As believers in Christ, we are becoming living stones for the building up of the church, God’s spiritual house on earth today. Christ as the stone-Savior produces living stones for God’s building.
We are men of clay; we are born of our parents in the flesh, and we are of dust, men of clay. How can we, men of clay, be suitable for God’s building, the church as God’s spiritual house? Christ came as the first God-man, and through death and resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit to propagate Himself into us.
Through death, His human shell was broken, and in His resurrection He was propagated and dispensed into His believers to regenerate them for His Body.
On the one hand Christ imparted His divine life into us to regenerate us for His Body, and on the other, He imparted His stone element into us to make us living stones for His Body.
Acts 4:10-12 reveals that, as the cornerstone, Christ was despised and crucified by the Jewish leaders, the builders, but He was raised from the dead by God, becoming the cornerstone of God’s building with God’s salvation being uniquely in Him.
Christ is the cornerstone for God’s building; He was rejected by man, but God chose Him and made Him to be the cornerstone for God’s building. As the all-inclusive stone, Christ is the centrality of God’s move for the building up of His eternal habitation.
Everything that Christ is, everything He has done, and everything that He is doing is due to the fact that He’s the cornerstone, and all He does is for His building.
He created man, He redeemed man, He became a life-giving Spirit, He regenerated us, He transforms us, and He is conforming us to the image of Christ so that we may be built into God’s spiritual house, God’s building, with Christ as the cornerstone.
By His being the cornerstone, Christ died for us, we were crucified with Him, resurrected with Him, and seated with Him in the heavenlies, so that He could save us, transform us into precious stones, and build us together to be God’s habitation, His unique temple in the universe.
When we see such a Christ, when we have a vision of Christ who not only imparts His life into us to regenerate us for His Body but also His stone element and nature to make us living stones for His building, we will speak Him as the gospel to others.
This is the gospel that Peter preached in Acts 4; he not only spoke of Christ as the Healer, the righteous and holy One, the Servant of God, and the Savior, but also of Christ as the stone, the One in whom is salvation.
Hallelujah, Christ is our stone-Savior who transforms us into living stones for the spiritual house of God, God’s building!
As Living Stones we need to be Built up together in God’s Spiritual House and Serve in the Body
All genuine believers in Christ are living stones, for Christ as the stone-Savior has dispensed His element into us. But without being built up into a spiritual house, the living stones can do nothing, and are thus useless.
We all need to be built up together into a spiritual house that can be useful to God. We are being built together as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, a people acquired for a possession (see 1 Pet. 2).
Our usefulness as living stones is the priestly service, and the spiritual house we’re building is the priesthood. Therefore, we are not only living stones but also priests, a priestly body, a priestly group, to offer spiritual sacrifices.
But if we’re not built up as a priesthood, we are not qualified to serve; for us to serve God, we need the Body. We cannot function as living stones individually, and we cannot serve God by ourselves individually.
We need to learn to serve in coordination with others, especially together with the fellow living stones that the Lord put us with. No one believer as a living stone is the whole house of God; no one spiritual priest is the whole priesthood.
Rather, many living stones built together are God’s spiritual house, and the priests built together are the priesthood. Only when we are being built together can we serve God as priests, and only when we’re built together with the fellow living stones can we be a spiritual house for Him, His building.
Our real service to God is a matter of the building. If in the Old Testament there’s no tabernacle, there’s no priests to serve. As believers in Christ, we are individual persons, and we personally need to pursue the Lord and seek to grow in life; however, we cannot serve the Lord independent of others.
Every believer in Christ need to be built up as a living stones in God’s spiritual house, and each individual priest needs to be coordinated with all the other priests.
We thank the Lord that He has brought us into the church life, where we are learning not only concerning our human spirit and God’s economy, but also about our need to be built up together in spirit, so that we may serve in the Body.
It is dreadful in the Lord’s eyes to serve independently, apart from the proper church life, apart from being built up with others. We must be built together with the saints as the priesthood to serve God in the church, the building of God; we must be built up together in the church in a coordinated way.
The spiritual house into which we are built up is God’s building; this is the church, the building that is in God’s heart and for which Christ came and died to gain.
Lord Jesus, save us from serving You independently from the Body, independent from the church life. We want to be living stones that are built together in God’s spiritual house to serve in the Body and as the Body. Amen, Lord, build us up together. May You gain a priesthood, a body of priests, who serve You together in coordination. May You gain a built-up spiritual house, the church as the building of God, for Your satisfaction as Your corporate expression. Lord, we want to learn to be built up and coordinated with the saints in the Body to be built up as living stones in Your spiritual house!
Drinking the Word, being Transformed, and being Built up as Living Stones in God’s Spiritual House
What a gospel have we! The gospel preached by Peter in Acts 4 is not merely “repent to be saved from your sins and go to heaven to be with the Lord”; it is the gospel of Christ as the stone-Savior producing and building up many living stones for His building!
First, He regenerates us and makes us sons of God, and at the same time He imparts His stone element and nature into us to make us living stones. Then, as we read the Word and exercise our spirit to drink the guileless milk of the word, we are being inwardly reconstituted with Christ, and we become living stones in reality.
Drinking the word of God causes us to be inwardly rearranged, rebuilt, and reconstituted with the element of God, and we are transformed from men of clay into men of stone, stone-men, living stones.
If we long for the guileless milk of the word, this milk will be like a current of living water flowing within us; this flow removes our natural substance and replaces it with Christ as the heavenly, divine minerals.
As we daily drink the Lord in His word, we are being gradually replaced by Christ, and we are transformed to become precious stones, living stones. Drinking the Lord in His word is not only for our growth in the divine life but also for our transformation and building up.
The nourishing milk of the word is for nourishing our soul through the mind, and it also nourishes our spirit, making us spiritual people, suitable for being built up as a spiritual house of God.
As we are being transformed in this way inwardly, we will be conformed to the image of God outwardly, and this transforming work is causing us to have a mutual dependence on one another as members of the Body.
The more we are transformed, the more we bear the image of Christ and we express Him, and the more we are no longer individualistic but we depend on the Body and we are in coordination and relatedness with the members of the Body.
The spiritual house into which we are being built is God’s building, the church today. This building is what God planned to have in eternity, and He will gain it in this age.
Then, in the next age, Christ will come with His overcomers as a smiting stone, He will destroy the great human image (the human government) and will fill the whole earth with the kingdom of God.
In this age today we have a house of stone, and at the end of this age and in the next age there will be a mountain of stone; furthermore, for eternity there will be a city of stone, the New Jerusalem!
Eventually, the building of God will consummated in the New Jerusalem, the stone city (Rev. 21:2). We as men of clay are being transformed to become a stone city! At the beginning of the Bible we see a clay-man, and at the end, we see a stone-city, the New Jerusalem!
We are becoming the precious stones that will be built up into the New Jerusalem! How? It is by daily contacting Christ, the living stone for God’s building to be transformed and built up together (1 Pet. 2:4-5; Rom. 12:2).
Hallelujah, the Christ we are contacting daily is the living stone; we need to praise Him as the stone, the stone-Savior, and allow Him to work Himself into us with His stone element and nature!
Lord Jesus, only You are the stone for God’s building. We come to You as a living stone: dispense Your element into us so that we may no longer be men of clay but we would become living stones as Your duplication, increase, and multiplication! Lord, grow in us and transform us as we drink You in Your word. Build us up with all the saints as living stones into Your spiritual house, the church! Amen, Lord, grow in us, transform us, and build us up until we become the house of stone, the mountain of stone, and the city of stone!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 383 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Propagating the Resurrected, Ascended, and All-inclusive Christ as the Development of the Kingdom of God (2018 fall ITERO), week 5, Christ as the Stone-Savior Producing Living Stones for God’s Building.
- Hymns on this topic:
# By Thy life and by its flowing / I can grow and be transformed, / With the saints coordinated, / Builded up, to Thee conformed; / Keep the order in the Body, / There to function in Thy will, / Ever serving, helping others, / All Thy purpose to fulfill. (Hymns #840)
# Now the building spiritual / And the priesthood all are one; / Now the building of the house / By the priestly work is done. / In the priests the substance is / Of the building work replete; / When the priests their work discharge, / Then God’s house will be complete. (Hymns #849)
# Build me, Lord, with other saints, / Independence ne’er allow, / But according to Thy plan / Fitly frame and join me now. / In experience not my boast, / Nor in gifts would be my pride; / For Thy building I give all, / That Thou may be glorified. (Hymns #839)
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