Psalms 118:22

Thus we find from this passage also, that Christ possessed a body of flesh, such as was able to endure the cross. "When, therefore, he came and preached peace to them that were near and to them which were afar off," we both obtained "access to the Father," being "now no more strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God" (even of him from whom, as we have shown above, we were aliens and placed far off), "built on the foundation of the apostles"—[the apostle added] "and the prophets"; these words, however, the heretic erased, forgetting that the Lord had set in his church not only apostles but prophets also. He feared, no doubt, that our building was to stand in Christ on the foundation of the ancient prophets, since the apostle himself never fails to build us up everywhere with [the words of] the prophets. For whence did he learn to call Christ "the chief cornerstone" but from the figure given him in the psalm: "The stone that the builders rejected is become the head [stone] of the corner"?

For Jesus tells them [the disciples] that "the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected," before his coming, at which his kingdom will be really revealed. In this statement he shows that it was his own kingdom that his answer to them had contemplated and that was now awaiting his own sufferings and rejection. But having to be rejected and afterwards to be acknowledged and taken up and glorified, he borrowed the very word rejected from the passage where, under the figure of a stone, his twofold manifestation was celebrated by David—the first in rejection, the second in honor. "The stone," he says, "that the builders rejected is become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing." Now it would be idle, if we believed that God had predicted the humiliation, or even the glory, of any Christ at all, that he could have designed his prophecy for any but him whom he had foretold under the figure of a stone and a rock and a mountain.

But I must proceed to my former statement that Christ is called the stone in the prophets. For in ancient times David said concerning him, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the head of the building." And how did the builders reject this stone that is Christ? How else than that they so rejected him before Pilate and said, "This man shall not be king over us." And again in that parable that our Lord spoke that a certain nobleman went to receive kingly power and to return and rule over them; and they sent after him envoys saying, "This man shall not be king over us." By these things they rejected the stone that is Christ. And how did it become the head of the building? How else than that it was set up over the building of the Gentiles and on it is reared up all their building. And who are the builders? Who but the priests and Pharisees who did not build a sure building but were overthrowing everything that he was building, as is written in Ezekiel the prophet: "He was building a wall of partition, but they were shaking it, that it might fall." And again it is written, "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land, that I might not destroy it, but I did not find one." And furthermore Isaiah also prophesied beforehand with regard to this stone. For he said, "Thus says the Lord, 'Behold, I lay in Zion a chosen stone in the precious corner, the heart of the wall of the foundation.' " And he said again there, "Every one who believes on it shall not fear. And whosoever falls on that stone shall be broken, and every one on whom it shall fall, it will crush." For the people of the house of Israel fell on him, and he became their destruction forever. And again "it shall fall on the image and crush it." And the Gentiles believed on it and do not fear.

Head stone - The chief stone in the whole building, by which the several parts of the building are upheld and firmly united together. Thus David united all the tribes and families of Israel: and thus Christ united Jews and Gentiles together. And therefore this place is justly expounded of Christ, Mark xii, 10 Acts iv, 11 Rom. ix, 32 Eph. ii, 20.

This was a disgrace to Christ, but it proved the ruin of those that thus made light of him. Rejecters of Christ are rejected of God. He has become the headstone of the corner; he is advanced to the highest degree both of honour and usefulness, to be above all, and all in all.

The stone which the builders refused,....

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. Here the people magnify God for bringing his chosen servant into the honourable office, which had been allotted to him by divine decree. A wise king and valiant leader is a stone by which the national fabric is built up. David had been rejected by those in authority, but God had placed him in a position of the highest honour and the greatest usefulness, making him the chief cornerstone of the state.

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to fix with certainty the occasion which first suggested this Psalm. It has even been thought to be purely prophetic and rather foretelling history than narrating it.

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. Here the people magnify God for bringing his chosen servant into the honourable office, which had been allotted to him by divine decree. A wise king and valiant leader is a stone by which the national fabric is built up. David had been rejected by those in authority, but God had placed him in a position of the highest honour and the greatest usefulness, making him the chief cornerstone of the state. In the case of many others whose early life has been spent in conflict, the Lord has been pleased to accomplish his divine purposes in like manner; but to none is this text so applicable as to the Lord Jesus himself: he is the living stone, the tried stone, elect, precious, which God himself appointed from of old. The Jewish builders, scribe, priest, Pharisee, and Herodian, rejected him with disdain. They could see no excellence in him that they should build upon him; he could not be made to fit in with their ideal of a national church, he was a stone of another quarry from themselves, and not after their mind nor according to their taste; therefore they cast him away and poured contempt upon him, even as Peter said, "This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders"; they reckoned him to be as nothing, though he is Lord of all. In raising him from the dead the Lord God exalted him to be the head of his church, the very pinnacle of her glory and beauty. Since then he has become the confidence of the Gentiles, even of them that are afar off upon the sea, and thus he has joined the two walls of Jew and Gentile into one stately temple, and is seen to be the binding cornerstone, making both one. This is a delightful subject for contemplation. Jesus in all things hath the preeminence, he is the principal stone of the whole house of God.

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to fix with certainty the occasion which first suggested this Psalm. It has even been thought to be purely prophetic and rather foretelling history than narrating it. I rather incline to the opinion that some Israelite hero, chosen of God to high office in the midst of his people, had been rejected by the rulers, had passed through many struggles—some of them of the most violent kind—and at last, notwithstanding the rejection of his people and their leaders, had attained to a prominent position, no, to a chief place in the midst of the nation! The Psalm is applicable to Christ and to Him it is referred in the New Testament several times, but probably from the human point of view it was at first intended to celebrate the victory of some chosen man of God who, despite his Divine election, had been rejected by his countrymen. Providence conducted him to a crowning success and he magnified the Lord for it. In some way or other, a stone has come to be connected with several persons whose history was of this character. Remember Jacob. He flees from his father's house because Esau threatens to kill him. He appears to be the rejected member of Isaac's family by whom the house would never be built. At the end of a day's journey he lies down with a stone for his pillow and, as he sweetly slumbers, he sees Heaven open. He beholds the mystic ladder and rises, assured of the love of the Almighty God! By faith thus infused into his soul, he becomes strong for his future life and so lives that now the house of Abraham and Isaac stands represented in the seed of Jacob, alone. And Esau, with all his dukes, has utterly passed away.

, Psa 118:23 The stone which the builders refused - See a full elucidation of these two verses in the notes on Mat 21:42 (note).

The stone which the builders refused - See the notes at Mat 21:42-43. Compare Mar 12:10-11; Act 4:11; 1Pe 2:7. This is an allusion to a building, as if a stone should be cast away by workmen as unfit to be worked into the edifice. The figure would then be applicable to anyone who, for any purpose, was rejected. Thus it might have been applied many a time to David; so, doubtless, to others who urged claims to authority and power; and so, eminently, to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not to suppose that this had original reference to the Messiah, but the language was applicable to him; and it is used in the passages above referred to, in addresses to the Jews, merely to show them how the principle was found in their own writings, that one who was rejected, like a stone regarded as unfit to be worked into any part of a building, might be in reality so important that it would be laid yet at the very corner, and become the most valuable stone in the edifice - that on which the whole superstructure would rest. Is become the head stone of the corner - The principal stone placed at the corner of the edifice. This is usually one of the largest, the most solid, and the most carefully constructed of any in the edifice. Of course one would be needed at each corner of the building to constitute a firm support, but usually there is one placed at one corner of an edifice larger and more carefully made than the others, often laid with imposing ceremonies, and prepared to contain whatever it may be thought necessary to deposit in the foundation of the building to be transmitted to future times as preserving the names of the builders, or expressing the design of the edifice. Such a position he who had been rejected was to occupy in the civil polity of his country; such a position eminently the Lord Jesus occupies in relation to the church. Eph 2:20.

The Faith is not a survival. It is not as if the Druids had managed somehow to survive somewhere for two thousand years. That is what might have happened in Asia or ancient Europe, in that indifference or tolerance in which mythologies and philosophies could …