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The corner is the place where two walls meet, and the corner stone is that by which they are connected or combined. Hence the idea suggested by a corner stone is mainly that of union; and it is as uniting what was separated or detached that Christ is specially presented to us under such an emblem. And verily He was the Corner Stone. In His Person were combined the Divine nature and the human; and it was this combination, His being the Corner Stone between God and man, which alone fitted Him for the vast office He had undertaken to discharge. Did He not, moreover, unite Jew and Gentile, making both one, by removing all ceremonial distinctions, and founding a Church which threw open its gates to every nation under heaven? Nay, did He not unite God and man in another sense by becoming, in His own person, a Corner Stone? He reconciled the world to its Maker — He restored harmony where sin had wrought a fearful separation. Yes, He was, and He is, the Corner Stone between earth and heaven. But it is evident from the manner in which St. Peter has quoted the prophecy in our text, that it had especial reference to the resurrection of Christ. It was by and through the Resurrection that the rejected Stone was exalted to the head of the corner; and forasmuch as the alleged marvel lies evidently in the transition from the rejection to the exaltation, we are bound to conclude that the process through which the transition took place had much to do with the wonder expressed by the psalmist. And never ought the Resurrection of the Redeemer to appear to us other than a fact as amazing as it is consolatory; for there is a respect in which the resurrection of Christ differs immeasurably from every other recorded case of the quickening of the dead. Others were raised by Christ, or by men acting in the name and with the authority of Christ; but Christ raised Himself. He rose from the grave — rose by His own act. "Destroy this temple," said He, "and in three days I will raise it up;" the evangelist adding, as a comment, "He spake of the temple of His body." Marvel of marvels! that which we believe will not cease to be marvellous when eternity has been given to its contemplation — is that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us"; but the marvel seems immeasurably heightened when the dead Christ, as well as the living, may be defined as actually a person of the Godhead. Divinity in the gravel — this is a stupendous thing. But Divinity was in the grave — Divinity was proved to have been in the grave, when the rejected Stone, by the exercise of its own power, came forth from the grave. Verily, we must exclaim with the psalmist — "This is the Lord's doing." The resurrection of Christ, effected through His own power, supersedes all necessity for any other miracle in evidence of the Divine origin of Christianity. How could that being be less than Deity itself, who, even when dead in human nature, was mighty enough to quicken that nature — who, by the strangest of all combinations, must have been dead and alive at once, and who was able, in that respect in which He was alive, to reanimate Himself in that respect in which He was dead? Need we ask whether this excites your amazement? Oh! which of you, when he thinks how, in rising from the dead, the Redeemer destroyed the curse and provided that "the creature itself also should be delivered from the bondage of corruption" — which of you can refuse to join in the exclamation — "This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes"? But amazement or admiration is not only the feeling which the fact before us should excite. The battle, the narrative of which is so surprising, was fought in our behalf, and the landscape, which awakens such lofty emotions, includes within its sweep whatever is most precious to ourselves. A Redeemer detained in the grave, would have necessarily been a Redeemer unable to redeem; a stone not exalted to "the head of the corner," would have been one which failed to combine earth and heaven. We, then, who can rejoice, because there has arisen a Mediator between us and God, must therefore rejoice in the exaltation of the rejected Stone. It was in the rising to "the head of the corner" that this Stone swept down the obstacles to the forgiveness of man, and opened to him the pathway to heaven and immortality. And there is more to be said than this. The resurrection of our own bodies is intimately connected with the resurrection of Christ — connected, as an effect with a cause; "for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead: for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Therefore, if it be any cause for joy that our bodies are to rise, it is cause for joy that the Stone rejected by the builders was exalted of God to "the head of the corner." And the resurrection of the body is a cause for joy. The body, indeed, is to be a spiritual body, and therefore will renovated materialism assume a more spiritual character, congenial to that of the celestial inhabitants; but a material system there surely shall be — a material world, with material loveliness, and an over-arching sky, in which, when the present constellations shall be quenched, their places shall be filled with others, more beautifully, more eloquently bright. If such, then, be the resurrection, and such our personal interest in the rising of the rejected Stone to be "the head of the corner," it is not amazement only with which you will hear the record or look upon the landscape. The record is that of a stupendous victory, but a victory which secured you the means of grace and the hope of glory. Oh! then, delight must be added to amazement. If you have already exclaimed with a tongue of wonder, "This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes," will you not now add with a tongue of exultation, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it"?

(H. Melvill, B.D.)

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KJV: The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.

WEB: The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.