Page 115 - The Christian Life and the Church Life_Government of God

God’s Building 114

responded and said, “I will build My church.” I think this made a very deep
impression on Peter. When he first met the Lord, the first thing the Lord tells
him is “you are a stone.” I think Peter must have been shocked. Then the first
time the church is revealed, Peter gets the understanding that the church is
a building. It is a building made of stones. Actually, Peter does not use the
word “church” in his Epistles. Have you noticed this? He uses other words
to describe the church, such as a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
acquired for a possession, a spiritual house. This is because he was deeply
impressed by the Lord that God needs a building and that the material for
this building will not be natural persons of clay; rather, it will be transformed
people of stone. The Lord allowed Peter to have some big failures. Whenever
Peter failed, it was a spectacular failure; it was never a small one. It was
usually a huge failure and it was usually in public. The Lord allowed these
to show Peter that he was so natural and that he lived out the natural life.
When he was asked, “Does your master pay the temple tax?” he immediately
replied “Yes!” He was living in the natural life. Secondly, the Lord’s dealings
showed Peter that he was not being ruled by the government of God. Hence,
Peter is really the right person to write 1 and 2 Peter; he is our representative.
I am so thankful for this. Now in 1 and 2 Peter, we are reading the words of
a transformed God-man.
Now we can come to message 7. It is a familiar subject and we can easily
finish it in the time we have, but I wanted to put it into this context so that
we can appreciate the direct connection between living a Christian life and
church life under the government of God and God’s building. You have to
connect these two.

GOD’S GOAL BEING TO HAVE A SPIRITUAL HOUSE
BUILT UP WITH LIVING STONES

God’s goal is to have a spiritual house built up with living stones.
As Life to Us, Christ Being the Incorruptible Seed;
for God’s Building, His Being the Living Stone
As life to us, Christ is the incorruptible seed; for God’s building, He is
the living stone. His goal is a spiritual house. The Old Testament type was a
physical tabernacle, but in the New Testament, it is a spiritual house. Peter
tells us in 1 Peter 1:23 that we were regenerated not of corruptible seed,