Chief Cornerstone

Have you not even read this Scripture: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?”

Mark 12: 10, 11*

Chief Cornerstone – a really important title – used eight times in scripture – Christ quoted from the Old Testament to refer to himself in this way – I need to understand this one; I need to get it right.

After Peter and John healed the lame man in the temple, they were arrested and taken before the Sanhedrin. He tells them that they crucified the Christ but God raised him from the dead. He then says: “This is the stone which was rejected by you builders which has become the chief cornerstone” (Acts 4:11). The next verse is just as significant: “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

The Jewish leaders rejected their Messiah because he wasn’t like them and didn’t fit their mold. Yet God, the grand architect of the church chose the Savior to be the chief building block that pulled all the other pieces together.

The modern concept of a cornerstone isn’t exactly in the corner and is not indispensable for the design. This image not only doesn’t work, it’s confusing. A better comparison would be that of the capstone of a pyramid. It is probably made first and laid last. It can’t fit anywhere else in the structure yet the whole blueprint was engineered so that the capstone could turn it into a wonder of the world.

Christ’s position as the Chief Cornerstone was planned before the foundation of the world and He pulls together all the saints in every country and every age to build the church. Without this “stone that the builders rejected” everything would fall apart because He is the indispensable “Chief Cornerstone.”

*see also Psalm 118:22; Matthew 21:42; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; Ephesians 2:20; and 1 Peter 2:6,7