To you who believe, then, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”
7. Unto you therefore which believe God having pronounced Christ to be a precious and a chosen stone, Peter draws the inference that he is so to us. For, no doubt, Christ is there described such as we apprehend him by faith, and such as he proves himself to be by real evidences.
I. The apostle here gives us a description of Jesus Christ as a living stone; and though to a capricious wit, or an infidel, this description may seem rough and harsh, yet to the Jews, who placed much of their religion in their magnificent temple, and who understood the prophetical style, which calls the Messiah a stone (Isa 8:14; Isa 28:16), it would appear very elegant and proper. 1.
Commenting on 1 Peter 2:4-12
And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence,.... The apostle alludes to Isa 8:14 and which is a prophecy of the Messiah; see Gill on Rom 9:33 and had its accomplishment in the unbelieving and disobedient Jews; who stumbled at his birth and parentage; at the manner of his birth, being born of a virgin; at the meanness of his parents, his supposed...