Acts 4:11Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"This is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone." He reminded them also of a saying sufficient to frighten them, for it is said: "He who falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will crush him" (Mt 21:44). "And there is salvation in no one else." What wounds do you think they received from these words? Then, showing that they had dealt thus with a precious stone, he adds: "which has become the chief cornerstone." That is, the stone precious and genuine by nature has been rejected by you. So greatly did the miracle impart boldness to them.

Such, that is, carefully tested, is the stone that became the head of these two peoples, joined through Him into the one building of the Church. These are the believing Jewish people and the whole believing Gentile world.

"And there is salvation in no one else." Here lofty truths are already proclaimed. Yes, as soon as the hour for teaching arrived, the apostles passed through the prophecies.

When the time came to speak with boldness, they then set forth their own thoughts. For when there was nothing by which they could act upon the hearers for their correction, and when the truth had to be proclaimed boldly, the apostles no longer spared them.

Now Peter was no longer afraid of frightening them. Therefore he does not act as he does in other cases, adapting his speech to them for the sake of their salvation.

The builders were the Jews. They alone daily read the law and the prophets for the edification of the people, while all the other nations remained in the wilderness of idolatry.

When they were building, they reached the cornerstone, which belongs at once to two walls. This means that they read in the prophetic writings that Christ would come in the flesh and establish two peoples in Himself.

Yet they preferred to remain in one wall, that is, to be the only ones saved. Therefore they rejected the stone fitted not for one people, but for two.

Nevertheless God, against their will, by His own decree made Him the head of the corner. Thus from the two covenants and the two peoples He might raise the building of one and the same faith.

Cf. Ps 117:22.

Thus the community of believers, which also had members in other parts of Palestine, in Samaria and Galilee (Acts 9:31), increased daily in Jerusalem. Soon even the Jewish priests began to pass over into it (Acts 6:7).

The Sanhedrin no longer wished to leave the matter of Christianity without attention. Peter and John had healed the lame man at the temple. Afterward they preached to the people about Christ crucified and risen, by Whose power they had performed the healing.

Then the priests, together with the followers of the Sadducean sect, took them into custody. They intended to present them to the Sanhedrin in the morning. The next day they were indeed brought before the Sanhedrin, together with the man who had been healed.

In his answer, the Apostle Peter first says that the matter for which they, the apostles, have been summoned to judgment is a benefaction. It consists in the miraculous healing of a weak man.

Then he firmly and decisively testifies that the healing was accomplished in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, "Whom you crucified, Whom God raised from the dead."

Already in these words the apostle places his judges in the position of the accused. He directly ascribes to them the guilt of crucifying Jesus Christ.

He then does not soften this accusation, but strengthens it still further. He names Jesus Christ, in the words of the psalm (Ps 117:22), the cornerstone upon which all human salvation is built.

Explaining the power of this name, the apostle uses a saying from the psalm. The Lord Himself once applied it to Himself and to the Jewish rulers (Ps 117:22; cf. Mt 21:42).

In the psalmic saying, the Messiah is called the cornerstone. The builders of the building despised it instead of laying it as the foundation. Therefore the building, of course, is not firm.

With extraordinary boldness the apostle tells the Sanhedrin to their face that the Jesus crucified by them is precisely this stone. The builders are they, the leaders of the people's religious and moral life.

They rejected this stone in arranging the people's theocratic life. Yet this stone, contrary to their will, became the head of the corner of the new building of the Kingdom of God on earth.

The apostle's comparison of Jesus Christ with the stone rejected by the builders, which afterward became chief in the building, is found in Psalm 117.

It was applied by Jesus Christ Himself to Himself (see Mt 21:42), although in its original relation it could also apply to the author of the psalm.

Perhaps here Christ's promise was fulfilled, that through the Holy Spirit He would bring to the apostles' remembrance all that He had spoken to them (see Jn 14:26).

Peter himself could have remembered this beautiful comparison of Jesus Christ with a stone, first set aside and later taking the most important place. This corresponds to Jesus Christ's position in the Church as her Head.