'Lk 20:9-18

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123. The wicked vineyard keepers (Matt 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-18)

This parable pictures Israel as a vineyard, God as the owner of the vineyard, and the Jewish religious leaders as the tenants who looked after it. Just as the tenants beat and killed the servants whom the owner sent to them, so Israel’s leaders persecuted and killed God’s messengers, from Old Testament prophets to John the Baptist. Now they were about to reject God’s Son himself (Matt 21:33-39).

By rejecting him the Jews were bringing punishment on themselves. God would take away the privileges from Israel and give them to the Gentiles (Matt 21:40-41).

Another picture illustrated this truth. Jesus was likened to the cornerstone of a building, which in ancient buildings was the stone upon which the structure depended. In rejecting Jesus, the Jews were like builders who threw away the cornerstone. God now took this rejected stone and used it in the construction of a new building, the Christian church. This new community would be mainly Gentile, and all of it built around and built into Jesus Christ (Matt 21:42-43).

People’s attitude to Jesus determined their destiny, and those who rejected him guaranteed their own destruction. The leaders of the Jews knew he was talking about them and wanted to arrest him, but they were not sure how the crowd would react (Matt 21:44-46).