December 30

As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight, — 1 Pet 2:4 BSB

Though “rejected by men,” the Lord Jesus Christ is “chosen by God,” and God, in His infinite wisdom, cannot make a mistake. To think otherwise would be to attribute folly to the Most High. Christ is “chosen by God” because He alone was fit for the work of redemption. The weight of sin would have crushed even the mightiest archangel. No bright angel, no glorious seraph, no created being—no matter how exalted—could bear the load of sin. Only God’s own Son, not merely by office but by eternal generation, the Son of the Father in truth and love, could bear the immense weight of imputed sin and guilt. As the hymn-writer, William Cowper, says, “Such loads of guilt were on Him put, He alone could sustain the weight.”

He was “chosen by God” to be Zion’s Representative, Zion’s Sin-bearer, and Zion’s glorious Head. He alone could be the foundation upon which the Church would rest with all her miseries, sins, sorrows, and backslidings. It had to be a strong foundation to support the weight of this Church, loaded as it is with guilt, degradation, and shame. Only God’s own Son, no one else in heaven or on earth, could bear all this. As He says, “Look to Me and be saved, for I am God, and there is no other.”

Jesus was “chosen by God” from eternity, in the divine counsel, to be the Mediator. He was “chosen” to become man, to be the Rock of Ages, Zion’s resting place, harbor, anchorage, and home. For this reason, Jesus has always been, and will forever be, unspeakably “precious” to the Father’s heart. Though man despises Him, God honors Him; though man rejects Him, God values Him as His co-equal Son. Not only is He honored as God’s “fellow” and chosen to be the Mediator, but He is unspeakably “precious” in God’s eyes—precious in His deity, precious in His humanity, precious in His blood, precious in His obedience, precious in His sufferings, precious in His death, precious in His resurrection, precious in His ascension to God’s right hand, and precious as the Great High Priest over the house of God, the only Mediator between God and man.

Is He not worthy of all your trust, all your confidence, all your hope, and all your acceptance? Where else can we place our hope but in Him? Look at the world—what can you gain from it but a harvest of sorrow? Look at all that man values as good and great—though perhaps useful for this life, it holds no value for eternity. I, too, have placed great value on human learning and the attainments of knowledge and science. Yet, compared to eternity, these are nothing more than breath and smoke—a vapor that appears for a moment and then vanishes.

But the things of eternity, the peace of God in the heart, the work of the Spirit in the soul, and all the blessed realities of salvation—these are not like the fleeting mists of time. They are enduring, eternal, and part of “an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that does not fade away.”