The Spiritual Temple of Priestly Worshippers.
I. We have in the text a spiritual house: "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house." Christ is the foundation; and as stone after stone is placed on Him, He, being a living stone, infuses His life right through the entire mass. Evidently no one can be a member of the Church unless he has come to Christ, for the Apostle distinctly says that the spiritual house consists of those who have come to the living Rock, Christ Jesus. (1) Now where are the stones formed? They are cut out of the quarry of nature; stone by stone is brought out of that deep cavern, placed upon the living Stone, and each united to the others. The Spirit of God goes into the deep, black quarry of human nature, and there hews out the hidden stones, and by His own almighty power bears them to the foundation-stone and places them in a living temple, to go no more out for ever. (2) The stones must be brought to each other. There must be union existing between all the stones of the spiritual temple, ay, and not only union, but also mutual support. While all rest on the foundation, each stone touches, and serves to strengthen and support, the others. (3) The Church is spiritual also in its glories. There was an external magnificence about the temple of Solomon, although the external glory even of that material temple was nothing compared with the internal beauty. But what is the beauty of the Lord's temple now? Is there anything external about it? You will find, generally speaking, that the majority of Christians consist of the poor.
II. Within this spiritual house we have priestly worshippers "a holy priesthood." The death of Christ abolished all earthly priesthood by making every believer a priest. In the old dispensation the priesthood was limited to one tribe; I should be correct if I said it was found in one family: but when Christ died, invisible hands took hold of the veil of the Temple and rent it in twain from the top to the bottom, and now, by virtue of union with Christ, every believer is a priest. It is this doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers that is the very core and centre of New Testament teaching. All believers in the world are kings and priests unto God; and though apparently without robes, yet are they all decked in the glorious garment of the Lord our Righteousness.
III. Spiritual sacrifices. There can be no priesthood without sacrifices. The two things were correlative, and the chief employment of the priest was to offer up sacrifices. Now, although the work of sacrifice is changed in its nature, it is not done away with. In a spiritual house, and by a spiritual priesthood, there must, for the sake of conformity, be a spiritual sacrifice. What is the sacrifice that the holy priesthood offers? Surely (1) communion in prayer, (2) also communion in praise; and (3) we offer ourselves in sacrifice.
A. G. Brown, Penny Pulpit,No. 1093.
References: 1 Peter 2:3. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 142. 1 Peter 2:4. Ibid., Sermons,vol. xxiii., No. 1334.