Ephesians 2:20

20. and are built] Better, Having been built; once built (aorist), by your Redeemer. The metaphor here boldly changes, from the inmates of city and house, to the structure. Possibly the element “house” in “household” suggested this. For similar imagery, cp. 1Co_3:9-10; 1Pe_2:4-8; Judges 20; and see Mat_7:24-25. And for curious developments of the imagery here, in very early Christian literature, see St Ignatius Ep. to the Eph., ch. ix, and the Shepherd of Hermas, ‘Vision’ iii. And for an application of the imagery in ancient hymnology, the hymn (cent. 8 or 9) Urbs beata Hirusalem (Trench, Sacr. Lat. Poetry, p. 311).

the foundation of the apostles and prophets] The foundation which consists of them; in the sense that their doctrine is the basis of the faith, and so of the unity, of the saints. Cp. Rev_21:14; and the words spoken (Mat_16:18) to Peter, “upon this rock I will build My Church.” Not to enter into the details there, it is plain that the personal address to Peter is deeply connected with the revelation to and confession by Peter of the Truth of Christ. The Collect for the day of SS. Simon and Jude, constructed from this passage, is a true comment on it.

“The apostles and prophets:”—Who are the Prophets here? Those of the O. T. or those of the Gospel, (for whom cp. e.g. Eph_3:5, Eph_4:11; Act_15:32; and often)? For the first alternative, it is a strong plea that the O. T. prophets are always regarded in the N. T. as Evangelists before the time; cp. e. g. Luk_24:25; Act_3:18; Act_3:21; Act_3:24; Act_10:43; Rom_16:26. The last passage regards the “prophetic scriptures” as the great instrument of apostolic preaching. But on the other hand we should thus have expected “prophets and apostles” to be the order of mention. And Eph_3:5, giving the same phrase with distinct reference to the “prophets” of the Gospel, is a parallel nearly conclusive in itself in favour of that reference here. In Eph_4:11, again, we have the “prophet” named next to the “Apostle” among the gifts of the glorified Saviour to this Church; a suggestion of the great prominence and importance of the function. We take the word here, then, to mean such “prophets” as Judas and Silas (Act_15:32); men, we gather, who, though not of one office with the Apostles, shared some of their functions; were directly inspired, on occasion, with knowledge of the future (Act_11:28), and with truth of spiritual doctrine (Eph_3:5, and 1 Corinthians 14); and were specially commissioned to preach and teach such things revealed. May we not probably class the non-apostolic writers of the N. T. among these “prophets”? See further, Appendix F.

The mention of them here is in special point, because public faith and doctrine is in question. The work of the “prophets” had, doubtless, greatly contributed to the wide spread and settlement of the truth of the free acceptance in Christ of all believers, Gentiles with Jews. Observe that in Act_15:32 it is two “prophets” who “exhort and confirm” (the Gr. word suggests precisely settlement on a foundation) the Gentile believers at Antioch, in the very crisis of the conflict between Pharisaic limits and the universality of the Gospel.

Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone] It is possible to render “the chief corner stone of it (the foundation) being Christ Jesus;” but far less probable. The “Himself” is almost demanded by the separation and contrast of the supreme position of the Lord. So R. V.—There is a slight emphasis, by position, on “being.”

“The chief corner stone:”—one word in the Gr.; found also 1Pe_2:6; where Isa_28:16 (LXX.) is quoted nearly verbatim. Precisely, the LXX. there runs, “I lay among the foundations of Sion a stone costly, chosen, chief of the corner, precious;” words which indicate that the idea, to the Greek translators, was that of a stone essential to the foundation, not in the higher structure; and this is confirmed by St Peter’s use of the quotation. Thus on the whole we take the image to be that of a vast stone at an angle of the substructure, into which the converging sides are imbedded, “in which” they “consist;” and the spiritual reality to be, that Jesus Christ Himself is that which gives coherence and fixity to the foundation doctrines of His Church; with the implied idea that He is the essential to the foundation, being the ultimate Foundation (1Co_3:11). Apostles and Prophets reveal and enforce a basis of truths for the rest and settlement of the saints’ faith; those truths, at every point of juncture and prominence, are seen to be wholly dependent on Jesus Christ for significance, harmony and permanence.

In the Heb. of Isa_28:16 (and so, or nearly, Job_38:6; Psa_118:22 (Messianic); Jer_51:26) the phrase is “stone,” or “head,” of “corner,” or of “prominence.” See too Zec_10:4, where the solitary word “corner” appears to convey the same image.

F. APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. (Ch. Eph_2:20.)

On this collocation of Apostles with (Christian) Prophets some interesting light is thrown by early non-canonical Christian literature. The “Prophet” appears as a conspicuous and most important element in the life and work of some Christian communities in the closing years of cent. 1. The recently discovered Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, often referred to with high respect by the Christian Fathers (St Clement of Alexandria even seems to quote it as Scripture, Strom, 1. c. xx), belongs most probably to cent. 1, and to the Churches of Syria. Of its sixteen chapters, five (10, 11, 13, 14, 15.) explicitly speak of the Prophets of the Church. We gather that they were usually itinerant visitors to the Churches, but sometimes resident, and then supported by firstfruits. They presided at Divine worship, particularly at the weekly “Thanksgiving” (Eucharist), and had the right (as apparently the ordained “Bishops” and “Deacons,” ch. 15, had not) of using their own words in conducting the sacramental service (cp. perhaps Justin Martyr, Apol. 1. c. 67). They are called “high priests” (ch. 13). They were to be tested (cp. 1Jn_4:1) by known standards of truth, and by their personal consistency of life, but then, so long as their teaching did not contravene those tests, they were to be heard with the submission due to inspired oracles (ch. 11). To sit in judgment on them was to incur the doom of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The local “Bishops” and “Deacons” were in some respects inferior to them. The language of ch. 15 indicates, perhaps, that this inspired superior ministry was gradually passing away, and the regularly ordained ministry taking more and more its place.

The same document (ch. 11) mentions other Visitors called “Apostles;” so entirely itinerant that a stay of three days in one place would betray the man as a “false prophet.” The notice of these “Apostles” is very brief. They were evidently a rarer phenomenon, and of less practical influence, than the Prophets. No reference to the Great Apostles is to be sought in the passage. It may be illustrated by Rom_16:7 (where however see note in this Series); and seems to indicate the existence of a class of constantly moving, and inspired, superintendents and instructors of the Churches, who, as such, would bear a likeness to the Great Apostles. No function of superintendence seems to be assigned to the Prophets.

In the Shepherd of Hermas (first half of cent. 2), ‘Commandment’ xi, is a passage referring to the Christian Prophet and his credentials. These credentials were especially a deep personal humility, a renunciation of gain, and the refusal to “prophesy” in answer to consultations and questions. The Prophet was regarded as “filled by the angel of the prophetic spirit,” when it pleased God, and he then spoke not to individuals but to the congregation.

In the “First” Epistle[44] of St Clement of Rome to the Church of Corinth (probably about a.d. 95) there is ample allusion to the ordained ministry, but none to the Prophets. The same is the case in the Epistles of St Ignatius and the Epistle of St Polycarp (early cent. 2). In the Epistle of Barnabas, written probably somewhat later than the Teaching, and possibly based upon it in some measure, no allusion to the “Prophets” occurs.

[44] The “Second Epistle” is probably by another and later writer. It contains nothing to the point here.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_2:20; Eph_2:22

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

The Christian Church

I. The apostle represents the Church under the figure of a city and a household.

1. A Church must resemble a family or city, in respect of order and government; for without these a religious society can no more subsist, than a civil community or a household.

2. In a city or household all the members have a mutual relation, and partake in the common privileges; and, though they are placed in different stations and conditions, they must all contribute to the general happiness.

3. In a city, and also in a family, there is a common interest.

4. In a well-ordered city or household there will be peace and unity: so there ought to be in a Christian Church.

II. The manner in which it is founded. The mediation of Christ is the foundation of our faith and hope.

III. This spiritual house must be united with and framed into, the foundation.

IV. As the spiritual house must rest on the foundation, so the several parts of it must be framed and inserted into each other.

V. It must be continually growing. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)

Gods temple: its foundation, building, and consecration

I. The foundation laid.

1. The foundation is Jesus Christ--the foundation of the apostles and prophets, i.e., which they laid. It was laid in the promises, types, and prophecies of the Old Testament, and the witness of apostles and evangelists in the New (Joh_3:14; 1Co_10:4; Mat_16:16).

2. The foundation of the Church must be the foundation of each member of the Church. The essence of a foundation lies in its strength. The foundation in individual character is truth. Truth is a Person--I am the Truth. The foundation, therefore, is the truth concerning Jesus Christ believed, loved, and lived. The gospel thus received becomes a principle which forms the mainspring of a new life.

II. The building rising.

1. Look abroad upon the face of the world, and note the advances which the Church is making in all parts. The very hindrances to missionary work prove its success, for the more active the servants of God are, the more active the agents of Satan will be.

2. The building must rise in each heart. Growth is almost the only proof of life. The growth of the temple is due to the operation of the Spirit.

3. In most forms of life there is an exquisite symmetry. We see something of it in this temple: fitly framed together. As there is a beautiful proportion in the doctrines of the gospel, so, though Gods servants are many and their gifts various, their aim is one; and through their united wisdom and love and effort, all the building groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.

III. The temple consecrated.

1. We may refer the consecration to the end of the age, because consecration usually follows upon completion.

2. But even now there is to a certain extent a consecration of this building (1Co_3:16; 2Co_5:16). How shall I know this?

(1) By self-consecration. Yield yourselves unto God (Rom_6:13), not simply your brain, pen, money, influence, but yourselves. God wants the man--the whole man.

(2) By God-consecration. He who gives himself to God will surely find God giving Himself to him, consecrating His temple by His presence, and indicating that presence by holy aspirations and a Christ-like disposition, by meekness and gentleness, by self-denial and zeal. He who is spirit taught and spirit wrought will be such a temple as the great God of heaven will not despise. (W. J. Chapman, M. A.)

The Church, a building

Like a building, the Church of God has been going on to the present day, and will do to the end of time. The honour and stability of this building.

1. As built upon Christ.

2. As wrought by the Spirit.

3. As an habitation of God. Why leap ye, ye high hills? this is the hill which God desireth to dwell in, etc. (Psa_68:16). In Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling place in Zion (Psa_76:2). This denotes--

(1) His knowledge of them.

(2) His concern for them.

(3) Their access to Him.

(4) His readiness to help them.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved, etc. (Psa_46:5). Each member in Christ has his state and office in the Church by Gods appointment, for promoting the good and glory of the whole. And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets, etc. (Eph_4:11, etc.). But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, etc. (1Co_12:18). No spiritual life and salvation without being united to Christ by faith. (H. Foster, M. A.)

The Church

I. The unbelieving state of the Gentile Church. Strangers.

1. Strangers to God. To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Eph_2:12.

2. Strangers to the Word of God (Psa_119:158).

3. Strangers to the Church of God (1Jn_3:1).

4. Strangers to themselves (Rev_3:17).

5. Strangers to the enjoyments, fears, duties, privileges, persecutions, and prospects of a Christian (1Co_2:11).

Foreigners.

1. Naturally of another race (Psa_51:5).

2. Under the authority of another prince (2Co_4:4).

3. Of a totally different complexion (Jer_13:23).

4. Speaking another language (Psa_58:3).

5. Seeking other interests than God (Php_2:21).

6. At an infinite distance from the celestial kingdom, where only true happiness rests (Eph_2:13).

II. Their adopted or privileged condition. Fellow citizens, etc. The city they belong to is either the Church below, or the Church above.

1. It is the city of God (Heb_12:22).

2. Of Gods building (Psa_127:1).

3. Where He dwells (Psa_68:16).

4. Which is strongly fortified (Isa_26:1).

5. It is delightfully situated by the river of Gods love (Psa_46:4).

6. Endowed with various privileges (1Co_3:21-23).

7. Peopled with high-born inhabitants (Joh_1:13).

The Church of God above.

1. This is a city of Gods preparing (Joh_14:2-3).

2. There He has His more especial residence (1Co_13:12).

3. The inhabitants are angels and saints (Heb_12:22-23).

4. Of this city we are also citizens (Gal_4:26).

5. Set apart by the Fathers grace (Jud_1:1).

6. By the work of Christ in their behalf (Heb_10:14).

7. And by the agency of the Holy Ghost (Rom_5:5).

8. And having a right to a name and a place in the Church on earth; so have they their citizenship in heaven (Job_16:19).

9. This they have not by birth, nor purchase, but by the free grace of God, which gives them both a right and meetness (2Ti_1:9).

10. And believing Gentiles are here made equal with the Jews in the blessings of salvation (Eph_2:14).

And of the household of God.

1. The Church of God consisting of believers (Act_5:14).

2. This family is named after, and by Christ (Eph_3:14-15).

3. Of this family God is the Father (Joh_20:17).

4. Christ is the first-born (Rom_8:29).

5. Ministers are stewards of this house (1Co_4:1).

6. To this family all believers belong (Act_4:32).

7. Not by birth, nor merit, but by adopting grace (Eph_1:5).

8. The members of this family are freed from all bondage (Rom_8:15).

9. They can never be arrested or condemned (Rom_8:1).

10. They have liberty of access to God (Eph_2:18).

11. Share in the fulness of Christs grace (Eph_3:19).

12. Are well taken care of (Psa_145:20).

13. They are richly clothed (Isa_61:10).

14. They have plenty of provisions (Psa_36:8).

15. And are heirs of a never-fading inheritance (1Pe_1:4-5).

III. The foundation and cornerstone are Christ. And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

1. The Father saved them designedly in Christ (2Ti_1:9).

2. The Son saved them positively in Himself (Heb_10:14).

3. The Spirit saves them apprehensively in Christ (Tit_3:5).

4. Christ, then, is the foundation of the Church (Mat_16:18).

5. He is the foundation of all covenant blessings (Eph_1:3).

6. Of faith (Act_20:21).

7. Of hope (Col_1:27).

8. Of peace (Eph_2:14).

9. Of joy (Rom_5:11).

10. Of comfort (2Th_2:17).

11. Of glory (Jud_1:25).

12. The stones of this building are hewn out by the Word, and the ministers of the gospel (2Co_4:7).

Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.

1. He joins together Old and New Testament saints (Eph_2:14).

2. Saints above and saints below (Heb_12:23).

3. Saints in all parts of the world (Joh_11:52).

4. This stone is refused by many (Psa_118:22).

5. Yet a durable and precious stone (Isa_28:16).

6. It is a foundation cornerstone, reaching under the whole building to the four corners (1Co_3:11).

IV. The perfection of the building. In whom all the building fitly framed together.

1. All the building--The universal Church of Christ (Act_4:12).

2. Fitly framed--Is of a spiritual nature (Col_2:19).

3. It consists of various parts as a building does (Rom_12:4-5).

4. Fitly or closely joined to Christ by living faith (Gal_2:20).

5. Banded to each other by Christian love (1Jn_4:7).

6. These are all set in the Church in exact symmetry and proportion (1Co_12:12-31).

Groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.

1. It grows by the accession of elect souls, newly called by Divine grace (Act_2:47).

2. It is not yet openly and visibly completed, but it will be in the calling of the Jews and the fulness of the Gentiles (Rom_11:25-26).

Holy temple; alluding to the temple at Jerusalem.

1. Whose stones were prepared before they were brought into the building.

2. Whose magnificence and beauty were very great.

3. A place of holy worship (2Co_6:16).

In the Lord.

1. There is no salvation, blessing, or holiness but in the Lord (Col_3:11).

V. The design of this temple. In whom ye are builded together. Then it appears from what has been said, that God is the builder, Christ the foundation, and believers are the materials of this temple.

1. The door of entrance is faith in Christ (Heb_11:6).

2. Ministers of the gospel are pillars (Gal_2:9).

3. The ordinances are its windows (Exo_20:24).

4. Its provisions are large and entertaining (Psa_132:15).

It denotes--

(1) Agreement.

(2) Combination.

(3) Strength.

(4) Perpetuity.

For a habitation of God through the Spirit.

1. God dwells in the Church in the person of Christ (2Co_6:16).

2. The Church dwells in God by her union to Christ (1Jn_4:13).

3. It is a spiritual dwelling that is here intended, both of God in us, and of us in God (Rom_8:9-10). (T. B. Baker.)

The true foundation

When the immense stone piers of the East River bridge were begun, three or four years ago, the builders did not attempt to manufacture a foundation. They simply dug down through the mud and sand, and found the solid bedrock which the Almighty Creator had laid there thousands of years ago. It is a wretched mistake to suppose that you need to construct a foundation. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Your own merits, however, cemented by good resolutions, will no more answer for a solid base than would a cart-load of bricks as the substratum of yonder stupendous bridge. God has provided for you a cornerstone already. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)

Jesus our Rock

For a whole week, riot only bishop but all the priests and friars of the city (Exeter) visited Bennet night and day. But they tried in vain to prove to him that the Roman Church was the true one. God has given me grace to be of a better Church, he said. Do you know that ours is built upon St. Peter? The Church that is built upon a man, he replied, is the devils Church, and not Gods.… At the place of execution he exhorted with such unction, that the sheriffs clerk exclaimed, Truly this is a servant of God! Two persons, going up to the martyr, exclaimed in a threatening voice, Say, Precor sanctam Mariam et omnes sanctos Dei. I know no other advocate but Jesus Christ, replied Bennet. (J. H. M. DAubigne, D. D.)

A new and physical metaphor

In these verses there is a sudden change from a political to a physical metaphor, possibly suggested by the word household. The metaphor itself, of the Church as a building of God--frequently used in the New Testament reaches its full perfection in this passage.

1. It starts, of course, from the words of our Lord (Mat_16:18), On this rock I will build My Church; but in the use of it sometimes the prominent idea is of the growth by addition of individual stones, sometimes of the complex unity of the building as a whole.

2. The former idea naturally occurs first, connecting itself, indeed, with the still more personal application of the metaphor to the edification of the individual to be a temple of God (found, for example, in 1Th_5:11; 1Co_8:1; 1Co_10:23; 1Co_14:4; 2Co_5:1; 2Co_10:8). Thus in 1Co_3:9, from ye are Gods building, St. Paul passes at once to the building of individual character on the one foundation; in 1Co_14:4-5; 1Co_14:12; 1Co_14:26, the edification of the Church has reference to the effect of prophecy on individual souls; in 1Pe_2:5, the emphasis is still on the building up of living stones upon a living stone (Comp. Act_20:32).

3. In this Epistle the other idea--the idea of unity--is always prominent, though not exclusive of the other (as here and in Eph_4:12-16). But that this conception of unity is less absolute than that conveyed by the metaphor of the body will be seen by noting that it differs from it in three respects first, that it carries with it the notion of a more distinct individuality in each stone; next, that it conveys (as in the grafting in of Rom_11:17) the idea of continual growth by accretion of individual souls drawn to Christ; lastly, that it depicts the Church as having more completely a distinct, though not a separate, existence from Him who dwells in it. (On this last point compare the metaphor of the spouse of Christ in Eph_5:25-33.) Hence it is naturally worked out with greater completeness in an Epistle which has so especially for its object the evolution of the doctrine of the one Holy Catholic Church. (A. Barry, D. D.)

Living temples

My brethren, it becomes of the utmost importance to inquire, Have we a place in this spiritual building? Are we daily striving, as St. Jude exhorts us, to pray in the Holy Ghost, and to build up ourselves on our most holy faith?

I. That we may know what our state is, what our hope towards God, let us, first, ask ourselves, Am I resting on the sure foundation? St. Paul tells us what it is: Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

II. Again: let us ask ourselves, Do we bear always in mind that we are called to be a holy temple in the Lord, an habitation of God through the Spirit?

1. A temple gives us the idea of dedication. Do we look upon ourselves as those who are set apart unto holiness, and ought not to be conformed unto this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God?

2. A temple also gives us the idea of Gods immediate presence (1Co_3:16; 1Co_6:19). This is a thought full of awe, and full of comfort. God is present in the hearts of them that believe, not as He appeared of old in the Temple at Jerusalem, shining above the mercy seat in a cloud of glory such as mans eye could see (Joh_14:23). And how should we regard our mortal body, if we believed it to be the temple of the Spirit of God?

3. A temple gives us the idea of continual service.

4. That the work of grace ought to be advancing in us. For what says St. Paul? Growing unto an holy temple in the Lord. (E. Blencowe, M. A.)

The Christian temple

Temples have always excited feelings of the deepest interest in the human race. They generally contain within themselves, and in the materials with which they are constructed, much that is beautiful and grand. They form a kind of middle step between earth and heaven, where faith and sense meet and unite to indulge in contemplations suited to their varied powers and capacities. The Greeks and the Romans were perhaps the most superstitious people in the world, they covered their land with the most bewitching forms of their idolatry; their temples were of the most costly and splendid description. Among all the temples of antiquity, none were equal to the temple at Ephesus dedicated to Diana. It was the boast of ancient Greece, and one of the wonders of the world. Upwards of two hundred years elapsed during its construction, many sovereigns assisted in its progress with no small portion of their revenues. And it was considered peculiarly sacred in consequence of the figure of Diana which it possessed; and which popular report ascribed to Jupiter as his donation. To check the enthusiasm, and in some degree to extinguish the admiration which, notwithstanding the power of Christianity, still lingered in the minds of some members of the Ephesian Church, it is supposed that the apostle used the words of our text in his Epistle to that Church. He there places in contrast to the temple of Diana another fabric in every respect infinitely superior--the Church of God: while the former temple was built upon wooden piles driven into the earth, the latter rests upon the writings of the apostles and prophets; while the materials of the former were all earthly, the materials of the latter are, by the grace of God in the regeneration of the human mind, spiritual and Divine; while the former was devoted to the rites of idolatry and superstition, the latter is sacred to the service of the true and living God; while the former could only boast of the image of its goddess, the latter has the presence, the indwelling presence of its own Maker--the Creator of the world. Other persons, however, imagine that the allusion here made is not to the temple of Diana, but to that more sacred fabric erected by Solomon upon Mount Zion. This was heavenly in its design, gorgeous in its material; it was the residence of Jehovah, and the type of the Christian Church. The Church, then, in this passage is set forth under the figure of a temple; we shall consider--

I. Its foundation. Prophets and apostles are here associated, Their theme was the same. The prophets predicted the Messiah who was to come, and the apostle recorded the history of the Messiah who had come; the one foretold the redemption to be accomplished, the other wrote of redemption finished and complete. And thus together they form a magnificent communication made from the invisible to the visible world; they resemble together the cherubim upon the ark of the covenant, turning their faces towards each other, and both together towards the mercy seat.

II. The superstructure of this temple. It often happens in the history of human affairs and transactions that men lay the foundation without being able to raise the superstructure; not so, however, with God. The building will rise and it will be equal to the basis.

1. We shall consider the nature of the material of which the superstructure is to be composed. The Apostle Peter has a very beautiful description of it in the second chapter of his first Epistle, at the fourth and fifth verses, To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. Living stone. The superstructure resembling the foundation, the foundation equal to the superstructure.

2. We will notice the symmetry of the building: fitly framed together; not a heap of misshapen ruins huddled together into a mass of inextricable confusion; not a clumsy fabric raised by joiners and masons without skill; everything is arrayed in beautiful order, all the parts dove-tailed into each other, everything is fitly framed in its proper place, and rightly connected.

III. I come now, in the third place, to the design of the building. It was to be an habitation of God through the Spirit. Now let us consider the presence of God in the Church--in this building. It is an invisible presence, there is no sound of thunder like that which indicated His dwelling upon Sinai; no cloud of glory like that which indicated His presence with Israel is here; He is spiritual. He is a Spirit and must have a spiritual house. But it is a real presence, and here is the real presence in the Church. (J. A. James.)

Truth--a strong foundation

You will observe that the historical order--which is the order of time--is inverted, and the apostles are placed before the prophets. And for this reason: because, in the sentence, we are descending the foundation. The apostles are laid on the prophets, and the prophets are laid on Christ. This is the way that our faith touches God. The Bible rests on God--we rest on the Bible: so we reach God. It will not be out of place if I take occasion to say here to you what I often say to those whom I have under instruction--what are the four great proofs of inspiration?

1. The presumptive proof, of which I have been speaking--that we should expect that, when God has made such a creature as man, He would give to that creature some revelation of Himself.

2. The internal evidence. The authorship of the books of the Bible spreads over a period of nearly sixteen hundred years. There is one pervading current of thought. How could that agreement be, unless it had been dictated by some one Master-mind? And what could that Master-mind be, but God?

3. The external evidence. This book--from beginning to end--is full of prophecy. Could any human mind, unassisted, have done that? Could any but God do that? Then God wrote the Bible.

4. The experimental evidence. The book exactly fits the heart. I feel it when I read it; whoever made my heart made that book. The two must have one origin, and that origin must have been God. Thus, then, I arrive at the firm conviction that the apostles and prophets are a sure foundation on which to build our creed and our salvation, being themselves built on the chief cornerstone. We get, then, at the foundation of truth, truth in its two-fold strength--prophetic truth, apostolic truth; prophetic truth representing the Old Testament,--apostolic truth representing the blew Testament--and both on Christ. What is prophetic truth? Taken in its broad outline, it is this: the affairs, the destinies of this world all under the one watchful eye, and the one superintending hand, of Almighty God. To Him, all time is one unbroken now. And apostolic truth is this. This world has been the scene of a great mission. Christ, the Son of God, has been here, and He hath been careful to extend and perpetuate the knowledge of His mission, and all its benefits by missionaries, whom He hath sent to all the world. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Thy spiritual building

1. Faith makes us lean on Christ, as a building on a foundation. Our faith must not be a swimming conceit, but an assurance, making us stay on our God.

2. The Church is built on Christ. The firmness of the house is according to the sureness of the foundation. How impregnable, then, is the Church! (Mat_16:19; Psa_125:1).

(1) The standing of Christians is sure.

(2) How insecure is the condition of wicked men.

3. The gospel builds us on no other foundation than that which was laid by the prophets from the beginning. The first preaching differs from the last not in substance but degree; we believe through our Lord Jesus Christ to be saved, even as they. There never was but one way of salvation. The sun rising, and at noon, differ not in substance. Christ is the kernel of both Testaments; blossom and ripe fruit.

4. Whatever is to be believed, must have prophetic and apostolic authority.

(1) Be not deluded with traditions.

(2) Stand not too much on the authority of men.

(3) Praise God for the fulness of Scripture.

5. We must rely on Christ for a sure foundation to uphold us. As one would cling by a rock, so must we by Christ. Peter and others are builders: Christ alone is the foundation. Let there be no mistake as to this. (Paul Bayne.)

The foundation of the apostles and prophets

In spite of much ancient and valuable authority, it seems impossible to take the prophets of this verse to be the prophets of the Old Testament. The order of the two words and the comparison of Eph_3:5; Eph_4:11 appear to be decisive--to say nothing of the emphasis on the present, in contrast with the past, which runs through the whole chapter. But it is more difficult to determine in what sense the foundation of the apostles and prophets is used. Of the three possible senses, that

(1) which makes it equivalent to the foundation on which apostles and prophets are built, viz., Jesus Christ Himself, may be dismissed as taking away any special force from the passage, and as unsuitable to the next clause. The second

(2), the foundation laid by apostles and prophets--still, of course, Jesus Christ Himself--is rather forced, and equally fails to accord with the next clause, in which our Lord is not the foundation, but the cornerstone. The most natural interpretation

(3), followed by most ancient authorities, which makes the apostles and prophets to be themselves the foundation, has been put aside by modern commentators in the true feeling that ultimately there is but one foundation (1Co_3:11), and in a consequent reluctance to apply that name to any but Him. But it is clear that in this passage St. Paul deliberately varies the metaphor in relation to our Lord, making Him not the foundation, or both foundation and cornerstone, but simply the cornerstone, binding together, according to Chrysostoms instructive remark, both the walls and the foundations. Hence the word foundation seems to be applied in a true, although secondary sense, to the apostles and prophets; just as in the celebrated passage (Mat_16:18) our Lord must be held at any rate to connect St. Peter with the foundation on which the Church is built; and as in Rev_21:14, the foundations bear the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. It is true that in this last passage we have the plural instead of the singular, and that the passage itself, is not, as this is, a dogmatic passage. But these considerations are insufficient to destroy the analogy. The genius, therefore, of this passage itself, supported by the other cognate passages, leads us to what may be granted to be an unexpected but a perfectly intelligible expression. The apostles and prophets are the foundation; yet, of course, only as setting forth in word and grace Him, who is the cornerstone. (A. Barry, D. D.)

Christ the cornerstone

The metaphor is drawn, of course, from Psa_118:22 (applied by our Lord to Himself in Mat_21:42; Mar_12:10; Luk_20:17; and by St. Peter to Him in Act_4:11), or from Isa_28:16 (quoted with the other passage in 1Pe_2:6-7); in which last it may be noted that both the metaphors are united, and the tried cornerstone is also the sure foundation. In itself it does not convey so obvious an idea of uniqueness and importance as that suggested by the keystone of an arch, or the apex stone of a pyramid; but it appears to mean a massive cornerstone, in which the two lines of the wall at their foundation meet, by which they were bonded together, and on the perfect squareness of which the true direction of the whole walls depended, since the slightest imperfection in the cornerstone would be indefinitely multiplied along the course of the walls. The doctrine which, if taken alone, it would convey, is simply the acceptance of our Lords perfect teaching and life, as the one determining influence both of the teaching and institutions, which are the basis of the Church, and of the superstructure in the actual life of the members of the Church itself. By such acceptance both assume symmetry and stand four-square to all the winds that blow. (See Rev_21:16.) That this is not the whole truth seems to be implied by the variation from the metaphor in the next verse. (A. Barry, D. D.)

Jesus Christ Himself

I. With Jesus Christ Himself we begin by saying, first, that Jesus Himself is the essence of His own work, and, therefore, how readily we ought to trust Him. Jesus Himself is the soul of His own salvation. How does the apostle describe it? He loved me, and gave Himself for me. Because of this, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the object of our faith. Look unto Me, Come unto Me. How very simple, easy, natural, ought faith to be henceforth!

II. Jesus Christ Himself is the substance of the gospel, and therefore how closely should we study Him. While He was hero He taught His disciples, and the object of His teaching was that they might know Himself, and through Him might know the Father. Whatever else they may be ignorant of, it is essential to disciples that they know their Lord. His nature, character, mind, spirit, object, power, we must know--in a word, we must know Jesus Himself.

1. This, beloved, is the work of the Holy Spirit. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. The Holy Ghost reveals Christ to us and in us.

2. Because Jesus is the sum of the gospel, He must be our constant theme. Put out the sun, and light is gone, life is gone, all is gone. The more of Christ in our testimony, the more of light and life and power to save.

III. Jesus Christ Himself is the object of our love, and how dear He should be. The love of a truth is all very well, but the love of a person has far more power in it. We have heard of men dying for an idea, but it is infinitely more easy to awaken enthusiasm for a person. When an idea becomes embodied in a man, it has a force which, in its abstract form, it never wielded. Jesus Christ is loved by us as the embodiment of everything that is lovely, and true, and pure, and of good report. He Himself is incarnate perfection, inspired by love. We love His offices, we love the types which describe Him, we love the ordinances by which He is set forth, but we love Himself best of all.

1. Because we love Him, we love His people, and through Him we enter into union with them. We are at one with every man who is at one with Christ. So warm is the fire of our love to Jesus that all His friends may sit at it, and welcome. Our circle of affection comprehends all who in any shape or way have truly to do with Jesus Himself.

2. Because we love Himself we delight to render service to Him. Whatever service we do for His Church, and for His truth, we do for His sake; even if we can only render it to the least of His brethren we do it unto Him.

IV. Jesus Christ Himself is the source of all our joy. How ought we to rejoice, when we have such a springing well of blessedness. What a joy to think that Jesus is risen--risen to die no more: the joy of resurrection is superlative.

V. Jesus Christ Himself is the model of our life, and therefore how blessed it is to be like Him. As to our rule for life, we are like the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration when Moses and Elias had vanished, for we see no man save Jesus only. Every virtue found in other men we find in Him in greater perfection; we admire the grace of God in them, but Jesus Himself is our pattern. It was once said of Henry VIII, by a severe critic, that if the characteristics of all the tyrants that had ever lived had been forgotten, they might all have been seen to the life in that one king: we may more truly say of Jesus, if all graces, and virtues, and sweetnesses which have ever been seen in good men could all be forgotten, you might find them all in Him: for in Him dwells all that is good and great. We, therefore, desire to copy His character and put our feet into His footprints.

VI. Lastly, He is the Lord of our soul. How sweet it will be to be with Him. We find today that His beloved company makes everything move pleasantly, whether we run in the way of His commands, or traverse the valley of the shadow of death. A poor girl, lying in the hospital, was told by the doctor or the nurse that she could only live another hour. She waited patiently, and when there remained only one quarter of an hour more, she exclaimed: One more quarter of an hour, and then. She could not say what, and neither can I; only Jesus Himself hath said, Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory. And as He has prayed, so it shall be, and so let it be. Amen and Amen. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Jesus Christ Himself the proof of the gospel

The religion of our Lord Jesus Christ contains in it nothing so wonderful as Himself. It is a mass of marvels, but He is the miracle of it; the wonder of wonders is The Wonderful Himself. If proof be asked of the truth which He proclaimed, we point men to Jesus Christ Himself. His character is unique. We defy unbelievers to imagine another like Him. He is God and yet man, and we challenge them to compose a narrative in which the two apparently incongruous characters shall be so harmoniously blended--in which the human and Divine shall be so marvellously apparent, without the one overshading the other. They question the authenticity of the four Gospels; will they try and write a fifth? Will they even attempt to add a few incidents to the life which shall be worthy of the sacred biography, and congruous with those facts which are already described? If it be all a forgery, will they be so good as to show us how it is done? Will they find a novelist who will write another biography of a man of any century they choose, of any nationality, or of any degree of experience, or any rank or station, and let us see if they can describe in that imaginary life a devotion, a self-sacrifice, a truthfulness, a completeness of character at all comparable to that of Jesus Christ Himself? Can they invent another perfect character even if the Divine element be left out? They must of necessity fail, for there is none like unto Jesus Himself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Jesus Christ Himself the marrow and essence of the gospel

When the Apostle Paul meant that the gospel was preached he said, Christ is preached, for the gospel is Christ Himself. If you want to know what Jesus taught, know Himself. He is the incarnation of that truth which by Him and in Him is revealed to the sons of men. Did He not Himself say, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life? You have not to take down innumerable tomes, nor to pore over mysterious sentences of double meaning in order to know what our great Teacher has revealed, you have but to turn and gaze upon His countenance, behold His actions, and note His spirit, and you know His teaching. He lived what He taught. If we wish to know Him, we may hear His gentle voice saying, Come and see. Study His wounds, and you understand His innermost philosophy. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Home symbols

Did you ever think how every part of your house can remind you of the great truths which Jesus Christ taught about Himself? The cornerstone says, Christ is the cornerstone; the door, I am the door; the burning candle, I am the Light of the world; the corridor, I am the Way. Look out of the window, and the sight of the starry sky bids you turn your eyes to the bright and morning Star. The rising sun speaks to you of the rising of the Sun of Righteousness with healing on His wings. The loaf on your table whispers of the Bread of Life, and the water that quenches your thirst, I am the Living Water, I am the Water of Life. When you lie down you think of Him that had not where to lay His head, and when you get up, you rejoice that He is the Resurrection and the Life. (Sunday Teachers Treasury.)

Growth in holiness

When I was at Mr. Spurgeons house he showed me the photographs of his two sons, who were twins, and whose photographs had been taken every year since they were twelve months old until they were seventeen years old. For the first two years they did not seem to have grown much, but when we compared the first with those of the age of seventeen they seemed to have grown amazingly. So it is with the children of God--they grow in grace. (D. L. Moody.)

Growth and permanence

What is the use of thee, thou gnarled sapling? said a young larch tree to a young oak. I grow three feet in a year, thou scarcely as many inches; I am straight and taper as a reed, thou straggling and twisted as a loosened withe. And thy duration, answered the oak, is some third part of mans life, and I am appointed to flourish for a thousand years. Thou art felled and sawed into palings, where thou rottest and art burnt after a single summer; of me are fashioned battle-ships, and I carry mariners and heroes into unknown seas. The richer a nature, the harder and slower its development. (T. Carlyle.)

Necessity of holiness

There is no heaven for us, without fitness for heaven. As the official at the Bank of England said to me about some sovereigns I wished to change into notes, If we take them in here they must be tested. (B)

The spiritual temple

I. The foundation.

1. Prophets--the Old Testament. Apostles--the New Testament. Jesus Christ--the Divine Being in whom both dispensations are united.

2. This foundation is stable, sure.

3. It gives dignity to the building.

4. It is the only foundation.

II. The superstructure.

1. It will be a united building.

2. It is a progressive building.

3. It is a sanctified building.

III. The materials.

1. Believers in every age and clime.

2. Notice the stones in their natural state.

3. They are derived from different sources.

4. They are in different stages of preparation.

5. They must all be fashioned after the manner of the chief cornerstone.

6. Here is a text by which you may each know whether or not you are in the building.

7. These stones are bought with a price. (A. F. Barfield.)

Christ a builder

Christ builds on through all the ages. For the present, there has to be much destructive as well as constructive work done. Many a wretched hovel, the abode of sorrow and want, many a den of infamy, many a palace of pride, many a temple of idols, will have to be pulled down yet, and mens eyes will be blinded by the dust, and their hearts will ache as they look at the ruins. Be it so. The finished structure will obliterate the remembrance of poor buildings that cumbered its site. This Emperor of ours may indeed say, that He found the city of brick and made it marble. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The temple of the faithful

1. There is a special wisdom required in those who are to dispense the doctrine of faith; they must proceed by line and order. We do not entrust a piece of work of any importance but to those who are masters of their craft. Much more does the spiritual building require workmen who labour as they need not be ashamed (2Ti_2:15). And this teaches people how they should submit themselves to be framed and squared according as the ministry requires. Before a rough stone can be conveniently laid, it must be hewed by the mason, polished, and planed, and so brought to the rest of the building. So it is with you: you must be smoothed and planed before you can come to lie in this building. If ye be Gods building, ye must be squared to His model.

2. The faithful have a close union with Christ and one another. As in a house the building, all of it, must be fitted to the foundation, and every part of it suit one with another, so in this building, which we are, there must be a straight coupling with the foundation, and correspondence one with another. In the material temple (the type of the spiritual) the walls or rows of stone that were in it were so squared that one piece did not bulge out above the other, but being laid together a man would have thought them one entire stone. So all the other things were so contrived, that window answered to window, door to door, chamber to chamber; there was a pleasant proportionableness in everything. In like manner must the multitude of believers be all laid on one foundation, and all of them so even that they seem as one living stone, and every one answering most commodiously to another. And thus it is with the faithful in their union with Christ and with one another. Love makes the saints each seek the good of the other, and be serviceable each to other.

3. True believers grow up from day to day. Even as it is in great buildings, which are not at once begun and perfected, So do the stones of the spiritual temple go on growing till they come to perfection. Where we cease to grow, there we decline; he that wins not, loses. Leave off endeavour to be better, and you will soon cease to be good.

4. Believers are a temple for Gods habitation.

(1) A great dignity.

(2) Defile not the temple of God. To do so is sacrilege.

(3) Avoid all profanation of it.

5. Believers must be sanctified throughout.

6. Believers grow by the power of Christ. The Church still goes forward, in spite of heresies, persecutions, all scandals of life, all the gates of hell, because God is its builder.

(1) Let us look to Him for spiritual edification.

(2) It should comfort us to know that in due time we shall be finished.

God will make up all the breaches and ruins of our sinful nature, and build us up a glorious temple for Himself, wherein He will dwell forever. (Paul Bayne.)

The building

1. Observe the term groweth, intimating that the Church is ever enlarging her borders and adding to her members, either by the admission of the children of her members to the waters of baptism, or by the conversion of the heathen, and leading them to the same. And so it will continue, growing and increasing, until the consummation of all things: and God shall have accomplished the number of His elect.

2. Observe the expression, fitly framed together, showing the order and subordination of the different members. Not a confused mass of building materials, without shape and order; but set in their several stations, by the great Master of the universe.

3. Observe how the whole glory of this is ascribed not to man, but to our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him the building is framed; in Him it groweth and increaseth; the power to do so coming from Him. (A. P. Perceval, B. C. L.)

The growth of the new kingdom

The growth of the body, on Christs part, is spontaneous, and on mans, consentaneous. In whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord. It grows from Christ, but it grows in unity with our consenting affections. Christ never violates human freedom, but works in it, with it, and by it. What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? Ask, and ye shall receive. According to your faith be it unto you. He would open and develop in us much more of His purity and truth, goodness and beauty; but He waits for our desire, and by processes of wondrous wisdom and gentleness He seeks to beget in us that desire. If the spirit of the flesh in us be ardent, or the spiritual affections be lukewarm, the growth of the new nature will be retarded, or suspended. If it be necessary to receive Christ, in order to salvation, it is equally necessary to walk in Him, in a spirit of watchfulness and prayer, in order to growth. Inasmuch as all the building is growing in the Lord, and according to His order, it will, in the end, not only be a glorious temple of humanity, but marvellously adapted for the indwelling and manifestation of God. I will dwell in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. I will fill them, and they shall represent My fulness. The whole building, the redeemed of every generation, growing more and more into unity with each other, and with Christ, and through Him with all the hidden powers of the Godhead, is a work which is every way worthy of all Almighty Father. To what glory, to what beauty, will the kingdom grow? to what wisdom will its members attain? what will be their powers? what their fellowship? what their individual freedom of action? what their service and end, as one empire in the Son, and in the Father? At present there is much in human souls, much in the constitution of nature, and very much in the strife of the great spirit world, to hinder the full development of Gods purpose in Christ. But all hindrances have their appointed limit. In due time, they will all be overmastered or removed; and God and the redeemed race will come into perfect relationship. (John Pulsford.)

The growth of the structure

The structure is in process of growth. It is not finished--the copestone has not been put upon it. The scaffolding occasionally disfigures it; yet even in its immature state, and with so much that is undeveloped, one may admire its beauty of outline, and its graceful form and proportions. Vast augmentations may be certainly anticipated; but its increase does not mutilate its adaptations, for it grows as being fitly framed together. A structure not firm and compact is in the greater danger of falling the higher it is carried; and if it topple on our heads, what matter is it whether we are crushed by a Corinthian or a Doric ruin? But this fabric, with walls of more than Cyclopean or Pelasgian strength and vastness, secures its own continuous and illimitable elevation. Provision is thus made for its increase, and without breach or delapidation it rises in height. (J. Eadie, D. D.)

Christian unity

All the redeemed are one body--many members, but still one great incorporation. Ye are builded together for an habitation of God, through the Spirit. The materials of a house form no place of abode, while they lie scattered and separated. In the ancient tabernacle, the glory of the Lord did not appear till it was compacted and set up. The Divine presence rested not upon the stones and timber of the Temple till they were framed into the edifice. We may hence infer, that if we would enjoy the promised blessing, we should avoid strifes and divisions, and follow after peace, and the things whereby one may edify the other. (Anonymous.)

The tabernacle of the Most High

I. The Church is a building. Not a heap of stones shot together, but a building. Of old her Architect devised her. Methinks I see Him, as I look back into old eternity, making the first outline of His Church. Here, saith He, in His eternal wisdom, shall be the cornerstone, and there shall be the pinnacle. I see Him ordaining her length, and her breadth, appointing her gates and her doors with matchless skill, devising every part of her, and leaving no single portion of the structure unmapped. I see Him, that mighty Architect, also choosing to Himself every stone of the building, ordaining its size and its shape; settling upon His mighty plan the position each stone shall occupy, whether it shall glitter in front, or be hidden in the back, or buried in the very centre of the wall. I see Him marking not merely the bare outline, but all the fillings up; all being ordained, decreed, and settled, in the eternal covenant, which was the Divine plan of the mighty Architect upon which the Church is to be built. Looking on, I see the Architect choosing a cornerstone. He looks to heaven, and there are the angels, those glittering stones--He looks at each one of them from Gabriel down; but, saith He, None of you will suffice. I must have a cornerstone that will support all the weight of the building, for on that stone every other one must lean. O Gabriel, thou wilt not suffice I Raphael, thou must lay by; I cannot build with thee. Yet was it necessary that a stone should be found, and one too that should be taken out of the same quarry as the rest. Where was he to be discovered? Was there a man who would suffice to be the cornerstone of this mighty building? Ah, no! neither apostles, prophets, nor teachers would. Put them all together, and they would be as a foundation of quicksand, and the house would totter to its fall. Mark how the Divine mind solved the difficulty--God shall become man, very man, and so He shall be of the same substance as the other stones of the temple; yet shall He be God, and therefore strong enough to bear all the weight of this mighty structure, the top whereof shall reach to heaven. I see that foundation stone laid. Is there singing at the laying of it? No. There is weeping there. The angels gathered round at the laying of this first stone; and look, ye men, and wonder, the angels weep; the harps of heaven are clothed in sackcloth, and no song is heard. They sang together and shouted for joy when the world was made; why shout they not now? Look ye here, and see the reason. That stone is imbedded in blood. The first is laid; where are the rest? Shall we go and dig into the sides of Lebanon? Shall we find these precious stones in the marble quarries of kings? No. Whither are ye flying, ye labourers of God? We go to dig in the quarries of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the depths of sinful Jerusalem, and in the midst of erring Samaria. I see them clear away the rubbish. I mark them as they dig deep into the earth, and at last they come to these stones. But how rough, how hard, how unhewn. Yes, but these are the stones ordained of old in the decree, and these must be the stones, and none other. There must be a change effected. These must be brought in, and shaped and cut and polished, and put into their places. I see the workmen at their labour. The great saw of the law cuts through the stone, and then comes the polishing chisel of the gospel. I see the stones lying in their places, and the Church is rising. The ministers, like wise master builders, are there running along the wall, putting each spiritual stone in its place; each stone is leaning on that massive cornerstone, and every stone depending on the blood, and finding its security and its strength in Jesus Christ, the cornerstone, elect, and precious. Now open wide your eyes, and see what a glorious building this is--the Church of God. Men talk of the splendour of their architecture--this is architecture indeed; neither after Grecian nor Gothic models, but after the model of the sanctuary which Moses saw in the holy mountain. Do you see it? Was there ever a structure so comely as this--instinct with life in every part? There is no house like a heart for one to repose in. There a man may find peace in his fellow man; but here is the house where God delighteth to dwell--built of living hearts, all beating with holy love--built of redeemed souls, chosen of the Father, bought with the blood of Christ. The top of it is in heaven. Part of them are above the clouds. Many of the living stones are now in the pinnacle of paradise. We are here below. The building rises, the sacred masonry is heaving, and, as the cornerstone rises, so all of us must rise, until at last the entire structure, from its foundation to its pinnacle, shall be heaved up to heaven, and there shall it stand forever--the new Jerusalem, the temple of the majesty of God.

1. The Divine Architect makes no mistakes. When our eyes shall have been enlightened, and our hearts instructed, each part of the building will command our admiration. The top stone is not the foundation, nor does the foundation stand at the top. Every stone is of the right shape; the whole material is as it should be, and the structure is adapted for the great end, the glory of God, the temple of the Most High.

2. Another thing may be noticed--her impregnable strength. This habitation of God, this house not made with hands, but of Gods building, has often been attacked, but never taken. What multitudes of enemies have battered against her old ramparts! but they have battered in vain.

3. And we may add, it is glorious for beauty. There was never structure like this. One might feast his eyes upon it from dawn to eve, and then begin again. Jesus Himself takes delight in it. God joys over it with singing (Zep_3:17).

II. But the true glory of the Church of God consists in the fact that she is not only a building, but that she is a habitation. There may be great beauty in an uninhabited structure, but there is always a melancholy thought connected with it. Who loves to see desolate palaces? Who desireth that the land should cast out her sons, and that her houses should fail of tenants? But there is joy in a house lit up and furnished, where there is the sound of men. Beloved, the Church of God hath this for her peculiar glory, that she is a tenanted house, that she is a habitation of God through the Spirit. How many Churches there are that are houses, yet not habitations! I might picture to you a professed Church of God; it is built according to square and compass, but its model has been formed in some ancient creed, and not in the Word of God. There are too many churches that are nothing but a mass of dull, dead formality; there is no life of God there. A house is a place where a man solaces and comforts himself. Our home is the place of our solace, our comfort, and our rest. Now, God calls the Church His habitation--His home. Oh, how beautiful is the picture of the Church as Gods house, the place in which He takes His solace! For the Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for His habitation. This is my rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.

2. Furthermore, a mans home is the place where he shows his inner self. There are sweet revelations which God makes in His Church, which He never makes anywhere else.

3. A mans home is the centre of all he does. Yonder is a large farm. Well, there are outhouses, and hay ricks, and barns, and the like; but just in the middle of these there is the house, the centre of all husbandry. No matter how much wheat there may be, it is to the house the produce goes. It is for the maintenance of the household that the husband carries on his husbandry. Now, Gods Church is Gods centre. Why doth God clothe the hills with plenty? For the feeding of His people. Why is providence revolving? Why those wars and tempests, and then again this stillness and calm? It is for His Church. Not an angel divides the ether who hath not a mission for the Church. It may be indirectly, but nevertheless truly so. All things must minister and work together for good for the chosen Church of God, which is His house--His daily habitation.

4. We love our homes, and we must and will defend them. Ay, and now lift up your thoughts--the Church is Gods home; will He not defend it?

III. The Church is, by and by, to be Gods glorious temple. It doth not yet appear what she shall be. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Believers Gods habitation

1. Believers have the Lord to dwell with them.

(1) Grieve not, but please this guest.

(2) See the blessedness of all the faithful.

2. By being built on Christ, we come to be a dwelling for God.

3. The Spirit of sanctification makes us a fit habitation for God. (Paul Bayne.)

The spiritual building

I. The materials.

1. Their nature.

2. Their diversity.

3. Their number.

4. Their circumstances.

5. Their value.

II. The basis and plan.

1. The foundation is Christ.

2. The chief cornerstone is Christ.

3. The whole building is constructed by Christ.

4. The excellencies of Christ will be the beauty of the building.

III. The instruments and agency by which this building is constructed and carried on. The Holy Spirit.

1. The vastness of the work requires a universal presence.

2. The difficulty of the work demands infinite resources.

3. The time needed to carry on the work requires a perpetual agency.

IV. The design to be accomplished in this work. For an habitation of God. (Isaiah Birt.)

Believers are temples

If there be anything common to us by nature, it is the members of our corporeal frame; yet the apostle taught that these, guided by the Spirit as its instruments, and obeying a holy will, become transfigured; so that, in his language, the body becomes a temple of the Holy Ghost, and the meanest faculties, the lowest appetites, the humblest organs, are ennobled by the Spirit mind which guides them. Thus he bids the Romans yield themselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and their members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

Inhabited by the Holy Spirit

I am sitting, on a summers day, in the shadow of a great New England elm. Its long branches hang motionless; there is not breeze enough to move them. All at once there comes a faint murmur; around my head the leaves are moved by a gentle current of air; then the branches begin to sway to and fro, the leaves are all in motion, and a soft, rushing sound fills my ear. So with every one that is born of the Spirit. I am in a state of spiritual lethargy, and scarcely know how to think any good thought. I am heart empty, and there comes, I know not where or whence, a sound of the Divine presence. I am inwardly moved with new comfort and hope; the day seems to dawn in my heart, sunshine comes around my path, and I am able to go to my duties with patience. I am walking in the Spirit, I am helped by the help of God, and comforted with the comfort of God. And yet this is all in accordance with law. There is no violation of law when the breezes come, stirring the tops of the trees; and there is no violation of law when God moves in the depths of our souls, and rouses us to the love and desire of holiness. (James Freeman Clarke.)

The rival builders

The story of Rowland Hill preaching against the first Surrey Theatre is very characteristic. The building of Surrey Chapel was going on simultaneously with that of the theatre. In his sermon he addressed his audience as follows:--You have a race to run now between God and the devil; the children of the last are making all possible haste in building him a temple, where he may receive the donations and worship of the children of vanity and sin! Now is your time, therefore, to bestir yourselves in the cause of righteousness, and never let it be said but what God can outrun the devil! (Clerical Anecdotes.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

EPHESIANS

‘THE CHIEF CORNER-STONE’

Eph 2:20

The Roman Empire had in Paul’s time gathered into a great unity the Asiatics of Ephesus, the Greeks of Corinth, the Jews of Palestine, and men of many another race, but grand and imposing as that great unity was, it was to Paul a poor thing compared with the oneness of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Asiatics of Ephesus, Greeks of Corinth, Jews of Palestine and members of many another race could say, ‘Our citizenship is in heaven.’ The Roman Eagle swept over wide regions in her flight, but the Dove of Peace, sent forth from Christ’s hand, travelled further than she. As Paul says in the context, the Ephesians had been strangers, ‘aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,’ wandering like the remnants of some ‘broken clans,’ but now they are gathered in. That narrow community of the Jewish nation has expanded its bounds and become the mother-country of believing souls, the true ‘island of saints.’ It was not Rome which really made all peoples one, but it was the weakest and most despised of her subject races. ‘Of Zion it shall be said,’ ‘Lo! this and that man was born in her.’

To emphasise the thought of the great unity of the Church, the Apostle uses here his often-repeated metaphor of a temple, of which the Ephesian Christians are the stones, apostles and prophets the builders, and Christ Himself the chief corner-stone. Of course the representation of the foundation, as being laid by apostles and prophets, refers to them as proclaiming the Gospel. The real laying of the foundation is the work of the divine power and love which gave us Christ, and it is the Divine Voice which proclaims, ‘Behold I lay in Zion a foundation!’ But that divine work has to be made known among men, and it is by the making of it known that the building rises course by course. There is no contradiction between the two statements, ‘I have laid the foundation’ and Paul’s ‘As a wise master-builder I have laid the foundation.’

A question may here rise as to the meaning of ‘prophets.’ Unquestionably the expression in other places of the Epistle does mean New Testament prophets, but seeing that here Jesus is designated as the foundation stone which, standing beneath two walls, has a face into each, and binds them strongly together, it is more natural to see in the prophets the representatives of the great teachers of the old dispensation as the apostles were of the new. The remarkable order in which these two classes are named, the apostles being first, and the prophets who were first in time being last in order of mention, confirms this explanation, for the two co-operating classes are named in the order in which they lie in the foundation. Digging down you come to the more recent first, to the earlier second, and deep and massive, beneath all, to the corner-stone on whom all rests, in whom all are united together. Following the Apostle’s order we may note the process of building; beneath that, the foundation on which the building rests; and beneath it, the corner-stone which underlies and unites the whole.

I. The process of building.

In the previous clauses the Apostle has represented the condition of the Ephesian Christians before their Christianity as being that of strangers and foreigners, lacking the rights of citizenship anywhere, a mob rather than in any sense a society. They had been like a confused heap of stones flung fortuitously together; they had become fellow-citizens with the saints. The stones had been piled up into an orderly building. He is not ignoring the facts of national, political, or civic relationships which existed independent of the new unity realised in a common faith. These relationships could not be ignored by one who had had Paul’s experience of their formidable character as antagonists of him and of his message, but they seemed to him, in contrast with the still deeper and far more perfect union, which was being brought about in Christ, of men of all nationalities and belonging to mutually hostile races, to be little better than the fortuitous union of a pile of stones huddled together on the roadside. Measured against the architecture of the Church, as Paul saw it in his lofty idealism, the aggregations of men in the world do not deserve the name of buildings. His point of view is the exact opposite of that which is common around us, and which, alas! finds but too much support in the present aspects of the so-called churches of this day.

It is to be observed that in our text these stones are, in accordance with the propriety of the metaphor, regarded as being built, that is, as in some sense the subjects of a force brought to bear upon them, which results in their being laid together in orderly fashion and according to a plan, but it is not to be forgotten that, according to the teaching, not of this epistle alone, but of all Paul’s letters, the living stones are active in the work of building, as well as beings subject to an influence. In another place of the New Testament we read the exhortation to ‘build up yourselves on your most holy faith,’ and the means of discharging that duty are set forth in the words which follow it; as being ‘Praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, and looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

Throughout the Pauline letters we have frequent references to edifying, a phrase which has been so vulgarised by much handling that its great meaning has been all but lost, but which still, rightly understood, presents the Christian life as one continuous effort after developing Christian character. Taking into view the whole of the apostolic references to this continuous process of building, we cannot but recognise that it all begins with the act of faith which brings men into immediate contact and vital union with Jesus Christ, and which is, if anything that a man does is, the act of his very inmost self passing out of its own isolation and resting itself on Jesus. It is by the vital and individual act of faith that any soul escapes from the dreary isolation of being a stranger and a foreigner, wandering, homeless and solitary, and finds through Jesus fellowship, an elder Brother, a Father, and a home populous with many brethren. But whilst faith is the condition of beginning the Christian life, which is the only real life, that life has to be continued and developed towards perfection by continuous effort. ‘Tis a life-long toil till the lump be leavened.’

One of the passages already referred to varies the metaphor of building, in so far as it seems to represent ‘your most holy faith’ as the foundation, and may be an instance of the doubtful New Testament usage of ‘faith,’ as meaning the believed Gospel, rather than the personal act of believing. But however that may be, context of the words clearly suggests the practical duties by which the Christian life is preserved and strengthened. They who build up themselves do so, mainly, by keeping themselves in the love of God with watchful oversight and continual preparedness for struggle against all foes who would drag them from that safe fortress, and subsidiarily, by like continuity in prayer, and in fixing their meek hope on the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. If Christian character is ever to be made more Christian, it must be by a firmer grasp and a more vivid realisation of Christ and His truth. The more we feel ourselves to be lapped in the love of God, the more shall we be builded up on our most holy faith. There is no mystery about the means of Christian progress. That which, at the beginning, made a man a Christian shapes his whole future course; the measure of our faith is the measure of our advance.

But the Apostle, in the immediately following words, goes on to pass beyond the bounds of his metaphor, and with complete indifference to the charge of mixing figures, speaks of the building as growing. That thought leads us into a higher region than that of effort. The process by which a great forest tree thickens its boles, expands the sweep of its branches and lifts them nearer the heavens, is very different from that by which a building rises slowly and toilsomely and with manifest incompleteness all the time, until the flag flies on the roof-tree. And if we had not this nobler thought of a possible advance by the increasing circulation within us of a mysterious life, there would be little gospel in a word which only enjoined effort as the condition of moral progress, and there would be little to choose between Paul and Plato. He goes on immediately to bring out more fully what he means by the growth of the building, when he says that if Christians are in Christ, they are ‘built up for an habitation of God in the Spirit.’ Union with Christ, and a consequent life in the Spirit, are sure to result in the growth of the individual soul and of the collective community. That divine Spirit dwells in and works through every believing soul, and while it is possible to grieve and to quench It, to resist and even to neutralise Its workings, these are the true sources of all our growth in grace and knowledge. The process of building may be and will be slow. Sometimes lurking enemies will pull down in a night what we have laboured at for many days. Often our hands will be slack and our hearts will droop. We shall often be tempted to think that our progress is so slow that it is doubtful if we have ever been on the foundation at all or have been building at all. But ‘the Spirit helpeth our infirmities,’ and the task is not ours alone but His in us. We have to recognise that effort is inseparable from building, but we have also to remember that growth depends on the free circulation of life, and that if we are, and abide in, Jesus, we cannot but be built ‘for an habitation of God in the Spirit.’ We may be sure that whatever may be the gaps and shortcomings in the structures that we rear here, none will be able to say of us at the last, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

II. The foundation on which the building rests.

In the Greek, as in our version, there is no definite article before ‘prophets,’ and its absence indicates that both sets of persons here mentioned come under the common vinculum of the one definite article preceding the first named. So that apostles and prophets belong to one class. It may be a question whether the foundation is theirs in the sense that they constitute it, an explanation in favour of which can be quoted the vision in the Apocalypse of the new Jerusalem, in the twelve foundations of which were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, or whether, as is more probable, the foundation is conceived of as laid by them. In like manner the Apostle speaks to the Corinthians of having ‘as a wise master-builder laid the foundation,’ and to the Romans of making it his aim to preach especially where Christ was not already named, that he might ‘not build upon another man’s foundation.’ Following these indications, it seems best to understand the preaching of the Gospel as being the laying of the foundation.

Further, the question may be raised whether the prophets here mentioned belong to the Old Testament or to the New. The latter alternative has been preferred on the ground that the apostles are named first, but, as we have already noticed, the order here begins at the top and goes downwards, what was last in order of time being first in order of mention. We need only recall Peter’s bold words that ‘all the prophets, as many as have spoken, have told of the days’ of Christ, or Paul’s sermon in the synagogue of Antioch in which he passionately insisted on the Jewish crime of condemning Christ as being the fulfilment of the voices of the prophets, and of the Resurrection of Jesus as being God’s fulfilment of the promise made unto the fathers to understand how here, as it were, beneath the foundation laid by the present preaching of the apostles, Paul rejoices to discern the ancient stones firmly laid by long dead hands.

The Apostle’s strongest conviction was that he himself had become more and not less of a Jew by becoming a Christian, and that the Gospel which he preached was nothing more than the perfecting of that Gospel before the Gospel, which had come from the lips of the prophets. We know a great deal more than he did as to the ways in which the progressive divine revelation was presented to Israel through the ages, and some of us are tempted to think that we know more than we do, but the true bearing of modern criticism, as applied to the Old Testament, is to confirm, even whilst it may to some extent modify, the conviction common to all the New Testament writers, and formulated by the last of the New Testament prophets, that ‘the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’ Whatever new light may shine on the questions of the origin and composition of the books of the Old Testament, it will never obscure the radiance of the majestic figure of the Messiah which shines from the prophetic page. The inner relation between the foundation of the apostles and that of the prophets is best set forth in the solemn colloquy on the Mount of Transfiguration between Moses and Elias and Jesus. They ‘were with Him’ as witnessing to Him to whom law and ritual and prophecy had pointed, and they ‘spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem’ as being the vital centre of all His work which the lambs slain according to ritual had foreshadowed, and the prophetic figure of the Servant of the Lord ‘wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities’ had more distinctly foretold.

III. The corner-stone which underlies and unites the whole.

Of course the corner-stone here is the foundation-stone and not ‘the head-stone of the corner.’ Jesus Christ is both. He is the first and the last; the Alpha and Omega. In accordance with the whole context, in which the prevailing idea is that which always fired Paul’s imagination, viz. that of reconciling Jew and Gentile in one new man, it is best to suppose a reference here to the union of Jew and Gentile. The stone laid beneath the two walls which diverge at right angles from each other binds both together and gives strength and cohesion to the whole. In the previous context the same idea is set forth that Christ ‘preached peace to them that were afar off {Gentiles} and to them that were nigh {Jews}.’ By His death He broke down another wall, the middle wall of partition between them, and did so by abolishing ‘the law of commandments contained in ordinances.’ The old distinction between Jew and Gentile, which was accentuated by the Jew’s rigid observance of ordinances and which often led to bitter hatred on both sides, was swept away in that strange new thing, a community of believers drawn together in Jesus Christ. The former antagonistic ‘twain’ had become one in a third order of man, the Christian man. The Jew Christian and the Gentile Christian became brethren because they had received one new life, and they who had common feelings of faith and love to the same Saviour, a common character drawn from Him, and a common destiny open to them by their common relation to Jesus, could never cherish the old emotions of racial hate.

When we, in this day, try to picture to ourselves that strange new thing, the love which bound the early Christians together and buried as beneath a rushing flood the formidable walls of separation between them, we may well penitently ask ourselves how it comes that Jesus seems to have so much less power to triumph over the divisive forces that part us from those who should be our hearts’ brothers. In our modern life there are no such gulfs of separation from one another as were filled up unconsciously in the experience of the first believers, but the narrower chinks seem to remain in their ugliness between those who profess a common faith in one Lord, and who are all ready to assert that they are built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, and that Jesus Christ is from them the chief corner-stone.

If in reality He is so to us, and He is so if we have been builded upon Him through our faith, the metaphor of corner-stone and building will fail to express the reality of our relation to Him, for our corner-stone has in it an infinite vitality which rises up through all the courses of the living stones, and moulds each ‘into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.’ So it shall be for each individual, though here the appropriation of the perfect gift is imperfect. So it shall be in reference to the history of the world. Christ is its centre and foundation-stone, and as His coming makes the date from which the nations reckon, and all before it was in the deepest sense preparatory to His incarnation, all which is after it is in the deepest sense the appropriating of Him and the developing of His work. The multitudes which went before and that followed cried, saying, ‘Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:20 Apostles are missionary evangelists commissioned by God. • Here, the prophets appear to be New Testament prophets, not Old Testament ones (see 3:5; 4:11; see also 1 Cor 12:10, 28-29; 14:1-5, 22-24, 29-32, 39; cp. Acts 13:1; 19:6; 21:9-10). In both the Old Testament and New Testament, prophets are not primarily predictors of the future but are empowered to speak a message from God (see 1 Cor 12:10). • The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets (or on the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets)—that is, on their faithful witness to the saving message of Christ (see Rev 21:14; cp. Matt 16:18). However, the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself, the Messiah, Savior, and Lord (cp. 1 Cor 3:11). The cornerstone is the most important stone in a building’s foundation (see Isa 28:16; Mark 12:10; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet 2:6-7).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Eph 2:20. Ἐποικοδομηθέντες, built upon) A phrase frequent with Paul, writing to the Ephesians, Eph 3:18, (comp. Act 20:32); and to Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, a metaphor taken from architecture; 1Ti 3:15; 2Ti 2:19.—ἐπὶ τῷ θεμελίῳ, on the foundation) As the foundation supports the whole building, so the testimony of the apostles and prophets is the substruction or support of the faith of all believers; by them the foundation was laid; Christ Jesus is here said to be the head of the corner. The same Person is spoken of as the very foundation, 1Co 3:11.—καὶ προφητῶν, and prophets) Prophets of the New Testament, who are next to the apostles; Eph 4:11, Eph 3:5.—ὄντος ἀκρογωνιαίου αὐτοῦ, being chief corner stone of it) Paul briefly indicates the passage in Isa 28:16, as very well known; comp. 1Pe 2:6, note. Christ Jesus is the chief corner stone of the foundation. The participle ὄντος, at the beginning of this clause, is strongly demonstrative in the present tense. The pronoun αὐτοῦ is to be referred to θεμελίῳ;[35] for if it were construed with Χριστοῦ, it would be in this form: ΑὐΤΟῦ ΤΟΥ[36] Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, as we read αὐτὸς ὁ Ἰωάννης, κ.τ.λ., with the article,[37] Mat 3:4; Mar 6:17; Luk 3:23; Luk 24:15; Luk 24:36; Joh 2:24; Joh 4:44; 2Co 11:14.

[35] But Engl. Vers. takes it, Jesus Christ Himself. Beng. renders it, “Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone of it,” viz. of the foundation.—ED

[36] Whether the reading Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ or Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ should be preferred is left doubtful on the marg. of both Ed. The Germ. Vers. separates Ἰησοῦ by a parenthesis.—E. B.

[37] AB Vulg. Memph. Orig. read the order Χριοτοῦ Ἰησοῦ. But D(Δ)Gg and Rec. Text have Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. (Acc. to Lachm., C supports the former order. Acc. to Tischend., C supports the latter.)—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_2:20. The conception οἶκος Θεοῦ leads the apostle, in keeping with the many-sided versatility of his association of ideas, to make the transition from the figure of a household-fellowship, to the figure of a house-structure, and accordingly to give to οἰκεῖοι τοῦ Θεοῦ a further illustration, which now is no longer appropriate to the former figurative conception, but only to the latter, which, however, was not yet expressed in οἰκεῖοι τοῦ Θεοῦ. Comp. Col_2:6-7.

ἐποικοδομηθέντες] namely, when ye became Christians. The compound does not stand for the simple term (Koppe), but denotes the building up. Comp. 1Co_3:10; 1Co_3:12; 1Co_3:14; Col_2:7; Xen. Hist. vi. 5. 12; Dem. 1278. 27. ἐπί, with the dative, however (comp. Xen. Anab. iii. 4. 11), is not here occasioned by the aorist participle (Harless), which would not have hindered the use either of the genitive (Horn. Il. xxii. 225; Plato, Legg. v. p. 736 E) or of the accusative (1Co_3:12; Rom_15:20); but the accusative is not employed, because Paul has not in his mind the relation of direction, and it is purely accidental that not the genitive of rest, but the dative of rest is employed.

τῶν ἀποστ. κ. προφ.] is taken by Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus, Estius, Morus, and others, including Meier, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, as genitive of apposition; but wrongly, since the apostles and prophets are not the foundation, but have laid it (1Co_3:10). The foundation laid by the apostles and prophets (as most expositors, including Koppe, Flatt, Rückert, Matthies, Harless, Bleek, correctly take it) is the gospel of Christ, which they have proclaimed, and by which they have established the churches; see on 1Co_3:10. Testimonium apost. et proph. substructum est fidei credentium omnium, Bengel.

προφητῶν] has been understood by Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Jerome, Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Calovius, Estius, Baumgarten, Michaelis, and others, including Rückert, of the Old Testament prophets. That not these, however, but the New Testament prophets (see on 1Co_12:10), are intended (Pelagius, Piscator, Grotius, Bengel, Zachariae, Koppe, Rosenmüller, Flatt, Harless, Meier, Matthies, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Bleek), is clear, not indeed from the non-repetition of the article, since the apostles and prophets might be conceived as one class (Xen. Anab. ii. 2. Ephesians 5 : οἱ στρατηγοὶ καὶ λοχαγοί; comp. Saupp. ad Xen. Venat. v. 24; Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 373), but (1) from the very order of the words,[158] which, especially from the pen of an apostle, would most naturally have been τῶν προφητῶν κ. ἀποστόλων; (2) from the analogy of Eph_3:5, Eph_4:11; and (3) from the fact that the foundation-laying in question can, from the nature of the case, only be the preaching of the Christ who has come, because upon this foundation the establishment of the church took place, and in that preaching the old prophetic predictions were used only as means (Rom_16:26). Comp. also Eph_2:21. Harless supposes that the apostles are here called at the same time prophets.[159] In this way, no doubt, the objection of Rückert is obviated, that, in fact, the prophets themselves would have come to Christianity only by means of the apostles, and would themselves have stood only on the θεμέλιος τῶν ἀποστόλων; but (a) from the non-repetition of the article there by no means follows the unity of the persons (see above), but only the unity of the category, under which the two are thought of. (b) There may be urged against it the analogy of Eph_4:11, as well as that in the whole N.T., where the ecclesiastical functions are already distinguished[160] and prophets are mentioned, apostles are not at the same time intended. It is true that the apostles had of necessity to possess the gift of prophecy, but this was understood of itself, and they are always called merely apostles, while simply those having received the gift of prophecy, who were not at the same time apostles, are termed prophets; comp. 1Co_12:28 f. (c) There would be no reason whatever bearing on the matter in hand why the apostles should here be designated specially as prophets; nay, the contrast of Moses and the prophets, arbitrarily assumed by Hofmann, would only tell against the identity (Luk_24:27; Luk_24:44; Act_24:14; Joh_1:46). That objection of Rückert, however, disappears entirely when we contemplate the prophets as the immediate and principal fellow-labourers in connection with the laying of the foundation done primarily by the apostles, in which character they, although themselves resting upon the θεμέλιον of the apostles, yet in turn were associated with them as founders. And the more highly Paul esteems prophecy (1Co_14:1), and puts the prophets elsewhere also in the place next to the apostles (Eph_4:11; 1Co_12:28 f.), with so much the more justice might he designate the apostles and prophets as laying the foundation of the churches; and the less are we warranted, with de Wette, in finding here traces of a disciple of the apostles, who has had before him the results of the apostolic labours as well as the period of the original prophecy as concluded, or with Schwegler (in Zellers Jahrb. 1844, p. 379) and Baur (p. 438), in recognising traces of Montanism with its new prophets as the continuers of the apostolate.

ὄντος ἀκρογ. αὐτοῦ Ἰ. Χ.] wherein Jesus Christ Himself is corner-stone. On this most essential point, without which the building up in question upon the apostolic and prophetic foundation would lack its uniquely distinctive character, hinges the whole completion of the sublime picture, Eph_2:21-22. The gospel preached by the apostles and prophets is the foundation, the basis, upon which the Ephesians were built up, i.e. this apostolic and prophetic gospel was preached also at Ephesus, and the readers were thereby converted and formed into a Christian community; but the corner-stone of this building is Christ Himself, inasmuch, namely, as Christ, the historic, living Christ, to whom all Christian belief and life have reference, as necessarily conditions through Himself the existence and endurance of each Christian commonwealth, as the existence and steadiness of a building are dependent on the indispensable corner-stone, which upholds the whole structure (on ἀκρογωνιαῖος, sc. λίθος, which does not occur in Greek writers, comp. LXX. Isa_28:16; Symm. Ps. cxvii. 22; 1Pe_2:6; on the subject-matter, Mat_21:42). Only as to the figure, not as to the thing signified, is there a difference when Christ is here designated as the corner-stone, and at 1Co_3:11 as the foundation. The identity of the matter lies in τὸν κείμενον, 1 Cor. l.c. See on that passage. In the figure of the corner-stone (which duos parietes ex diverso venientes conjungit et continet, Estius) many have found the union of the Jews and Gentiles set forth (Theodoret, Menochius, Estius, Michaelis, Holzhausen, Bretschneider, and others). But this is at variance with πᾶσα οἰκοδ., Eph_2:21, according to which for every Christian community, and so also for those consisting exclusively of Jewish-Christians or exclusively of Gentile-Christians, Christ is the corner-stone.

αὐτοῦ] does not apply to τῷ θεμελίῳ (Bengel, Cramer, Koppe, Holzhausen, Hofmann, II. 2, p. 122), for Christ is conceived of as the corner-stone, not of the foundation, but of the building (Eph_2:21). It belongs to Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, which with this αὐτοῦ is placed emphatically at the end, in order then to join on by ἐν ᾧ κ.τ.λ. that which is to be further said of Christ, in so far as He is Himself the corner-stone. The article αὐτοῦ τοῦ Ἰ. Χ. might be used; Christ would then be conceived of as already present in the consciousness of the readers (He Himself, Christ; see Fritzsche, ad Matth. p. 117): it was not necessary, however, to use it (in opposition to Bengel); but the conception is: Christ Himself is corner-stone (Il. vi 450; Xen. Anab, ii. 1. 5, Apol. 11, al.; see Bornemann, ad Anab. i. 7. 11; Krüger on Thuc. i. 27. 3), so that Christ Himself, as respects His own unique destination in this edifice, is contradistinguished from His labourers, the apostles and prophets.

Whether, it may be asked, is τῷ θεμελίῳ masculine (see on 1Co_3:10) or neuter? It tells in favour of the former that, with Paul, it is at 1Co_3:11 (also 2Ti_2:19) decidedly masculine, but in no passage decidedly neuter (Rom_15:20; 1Ti_6:19). Harless erroneously thinks that the neuter is employed by the apostle only metaphorically.

[158] This has been very arbitrarily explained by the assertion that the apostles preached the gospel immediately, that they possessed the greater endowment of grace, that the foundation had been no recens positum, and such like. See specially Calovius and Estius.

[159] So also Rückert on Eph_3:5, and Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 122. The latter adduces as a reason, that προφ. is no peculiar N.T. designation like ἀπόστ. This, however, it surely is, namely, in the N.T. sense, for which the O. T. word was the most suitable vehicle. Philippi also, Glaubenslehre, I. p. 288, ed. 2, declares himself in favour of Harless.

[160] This is not yet the case at Mat_23:34, where rather the whole category of Christian teachers is still designated by Old Testament names. In the parallel Luk_11:49, on the other hand, the apostles are already adduced as such by name.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph 2:20 . ἐποικοδομηθέντες ἐπὶ τῷ θεμελίῳ : being built upon the foundation . From the idea of the house or household of God contained in the οἰκεῖοι Paul passes by an easy transition to that of the building of the spiritual οἶκος . The ἐπι - in the comp. verb probably expresses the notion of building up ; the second ἐπί with the dative θεμελίῳ , that of resting on the foundation which also might have been expressed by the gen. The forms ὁ θεμέλιος and τὸ θεμέλιον both occur, the former much more frequently than the latter in Greek literature generally. The latter, however, is found frequently in the LXX, and at least once quite unmistakably in the NT (Act 16:26 ). τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ προφητῶν : of the Apostles and Prophets . The omission of τῶν before προφητῶν does not necessarily identify the Apostles and Prophets as one and the same persons (Harl.); cf. Win.-Moult., p. 162. It indicates, however, that they both belong to the same class . The gen. is variously understood as (1) the gen. of apposition = the foundation which is or consists in the Apostles; (2) the gen. of originating cause = the foundation laid by them; (3) the possess. gen. = “the Apostles’ foundation” in the sense of that on which they built (Anselm, Beza, etc.), or as = that on which they also were built (Alf.). The choice seems to be between (1) and (2). The former has been the view of many from Chrys. down to Von Soden and Abbott, and is favoured so far by Rev 21:14 . But the second has the suffrages of the majority of modern exegetes (Rück., Harl., Bleek, Mey., Ell., etc.). It is more in accordance with 1Co 3:10 (although it is the worth of teachers that is immediately in view there), and more especially with Rom 15:20 , where the Gospel as preached by Paul appears to be the “foundation”. Here, therefore, it seems best on the whole to understand the Gospel of Christ as preached by the Apostles to be the “foundation” on which their converts were built up into the spiritual house. But who are these προφῆται ? The OT prophets, say many (Chrys., Theod., Jer., Calv., Rück., etc.) a view certainly favoured by the use made of the writings of these prophets in the NT, and by the view given of them as “evangelists before the time” (Moule); cf. Luk 24:25 ; Act 3:18 ; Act 3:21 ; Act 3:24 ; Act 10:43 ; Rom 16:26 . But the natural order in that case would have been “Prophets and Apostles,” and the previous statements referred clearly to Christian times to the preaching after Christ’s death. Hence the προφῆται are to be understood as the Christian prophets, of whom large mention is made in the Book of Acts and the Epistles the NT prophets who in this same Epistle (Eph 3:5 ) are designated as Christ’s prophets and are named (Eph 4:11 ) among the gifts of the ascended Lord to His Church. The frequency with which they are referred to (Act 11:28 ; Act 15:32 ; 1Co 14 , etc.) and the place assigned to them next to the Apostles (Eph 4:11 ) show the prominent position they had in the primitive Church. The statements made regarding them in the early non-canonical literature ( The Teaching of the Twelve , Clem. Alex., Strom. , the Shepherd of Hermas , etc.) show how they continued to exist and work beyond the Apostolic Age, and help us to distinguish their ministry as that essentially of teachers and exhorters, whether itinerant or resident, from the essentially missionary ministry of the Apostles. Further the association of these prophets with the Apostles suggests that the latter term is not to be restricted here to the Twelve, but is to be taken as including all those to whom the name “Apostle” is given in the NT. ὄντος ἀκρογωνιαίου αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ : Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone . A few documents, including [179] , omit Ἰησοῦ . The Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ of the TR is supported by such authorities as [180] [181] [182] [183] [184] . The best reading, however, is Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ , “Christ Jesus,” which is found in [185] [186] [187] -corr., 17, Vulg., Copt., Goth., etc., and is adopted by LTTrWHRV. The word ἀκρογωνιαῖος ( cf. the אֶבֶן בִּנָּה of Isa 28:16 ) is peculiar to biblical and ecclesiastical Greek, and is applied to Christ also in 1Pe 2:6 . It denotes the stone placed at the extreme corner, so as to bind the other stones in the building together the most important stone in the structure, the one on which its stability depended. The αὐτοῦ refers to Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ , not to the ἀκρογωνιαίου , nor to the θεμελίῳ (Beng.), the point being that to Christ Himself and none other the building owes its existence, its strength and its increase. He Himself, and neither Apostle nor Prophet, is at once the ultimate foundation (1Co 3:11 ) and the Head-stone of the Corner. Some have supposed that, the ἀκρογωνιαῖος being the stone inserted between two others to give strength and cohesion to the whole, there is a reference in the phrase to the union of Jew and Gentile. But this is to push the figure too far.

[179] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[180] Codex Ephraemi (sæc. v.), the Paris palimpsest, edited by Tischendorf in 1843.

[181] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[182] Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[183] Codex Mosquensis (sæc. ix.), edited by Matthæi in 1782.

[184] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

[185] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[186] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[187] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_2:20

As οἶκος means both a family and a house, the apostle passes from the one figure to the other. The Gentiles are members of the family of God, and they are parts of his house. They are built, ἐπὶ τῷ θεμελίῳ τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ προφητῶν, on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.

That the prophets here mentioned are those of the new dispensation, is evident

1. First from the position of the terms. It would more naturally be prophets and apostles if the Old Testament prophets had been intended. As God has set in the church, first apostles and second, prophets, it is obvious that these are the classes of teachers here referred to.

2. The statement here made that the apostles and prophets are, or have laid, the foundation of that house of which the Gentiles are a part, is more obviously true of the New, than of the Old Testament prophets.

3. The passage in Eph_3:5, in which it is said, The mystery of Christ is now revealed to holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, is also strongly in favor of this interpretation.

On account of the omission of the article before προφητῶν some render the clause thus: The apostle-prophets or apostles who are prophets. But this is unnecessary, because the repetition of the article is often dispensed with, when the connected nouns belong to one category, and constitute one class. Both apostles and prophets belong to the class of Christian teachers. This interpretation is not only unnecessary, it is also improbable; because apostles and prophets were not identical. There were many prophets who were not apostles. The latter were the immediate messengers of Christ, invested with infallible authority as teachers, and supreme power as rulers in his church. The prophets were a class of teachers who spoke by inspiration as the Spirit from time to time directed.

The principal difference of opinion as to the interpretation of this clause, is whether the foundation of the apostles and prophets means the foundation which they constitute or, which they laid. In favor of the latter view, it is urged that Christ, and not the apostles, is the foundation of the church; that Paul, 1Co_3:10, speaks of himself as having laid the foundation, and not as being part of it; and that it is derogatory to Christ to associate him with the apostles on terms of such apparent equality, he being one part and they another of the foundation. On the other hand, however, it may be said, that there is a true and obvious sense in which the apostles are the foundation of the church; secondly, they are expressly so called in Scripture as in Rev_21:14, besides the disputed passage, Mat_16:18; and thirdly, the figure here demands this interpretation. In this particular passage Christ is the cornerstone, the apostles the foundation, believers the edifice. The cornerstone is distinguished from the foundation. To express the idea that the church rests on Christ, he is sometimes called the foundation and sometimes the cornerstone of the building; but where he is called the one, he is not represented as the other. This representation no more implies the equality of Christ and the apostles, than believers being represented as constituting with him one building, implies their equality with him.

As the cornerstone of a building is that which unites and sustains two walls, many suppose that the union and common dependence on Christ of the Jews and Gentiles, are intended in the application of this term to the Redeemer. But as the same figure is used where no such reference can be assumed, it is more natural to understand the apostle as expressing the general idea that the whole church rests on Christ. This Isaiah predicted should be the case, when he represents Jehovah as saying: Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste. Isa_28:16; Psa_118:22; Mat_21:42;. Act_4:11; 1Co_3:11; 1Pe_2:6-8.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, the head of the building, for the foundations are as it were the heads of the buildings.

The Lord committed the doctrine of salvation, first to the Prophets, and then to the Apostles, the end whereof and matter as it were and substance, is Christ. Therefore that is indeed the true and Catholic Church, which is builded upon Christ by the Prophets and Apostles, as a spiritual temple consecrated to God.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Translate as Greek, "Built up upon," &c. (participle; having been built up upon; omit, therefore, "and are"). Compare Co1 3:11-12. The same image in Eph 3:18, recurs in his address to the Ephesian elders (Act 20:32), and in his Epistle to Timothy at Ephesus (Ti1 3:15; Ti2 2:19), naturally suggested by the splendid architecture of Diana's temple; the glory of the Christian temple is eternal and real, not mere idolatrous gaud. The image of a building is appropriate also to the Jew-Christians; as the temple at Jerusalem was the stronghold of Judaism; as Diana's temple, of paganism.

foundation of the apostles, &c.--that is, upon their ministry and living example (compare Mat 16:18). Christ Himself, the only true Foundation, was the grand subject of their ministry, and spring of their life. As one with Him and His fellow workers, they, too, in a secondary sense, are called "foundations" (Rev 21:14). The "prophets" are joined with them closely; for the expression is here not "foundations of the apostles and the prophets," but "foundations of the apostles and prophets." For the doctrine of both was essentially one (Pe1 1:10-11; Rev 19:10). The apostles take the precedency (Luk 10:24). Thus he appropriately shows regard to the claims of the Jews and Gentiles: "the prophets" representing the old Jewish dispensation, "the apostles" the new. The "prophets" of the new also are included. BENGEL and ALFORD refer the meaning solely to these (Eph 3:5; Eph 4:11). These passages imply, I think, that the New Testament prophets are not excluded; but the apostle's plain reference to Psa 118:22, "the head stone of the corner," proves that the Old Testament prophets are a prominent thought. David is called a "prophet" in Act 2:30. Compare also Isa 28:16; another prophet present to the mind of Paul, which prophecy leans on the earlier one of Jacob (Gen 49:24). The sense of the context, too, suits this: Ye were once aliens from the commonwealth of Israel (in the time of her Old Testament prophets), but now ye are members of the true Israel, built upon the foundation of her New Testament apostles and Old Testament prophets. Paul continually identifies his teaching with that of Israel's old prophets (Act 26:22; Act 28:23). The costly foundation-stones of the temple (Kg1 5:17) typified the same truth (compare Jer 51:26). The same stone is at once the corner-stone and the foundation-stone on which the whole building rests. Paul supposes a stone or rock so large and so fashioned as to be both at once; supporting the whole as the foundation, and in part rising up at the extremities, so as to admit of the side walls meeting in it, and being united in it as the corner-stone [ZANCHIUS]. As the corner-stone, it is conspicuous, as was Christ (Pe1 2:6), and coming in men's way may be stumbled over, as the Jews did at Christ (Mat 21:42; Pe1 2:7).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 20. And are built upon the foundation] Following the same metaphor, comparing the Church of Christ to a city, and to the temple, the believing Ephesians are represented as parts of that building; the living stones out of which it is principally formed, 1Pe 2:4-5, having for foundation-the ground plan, specification, and principle on which it was builded, the doctrine taught by the prophets in the Old Testament, and the apostles in the New. Jesus Christ being that corner stone, or ακρογωνιαιος, the chief angle or foundation corner stone, the connecting medium by which both Jews and Gentiles were united in the same building. Elsewhere Jesus Christ is termed the foundation stone. Behold I lay in Zion a foundation stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, Isa 28:16; but the meaning is the same in all the places where these terms, foundation and corner stone, occur; for in laying the foundation of a building, a large stone is generally placed at one of the angles or corners, which serves to form a part of the two walls which meet in that angle. When, therefore, the apostle says that Jesus Christ is the chief corner stone, it means such a foundation stone as that above mentioned.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. And are built. The third comparison illustrates the manner in which the Ephesians, and all other Christians are admitted to the honor of being fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God. They are built on the foundation, — they are founded on the doctrine, of the apostles and prophets. We are thus enabled to distinguish between a true and a false church. This is of the greatest importance; for the tendency to error is always strong, and the consequences of mistake are dangerous in the extreme. No churches boast more loudly of the name than those which bear a false and empty title; as may be seen in our own times. To guard us against mistake, the mark of a true church is pointed out.

Foundation, in this passage, unquestionably means doctrine; for no mention is made of patriarchs or pious kings, but only of those who held the office of teachers, and whom God had appointed to superintend the edification of his church. It is laid down by Paul, that the faith of the church ought to be founded on this doctrine. What opinion, then, must we form of those who rest entirely on the contrivances of men, and yet accuse us of revolt, because we embrace the pure doctrine of God? But the manner in which it is founded deserves inquiry; for, in the strict sense of the term, Christ is the only foundation. He alone supports the whole church. He alone is the rule and standard of faith. But Christ is actually the foundation on which the church is built by the preaching of doctrine; and, on this account, the prophets and apostles are called builders. (1 Corinthians 3:10.) Nothing else, Paul tells us, was ever intended by the prophets and apostles, than to found a church on Christ.

We shall find this to be true, if we begin with Moses; for “Christ is the end of the law,” (Romans 10:4,) and the sum of the gospel. Let us remember, therefore, that if we wish to be reckoned among believers, we must place our reliance on no other: if we wish to make sure progress in the knowledge of the Scriptures, to him our whole attention must be directed. The same lesson is taught, when we consult the word of God as contained in the writings of the prophets and apostles. To shew us how we ought to combine them, their harmony is pointed out; for they have a common foundation, and labor jointly in building the temple of God. Though the apostles have become our teachers, the instruction of the prophets has not been rendered superfluous; but one and the same object is promoted by both.

I have been led to make this remark by the conduct of the Marcionites in ancient times, who expunged the word prophets from this passage; and by that of certain fanatics in the present day, who, following their footsteps, exclaim loudly that we have nothing to do with the law and the prophets, because the gospel has put an end to their authority. The Holy Spirit everywhere declares, that he has spoken to us by the mouth of the prophets, and demands that we shall listen to him in their writings. This is of no small consequence for maintaining the authority of our faith. All the servants of God, from first to last, are so perfectly agreed, that their harmony is in itself a clear demonstration that it is one God who speaks in them all. The commencement of our religion must be traced to the creation of the world. In vain do Papists, Mahometans, and other sects, boast of their antiquity, while they are mere counterfeits of the true, the pure religion.

Jesus Christ, himself is the chief corner-stone Those who transfer this honor to Peter, and maintain that on him the church is founded, are so void of shame, as to attempt to justify their error by quoting this passage. They hold out that Christ is called the chief corner-stone, by comparison with others; and that there are many stones on which the church is founded. But this difficulty is easily solved. Various metaphors are employed by the apostles according to the diversity of circumstances, but still with the same meaning. In writing to the Corinthians, Paul lays down an incontestable proposition, that “no other foundation can be laid.” (1 Corinthians 3:11.) He does not therefore mean, that Christ is merely a corner, or a part of the foundation; for then he would contradict himself. What then? He means that Jews and Gentiles were two separate walls, but are formed into one spiritual building. Christ is placed in the middle of the corner for the purpose of uniting both, and this is the force of the metaphor. What is immediately added shews sufficiently that he is very far from limiting Christ to any one part of the building.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(20) Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.—In spite of much ancient and valuable authority, it seems impossible to take “the prophets” of this verse to be the prophets of the Old Testament. The order of the two words and the comparison of Eph_3:5; Eph_4:11, appear to be decisive—to say nothing of the emphasis on the present, in contrast with the past, which runs through the whole chapter. But it is more difficult to determine in what sense “the foundation of the apostles and prophets” is used. Of the three possible senses, that (1) which makes it equivalent to “the foundation on which apostles and prophets are built,” viz., Jesus Christ Himself, may be dismissed as taking away any special force from the passage, and as unsuitable to the next clause. The second (2), “the foundation laid by apostles and prophets—still, of course, Jesus Christ Himself—is rather forced, and equally fails to accord with the next clause, in which our Lord is not the foundation, but the corner-stone. The most natural interpretation (3), followed by most ancient authorities, which makes the apostles and prophets to be themselves “the foundation,” has been put aside by modern commentators in the true feeling that ultimately there is but “one foundation” (1Co_3:11), and in a consequent reluctance to apply that name to any but Him. But it is clear that in this passage St. Paul deliberately varies the metaphor in relation to our Lord, making Him not the foundation, or both foundation and corner-stone, but simply the corner-stone, “binding together,” according to Chrysostom’s instructive remark, “both the walls and the foundations.” Hence the word “foundation” seems to be applied, in a true, although secondary sense, to the apostles and prophets; just as in the celebrated passage (Mat_16:18) our Lord must be held at any rate to connect St. Peter with the foundation on which the Church is built; and as in Rev_21:14, “the foundations” bear “the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” It is true that in this last passage we have the plural instead of the singular, and that the passage itself, is not, as this is, a dogmatic passage. But these considerations are insufficient to destroy the analogy. The genius therefore of this passage itself, supported by the other cognate passages, leads us to what may be granted to be an unexpected but a perfectly intelligible expression. The apostles and prophets are the foundation; yet, of course, only as setting forth in word and grace Him, who is the corner-stone.

Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.—The metaphor is drawn, of course, from Psa_118:22 (applied by our Lord to Himself in Mat_21:42; Mar_12:10; Luk_20:17; and by St. Peter to Him in Act_4:11), or from Isa_28:16 (quoted with the other passage in 1Pe_2:6-7); in which last it may be noted that both the metaphors are united, and “the tried corner-stone” is also “the sure foundation.” In itself it does not convey so obvious an idea of uniqueness and importance as that suggested by the “key-stone” of an arch, or the “apex-stone” of a pyramid; but it appears to mean a massive corner-stone, in which the two lines of the wall at their foundation met, by which they were bonded together, and on the perfect squareness of which the true direction of the whole walls depended, since the slightest imperfection in the corner-stone would be indefinitely multiplied along the course of the walls. The doctrine which, if taken alone, it would convey, is simply the acceptance of our Lord’s perfect teaching and life, as the one determining influence both of the teaching and institutions, which are the basis of the Church, and of the superstructure in the actual life of the members of the Church itself. By such acceptance both assume symmetry and “stand four-square to all the winds that blow.” (See Rev_21:16.) That this is not the whole truth seems to be implied by the variation from the metaphor in the next verse.

(20-22) In these verses there is a sudden change from a political to a physical metaphor, possibly suggested by the word “household.” The metaphor itself, of the Church as “a building of God”—frequently used in the New Testament—reaches its full perfection in this passage. (1) It starts, of course, from the words of our Lord (Mat_16:18), “On this rock I will build my Church;” but in the use of it sometimes the prominent idea is of the growth by addition of individual stones, sometimes of the complex unity of the building as a whole. (2) The former idea naturally occurs first, connecting itself, indeed, with the still more personal application of the metaphor to the “edification” of the individual to be a temple of God (found, for example, in 1Th_5:11; 1Co_8:1; 1Co_10:23; 1Co_14:4; 2Co_5:1; 2Co_10:8). Thus in 1Co_3:9, from “ye are God’s building,” St. Paul passes at once to the building of individual character on the one foundation; in 1Co_14:4-5; 1Co_14:12; 1Co_14:26, the edification of the Church has reference to the effect of prophecy on individual souls; in 1Pe_2:5, the emphasis is still on the building up of “living stones” upon “a living stone.” (Comp. Act_20:32.) (3) In this Epistle the other idea—the idea of unity—is always prominent, though not exclusive of the other (as here and in Eph_4:12-16). But that this conception of unity is less absolute than that conveyed by the metaphor of the body will be seen by noting that it differs from it in three respects; first, that it carries with it the notion of a more distinct individuality in each stone; next, that it conveys (as in the “graffing in” of Rom_11:17) the idea of continual growth by accretion of individual souls drawn to Christ; lastly, that it depicts the Church as having more completely a distinct, though not a separate, existence from Him who dwells in it. (On this last point compare the metaphor of the spouse of Christ in Eph_5:25-33.) Hence it is naturally worked out with greater completeness in an Epistle which has so especially for its object the evolution of the doctrine of “the one Holy Catholic Church.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,.... The prophets of the Old Testament, and the apostles of the New, who agree in laying ministerially the one and only foundation, Jesus Christ; for not the persons of the apostles and prophets, nor their doctrines merely, are here meant; but Christ who is contained in them, and who is the foundation on which the church, and all true believers are built: he is the foundation of the covenant of grace, of all the blessings and promises of it, of faith and hope, of peace, joy, and comfort, of salvation and eternal happiness; on this foundation the saints are built by Father, Son, and Spirit, as the efficient causes, and by the ministers of the Gospel as instruments: these lie in the same common quarry with the rest of mankind, and are singled out from thence by efficacious grace; they are broken and hewn by the word and ministers of it, as means; and are ministerially laid on Christ the foundation, and are built up thereon in faith and holiness; yea, private Christians are useful this way to build up one another:

Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; which cements and knits together angels and men, Jews and Gentiles, Old and New Testament saints, saints above, and saints below, saints on earth, in all ages and places, and of every denomination; and which is the beauty and glory, as well as the strength of the building, which keeps all together; and Christ is the chief, the headstone of the corner, and who is superior to angels and men. This phrase is used by the Jews to denote excellency in a person; so a wise scholar is called , "a cornerstone"; (i) see Psa 118:22. It may be rendered, "the chief cornering-stone"; it being such an one that is a foundation stone, as well as a cornerstone; and reached unto, and lay at the bottom of, and supported the four corners of the building; for the foundation and corner stone in this spiritual building, is one and the same stone, Christ: it is said of the temple of Latona, at Buto, in Egypt, that it was made, "of one stone", as Herodotus (k) an eyewitness of it, attests.

(i) Abot R. Nathan, c. 28. (k) Euterpe, c. 155.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

Ver. 20. Upon the foundation] Foundation is taken either for Christ, 1Co 3:11; Mat 16:16, or the doctrine of the Scriptures which teach salvation only by Jesus Christ, as here and Rev 21:14.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And are built upon the foundation - The comparison of the church with a building, is common in the Scriptures: compare the notes at 1Co 3:9-10. The comparison was probably taken from the temple, and as that was an edifice of great beauty, expense, and sacredness, it was natural to compare the church with it. Besides, the temple was the sacred place where God dwelt on the earth; and as the church was the place where he delighted now to abide, it became natural to speak of his church as the temple, or the residence of God; see the notes at Isa 54:11-12. That building, says Paul, was permanently founded, and was rising with great beauty of proportion, and with great majesty and splendor.

Of the apostles - The doctrines which they taught are the basis on which the church rests. It is “possible” that Paul referred here to a splendid edifice, particularly because the Ephesians were distinguished for their skill in architecture, and because the celebrated temple of Diana was among them. An allusion to a building, however, as an illustration of the church occurs several times in his other epistles, and was an allusion which would be everywhere understood.

And prophets - The prophets of the Old Testament, using the word, probably, to denote the Old Testament in general. That is, the doctrines of divine revelation, whether communicated by prophets or apostles, were laid at the foundation of the Christian church. It was not rounded on philosophy, or tradition, or on human laws, or on a venerable antiquity, but on the great truths which God had revealed. Paul does not say that it was founded on “Peter,” as the papists do, but on the prophets and apostles in general. If Peter had been the “vicegerent of Christ,” and the head of the church, it is incredible that his brother Paul should not have given him some honorable notice in this place. Why did he not allude to so important a fact? Would one who believed it have omitted it? Would a papist now omit it? Learn here:

(1) That no reliance is to be placed on philosophy as a basis of religious doctrine.

(2) That the traditions of people have no authority in the church, and constitute no part of the foundation.

(3) That nothing is to be regarded as a fundamental part of the Christian system, or as binding on the conscience, which cannot be found in the “prophets and apostles;” that is, as it means here, in the Holy Scriptures. No decrees of councils; no ordinances of synods; no “standard” of doctrines; no creed or confession, is to be urged as authority in forming the opinions of people. They may be valuable for some purposes, but not for this; they may be referred to as interesting parts of history, but not to form the faith of Christians; they may be used in the church to express its belief, but not to form it. What is based on the authority of apostles and prophets is true, and always true, and only true; what may be found elsewhere, may be valuable and true, or not, but, at any rate, is not to be used to control the faith of people.

Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone - see the note at Isa 28:16; Rom 9:33, note. The cornerstone is the most important in the building.

(1) Because the edifice rests mainly on the cornerstones. If they are small, and unstable, and settle down, the whole building is insecure; and hence care is taken to place a large stone firmly at each corner of an edifice.

(2) Because it occupies a conspicuous and honorable place. If documents or valuable articles are deposited at the foundation of a building it is within the cornerstone. The Lord Jesus is called the “cornerstone,” because the whole edifice rests on him, or he occupies a place relatively as important as the cornerstone of an edifice. Were it not for him, the edifice could not be sustained for a moment. Neither prophets nor apostles alone could sustain it; see the notes at 1Co 3:11; compare 1Pe 2:6.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Church is in this place said to be built upon the apostles and prophets; why not then upon St. Peter?

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets; the foundation which the apostles and prophets laid by their preaching, viz. Christ, whom they held forth as the only Mediator between God and man, the only Saviour and head of the church: see 1Co 3:11.

Foundation, in the singular number, to imply the unity of their doctrine centring in Christ:

apostles and prophets, whose office was to preach, not kings and patriarchs.

Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; as both supporting the building by his strength, and uniting the several parts of it, Jew and Gentile: see Mat 21:42; Psa 118:22. They that are of chief authority are called the corners of a people, as sustaining the greatest burden, 1Sa 14:38; Isa 19:13.

Objection. If Christ be the corner-stone, how is he the foundation?

Answer. The same thing may have different denominations in different respects; Christ is called a foundation, 1Co 3:11, a corner-stone, 1Pe 2:6, a temple, Joh 2:19, a door, Joh 10:7, a builder, Mat 16:18; so here again a corner-stone, and yet laid for a foundation, Isa 28:16.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. And are built—Here the figure changes. From the family, here begins the building, put up with a very rapid and finished architecture. Its foundations are apostles and prophets. Not indeed their persons, but as the embodiments of the gospel they preached. The prophets are not of the Old Testament, but of the New, as in Eph_3:5; Eph_4:11.

Corner stone—The large stone laid by ancient builders at each corner to bind and hold the walls firmly together. See note Mat_21:42. And this image beautifully expresses the unity of Jews and Gentiles by Christ.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. A new figure, the third here introduced to denote the change that of a temple, of which Christians are stones. There is no contrast in form in this figure, as in the other two; it just expresses directly the privilege attained. There is a real contrast, however, between the first three and the last three verses of the chapter the lowest degradation expressed in the one, the highest elevation in the ether. Observe, the apostle passes, by association of ideas, from the household (ver. 19) to the house (ver. 20), from the domestics to the stones; but by a bold figure he gives life to the stones, otherwise we might be in the same region of lifelessness as in yore. 1-3. Two questions arise here.

1. About this foundation In what sense is it "of the apostles and prophets"? Certainly not in the sense that they constituted the foundation; for, though this might be warranted grammatically, it would be untrue: "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ". (1Co_3:11) The best meaning seems to be, the foundation which the apostles and prophets laid, which they used for themselves and announced for others. But what was this foundation? Substantially that of 1Co_3:11; but the mention of Christ as chief Corner-stone at the end of the verse might at first seem to indicate that something different was meant by the foundation. But it is impossible to propose any suitable interpretation which would not make Christ the Foundation too.

2. Who are the prophets? We might naturally suppose the Old Testament prophets, but in that case they would probably have been mentioned before the apostles. In other passages of this Epistle "apostles and prophets" denote New Testament officers, (Eph_3:5 Eph_4:11) and it is most suitable to regard that as the meaning. It was the privilege of the Ephesians to use the foundation on which stood the two highest bodies of officers in the new dispensation the apostles and prophets; nothing better could be found. Jesus Christ himself being the chief Cornerstone. Not as opposed to the foundation, but in addition thereto. Jesus is really both, but there is a reason for specifying him as the chief Cornerstone; comp. Psa_118:21, "The stone which the builders rejected is become the headstone of the corner;" i.e. the stone which, being placed in the corner, determined the lines of the whole building. The idea of foundation is that of support; the idea of the chief cornerstone is that of regulation, pattern-hood, producing assimilation. Jesus is not only the Origin, Foundation, Support of the Church, but he gives it its shape and form, he determines the place and the office of each stone, he gives life and character to each member.

Vers. 20-22.

The Christian temple.

This the climax of the comparison between past and present pursued in this chapter. Temple of Diana at Ephesus may have suggested the figure. The three persons of the Godhead are concerned in this work of building.

(1) The temple is the habitation of God the Father;

(2) its Foundation and Cornerstone are the Son;

(3) the luster and glory of the temple are due to the Holy Spirit.

The three are brought together in ver. 22. Glorious threefold cord, securing the salvation and final glory of the Church! The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost are with her forever. While all the three are connected with the building, Christ is so pre-eminently. This connection appears in five particulars.

1. Christ is the Foundation of the temple; his Name, the only name given under heaven whereby we must be saved; he the tried and sure Foundation-stone, elect, precious. Are we resting on him?

2. He is the chief Cornerstone, determines the lie and direction of other stones. We must be in harmony with Christ, our wills, notions, taste, habits. There may be secondary cornerstones; comp. Psa_144:12, "That our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace." Reference here to the high polish as well as true position of a temple cornerstone. Records of Christian Church present many such women. From the Marys of the Gospels, the Priscillas and Lydias of the Acts, the Phoebes and elect ladies of the Epistles, through all the trials and struggles of the Church, down to the present day, in all which none have shown more of the true polish of corner-stones, more sympathy for the lost, more zeal and self-denial and devotion to God and man, than earnest Christian women. Blessed ambition for all young women, to be placed in such a relation to Christ, and vital communion with him, as to help to square and polish others, and thus make their lives likewise beautiful and blessed!

3. In Christ, the whole building is fitly framed together. Every one gets stability and adaptation to his neighbors angles rubbed off; each gets and gives support. Stones are not all alike; not a brick building. Different talents, gifts, and graces: some Christians excel as speakers, some in prayer, some in praise, others in visiting sick, or in teaching the young, or in collecting contributions, or in speaking to strangers; some can write books, others can translate; some can guide the Church at home, others go to the heathen. In Christ, all work together to a common end. Out of Christ, strifes and divisions arise, ending in schisms and ruptures. Let each try to ascertain his part, and patiently and conscientiously to fulfill it.

4. In the Lord, the building grows to a holy temple. Two ideas.

(1) Growth. Christian Church a growing Church. Where there is life there is growth.

(2) Towards a temple which is holy, or consecrated to God. All its members are thus consecrated; let each realize this. It is by each carrying out his own consecration that the building grows toward the dimensions of a complete temple.

5. It is a habitation of God through the Spirit. Its collective qualities serve to indicate the presence of the living Spirit; it is a kind of incarnation.

Historically this is a delightful view. Bring together all the holy qualities of the Church from first to last the simple trust of the hundred and twenty in the upper chamber: the warm brotherly love of the Pentecostal converts; the missionary ardor of Paul and his companions; the faith and constancy of the noble army of the martyrs; the seraphic spirit of many a man and woman who has dwelt at the gate of heaven; the steadfast devotion of Waldenses and Culdees, of Lollards and Wickliffites and Hussites, of reformers and Huguenots and confessors of every clime; the consistent godliness of many a humble cottager; the brilliant service of the Christian philanthropists and the glorious struggles of all the champions of freedom who have fought the battle of the cross in evil times; in all this we have a vision of the glory of the Church as the habitation of God through the Spirit. Alas! there have been so many corruptions that this glory has been sadly tarnished. Let each one resolve by God"s grace to fulfill his part, and. so to live that, so far as his life and character are concerned, they may show the result of God dwelling in them through the Spirit.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets - As the foundation sustains the building, so the word of God, declared by the apostles and prophets, sustains the faith of all believers. God laid the foundation by them; but Christ himself is the chief corner-stone of the foundation. Elsewhere he is termed the foundation itself, 1 Cor. iii, 11.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

20. Built upon the foundation. They have been built into the temple of the Lord. The word of God, declared by apostles and prophets, is the foundation of their faith, Christ being the chief corner-stone. The corner-stone was a stone of double size at the corner, which became a part of both walls and joined them together. So he had joined the Jews and Gentiles in the building. He is the foundation-stone on which the building rests, and the stone of union. Compare Isaiah 28:16; Matt. 21:42; Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

20. ἐποικοδομηθέντες. The use of οἰκοδομή and οἰκοδομεῖν in a purely metaphorical sense to describe moral ‘edification’ is common enough in St Paul, but the application of the figure of a building as a direct illustration of the constitution of the Church and of the relation of the members in it to one another is rare. Apart from its use in Eph 4:12; Eph 4:16 with its parallel in Col 2:7, it is not found in St Paul except in 1Co 3:9-17, where the building in Eph 2:9 and Eph 2:17 is the community, though in Eph 2:12-15 the building material would seem to be the doctrines of the Teacher-Builders. There is a similar ambiguity in Mat 7:17.

In the rest of the N.T. the figure holds a prominent place in three important Words of the Lord. First in the Word recorded by St John in answer to the request for a sign after the cleansing of the Temple: ‘Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days,’ which became in popular report, ‘I will build another made without hands’ (Mar 14:58; cf. Mar 15:29). Then in the words that greeted Simon Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi: ‘On this rock I will build my ecclesia’ (Mat 16:18). Lastly the quotation from Psa 118:22 with regard to the Stone which the builders refused, and which yet became the head of the corner (Mar 12:10 and plls.; cf. Act 4:11). This last passage is probably in St Paul’s mind as well as Isa 28:16 when he speaks of the ἀκρογωνιαῖον. It seems not improbable that the first suggested the idea of the Christian Church as the true Temple, which we find in Eph 2:21. The thought in this form (ναός) is peculiar to St Paul (cf. 1Co 3:16 f., Eph 6:19; 2Co 6:16). It is the conclusion towards which St Stephen’s defence before the Sanhedrin was leading all through. It is found also in close connexion with a reference to the chief cornerstone in 1Pe 2:5 (οἶκος). St James also in the Conference at Jerusalem (Act 15:16) quotes a kindred passage from Amo 9:11 with reference to the re-building of ‘the tabernacle of David.’ In Rev 21:16 the New Jerusalem reproduces the proportions of the Holy of Holies; but ‘the Lord God Almighty was the Temple of it, and the Lamb.’ This remarkable combination is best explained by common dependence on a Word of the Lord, and we know the sense in which St John at least after the Resurrection came to understand this Word (Joh 2:21). The second Word has, I believe, also left its trace on St Paul’s thought here. The reference to the ‘Apostles and Prophets’ as foundation stones (which again has an interesting pll. in Rev 21:14) is not easy to account for in the writing of one who claimed himself (Eph 1:1) to be an Apostle. It is distinctly easier from this point of view and would tend to give greater weight to the whole argument if St Paul is consciously appealing to an aspect of the Apostolic office which had been authoritatively defined by the Lord Himself.

θεμελίῳ. Elsewhere (1Co 3:10; Rom 15:20; Heb 6:1) the ‘foundation’ is a foundation of doctrine. Here however Jesus Christ Himself and not faith in Him or any doctrine about Him is the ‘chief Corner Stone’ and the Temple is built of human hearts (cf. 1Pe 2:4 f.). So the Apostles and Prophets must be themselves the foundation. By their witness in life and word and deed to Jesus and the Resurrection men were led to believe in Jesus as Christ and Lord and to take their place in the Temple of His Body, so that in a real sense each fresh ‘living stone’ added to the structure rested upon them.

τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ προφητῶν. The recurrence of the phrase in Eph 3:5 of men to whom a revelation had recently been granted seems to preclude any reference to the Prophets of the O.T. The titles of course are not mutually exclusive. St Paul claims, as we have seen (Eph 1:1), to be an Apostle. He is also called a Prophet (Act 13:1). But St Paul’s object is to help the Gentiles to realize their connexion with and their indebtedness to those who had been in Christ before them and by whose labours they had been brought in. There is point therefore in an express reference to the ‘Prophets’ by whose agency, far more apparently than by any direct Apostolic preaching, Asia Minor had received the Gospel. If they included Gentiles as well as Jews, so much the better for St Paul’s argument. On the evangelization of this district cf. 1Pe 1:12; Col 1:7.

ἀκρογωνιαίου, 1Pe 2:6 (see Hort’s note) from Isa 28:16; cf. κεφαλὴ γωνίας Psa 118:22. The corner-stone of the foundation, not as we might imagine from the phrase ‘head of the corner,’ the cornerstone of the topmost course. Still it has an office not unlike that of the keystone in an arch. In 1Co 3:11 ‘Jesus Christ,’ i.e. faith in the Messiahship of Jesus, is the whole foundation of the Apostolic teaching. Here, if the figure is to be pressed, Jesus Christ Himself is regarded in the light of that which He had in common with His believing followers; just as in 1Pe 2:4 He is represented as a ‘Living Stone’ knit into one with other ‘Living Stones.’ In His Humanity first by virtue of His perfect faith and obedience the Spirit found a permanent home among men (Joh 1:33).

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. ἐποικοδομηθέντες. The aorist refers to the time when they became Christians. The further building of which they were the subjects is referred to in ver. 22. The compound verb does not stand merely for the simple, but expresses “superaedificati.” Comp. Col 2:7 and 1Co 3:10. As regards the use of the dative case, ἐπὶ τῷ θεμ., it is easy to see why the accusative is not used, as that would suggest the idea of motion towards; cf. 1Co 3:12, Rom 15:20. It is less easy to give a reason for the preference of the dative to the genitive. It can hardly be maintained that the genitive expresses separable superposition (Ellicott), for in Luk 4:29 we have the genitive used of the building of a city on a hill, ἐφʼ οὗ ἡ πόλις αὐτῶν ᾠκοδόμητο. What that passage suggests is that ἐπί with the genitive expresses locality; cf. Mat 10:27, ἐπὶ τῶν δωμάτων; 21:19, ἐπὶ τ. ὁδοῦ; 24:30, ἐρχόμενον ἐπὶ τ. νεφελῶν; hence it is used loosely of proximity, like our “on the river,” ἐπὶ τ. θαλάσσης, either “on the sea” or “on the seashore.” Yet the dative is similarly used, ἐπὶ Στρυμόνι (Herod. vii. 75). But, in general, the dative seems to imply more close and exact superposition.

τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ προφητῶν. The genitive has been understood in four ways: first, as the genitive of possession, “the foundation on which the apostles and prophets have built”; secondly, as the genitive auctoris, “the foundation they laid”; thirdly, as genitive of apposition, “the foundation which consists of the apostles and prophets”; fourthly, “the foundation on which they themselves have been built.”

The first view is adopted by Anselm and Beza. Beza’s paraphrase is, “Supra Christum qui est apostolicae et propheticae structurae fundamentum.” But this interpretation mixes up the θεμέλιος and the ἀκρογων. Christ here is spoken of as the cornerstone, not the foundation. The same objection applies to the fourth view (Bucer, Alford). The second view is very generally adopted, and is supported by reference to 1Co 3:10. In Bengel’s words: “Testimonium apostolorum et prophetarum substructum est fidei credentium omnium.” Eadie interprets the foundation as εἰρήνη, —not so much Christ in person as Christ “our peace”; others more generally of the doctrine preached by the apostles and prophets.

But nowhere is the gospel or any doctrine called the foundation of the Church. Moreover, it would be rather incongruous to assume as the foundation the system of teaching about Christ, and as the corner-stone, Christ’s person. If, in order to preserve the congruity of the figure, we identify “Christ preached” with “the preaching about Christ,” we identify the corner-stone with the foundation. Moreover, the building consists of persons. In 1Co 3:10 the figure is different; the building there is of doctrine, and naturally the foundation is doctrinal, “Christ,” i.e. teaching about Christ. Still further, if this view be adopted, the point that is brought out is an incidental one, quite unessential to the connexion. The important point was that the Gentiles were now along with Jewish believers members of one and the same theocracy, or, adopting the apostle’s figure, were stones in the same building as the ἅγιοι. This would by no means be expressed by saying that they were built on a foundation laid by the apostles and prophets.

Hence the interpretation of Chrysostom, Oecumenius, etc., is preferable, viz. that the apostles and prophets are themselves the foundation. It is true that elsewhere, with the exception of Rev 21:14, Christ is the foundation, not the apostles; but here Christ is the corner-stone, and the passage in Rev., although not precisely parallel, quite justifies our interpretation here. The fact that the words there are taken from a vision is surely no objection to this. What seems a graver objection is that Christ seems thus to be named only as “primus inter pares.” The answer to this is that by Orientals the corner-stone was reckoned of greater importance than the foundation, and as connecting and concentrating on itself the weight of the building. Hence the expression in Isa 28:16, alluded to here, and 2Pe 2:6; Cf. Psa 118:22; Act 4:11; Mat 21:42.

Amongst recent commentators, Soden and Macpherson have adopted this view. The latter further defends the reference to the apostles as the foundation by 2Ti 2:19, “The firm foundation of God standeth,” “where undoubtedly the true elect of God are intended, who resist all temptations to unfaithfulness.” He adds, “In the building up a special rank is given to those who have been by immediate Divine calling and inspiration His witnesses unto all besides. They, in fellowship with Christ, as forming the first layer, are called the foundation.”

ὄντος ἀκρογωνιαίου αὐτοῦ χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ. Showing, as Chrysostom says, that it is Christ that holds the whole together; for the corner-stone holds together both the walls and the foundations. “Participium ὄντος initio commatis hujus, valde demonstrat in praesenti tempore,” Bengel. ἀκρογ. (λίθου understood, which is added in D* G). The figure of the corner-stone as uniting the two walls is pressed by Theodoret as referring to the union of Jews and Gentiles; and many expositors have followed him. But this is not only to press the figure unduly, it is also unsuitable. For the point is that Jews and Gentiles now indifferently are built into the one building, not as if the Jews were one wall and the Gentiles another.

αὐτοῦ is referred to θεμέλιος by Bengel, Soden, Macpherson. Bengel urges the absence of the article before Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ. But, in fact, the article would imply the previous mention of Christ Jesus, and the sense would be “He Himself, even Christ Jesus”; see Fritzsche on Mat 3:4, where αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ Ἰωάννης and αὐτὸς Ἰωάννης (as in D) are equally possible. Similarly Joh 4:44, where the best texts have αὐτὸς Ἰησοῦς; but the article (as inserted in R, 69, al.) is admissible. Also Luk 20:42, αὐτὸς Δαυείδ. It is better to connect αὐτοῦς with Χρ. Ἰ., since it is more to the purpose that Christ should be called the corner-stone of the building than of the foundation; and in this connexion the emphatic pronoun is by no means superfluous, but fittingly distinguishes Christ from the apostles and prophets.

Who are these apostles and prophets? According to Chrysostom they are the Old Testament prophets. The absence of the article before προφητῶν is against this, though not decisive, since the O.T. prophets and the apostles might possibly be regarded as constituting one class, though this would hardly be natural. The order of the words is also against it, and is not satisfactorily accounted for by the superior dignity of the apostles as having seen and heard Christ (Estius). Again, we have the analogy of 3:5 and 4:11, in both of which passages apostles and prophets are named together, and the prophets are New Testament prophets. These passages also disprove the suggestion that the apostles themselves are here called prophets. The absence of the article before προφητῶν is natural, since the apostles and prophets formed one class as teachers of the Church. The objection, that the prophets themselves were built on the foundation of the apostles (in whichever sense we take the genitive), loses all force when we consider, first, the high value which St. Paul sets on the gift of prophesying (1Co 14:1 ff.); and, secondly, that with him “apostles” does not mean the Twelve only (see hereafter on 4:11). Nor does there appear any reason here why the apostles should be called by this additional title.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Of the apostles and prophets. The foundation laid by them.

Prophets are New - Testament prophets. See ch. Eph 3:5; Eph 4:11. See on 1Co 12:10.

Chief corner - stone [ακρογωνιαου] . Only here and 1Pe 2:6.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.