Jesus and His Bible, Part 11

 The Rejected Cornerstone

Immediately following the parable of the faithless vine-growers, Jesus carried the confrontation into the religious leaders’ camp.  He asked them: “Have you not even read this scripture: ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief corner-stone; this came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” (Mark 12:10). 

Let’s not ignore the implications of how Jesus introduced his quotation.  “Have you not even read this scripture?” Not conciliatory in the least.  And you can tell this is so by their reaction, which is to move toward assaulting him, only restrained by their fear of the crowd. I wonder how often today God’s Holy Spirit says to each of us, “Have you not even read this scripture?” Do we respond with defensiveness or do we sit down to listen? I remember when the Spirit brought these verses into my heart and said, “Have you not even read these scriptures?” And I had not actually let them sink in to form the foundation of my faith until that point.

Hebrews 10:1 The Law foreshadowed good things to come but could not bring them about.

Ephesians 2:15 Christ abolished in his flesh the law. 

Romans 7:4-6 We are dead to the Law by the body of Christ; we are delivered from the Law.

Romans 7:25-8:2 The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death.

Hebrews 7:18-19 The earlier commandment has been annulled and replaced by a better hope in Christ as our high priest, through whom we draw near to God.

Galatians 2:16-21 We are justified by the faith of Christ, we believe in the character and work of Jesus Christ; we are dead to the Law so that we may live to God; we are crucified with Christ, and now Christ lives in us and we live by the faith of Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. We do not annul or reject the grace of God by saying that righteousness comes through the Law. 

So Jesus’s question to religious people of his day is still resonant today.

The passage Jesus quotes is from Psalm 118. This Psalm celebrates the everlasting kindness of God. The psalmist says that he called to God and God answered, that the Lord is for him, and that with the Lord’s name he cut down all the nations. “You pushed me hard to knock me down but the Lord helped me. My strength and my might is Yah, and he has become my rescue.” He claims the Lord as his rescuer. Then comes the passage that Jesus quotes: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. From the Lord did this come about—it is wondrous in our eyes. (Psalm 118:22-23).  The psalmist then petitions the Lord for rescue and prosperity and then this: “Bind the festive offering with ropes all the way to the horns of the altar.”

By quoting this passage, Jesus identified himself with the psalmist as one who fears the Lord. He asserted that God has answered his call, that God is for him, that God is his strength and might. Yet at the same time, the faint echo of the coming offering/sacrifice is hinted at as well.  

Jesus also calls his critics to account—do they fear the Lord? Can they point to where God has answered their call?  Are they rejecting the cornerstone, the stone from which the whole building is measured out and built?