‘Builders-rejected’ Capstone of God.
(Christformation in you Ministries)
Introduction
Acts 4:11-12 (New International Version)
He is
‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by whom we must be saved."
The verses above are found both in the Old and the New Testaments. They were spoken as prophecies and fulfilled prophecies of how Christ will be treated and rejected by the ‘so-called’ foolish builders.
They were referred to as so-called ‘builders’ here because they presumed that the responsibility of religion was to be shouldered by them alone and no one else. They regarded themselves as ‘God’s representatives’ or self appointed champions for building the kingdom of God on earth when God didn’t even know who they were neither did they recognize Him when He appeared before them in the flesh. They did not recognize Christ our Lord when He appeared in the flesh. They were too proud in their hearts to admit that He was the Christ “The proud will be crushed” the Lord Jesus prophesied for they were too proud and arrogant in their hearts to recognize Him as the Messiah.
Of such, the Lord Jesus Christ said:
Matthew 21: 42- 44 (NIV)
Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures:
" 'The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes'?
"Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
The Lord Jesus Christ rebuked those foolish ‘builders’ by saying that the responsibility of religion was no more on them, as all of them have fallen short. At one time it was, but now it has been taken away from them.
The Lord Jesus Christ chose his disciples who were humble except for Judas Iscariot, entrusting them with the gospel to forward the good news of God reaching out to man through Christ. He chose simple fishermen like Peter, John, James and Andrew.
It requires a broken and contrite heart to be able to preach the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ truthfully. There are many who are preaching the gospel untruthfully too. There is no place for pride and arrogance to represent the Living God. The devil himself was once an angel by the name of Lucifer, who was responsible for the things of God in heaven until pride and arrogance filled him that made him yearn for the worship of angels and man. “He was thrown down to earth like lightning as a punishment” said the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a proverb, ‘pride comes before a fall’. One third of the angels fell with the devil.
The devil, the fallen angels and all human beings who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior stand condemned before God and are waiting to be annihilated in the lake of fire eternally now.
However, there is a little time left for those who will believe in Christ to be their Lord and Savior.
They rejected the Capstone of God’s building.
Psalm 118:17-24 (New International Version)
17 I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the LORD has done.
18 The LORD has chastened me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.
19 Open for me the gates of righteousness;
I will enter and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD
through which the righteous may enter.
21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become my salvation.
22 The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;
23 the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
How could a building stand when the very capstone of that building was rejected. When you have willfully rejected the Capstone, you have rejected the foundation too. The Foundation and the Capstone is both Christ who is formed in us whenever we obey Him. These ‘so-called’ builders were blind and they expected God to accept them and their blemished sacrifices when they could not understand what God was doing before them. They did not know how to differentiate between the Capstone that God had sent for His building and the ‘ordinary stone or sand’ they were trying to build upon. They had refused to obey Christ, which is the basis of the matter. It’s plain disobedience to God and His Christ.
These ‘so-called’ builders killed the very Capstone that God had sent, not knowing that God could raise Him up again by His power. They could only see the Capstone with the eyes of natural man for they were spiritually blind and could not see beyond the physical realm.
When someone worldly resorts to physical harm with the abuse of human laws to carry out their evil plans, it is a clear sign of them admitting defeat because they could not fight Him spiritually so they would turn to other physical means of intimidation and harm. From this we know that they never belonged to God and they belonged to the defeated Foe.
If God was for Christ, how could this ‘builders’ fight Him? They might have ‘won’ temporarily with the use of evil authority but they had to face the truth that they were doomed eternally, when Christ rose from the dead triumphantly (from the grave) after three days. The ‘keys’ leading to death and Hades were taken away permanently from the Devil through Christ’s resurrection. The Devil had no more power through death over all of God’s chosen, called and faithful children in Christ. The devil had lost permanent control over men’s decision to follow Christ, now and forever.
The chief priests, priests, Pharisees and Sadducees saw themselves as the ‘builders’ of the Judaic religion and any threat to it was challenged.
They saw the Lord Jesus Christ as a threat to their religion for they could not see the truth that He did not come to establish a religion on earth. They persecuted, tortured, and physically harmed Him with the evil support of the multitudes on that cruel Cross at Calvary but yet they lost the spiritual battle to Christ our Lord, in the end.
It was not a religion He came to establish, as these foolish ‘builders’ had thought. He came to die as the sacrificial Lamb of God to redeem back those who are God’s from the hand of the Devil. Satan brought death in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve in their spirit; But Christ brought everlasting life to spirit, soul and body of those who are called, chosen and remain faithful to Christ till the end.
These men were rather foolish ‘destroyers’ than ‘builders’. They did not only destroy themselves but others who were blind like them. The so- called leaders lost the spiritual battle in the end. They could not stand up to the Lord Jesus Christ and His power shown within and around Him. Even the grave couldn’t hold Him in. Such was the power of His holiness within Him. There was no sin or decay found in Him. Now, for those who would believe in Him and the Heavenly Father whom He sent, will live eternally like them too.
The Devil and its children will be condemned forever into the lake of fire. ‘The Devil’s children’ refers to those foolish builders and those who believed in ‘builders’.
He was chosen of God but rejected by men.
1 Peter 2:4-8 (New International Version)
As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame." Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
"The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone, and,
"A stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
When you are chosen of God you will be hated by men of this world for no known reason. The devil knows those who believe in Christ and will seek to hate them through its own children. Even the Lord Jesus Christ’s immediate family had rejected Him for no known reason except that He was visibly sinless and had obeyed God the Father in everything He did and said. It required humility for those around Him to believe and accept Him as He was revealed; poor and lowly in the eyes of men but rich in the eyes of God the Father.
The Jews rejected Christ our Lord as the Messiah sent by God but the glorious door was wide opened for the Gentiles to believe in Him and be saved from their sins and be freed from the author of sin who is Satan the Devil.
The so-called ‘builders’ of the Judaic religion rejected Christ to be their Savior and Lord and all they could built upon was the Old covenant even when the promised new covenant was offered to them.
The Parable of the Tenants best describes how the Jews rejected Christ.
Mark 12:1-12 (New International Version)
He then began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat others they killed.
"He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, 'They will respect my son.'
"But the tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
"What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven't you read this scripture:
”‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes'?"
Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.
The intentions of their hearts were bad for they had ‘kicked against the pricks’. They showed no fear of coming against Christ even when warned so. They rejected their own Savior and Lord, who came for them and appeared before them in flesh. They laughed and mocked at Christ for all the sufferings he had to endure to reveal God to mankind.
The Psalms warns us for that was their day and now will come God’s turn for them. The last laugh will come from God Himself for anyone who rejects his only begotten Son.
Psalm 2:1-12 (New International Version)
1 Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the LORD
and against his Anointed One.
3 "Let us break their chains," they say,
"and throw off their fetters."
4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.
5 Then he rebukes them in his anger
and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
6 "I have installed my King
on Zion, my holy hill."
7 I will proclaim the decree of the LORD:
He said to me, "You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.
8 Ask of me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You will rule them with an iron scepter;
you will dash them to pieces like pottery."
10 Therefore, you kings, be wise;
be warned, you rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear
and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry
and you be destroyed in your way,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
There is no other ‘Capstone’ for God’s building.
You might have understood by now that there is no other Capstone that Christ himself for building God’s kingdom. He is the Foundation and the Capstone that will remain forever. This heaven, earth and the old order of things will pass away in just a twinkle of the eye but the Foundation and Capstone with God’s building that are, you and I, with Christformation in us will remain forever.
The ‘Parable of the wise and the foolish builders’ will explain this eternal truth to us. This parable does not only speak about the temporal building we call church today but God’s eternal building in which Christ is the Foundation and the Capstone. All other building will crumble down forever. Any ‘building’ built on other than Christ who is God’s eternal Foundation and Capstone will not stand.
Matthew 7:24-27 (New International Version)
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
Christformation in us happens on this eternal Foundation and Capstone. It fills up to the fullness of Christ in us and God’s building will be complete.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15 (New International Version)
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
If you have rejected Christ, you would have rejected God and His eternal plan of building His house where He chose to dwell forever from the beginning of times.
Conclusion
Christ Jesus our Lord is the house where God lives in and He will be built in us. This house is being prepared through Christformation in us.
When the Lord Jesus Christ said: “do not be afraid or worried, I’ll go and build that house with many rooms” He was referring to the house through Christformation in us. The many rooms are the many divine natures of Christ to be formed in us so that we become the eternal dwelling of God. Those who are called through predestination, chosen and found faithful will jointly formed the spiritual dwelling of God in Christ for eternity through God’s Holy Spirit. Now we are the temple of the Holy Spirit here on earth bearing the testimony of Jesus but through full Christformation in us we will become the temple of the Heavenly Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit together.
There will be no need for a physical structure or temple made out of man’s hands for there shall be none in His presence.
John 14:1-6 (New International Version)
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."
Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Written by Ronald K.Pillai
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Colossians 1:15-16 (New International Version)
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