3515-Who Is the Rock? by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 25, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 29.

3515—Who Is the Rock?

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Matt. 16:18. What did the Saviour mean by "Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"? T. E. W.

He meant, as taught by the universal testimony of the Bible, that He Himself was the Rock, the Foundation Stone. Nowhere in the Word of God is man called "the rock," or said to be the foundation of the faith of God's children. Take, for instance, Deuteronomy thirty-two—the wonderful song of Moses, his ascription of praise to God: "He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He." Verse 4. (See also verses 18, 30, and 31.) The same thought is echoed in Psalm 18; "The Lord is my Rock, and my Fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust." Verse 2. Christ as a foundation is predicted in Isa. 28:16: "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tried Stone, a precious Corner-stone, a sure Foundation." To this Paul refers in 1 Cor. 3:11: "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." To the same thing Peter refers in his first epistle, chapter 2, verse 6: "Behold, I lay in Zion a chief Corner-stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded." He is the Foundation of the whole house of God, as the apostle Paul states, speaking to the Christian church: "Ye . . . are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief Corner-stone." Peter, and all others who believe in Christ, are living stones, built upon the Foundation Stone. See 1 Peter 2:4, 5.