NOTES for Pe1 2:4-5

The apostle Peter says that all of us are stones from which the Church is being built. The words that Christ is the "cornerstone, chosen and precious" are more or less familiar. We also remember that Jesus said to Peter, "You are a stone, and on this stone I will build My Church" (Matt. 16:18). But it turns out that each of us is a stone from which the Church is being built. We are not simply in it; we are part of it. If there were no Christians, there would be no Church.

The stones from which the Church is built are not ordinary stones, but living ones. And this means that the Lord did not simply pick out objects of a suitable size and shape by some mechanical process. In His building plan each separate little stone is taken into account, because all of them are different and alive, and if they are alive, that means they change. This matters because the Church is not merely a building either; she is alive. So each of us is not a cog in a machine, but part of the living Church. And so it is important for us to remember that the Church is not two or three small stones, but all the stones together. If the living stones are hostile to one another, the Church will fall apart, and we see how this happens. If the stones strive for peace and love, the Lord will be able to build from them His house, the Church.

Christ is called a living stone, but we too are called to be living stones like Him. Once again the apostle points to the high calling entrusted to us: we are called to become like God, His fellow workers in salvation. After all, He created us in His image and likeness; and even though we have distorted His image through our sinfulness, this does not mean that the Lord has abandoned His original design.

The gathering of the faithful around Christ is the most important step toward restoring the world damaged by sin. Peter concludes the list of descriptions that reveal the vocation of Christians, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation..., words on which we ought to reflect more often amid the bustle of daily life, by saying that Christians once were not a people, but now are the people of God. This recalls how the calling of Abraham began the journey of a people chosen to preserve faithfulness to the Lord. At first, to fulfill the ministry entrusted to them, the people had to separate themselves from their pagan neighbors. Now, however, the people of God are expanding: all who are called may enter, even if they have been rejected by others. But not by God.

Peter speaks of Christian life as a journey of spiritual formation for each Christian, with Christ Himself participating directly in the process. It is no accident that the apostle speaks of the word and of the “milk of the word,” which means as much for Christians' spiritual formation as physical milk does for an infant's physical development.

In speaking of the word of God in those days, people meant above all the Torah—not only as a text, of course, but also as revelation addressed to a person. This is what was then called the inner Torah: commandments perceived not as legal or moral standards, but as God's intentions addressed directly to the person. This was truly the word of God, not heard from other people, from teachers or preachers, but received directly from God by those to whom it was addressed.

The inner Torah became more than a spiritual and moral imperative for the person who followed it: it shaped and provided a framework for direct communion with God, becoming an inner structure that sustained the person spiritually. If outward religiosity resembles a corset supporting the body from outside, the inner Torah is more like a skeleton, supporting it from within without restricting movement. The result was to be the person's transformation into a “spiritual stone” which, in the apostle's words, could become part of a house whose foundation is the risen Christ Himself. It is no accident that in this context Peter mentions a “holy priesthood” and “spiritual sacrifices.”

The essence of every sacrifice offered in the worship of Yahweh is communion with God, abiding in His presence, a shared meal between God and human beings. The priests' task was to unite two worlds: the sanctifying world of God's presence and the earthly world sanctified by that presence. Now, after Christ's coming and the manifestation of the Kingdom to the world, it is the inhabitants of the Kingdom who become priests: the world is now sanctified through them. In this sense one can speak of “spiritual sacrifices”: if sacrifice is, above all, communion with God and abiding in His presence, then a Christian's entire life must become a “sacrifice,” precisely in the sense of such abiding.

But without the inner Torah this is impossible. Without it, the Kingdom will remain merely something external to a person, because inwardly they will be wholly unprepared to receive either its power or its breath, and even less prepared to retain them and carry them into the world. Yet that is precisely the task Peter sets Christians: to carry the Kingdom into the world by becoming living stones of the spiritual Temple. No more and no less.