First Peter 2:5 says, “You yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” It is through regeneration and transformation that we who were made of clay can be living stones (Rom. 9:21; 2 Cor. 3:18). At regeneration we received the seed of the divine life, which by its growing in us transforms us into living stones.
According to John 1:42, Andrew brought his brother Simon Peter to the Lord Jesus. “Looking at him, Jesus said, You are Simon, the son of John; you shall be called Cephas (which is interpreted, Peter).” Later, in Caesarea Philippi, the Lord Jesus asked His disciples, “But you, who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15). Peter took the lead to declare, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). In His response to Peter, the Lord said, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church” (v. 18). Here the name Peter means “a stone,” which is material for God’s building. In his ministry Peter emphasizes the matter of a stone probably because a crucial part of his experience as one of the Lord’s disciples was the Lord’s changing his name from Simon to Peter.
We come to Christ as living stones to be built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Him. The spiritual house, which is the church (1 Tim. 3:15), is a priesthood, which is a priestly ministry. The totality of the corporate priestly service of the believers is the spiritual house. The holy priesthood, which is a spiritual house built up with the believers as many stones, is the priestly ministry of the believers as many priests to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Him.
A living stone is one that not only possesses life but also grows in life. This is Christ for God’s building. In 1 Peter 1:23 Peter said that we have been regenerated through the living and abiding word of God as the incorruptible seed. In 2:4 Peter changed his metaphor from a seed, which is of the vegetable life (1:23-24), to a stone, which is of the minerals. The seed is for life-planting; the stone is for building (2:5). Peter’s thought went on from life-planting to God’s building. As life to us, Christ is the seed; for God’s building, He is the stone. After receiving Him as the seed of life, we need to grow that we may experience Him as the stone living in us. Thus He will make us also living stones, transformed with His stone nature, that we may be built together with others as a spiritual house upon Him as both the foundation and the cornerstone (Isa. 28:16).
In 1 Peter 2:4-5 Peter speaks of our “coming to Him, a living stone,” and our being “living stones.” The Greek word rendered “coming” can also be translated “approaching, drawing near, coming forward.” We become living stones by coming to Christ as the living stone.
According to 2:2, we as newborn babes long for the guileless milk of the word; according to verse 4, we need to come to Christ as the living stone. This indicates that we come to the Lord by drinking the milk of the word. The milk of the word is the Lord Himself. Therefore, when we drink the milk, we come to the Lord. The word coming mentioned in verse 4 is equal to drinking, implied in verse 2. Therefore, when we drink the milk, we come to the Lord.
As the all-inclusive One, Christ is both milk and the stone. We need more experience of Christ as the milk and the stone. In the morning we should drink Christ as milk of the Word. Then during the day, the process of transformation should take place within us. In the evening we should come to the church meetings and fellowship with the saints. This is building. Here we see that in the morning Christ is milk, and in the evening He becomes the stone. During the day, the milk does a transforming work within us to produce a stone.
Those who do not experience Christ as milk may like to be scattered or independent. Although some believers visit them and encourage them to come to the meetings, they do not want to attend the meetings. Yet they may begin to have a desire to drink the milk of the word. When they drink the milk, they will long to come to the church meetings.
The Lord is first milk to nourish us. Through the nourishment in the milk of the word, transformation takes place. Then we have the building, where the Lord Himself is the stone. This is the reason that in chapter 2 we first have the milk and then the stone.