Sermon Idea: The church is the new covenant people of God as a new temple, a new priesthood, and the fulfillment of Israel.
Introduction: When I was growing up, my dad would fall back on a few lines and phrases, especially when we were being instructed or corrected. On numerous occasions, he would summarize his view of life in a simple yet powerful sentence. He would say, “It all depends on what you do with Jesus Christ.”
For Dad, life is determined by what one does with Jesus Christ. In doing so, he reinforced for us what the apostles proclaimed as they preached the gospel. The Apostle Peter, after healing the lame beggar, preached boldly.
“…let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead…This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Ac 4:10–12)
The centrality of Jesus Christ in God’s redemptive plan cannot be overstated. Jesus is the resounding amen to all of God’s redemptive promises, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20, For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. (2 Co 1:20)
How does the New Testament speak of Jesus’ ministry? It does so with the language and images of Israel’s calling and purpose.
God refers to Israel as his firstborn son (Exodus 4:22). Jesus is the beloved Son with whom God is well pleased (Matt. 3:17). Unlike Israel, who disobeyed God in the wilderness, Jesus is the perfect, obedient Son who withstands the tempting of Satan in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13). Israel is God’s servant (Isaiah 44:1), and Jesus is the true servant on whom the Spirit of God rests (Isaiah 42:1; Matt. 3:16), who fulfills Israel’s mission to be a light to the nations through his sacrificial death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Israel is described as a vine brought out of Egypt and planted by God (Psalm 80; Jer. 2:21; Isa. 5:7), and Jesus is the true vine (John 15:1-5) in whom every believer abides and bears fruit.
What all of these images teach us is that Jesus fulfills Israel’s calling and purpose. This is why Jesus can rightly be called true Israel. We need to begin here, as it will help us understand how the New Testament discusses the church.
When the apostles reflect on the nature and identity of the church, they do so in relation to Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all God’s promises to Israel. The true people of God are not defined by ethnicity, nationality, or territory; instead, they are defined by faith in Jesus Christ, the true Israel of God. To borrow from my Dad, when it comes to determining who the true people of God are, it all depends on what you do with Jesus Christ.
Our text this morning teaches that the church is the new covenant people of God as a new temple, a new priesthood, and the fulfillment of Israel.
The context of Peter’s discussion of the church is the work of God’s salvation, which brings Gentiles like us into the people of God.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you (1 Pe 1:3–4)
18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Pe 1:18–19)
The assumption that Peter makes of the church is that its members are born again and ransomed by the precious blood of Christ. Therefore, the church is called to holiness as God is holy, and love, since we have been born again through the Word of God. What does this look like practically in the life of the church? Peter begins to answer that in 2:1-3.
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good (1 Pe 2:1–3)
We will return to this passage later, but for now, I want you to see that our understanding of who we are informs how we live. To belong to the church by grace is to be called to a life of holiness and love as we will in covenant community together. Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, and slander are sins that fail to embody love, which can fracture the unity of the congregation and harm the church’s witness to an unbelieving world.
As we consider that the church is the new covenant people of God, as a new temple, a new priesthood, and the fulfillment of Israel, I hope you’ll reflect on who we are and ask whether it informs how we live as a church, and how you live as a follower of Jesus.
I.) The Church is a new temple (1 Peter 2:4-5, 6-8)
We are to be holy, love one another, and put away sin because we are living stones of the very temple of God.
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house. (1 Pe 2:4–5)
Jesus is the living stone, because he is the living one who has been raised from the dead. The rejection of Jesus by men has in no way disrupted God’s plan, because Jesus is chosen and precious. What the Jewish leaders and Romans meant for evil, God meant for good. It is through Jesus’ death and resurrection that God fulfills all His promises, so that the restored people of God are founded on Christ, who is the cornerstone and the foundation for a new temple.
Since the church is united to Jesus, who is living, we also are living stones. Together, the church makes up a “spiritual house.” This is undoubtedly a reference to the temple.
The temple was a way for God to dwell among His people without His holiness consuming them because of their sin. That physical structure pointed forward to the presence of God in Jesus Christ, whose very presence is the dwelling place of God among them.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1:14)
Jesus replaces the temple, and through union with him, the church becomes the dwelling place of God among men.
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph 2:19–22)
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Co 3:16–17)
I hope that we will not rush past this too quickly. Pause and think about God residing in us, so that when we come together, we are the very dwelling place of God among men.
Stephen Wellum is right to stress how incredible this is when he writes, “One cannot stress how incredible this truth is, and it once again points to the newness of the new covenant people. First, nowhere in the Old Testament are the people of Israel described as the temple of God in which God’s spirit dwells.”
Friends, let us live as those who have access to God, who are the very dwelling place of God! This means, among many things, that we don’t have to wonder if God is present by his Spirit when the church gathers for worship.
There is a dangerous tendency for many to equate the presence of the Spirit with particular feelings or experiences, and if those feelings are not experienced, then the Spirit is assumed not to have moved. We should worship in Spirit and in truth. We should pray, sing, hear the Word, and see the ordinances with thanksgiving and joy.
Many times, that will be an affection stirring, emotionally moving experience. At other times, we will, with parched mouths, pant in prayer to God for deeper affections as we worship, based on what we know and believe, despite how we feel. But don’t fall into the trap of believing the Spirit is absent because you’re not feeling some tingle that you’ve equated with true worship of God.
The people of God under the new covenant are a new temple, and we can be confident of God’s presence through His Spirit.
II.) The Church is a new priesthood (1 Peter 2:5)
The church is the new temple, so that the church can be a new holy priesthood that offers its very life as spiritual sacrifices to God. Look with me at verse 5.
5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Pe 2:5)
In the Old Testament, the privilege of the priesthood was reserved for the tribe of Levi. In the New Covenant, the entire covenant community belongs to the priesthood as the Holy Spirit indwells them. As a holy priesthood, the church offers spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. The sacrifices are spiritual because they are the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. In Christ, we are so changed by the Spirit to worship and serve God that our very lives are spiritual sacrifices before him. As the animals were sacrificed on the altar, we give our very lives, transformed by the Spirit as a sacrifice to God.
It does not seem that we are meant to limit the meaning of spiritual sacrifices to one or two activities, but rather to understand them as encompassing all good worship and service that the Holy Spirit wroughts in the lives of the church and individual believers through Jesus Christ.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Ro 12:1)
Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. (Heb 13:15–16)
These passages, as well as others, are the support for a doctrine the Reformers called “the priesthood of all believers.” In other words, upon baptism, every believer belongs to the priesthood with free access to God through their mediator, Jesus Christ.
There have been times when this doctrine has been misunderstood and misapplied. For example, some in Baptist life have incorrectly spoken of the priesthood of the believer (singular), divorcing it from the authority and accountability inherent in life in the church.
The Baptist theologian Timothy George provides a helpful summary of the correct understanding of the priesthood of all believers.
“…for Luther, the priesthood of all believers did not mean, “I am my own priest.” It meant rather: In the community of saints, God has so tempered the body that we are all priests to each other. We stand before God and intercede for one another, we proclaim God’s Word to one another and we celebrate his presence among us in worship, praise, and fellowship. Moreover, our priestly ministry does not terminate upon ourselves. It propels us into the world in service and witness.” – Timothy George
Do you see how this understanding of the church should inform and shape your membership in it? God has incorporated us into a people, so that we can minister and be ministered to.
Life in the local church involves spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ, as we pray for one another, serve one another, speak the Word of God to each other, and bear one another’s burdens. We are meant to live our Christian lives in and with the church. We are saved into a people, and we cannot fulfill our priestly duties or make our spiritual sacrifice apart from the church.
Do you think of your life this way? When you prepare to gather with the church on the Lord’s Day, what is your perspective? Is it that you come to fill up your spiritual tank to have the fuel to live your Christian life for the rest of the week? Is gathering with the church simply an individual charging of the spiritual battery? How far this is from the biblical picture of the church that we are given!
Gather because God has called us together as a church to be a holy temple and a holy priesthood. Gather to minister to one another and be witnesses together before a world desperate for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Verses 6-8 provide scriptural support for Christ being the cornerstone of the new temple and offer encouragement to the church amid persecution and difficulty.
Peter wants the church to know that those who believe in Christ will not be put to shame, no matter what they experience in this life. Just as Christ was rejected but vindicated in the resurrection as the cornerstone, so every believer will be vindicated in the resurrection. In Christ, there is no shame, and no amount of ridicule, mocking, challenges, or persecution can change that.
6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” (1 Pe 2:6)
The opposite, of course, remains true. All that is left for those outside of Christ is shame. What is the difference between a life defined by shame and one that is not? To quote Dad again, “it all depends on what you do with Jesus Christ.”
The rejection of Christ and the rejection of the church are not meant to discourage believers or lead them to think that God’s plan is being hindered. Rather, the rejection of Christ and the rejection of the Word fall under the sovereign providence of God, “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” (1 Pe 2:8)
The church, however, is not among the stumbling and so in verses 9-10, Peter describes the church in more than positive language. He describes the church with the language of Israel.
III. The Church is the fulfilled Israel (1 Peter 2:9-10)
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Pe 2:9–10)
I hope that you’ll recognize the descriptors of the church in verse 9, as the reapplication of Israel’s calling and purpose. They come from Exodus 19:5-6.
5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Ex 19:5–6)
Verse 10 further applies the restoration passages to the church. It is an echo of Hosea 2:23.
23 and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’ ” (Ho 2:23)
Peter teaches us that the fulfillment of these promises is in the new covenant people, the church. In Christ, Israel, who was once called “Not My People,” and the Gentiles, who were not among the covenant people of God, are united into one new race, nation, and people of God.
Applying the covenant language to the church, down to the calling and purpose of Israel, strongly suggests that Peter understood the church to be the fulfillment of Israel. The church has experienced the second and greater exodus from Satan, sin, and death. Echoing the Exodus, Peter says that the church has been brought out of darkness and into his marvelous light. (1 Pet. 2:9)
The church’s calling as the fulfilled Israel is to proclaim the excellencies of the God who called us into his marveous light.
What can we say about the type of community the church is supposed to be?
1.) The church is first a worshipping community.
2.) The church is a second missional community.
Nathaniel R. Martin 