lord. Do you have some other way of coming to the food you eat? What is your way of coming to the food? Do you not come to it by eating it? We all come to the food by eating it. The same is true with respect to coming to Christ as the living stone. In verse 4 the word “coming” is equal to drinking. Therefore, when we drink the milk, we come to the Lord.
We need more experience of Christ as the milk and the stone. In the morning we should drink Christ as milk from the Word. Then during the day the process of transformation should take place within us. In the evening we should come to the church meetings and fellowship with the saints. This is building. Here we see that in the morning Christ is milk, and in the evening He becomes the stone. During the day the milk does a transforming work within us to produce a stone. (Life-study of 1 Peter, msg. 16)