Jesus is the completion of the plan for the Jewish people as God’s chosen people and the beginning of God’s plan to spread the Gospel throughout the world. Psalm 118:22 gives a great image of this.
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone/capstone.”
Psalm 118:22
The original Hebrew literally translates as “head of the corner”. Different translations have it translated as cornerstone or capstone. But what are the two stones and why are they important?
The Cornerstone
Cornerstones are exactly what they sound like, stones at the corner of a building. It sounds simple, but in architecture these stones are really important. If you see old buildings with a date for the year construction started, that date is often on the bottom stone in a corner of the front of the building. The date is etched into the cornerstone because that is the stone that is put down first. The stone is at the front corner to orientate two of the outside walls of a building. It shows the builder where to measure everything from. Everything in a building depends on the placement of the cornerstone.
The Capstone
This stone is the stone at the top, or cap, of an arch. Sometimes known as a keystone, the capstone is the last stone to go into the arch. It maintains the balance and weight of the arch, keeping the sides from tipping closer to each other and collapsing. Since arches are important to building, arches also often support weight of the floors above. Most of the early churches were built with high, arched ceilings so the capstones also support the heavy roofs that protect anyone inside.
What Does Psalm 118:22 Mean?
Does it make a difference if the phrase is “cornerstone” or “capstone”? I don’t think so. In Job 38:6, God responds to Job’s complaints by saying that He put down the cornerstone of the earth and created everything Job can see, definitely everything Job had and lost. While not directly talking about Jesus, it’s clear from an earlier post I wrote that Jesus was predicted from Adam’s time. So much of the symbolism in the Old Testament pointed to things in Jesus’ ministry. The snake on a pole in Numbers 21:8-9 symbolized looking to Jesus’ cross for our salvation. The ceremony of the sacrificial lamb that the priest did to symbolically purify the nation predicted Jesus dying to purify us. Throughout the history of the Old Testament, God told the people to wait for the child of David that would save the faithful, rule the world, and bring peace throughout the world. As the capstone of the Old Testament, Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies, just not exactly as the Jews of that time expected.
Jesus is also the cornerstone and capstone of the New Testament. Everything in the New Testament says what He did or explains how to strive for the ideal He lived to show our love and gratitude for Him. Jesus’ resurrection was the capstone of His life, the final evidence of God’s promise and the fact that modern Christian faith is based on. Paul rebuked the church in 1 Corinthians 17 where some were saying no one could raise from the dead. If there was no resurrection of Christ, there was no payment for our sins, since Jesus is the only person pure enough to be a pure sacrificial lamb. Those two sentences can be a complicated idea, and I’ll probably spend a whole blog post on it. For now, it’s evidence that Jesus’ resurrection, the final act of His earthly life, is a cornerstone of Christian faith.
Jesus’ return will be the capstone of God’s current plan for Christians, ending His earthly plan and bringing all believers up to heaven.
If you are confused as to why Jesus is referred to as “the stone the builders rejected” in Psalm 118:22, there are many examples of Jews not welcoming Him and many prophecies about Him being rejected. He wasn’t the king they wanted. He focused more on the motives rather than the outward actions so the proud people rejected Him, fearing that He’d reveal their true selves.