"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." -- Ephesians 2:19-22
As I wrote two blogs ago, the death of Christ has created a new humanity which was, and still is, a great miracle: a new humanity reconciled first to God and then to each other. Paul's vision of this new humanity is one of matchless grandeur, and as he continues to describe it, he reaches for three graphic, mind-catching images: first a city, then a family, and finally a great building. Each of these images is elevating in itself, and together collectively they make the believing heart soar.
I am reminded when I read this passage of what it means to be a citizen in our great country with the wonderful privileges of living in a democracy which has provided so many such great opportunity. I am thankful and proud of my citizenship. Citizenship, however, was an ever greater source of pride in the ancient world. In the Greco-Roman culture to which Paul was writing, one's city, or polis, provided one's identity. The city's laws were a part of one's being, its customs a source of pride and its inhabitants were one's lifelong friends. So what Paul was telling the Ephesian Christians was something absolutely stupendous to them -- that they were spiritually not naturalized, but supernaturalized citizens! They had once been "foreigners and aliens" but now they had become "fellow citizens with God's people." They had come to possess a citizenship far superior to any local citizenship ... even the coveted Roman citizenship. They were now part of a supreme cosmopolitan community. This is a universal experience for all believers. The church is the place were we belong, where we can be understood and loved and where we can just be ourselves. Believing Jews and Gentiles had become a common people. They had a common language, a language of the heart, that they all understood. They had a common heritage and history as part of the community of faith. They had a common allegiance which superseded all other loyalties. They had a common goal to glorify God. And they even had a common destination -- a place prepared for them by Christ -- the ultimate polis, the heavenly city. As Paul told the Philippians, "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ" [3:20; 1:27].
As wonderful and soul-satisfying our new citizenship is, being "family" -- members of God's household -- represents a far deeper intimacy. As "family" we automatically say the same patronym -- "Abba" -- because we have the same "Spirit of sonship" [Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6]. All God's children call Him by the same intimate name. But not only is there great peace and trust in our vertical relationship but also the implications in our horizontal relationships with other members of God's family are beautiful. Family is where you can be yourself and be assured that you are accepted.
Paul certainly loves to mix his metaphors [he must have never taken Freshman English], and we are all richer for it. Now he uses the image of a building to illustrate a further and more glorious dimension of our new humanity. It is a temple "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone" [v. 20]. For a thousand years the Jerusalem Temple [first Solomon's, then Zerubbabel's, and then Herod's] had been the official focus of God's presence and of God's people. But now this new humanity needed a new temple, and a static geographically-grounded one one would no longer be adequate. This new temple would have three elements: a foundation, a cornerstone and building blocks.
First, it is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The word order here suggests that Paul means New Testament apostles and prophets, the prophets being those to whom and through the Word of God was proclaimed. In support of this meaning, Eph. 3:4, 5 says that the "mystery of Christ ... has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets." Since both the apostles and prophets had a teaching role, the foundation is teaching. Thus, the foundation of the new temple is God's Word, especially the New Testament Scriptures. The Church will stand or fall in the way it handles the Word of God; if we tamper with the foundation, the temple will crumble.
Secondly, as important as the foundation is, there is another component of even greater importance, and that is the cornerstone -- with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." This is immensely rich imagery. For hundreds of years 'cornerstone' had been a prophetic designation for the Messiah: "See I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed" [Is. 28:16; 8:14-16; Ps. 118:22; Mt. 21:42; and Acts 4:11]. Virtually every ancient Hebrew understood the importance of the cornerstone, for it determines the stability of the foundation and the character of the entire building. According to J. Armitage Robinson, the Jerusalem Temple itself had huge foundation stones, the greatest of which was 29 feet in length -- the size of a railroad boxcar!
The cornerstone determined the architectural unity and symmetry of the structure. The lay of the walls and the dimensions of the building all were a result of the chief cornerstone. All other stones had to be adjusted to it. In fact, F.F. Bruce believes that the phrase "a tested stone" in the Isaiah prophecy really means a "stone of testing" -- i.e. that it tested the building to show whether it was built to the architect's specifications. The shape and stability of God's new temple, His new humanity, is determined by Jesus Christ, the Chief Cornerstone! How glad we can be that our lives, our reconciliation and peace, is built on the infinite Rock, Jesus Christ.
Lastly, this brings us to the final components of the new temple, the building blocks or stones -- us! The Gentiles were excluded from the Jerusalem Temple by a wall and by signs threatening death if they passed beyond that point. But not, in Christ they and by extension we actually form THE WALL of the new temple. God reached down and gathered stones from a literal Death Valley and made them to be living stones. Peter described it this way, "As you come to him, THE LIVING STONE -- rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him -- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house ... " [1 Peter 2:4, 5a]. What an exhilarating image!
R. Kent Hughes expounds, "Picture Jesus Christ as the massive cornerstone, and see his vitality as causing the stone to glow. Next the foundational teaching of the apostles and prophets is laid upon and around him. He gives it its shape and stability, and the whole foundation assumes his glow. Then one by one, living stones are set upon it, and they in turn radiate the symmetry of the chief cornerstone, forming a luminous, ever-growing temple." And just what is the purpose of this living, growing, moving and ever-enlarging temple? " ... to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit" [v. 22b]. Just as God first took up residence in the wilderness Tabernacle, filling it with such glory that even Moses could not enter it [Ex. 40:34, 35] and later filling the Jerusalem Temple in the same way [I Kings 8:10, 11], so now by his Spirit he makes his new humanity his chosen dwelling place -- a habitat for divinity.
The soul wherein God dwells
What church could holier be?
Becomes a walking tent
Of heavenly majesty.
-- Johannes Scheffler
Paul's vision of the new humanity of reconciled Jews and Gentiles is grand indeed. The images he uses to express its grandeur are unforgettable, and in bouquet they are truly overpowering. Ponder with me this week, the mystery of you and me as the temple of the living God, held together and indwelled by the very Holy Spirit of God and set on the sure foundation of his Word of Truth and his glorious Son, our brother and high priest, Jesus Christ. It's truly more than the mind can fathom!
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