DAY 186
CHALLENGE
“Peter isn’t the rock because Paul says, ‘For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. 3:11).”
DEFENSE
Scripture describes the Church’s foundation in at least five ways. You can’t pick one and ignore the others.
Paul was not speaking of the universal Church’s foundation. He was referring to how he started the local church at Corinth, of which Christ is the irreplaceable foundation. One can extend this concept to the universal Church, but not without taking into account other things the New Testament has to say.
In 1 Peter 2:6, Isaiah 28:16 is applied to Christ: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.” Here the word for “stone” isn’t petros (the name Jesus gave Peter) but lithos. Further, 1 Peter 2:6 says Jesus is the Church’s “cornerstone” (Greek, akrogōniaios). A cornerstone is only one part of a foundation—the corner part of it.
Ephesians 2:20 says the household of God is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” The prophets here are likely prophets of the New Testament age, as made clear by the other two references to them in the epistle (Eph. 3:5, 4:11). Together with the apostles, they form the Church’s foundation in this passage, with Christ as the cornerstone. The fact that Paul wrote this passage and 1 Corinthians, shows there is no contradiction in his mind between Christ being the foundation in one sense and others being the foundation in another.
In Revelation 21:14, the New Jerusalem is said to have twelve foundations with the names of the twelve apostles written on them. Note that the Twelve were a select group who had followed Jesus during his ministry (Acts 1:21–26); not even Paul and Barnabas, who also were apostles (Acts 14:14), were members of the Twelve.
Finally, in Matthew 16:18 Jesus says: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it.”
We thus see that Scripture does not depict the foundation of the Church just one way, and what Jesus says to Peter must be given its due.