1 Peter 2:4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

To whom coming With desire and by faith; as unto a living stone Living from eternity; alive from the dead; and alive for evermore: and a firm foundation, communicating spiritual life to those that come to him, and are built upon him, making him the ground of their confidence and hope for time and for eternity. The apostle alludes to Isaiah 28:16, where the formation of a Christian church, for the spiritual worship of God, is foretold under the image of a temple, which God was to build on the Messiah as the foundation-stone thereof. See the note there. There is a wonderful beauty and energy in these expressions, which describe Christ as a spiritual foundation, solid, firm, durable; and believers as a spiritual building erecting thereon, in preference to that temple which the Jews accounted their highest glory; and St. Peter, speaking of him thus, shows he did not judge himself, but Christ, to be the rock on which the church was built; disallowed Αποδεδοκιμασμενον, rejected indeed of, or by, men First and primarily by the Jews and their rulers, as not answering their carnal and worldly expectations, nor suiting their way of building; that is, not to be made use of for the carrying on and promoting of their worldly projects and interests. By representing Christ as being rejected of men, the apostle intimated that he was the person spoken of Psalms 118:22; The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner; a passage which our Lord himself, in his conversation with the chief priests and elders, referred to as a prophecy which they were about to fulfil by rejecting him; but whose exaltation, notwithstanding all they could do to prevent it, should assuredly take place. See on Matthew 21:42. But the Jews, or, added to them, the Turks, heathen, and infidels, are not the only people that have rejected, and do reject Christ; but all Christians so called, who live in known sin on the one hand, or who expect to be saved by the merit of their own works on the other, reject him; as do also all hypocrites, formalists, lukewarm, indolent, worldly-minded professors, and all those backsliders who, having begun in the Spirit end in the flesh, and draw back unto perdition, instead of continuing to believe, love, and obey, to the saving of their souls, Hebrews 10:38-39. But chosen of God From all eternity, to be the foundation of his church; and precious Of unspeakable dignity and worth in himself, in the sight of God, and in the eyes of all true believers.