Let us turn to 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1:1 says:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
Again, Peter is the one in John 21 where Jesus asks him three times, “Lovest thou me?” Peter responds three times, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.” We know that one of these times that Peter responds, he uses a lesser word for love.
The important thing is that Jesus is asking him three times, “Lovest thou me?” Peter responds three times, and then Christ comes back with a third thing where another three times He says, “Feed my sheep” or “Feed my lambs.”
This is placed in John 21. John 21 is a little strange in that this chapter is even there at the end of the book of John, when Matthew, Mark, and Luke pretty much end with the resurrection.
John 21 is this almost additional chapter where God goes into detail and mentions a nighttime fishing expedition where they catch no fish. But then during the day, Jesus gives them instructions on where to fish and how to fish. He tells them, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.” Then they gather “an hundred and fifty and three” fish, and it is called a “multitude of fishes.”
This relates to our time and to the time of the great tribulation, which is now past, when a “great multitude” of people did become saved; and it just so happens that May 21 through October 21 is 153 days, which is five months.
We will not get back into this that much, but it was on the 17th day of the 2nd month of Noah’s calendar when God shut the door of the ark, and then we read of a five-month period where “the waters prevailed upon the earth.” This speaks of five months, and a reference to five months is in Revelation 9 also.
At the end of these five months, on October 21, is the last day of the feast of tabernacles and the expected day of the end of the world, and so I thought it would be good to look at Peter in 1 Peter, because God does speak to him. He uses him as an example of feeding sheep, when He is actually talking to all of the believers.
Let us just look at a couple of verses in 1 Peter that remind us of this feeding of sheep. In 1 Peter 2:24-25, it says:
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
We were “as sheep going astray,” but we are “now returned.”
Actually, this can be said of all of God’s sheep. There are no more stray sheep. They have all been returned. All of the sheep have been safely brought in, and Christ is the Good Shepherd who will watch over them.
God saved all of His elect people by May 21, that 8400th day, through the period of the “latter rain” as He brought the Gospel to the world. God saved them all. They are all secure. They are all safe. Nobody can snatch them out of His hand, not a lion nor a bear. Nobody can come after the sheep. They are all securely in Christ, just like Noah and his family as they were in the ark. Once the door shut, there was great safety for them. Outside of the ark for that five-month period, everyone else perished. But in Christ, there is tremendous security.
Also in 1 Peter 5:1-4, we read:
The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
So we have here once again the command to feed the sheep. Then God even gives us some instruction on how to do this. We are to do this willingly, not for money, and to be an example to the flock.
People wonder how they can feed the sheep if they cannot hand out tracts or booklets or these other things. God is giving us here one thing that we can do. We can be a good witness, a good example, having our “conversation honest among the Gentiles.”
This statement is also found in 1 Peter. We read in 1 Peter 2:11-12:
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
This is pointing to Christ’s return and telling us what we need to do. “Conversation” is dealing with our behavior and it involves our speech, but it is our actions as well. It is how we live our lives. We are to have our “conversation honest.”
God’s people are without guile, right? So we are to be honest in the way that we live our lives. When we go to work, we should be working “heartily, as to the Lord.” We should be working honestly and doing the best job that we can do to earn our pay. At home, the wife should be trying to do everything that she can do in the house, as God instructs the wife. The husband should be loving his wife, as God instructs the husband, and not be bitter against her. Children should be obeying their parents and doing what God’s will is for them to do in the house.
Every area of our lives is part of our conversation. We need to look at our neighbors and how we conduct ourselves in the neighborhood; even with strangers, as we meet people whom we have never met before. One way that we can feed sheep is by being an example to others.
We can see that Christ said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Then He moves Peter to write these books, 1st and 2nd Peter; and within 1st Peter, He talks about feeding sheep. This is a great necessity, especially at this time.
Going back to 1 Peter 1:1, we read:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ…
We were looking at the word “Peter” in Matthew 16. The Greek word for this name is petros and it means “part or portion of a rock.” Petra is the Greek word that means “rock.”
In Matthew 16:16-18, we read:
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church…
Some people understand that Jesus is addressing Peter and that his name has something to do with a rock and that the following statement of “upon this rock [petra] I will build my church.” But this is not what Christ is saying. This would be impossible.
The building of a church is a construction project. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 3:9-11:
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Christ is the first thing and the absolutely necessary thing that any spiritual house has to build on. It must be built upon Christ. It cannot be built on the church. Any church that has this idea is wrong and they are giving themselves much more authority and way more authority than the Bible allows. There is no way that the church or a pope or a bishop or anything like this is the “rock” that is in view.
In 1 Timothy 3:15, there is a similar verse or a similar idea to what we read in Matthew 16, because God makes this statement in Matthew 16:18:
…thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church…
The question is who are we going to think that the church is built upon? Is it Peter or the “rock” who would be Christ?
People can go one way or the other. If they go one way, if they think that it is Peter, then they have gone astray right from the very beginning. If Christ is not your foundation, what kind of spiritual structure can you build? It is going to be very weak and it will collapse.
This is what God says in Matthew 7:24-25:
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
This is Christ. This is God. This is from where the structure must be built. Then God goes on here to give an example of those who built their house upon the sand. The same storm arises and beats upon the house and the house collapses. This is because they built upon the sand.
If Jesus is the “rock,” and He is, and this is where we build the house, what is the sand referring to? Remember that God likens the seed of Abraham to the sand of the seashore. This would really be a reference to Israel, which typifies the churches.
So anyone who is building their house upon the sand, they think that they are in charge of salvation and that they can get you saved, “Here is how we do it. In this church, you must be baptized and you must give a profession of faith, or you must partake of the Lord’s Table, or you must go to Catholic school for twelve years,” whatever they think is a part of that salvation. This is all like building the house upon the sand.
If anyone is trusting the church, this is the case. It does not matter what church. It could be the Presbyterian, the Baptist, the Lutheran, the Episcopalian, the Independent, any church at all. If anyone is trusting the church at all and its teachings and believe that because of this they will now get into Heaven, then when the storm comes and when God’s wrath is poured out, their house will not stand; it will collapse. Our house can only be built upon Christ.
A similar verse where there appears to be an option is found in 1 Timothy 3:15:
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
Here we find this statement: “the pillar and ground of the truth.” This is the stable element. This is what establishes the church of God.
Is it the church or is it God Himself who is “the pillar and ground of the truth”? You could make a choice here, depending on what degree God has opened up your eyes. If you are one of His people, you will realize that it has to be “the living God” who is “the pillar and ground of the truth.” It cannot be the church.
Number one, the churches teach contrary to each other. The first question would then be which church? Then even within every church, you can see obvious errors. They are not to be thought or viewed in any way as the pillar of truth or as that authority that you must be in subjection to. No; the Bible is the authority, God’s Word is the authority, and it is not the church.
I would like to look at a couple of verses that have to do with the rock. We already saw one in Matthew 7. Let us go to 1 Corinthians 10 and begin in verse one. We read in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4:
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
Here God makes this easy for us. Occasionally, He does this. We need this every now and then because the Bible is so difficult and complicated. It is nice when God says that one word equals another word, like when He tells us, “The field is the world.” Here He tells us, “That Rock was Christ.” What “rock” is He referring to?
In the wilderness, the Israelites were murmuring because they had no water and they were thirsty. God had Moses smite the rock and then out came the water flowing like a river, and this picture is of the Lord Jesus. When He was smitten of God due to the law of God, then the Gospel water flowed into the world.
It is in Exodus where this example is found, so let us go to Exodus 17. We read in Exodus 17:4-6:
And Moses cried unto JEHOVAH, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. And JEHOVAH said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink…
If we did not have 1 Corinthians 10 and we started saying that the spiritual meaning of what is going on here in Exodus is that Moses represents the law because he is smiting the rock, the rock represents Christ, and the water gushing out represents the Gospel, people would be saying, “Hold it; hold it; hold it. You cannot do this.” The churches would quickly say, “You are spiritualizing. You cannot do this. This is history and these are historical records.”
But what did God do? He wrote this in Exodus. Then in the New Testament, many hundreds of years later, He moves the Apostle Paul to write 1 Corinthians 10 where He describes this instance and it is all spiritual. They ate spiritual meat, they drank spiritual drink, “that Rock was Christ,” and that Rock followed them. It was spiritual, spiritual, spiritual, which is exactly what Family Radio has been teaching for many years – exactly.
What they do is they say, “In this case, you can do this because God gives us the answers in 1 Corinthians 10; but otherwise, you are prohibited. This is your problem and this is why you come up with these teachings that the church does not know anything about. This is all because you use that methodology of comparing Scripture with Scripture or spiritual with spiritual.”
But is this not God’s methodology? At some point, should not a theologian, someone who is part of a church and who is trying to understand how God wrote the Bible, look at these examples that take bits and pieces of actual history and give spiritual meaning to them?
What we just looked at is not an isolated case. If we go to Galatians 4, we read in Galatians 4:21:
Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
This is speaking of “the law,” and we have learned that the whole Bible is a Law Book; and so this is just referencing another part of the Bible. “Do you not hear the law?”
Jesus would often say, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” which is a similar reference to hearing the law; and then He would give a parable. “Do you not hear the law?” Do you not hear what God has said?
It continues in Galatians 4:22-26 to say:
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth [or corresponds] to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
So “do ye not hear” what God wrote back in Genesis about the whole family history of Abraham and Sarah who was barren for a time and who gave her handmaid Hagar to bear a child? Ishmael was born, but then later God fulfilled his promise and Sarah did have a son. Then Isaac was born.
But when we read about these things in Genesis, nothing is said about the spiritual meaning of this being two covenants. There is nothing in Genesis that says that one woman represents one covenant and the other woman represents another covenant, and that their children represent other things. There is not one word. It is history.
So God here is asking this question to everybody, “Do you not hear the law?” This is because we are obligated and it is our responsibility to look for the deeper spiritual meaning.
Many theologians treat the whole Bible like this and do not look for deeper spiritual things. But again they would say, “Since God goes into this detail here and He spells this out for us, when you are reading Genesis, you can have that understanding. We will allow you this as well as what we read in 1 Corinthians 10. Since Galatians is talking about some history in Genesis and 1 Corinthians 10 is talking about some history in Exodus and other parts of the Pentateuch, this is true.”
The issue is that we can find many more examples. How about, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn”? This is a law in Deuteronomy. Then God moves Paul to say in 1 Corinthians 9, “Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes?” Then God gives a spiritual meaning of what this one verse and this one law means.
At some point, do we not have to stop and ask, “Is it possible that God wants us to look at the whole Bible this way? Is it possible that He wants us to dig into the Scriptures like we are digging for silver and gold and that we are to ‘search out a matter’?” Do we not have to consider that this is maybe why Christ spoke in parables and that “without a parable spake he not unto them”? Since He is the Word of God, He did this to teach us how to understand the Bible. We must look for the spiritual meaning. This is what we have to look for. If it is history, yes, it is true history; but what did God mean by that? What is He trying to teach us?
So we were talking about the Rock and how God builds His Church upon this Rock. We also read of this in the Old Testament. We read in Deuteronomy 32:3-4:
Because I will publish the name of JEHOVAH: ascribe ye greatness unto our 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.
There are many verses similar to this where they just plainly say that God is the Rock, that Christ is the Rock; and it is upon “this rock,” upon Eternal God, that He says, “I will build my church.”
So the first thing that we had to clarify was which “rock”; now we have to clarify which “church.” We just read in Galatians 4 that there are two churches. It spoke of the “Jerusalem which is above” and the “Jerusalem which now is.”
This is an allegory and this is going back to the history in Genesis, but God is referring to two Jerusalems in Galatians 4:25-26. It says again in Galatians 4:25:
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia…
Mount Sinai was where the law was given. Agar was an Egyptian woman and God constantly makes reference to being in bondage in Egypt, like being under the law; and so it goes on to say in Galatians 4:25:
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth…
The word “answereth” can be understood as “to correspond to.”
So it says again in Galatians 4:25-26:
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth [corresponds] to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free…
Here are two Jerusalems. One is on earth and one is in Heaven.
Later in the New Testament in the book of Revelation, the whole body of God’s people, the elect, comes down out of Heaven, “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” These are all whom God has saved.
Every time God saved a person throughout history until He completed this, that person was added to the Jerusalem above. They became part of the spiritual house of God and part of the Kingdom of God and they became that Church. But there is an earthly Jerusalem or an earthly church.
What some people have done, just like those who think that Peter is the “rock” when he is not, is that they also think that the “church” is referring to the First Baptist or the Tenth Presbyterian or some other church. There are churches all over the place and they think that this is referring to their church, and it is not.
This is just as when God uses the word “Israel.” Sometimes God refers to Israel and He is talking about national Israel. Other times when He refers to Israel, He is referring to the Israel of God, the spiritual Israel who is made up of all of His elect.
There is a statement like this in Galatians 6 where it says in Galatians 6:15-16:
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.
Someone can be a physical and natural Jew and not be part of the Israel of God. They are a descendant of Abraham, yes. They are a Jewish person, yes. But they are not part of the spiritual Israel.
Gentiles are part of spiritual Israel who are not even physical or natural Jews. When they become saved, they become circumcised in heart. This is one way that God puts this, and then they become part of spiritual Israel.
This is the same idea as when we are reading about the church in the New Testament and it is sometimes referring to the church, the local organizations and congregations, the corporate body that is in so many places in the world. At other times, it is referring to the spiritual Church, but God does not tell us. He does not tell us what is in view, so we have to look at what He is saying.
Look at what He is telling us in Matthew 16:18:
…upon this rock [Christ] I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
In this phrase, “the gates of hell,” the word “hell” here is the Greek word “haides.” “Haides” is made up of two words. It has the alpha prefix in the Greek. If you want to negate something or if you want to use a negative, you would use the alpha prefix; and so it has the alpha and then it has another word. The alpha is “no” or “not,” and then the other word that “haides” is made up of means “knowing” or “aware” or “seeing.” So “haides” itself means “not knowing” or “not aware.”
This is exactly what we have learned about hell, that hell is the grave; that when a person dies, they go into the grave. They go to haides. Haides is a place of “not knowing.” Those who are there are “not aware.” They are dead.
Mankind spiritually died long ago. Then they physically die, their body is put into a grave, and their conscience existence stops. They are now in haides. It is not some place of darkness, like a waiting area. It has nothing to do with that. It is just a grave. It is a pit in the ground. The dead are thrown into the pit and covered with dirt, and now these individuals have no more knowledge or understanding.
This is like what God says in Psalm 146. We read in Psalm 146:3-4:
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
So that is it. They are gone. There is that activity all through life where a person was self-aware. They could think, they could reason, they could act, they were animated, they lived life; but when they died unsaved, and most people do, the moment that they died, their thought life ceased. Whatever they had done in their life is gone from them. They do not remember anything. They do not know anything. They have no conscience existence. Their thoughts have perished with them.
This is going to be the fate of every unsaved person. They will perish forever. They will be destroyed eternally. Annihilation is another word that describes this. A person ceases to be. All that is left is their dead body in the grave.
So “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” the church; that is, it shall not prevail against all of those whom Christ has saved, all of His elect people.
Let us return to Matthew 16 for one more thing. We read in Matthew 16:18:
I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock…
And, again, this “rock” is referring to Christ. It continues:
…I will build my church…
This is referring to the eternal Church. This is the Church that is in view in Ephesians 5 where it says, “As Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” All of those from whom He paid for their sins are part of this Church.
Matthew 16:18 continues:
…and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Not a single individual one of God’s elect will ever perish or die like an unsaved person, because God has guaranteed that they will continue to live and have eternal life.
Then we read in Matthew 16:19:
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven…
Someone asked me who this is referring to or who it is that is receiving the keys. Christ, of course, has the keys, as we read in Revelation, but He gives the Gospel to His people who in turn presented this to the world all throughout history. They brought the Gospel, but it was God’s act to save.
If we read Matthew 16:19 with the proper tense, it says:
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall [having been] bound in heaven…
The prior action is in Heaven. Then it says in its proper tense:
…and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall [having been] loosed in heaven.
God is doing the prior action. This is all according to His salvation plan and whom He wills to save. He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy.
We are only messengers and ambassadors. We carried the Word of God and then God is the One who opened up the dungeon, in the sense of letting the captives go free so that a sinner could be “delivered…from the power of darkness, and…translated into the kingdom of his dear Son.” It is God who had to do this, and this has actually been accomplished. He has already done it.
Let us return to 1 Peter one more time. We read in 1 Peter 1:1:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers…
Again, if you look in an Interlinear Bible, you will see that before the word “strangers” is the word eklektos, which is the plural word for “elect.” This is positioned right before strangers, so this should read:
…the [elect] strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
Then 1 Peter 1:2 should read:
According to the foreknowledge of God the Father…
The word “elect” is not in verse two; it is in verse one.
So God is using this term, “elect strangers,” to describe His people. Why are they “strangers” and scattered throughout these five places? We know that the number five has to do with the atonement. These are the ones whom Christ paid the atoning price for. These are those whom He has saved.
Concerning “stranger,” we can turn to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 tells us a little bit about Abraham. We read in Hebrews 11:9-16:
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
This is describing the life of the child of God in this world. We are strangers. We have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness. The world is in darkness. We are taken out of this and translated into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, and our citizenship is in Heaven; it is not on earth.
Some people pack up their belongings because they decide that they are going to leave their country. They decide to come to America or to another nation, even though they do not speak the language. When they get there, things are very difficult at first because they cannot speak English or whatever the language is. They find that there are different customs and that there are different traditions. Everything seems different.
For example, can you imagine coming from China to America? You try and try to adapt. You try to speak the language. You are maybe able to speak it brokenly and you probably have an accent; and so we can see how hard this is for an alien, which is what we call them. We can see how difficult it is for someone to leave their native country and to come to America.
God has given a citizenship to those whom He has saved, His elect. He has also given them a new heart and a new mind and a new spirit. Now their language becomes a different language. Their music becomes different, as well as their thoughts. Everything is different, very different than what is happening in the world.
It is very much like we are strangers, even though we were born here. Maybe you were born and lived and have been in one place all of your life, but then God changed you. He saved you and He made you different. If you were “of the world,” there would be no problem, because the world loves its own. But God’s people are no longer “of the world.” They are of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is why we are ambassadors, because we are representing another nation, another kingdom, and it is not any nation on earth.
This is also why we can appear strange to people in the world who are of another kingdom. They are of this world and they do not understand when we do not want to do everyday activities on Sunday. They do not understand this. This is a strange custom to them. They ask, “Why do you not want to play sports on Sunday or work on Sunday? Why do you not want to do these things? We do not have any problem doing these things on Sunday. We are fine with this.” Or they ask, “What is wrong with divorce?” They cannot understand that our law from the Kingdom of Heaven, where our citizenship is, says that we are not to divorce, that we are not ever to even consider this. Our law says that men are not to marry men and that women are not to marry women. We could go on and on and on. Our law says that we are not to kill; and, therefore, we cannot have an abortion.
We are so different than the way that the world is going. The believers cannot go the direction that the world is going. We cannot just go along to get along. This is not the nature that God has placed within His people. They will do the will of God. This is why this distinction and this difference between the child of God and the people of the world is getting greater and greater and greater, and this is because God is about to end it all.
So it is getting more and more difficult for His people to live the Christian life in this world, and yet this is what we are called to do. For a little while longer, we are a stranger and we are a pilgrim, as it says in Ephesians 2:19-20:
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints…
To God, the world is a stranger. They are alien to Him.
It continues:
…and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets…
This would be Christ. There is no other foundation.
It continues:
…Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Here is that Rock. This is the foundation that we are built upon. We are called to a citizenship in Heaven.
It continues in Ephesians 2:21-22:
In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
Let us stop here.