The great pyramid passages and chambers

are lines drawn on the horizontal surfaces, showing where each stone was to be placed on those below it. If the stones were merely trimmed to fit each other as the building went on, there would be no need to have so carefully marked the place of each block in this particular way ; and it shows that they were probably planned and fitted together on the ground below. Another indication of very careful and elaborate planning on the ground is in the topmost space over the King’s Chamber ; there the roofing-beams were numbered, and marked for the north and south sides ; and though it may be thought that it could be of no consequence in what order they were placed, yet all their details were evidently schemed before they were delivered to the builders’ hands.”

75 A beautiful illustration is this of the living stones in God's great Antitypical Pyramid, Jesus Christ and his Church, selected and prepared in the quarry of this world, before being placed together to form the glorious symbolical building of the Millennial Age! One can imagine that the Egyptian builders (who, according to the account of Herodotus, were forced into the work by their mighty invaders, the Hyksos kings), when they were engaged under the architect's supervision in shaping the chief cornerstone, would find it strangely out of harmony with all their traditional ideas: for the Great Pyramid was the first of its kind. It may be that in their ignorance they despised and rejected it; and such an awkwardly-shaped stone with its five sides, five corners, and sixteen angles, must doubtless have been “a stone of stumbling” to builders whose heads did not understand, and whose hearts did not appreciate, the great work upon which they were engaged.

76 But though we may not be certain how the Egyptian builders treated the typical chief corner-stone, we have the definite declaration of the Word of God that the builders of the Antitypical building, those who were permitted by God, the Great Architect, to chisel and polish Jesus Christ by the trials and sufferings to which they subjected him, did not comprehend him. Because of their traditional beliefs and the hardness of their hearts, he had no form nor comeliness in their eyes, and as it seemed to them that there was no beauty in him that they should desire him, they despised and rejected him—Isa. 53; 2, 3.

77 The Scriptures assure us that the work on which these men were engaged through the Lord's providences, was done by them largely in ignorance, for “ had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory "—Acts 3:17; 1 Cor. 2:8. Nevertheless, a measure of responsibility rested upon them. It was because of the wrong attitude of their hearts that they found Christ ‘‘a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence’ (1 Pet. 2: 7, 8), and, therefore, this stone which they rejected and over which they stumbled, in due time fell upon them and crushed them. This was confirmed by Jesus in the words of the prophets: ‘What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner ? Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder ’—Luke 20: 17,18. The inspired writer then adds in verse 19, The chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; .. . for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them.”

78 In the ninth chapter of his letter to the Romans (verses 31—33), the Apostle Paul points out why Christ was to the Jews a stumbling-stone and rock of offence. It was because they were seeking to follow after the law of righteousness not by faith, but as it

38