‘Tis the Master who holds the mallet,
And day by day
He is chipping whatever environs
The form away,
Which, under His skillful cutting,
He means shall be
Wrought silently out to beauty
Of such degree
Of faultless and full perfection,
That angel eyes
Shall look on the finished labour
With new surprise,
That even His boundless patience
Could grave His own
Features upon such fractured
And stubborn stone.
In architecture the corner stone occupies an important place in the building. It is the starting point in construction. The figure is used in the New Testament, where Jesus Christ is called the corner stone of the great spiritual temple which is rising through the ages. In this case the corner stone seems to include the whole foundation on which the building rests. Everything in Christian life rests on Christ. To leave Christ out of life, out of any hope, or trust, or joy, or plan, is to build on the sand. To have Christ as the ground of our hope, our trust, our confidence, is to build on the eternal rock.
But while the corner stone is the most important stone in a building there are hundreds, thousands, of other stones that go into the walls, and each one is important in its place. A corner stone alone does not make a building. Every true Christian is a stone in the temple. Believers on Christ are called “living stones.” Everything that belongs to Christ is living. Nothing dead has any place in His church. There is no such thing as a dead Christian.
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