40“Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?” 41They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.” 42Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief corner stone; this came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. 44And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.” 45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. 46When they sought to seize Him, they feared the people, because they considered Him to be a prophet.
Application of the parable is now made plain and the chief priests and Pharisees understood clearly that the parable of the vineyard was a judgment against them. In the dexterity of masterful deduction, Jesus led them to their own denunciation of themselves. As the parable was told, the moral conclusion was obvious, they said it themselves. In their own words, the owner of the vineyard would justly “bring those wretches to a wretched end.”
Jesus turned their own verdict back on them by referring them to the well-known Psalm 118:22-23 about the stone which the builders rejected. That psalm anticipated the day when God’s blessing in the kingdom would be fulfilled. Yet, that which the Jews anticipated would be taken from them and given to others, because of their rejecting Christ. As things unfold, God’s plan would shift, at least temporarily, from the Jews to the Gentiles. Israel “will be broken to pieces” and God “will scatter him like dust.” That was what Jesus had warned them about earlier, “The first shall be last, and the last first” (Matt 20:16).
God was now going to bypass the Jews as He moved to fulfill the promises to Abraham of blessing the world in a new way. Instead of using the Jews as a whole, He would use one Jewish descendent of Abraham, the singular “seed” that Gal 3:16 speaks about, namely Jesus, to reach the world—and that using the Gentiles! So Israel was about to give way to the church in God’s program. Paul later explains in Romans 10-11 this hiatus in God’s plan for Israel, what we call the church age, as being temporary until Israel is fully restored.
The Jewish leaders response was convicting – they wanted to seize Jesus to kill Him, but were hindered for the moment only by their fear of the people.
Lord, thank You that the message reached me, despite the rebellion of Your chosen people. I will be forever grateful that You found another way!
0 Comments