Stones For Building

by Reid, A. | Category: Stones For Building | Jul 1999

It is both interesting and instructive to reflect on some of the details about the building of the Temple of God in Solomon's time. In 1 Kings 6:7, this interesting piece of information is given: 'In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built'.

These stone blocks, prepared in the quarry, must have been made to exact dimensions and precise shape for them all to fit perfectly into the structure. There was no last minute trimming or re-shaping of the stones to make them fit, for, as we are told, no hammer, chisel or iron tool was heard in the building area. This not only testifies to the skill of the masons in the precise finishing of the stones, but also of the existence of a detailed plan that allocated each stone its place in the structure. Even if scripture had not told us of the existence of such a plan (see 1 Chr. 28:11-19), we would have had to assume its existence.

A spiritual house

The apostle Peter seems to be drawing on the imagery of the Temple construction when, in his first epistle, he says to the believers of the dispersion: 'You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house' (1 Pet. 2:5). Stones being brought together to form a house for God. But, here the stones are people and the house is not a material but a spiritual one.

In the verses preceding the one just quoted, Peter has been reminding his readers about the salvation that is theirs in Christ. Of how they were: 'Born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God' (1 Pet. 1:23). Then at the opening of chapter 2, verses 1-3 he is exhorting them to move on to the next stage of development in their new spiritual lives. The next stage is that, as living stones - born-again people - they are to come to Christ, the living stone, that they might be built into the spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:4,5).

By returning to the imagery of the Temple construction, we can make the same point in another way. Was a stone produced and finished at the quarry, at that moment, part of the Temple structure? No, not until it was conveyed to the building site and allocated its place according to the divine plan did it become, in fact, part of God's house. Being a living stone does not in itself constitute a believer part of the spiritual house, there must also be a building in, according to the divine plan.

Baptism by immersion in water

It seems to the writer that this process of living stones being built into the spiritual house is described for us in Acts 2:41. 'Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand souls were added to their number that day'. So it is clear that the spiritual house is made up of baptized believers. This is not the same as baptism in the Spirit into the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13), which take place at the moment of the new birth, but of believers' baptism in water, prior to their being added to the community of disciples who constituted the first Church of God in Jerusalem. This act of addition to the Church in Jerusalem is then the equivalent of being built into the spiritual house as set forth in 1 Peter chapter 2.

What is stated next in Acts 2 about these newly-added disciples, that 'They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer' (Acts 2:42) would answer to the activities of the holy and royal priesthood recorded in 1 Peter 2:4-10.

Biblical quotations from the NIV.

Reid, A. | Jul 1999
Stones For Building