⁷… “The stone which the builders rejected, this became … a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

Christ is the dividing line between life and death. He is the pivot between being dead in our trespasses and sins and being alive in Christ. He is the line in the sand between heaven and hell, saved and lost. He is the fulcrum between forgiveness and condemnation. Everything, absolutely everything, depends on Him. He is THE stone, either precious or rejected.  There is no in-between. There is no “partly saved.”

His preciousness makes sense to those who have come to saving faith.  When we came to realize our lives hung in the balance, He was there to save us from rejecting Him the way Adam and Eve did in Eden. Their sin wasn’t just a mistake or a miscalculation. It was an utter rejection of God Himself! It makes no difference how a person frames the narrative or excuses his behavior. Either Christ is precious, or He isn’t. And in the garden, they showed which they believed by their act of disobedience.

Peter gives no quarter to anyone who would try to water this down or make it more amenable to relativists. Whether or not the modern pluralistic mind thinks it is fair to hinge everything on faith in Christ, this is the reality of life as God created and designed it. God judges that those who disobey His Word are guilty, and He has already established the consequences. It is just like stumbling over a stone—one might curse the stone, but one still falls.

Just as God has appointed gravity as a non-negotiable certainty in life, He has appointed the non-negotiable certainty that those who disobey His Word (which is the essence of rejecting Christ, who is the Word of God, see John 1:1), will suffer doom. The word “doom” is not in the original text, but our translation captures the sense well. Those who “stumble” by rejecting Christ will meet the consequences God has ordained from the beginning.

How tragic that the world treats Christ so flippantly, as a common swearing expletive, or gives Him a mere tip of the hat by occasionally attending church on special days. We have a wonderful message for them. We can show them Christ, like showing them a brilliant diamond. They will catch on to the enthusiasm for what we find precious. It is not our religion, our morality, or our wisdom for living that is precious, but Christ Himself. While unbelievers are appointed to their doom, we believers are appointed to eternal life (see Acts 13:48). How amazing is that?

Lord, thank You for being my Cornerstone!