Matthew 21:33-46

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Introduction

The Parable of the Tenants

33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.

Even though we’ve reached the end of chapter 21 we’ve only begun our examination of Jesus’ interaction with the religious leaders in Jerusalem. Matthew dedicates almost all of the remaining 8 chapters of his Gospel account to the final 7 or 8 days of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Up until chapter 21 Jesus’ ministry has persisted for almost 3 years, so Matthew dedicates a large portion of his account, almost a third of it, to the final days of Jesus’ life and ministry.
And just as a reminder, chapters 21-24 are almost exclusively dedicated to Jesus’ denunciation, or his condemnation, of Jerusalem and her religious leaders. That Israel’s worship has become corrupted by greed, and that she’s become as fruitless as a barren fig tree. That she appears pious and religious from afar, but upon further examination she has borne no fruit, that she’s filled with hypocrisy. And so when Jesus enters the Temple we see him, out of frustration, overturning the tables of the money changers and those who sell sacrifices. He curses and withers a fig tree just outside the city walls that has borne no fruit, despite its display of leafy branches, symbolic of his experience in Jerusalem. Jesus has become frustrated with Jerusalem and her people, especially her religious leaders.

Jesus’ authority challenged

So within just a few short days, his frustration, his teachings, and his miracles catch the attention of the chief priests and elders of the people. And so we read back in verse 23, that,

when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?

They demand to see his credentials, like a patrol officer asking the driver of a car to see their license and registration. Jesus is acting like he owns the place, which naturally challenges their authority, so they respond by challenging his, but their challenge isn’t sincere, or based in a concern for Temple worship or to please God, but they challenge his authority in an effort to silence him, because Jesus is making them look bad. They challenge him in order to save face before the people, and to maintain their own authority.
Jesus responds to their question with his own question, asking them by what authority did John the Baptist come baptizing at the Jordan river? And rather than give Jesus a straight answer they deliberate amongst themselves as to how to answer him, weighing the consequences of various answers, eventually telling Jesus that they do not know, pleading ignorance. They’re unwilling to affirm or deny John’s authority because they knew, 1) the crowd considered John to be a prophet, and 2) that when John came they would not submit to his baptism, so they were stuck, unable to either to affirm or deny the authority of John the Baptist.
And Jesus asked them this question because 1) he knew it would stop their mouths, and 2) because if they acknowledged John’s authority they would be forced to acknowledge his own authority, because John had testified about him, that Jesus was the lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. And Jesus knew they wouldn’t deny John’s authority, publically, because they were afraid of the crowd, afraid that because the crowd held John to be a prophet that they might kill them.

3 parables in response

And while Jesus refused to answer their challenge unless they answered his, he continued by giving them, and the crowd, three parables in response. We looked at the first, two weeks ago, at the Parable of the Two Sons, where Jesus condemns the religious leaders for being unwilling to submit to John’s baptism, that even tax collectors and prostitutes listened to John, and even when they saw this, they still refused to repent and change their minds and believe in John.

Rejecting God’s Son

Then in our parable today, Jesus builds upon this same theme, and we’ll see that not only do they reject God’s prophets (such as John the Baptist), but they’ve gone so far as to reject even God’s own Son. That their challenging of John and Jesus’ authority is a direct challenge against God’s own authority, that to reject them is to reject God himself.
And as a side note, this is why the exclusivity of Christ is central to Christianity. So often people attempt to paint the belief that Jesus is the only way to God as intolerant and narrow-minded, but the truth is, that if we reject God’s messengers we also reject God himself, therefore for us to seek our own way, is sinful. Pastor, David Platt, said it well once, that “if there were 1,000 ways to God, we would want 1,001.” In other words, by nature we don’t want God’s way, we want our own way.
And like many of us, the Pharisees don’t like the implications associated with submitting to John or to Jesus, because to submit to them would mean losing the religious system from which they benefited so greatly. They benefited financially, and they loved the adoration of the people, but John and Jesus threatened this. To submit to John’s baptism would have forced them to publicly acknowledge that they were sinners like everyone else, they would lose their perceived righteous status, of which they leveraged to exercise control and elicit praise from the people.
In Luke 16, verse 14, Luke describes the Pharisees as those “who were lovers of money.” Jesus says in Matthew 23, verses 5-7, that,

5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

So to submit to Jesus would have meant public exposure of their own hypocrisy. And to them the cost was too high, and so they became enemies of the very God they confessed allegiance. Therefore, Jesus gives them another parable that exposes their hypocrisy and rebellion against God. That, not only have they rejected God’s prophets, but they’ve gone so far as to reject even God’s own Son.

The Parable of the Tenants

So let’s read there again, starting in verse 33,

The Parable of the Tenants

33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.

Jesus describes a landowner who has gone to great lengths to plant a productive vineyard. He’s planted his vines, constructed a fence around them for protection, dug a winepress that he’ll use when the grapes ripen, and even constructed a tower for his watchmen to lookout for thieves, wildfires or marauding animals that might threaten his vineyard. The landowner would have had to wait at least 4 years before he could have expected a harvest, so in Luke’s parallel account he rightly adds that he went into another country “for a long while.”
But he didn’t leave his vineyard to tend to itself, he leased it to a group of vinedressers, or tenants, to take care of the vines while he was away. The vines would require pruning, watering and tending to while he was away if they were to produce the grapes necessary for wine. So planting a vineyard would have been no small undertaking and it would’ve been years before it yielded any fruit. Now, it’s very possible, if not even likely, that some of the scribes and chief priests owned land outside of Jerusalem like the landowner in this parable, therefore Jesus’ parable would likely have seemed familiar to them.

Parable’s symbolism

Moreover, this parable’s symbolism is very straightforward. The master of the house, or landowner, is God the Father, while the tenants are representative of Israel’s religious leaders who are tasked with tending to the spiritual needs of Israel, which is represented by the vineyard. Then we read on, starting in verse 34,

34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them.

When the time came for the first harvest the master sent his servants to bring back some of the firstfruits of his vineyard, but the tenants beat one of them, kill another, and stone another. And no matter how many servants or how many times he sends his servants the vinedressers do the same to them.
Again, the symbolism here isn’t difficult to understand. The servants represent the prophets of the OT, even those like John the Baptist. And Jesus is painting a picture, of how, for hundreds of years, throughout Israel’s history, that God’s prophets have been ridiculed, beaten, imprisoned and even killed at the hands of Israel’s religious leaders. Jesus is reiterating their rejection of John the Baptist from the previous parable and showing them how Israel has been rejecting God’s messengers for centuries, and that, despite their pious appearances, it continues to this day.

Israel’s rejection of God’s prophets

I could probably spend 15 minutes listing and reading examples like this from the OT, so I’ll only read a few. In Jeremiah 2:29-30, at the beginning of his prophetic ministry, Jeremiah writes this scathing indictment against Jerusalem on behalf of the Lord, and part way through God says,

29  “Why do you contend with me?

You have all transgressed against me,

declares the LORD.

30  In vain have I struck your children;

they took no correction;

your own sword devoured your prophets

like a ravening lion.

Then in Jeremiah 7:25-26 he says,

25 From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. 26 Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.

Notice that Jeremiah even describes God’s prophets as his servants that were sent to Israel, from as early as their time in Egypt, even until Jeremiah’s day.
Then by the time we get to in Jeremiah chapter 20, the prophet Jeremiah himself is put into prison,

20 Now Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who was chief officer in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. 2 Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate of the house of the LORD.

And I’ll leave you with one last example, in 2 Chronicles 36:15-16, just before Jerusalem is captured and burned in judgement at the hands of the Chaldeans, we read,

15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. 16 But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy.

Israel’s rejection of God’s Son

So then this sets the stage for the climax of our parable here in Matthew chapter 21, there in verse 37, when Jesus says, so,

37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

In this parable the master assumed that if the tenants would receive anyone, surely, they would receive his son. Surely, they would respect his son, surely, they would listen to his son, but they refuse to do so.

Challenging God’s authority

Earlier, the servants were sent on the master’s behalf, bearing the master’s authority, yet the tenants beat them and killed them, then, like the prophets, the son is sent also, with all the authority of his father with him, yet they say to themselves, “Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance!”
You see, like I pointed out earlier, to reject the son’s authority is to reject the father’s authority, therefore to challenge the son’s authority is to challenge the father’s authority. Which means when they challenged Jesus’ authority back in verse 23, it becomes the pinnacle of their rebellion, and the climax of this parable.

No regard for their master

You see, the religious leaders proved that their unbelieving hearts were not because they lacked an authoritative messenger, or messengers, but because they had no regard for their master.
And as if it’s not enough that they rejected God’s son, but the parable goes on to say that they conspired to kill him, as though they could somehow steal his inheritance. This is obviously an allusion to Jesus’ crucifixion that’s just three days away, but notice how insane it is for them to think that they could somehow steal the vineyard, that they could take the Son’s inheritance, that they might have the kingdom for themselves, to gain such a wild independence from God. So what we’re meant to see here is that they were lusting after power, control and authority in God’s kingdom, that they wanted it so badly that they were willing to kill the Master’s Son to get it! (Matthew, Platt, David, p.291) This is the insanity of their rebellion, but it also highlights the insanity of sin in general, if sin could have its way in our lives it would throw us headlong over a cliff.
The Pharisees loved money, praise, power and control to such a degree that they were willing to kill their Master’s Son.
The we read there, continuing in verse 40,

40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Honestly, at this point, it’s crazy to me that these religious leaders are still willing to engage Jesus’ questions at the end of his parables, because it seems like they should know better by now, that Jesus is obviously setting them up, because Jesus gets them to, unknowingly, admit their own guilt. He asks them what will the owner do to these tenants? And they say to him,

He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

The religious leaders feel the weight of wickedness exhibited by these tenants in the parable, so they rightly say that the master should “put those wretches to a miserable death.” They use the strongest of terms to condemn these tenants, but they don’t yet realize that Jesus is talking about them.

Messianic text from Psalm 118

Then Jesus drops them this Messianic text from Psalm 118:22-23, and says there in verse 42,

“Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

What Jesus is saying is twofold, 1) yes, the Messiah will be rejected, but 2) God will vindicate him by making him the chief cornerstone. So there’s two main ideas going on here, ‘rejection’ and ‘vindication’.
Now, if you’ve read much of the Bible you’ve probably noticed that it contains a treasury of analogies and symbols that are regularly used throughout, to communicate and teach various ideas and concepts, and one of the most common is that of a rock or a stone. In this case, the psalmist references a stone that’s used as a cornerstone. And what’s meant to be pictured here is that of a builder who’s selecting stones to construct a building, and he’s searching for the best of stones, while tossing any defective ones aside. And then the psalmist imagines another builder who comes along and notices one of the stones that the previous builder has rejected, and not only uses for his house, but he makes it the cornerstone.

Cornerstone

Now, the cornerstone is a large stone that’s intended to support two walls that are at right angles to each other. It’s the first stone laid in the construction of a building at the outer corner of two intersecting walls, and all other stones will be set in reference to it, which means the cornerstone determines the position of the entire structure. And the psalmist here in Psalm 118, is saying that the Messiah will be like a stone that is rejected, but that despite its rejection, that it will become the cornerstone of the kingdom that God intends to build, and that this will be the Lord’s doing, and that it will be a marvelous thing to see.
And references to this stone can be found all throughout the OT and NT. Isaiah references it in chapter 28, verse 16, when God says,

“Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion,

a stone, a tested stone,

a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation:

‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he writes,

you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Vindication and resurrection

Texts like these reference Jesus’ vindication, that he will be used by God as the foundation of his kingdom. And we know now that this vindication was manifested most clearly in his resurrection. The stone that the builders rejected, the Son in whom they will crucify will be raised from the dead and will become the chief cornerstone.
However, Jesus says there continuing in verse 43,

43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.

So Jesus says that because they have rejected him, that the kingdom will be taken away from them, and that the kingdom will be given to a people, to a nation, that will produce its fruits. That nation, that kingdom, being all of those who embrace Jesus by faith, both Jew and Gentile will be joined together into a holy temple, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as their chief cornerstone.
Yet while Jesus will be the foundation and cornerstone for some, to others he will be a stone that causes offense, a stumbling stone, a stone that, if it falls on anyone, it will crush him, or if anyone falls on this stone, will be broken into pieces. Like a clay pot, whether dropped onto the stone or crushed by it will be broken into pieces.
It’s for this reason we evangelize, it’s for this reason we share the good news of the kingdom, that others might see how the Lord has done this marvelous thing, that he has been merciful toward us through the death and resurrection of his Son, by the rejection and vindication of his Son he offers us salvation, that whoever believes in and listens to his Son will not be put to shame, but will also share in his resurrection.

Conclusion

The Apostle Peter sums this up well in his letter, 1 Peter 2:4-10

4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,

a cornerstone chosen and precious,

and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone,”

8 and

“A stone of stumbling,

and a rock of offense.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Prayer

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