Fruit of the Kingdom

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

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 amazing in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet. (Matthew 21:33–46)

Jesus said the cornerstone—which he identified as himself—would break those who came against it, whether they fell on it or it fell on them. The Pharisees would live to see their temple, their nation, and their power destroyed. Rather than destroying Jesus, Jesus would destroy them: he would rise from the dead and the kingdom of God would spread throughout the world. It would consist of the Jewish people together with all humanity. As Nebuchadnezzar saw in his vision of the giant statue, God would bring a rock not cut by human hands that would “crush all the kingdoms and bring them to an end, but…will itself endure forever.” (Daniel 2:44-45 NIV)

We belong to God’s kingdom. It is a kingdom over which Jesus reigns and it is not going to be stopped. That’s why Paul could write that “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

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About R.P. Nettelhorst

I'm married with three daughters. I live in southern California and I'm the interim pastor at Quartz Hill Community Church. I have written several books. I spent a couple of summers while I was in college working on a kibbutz in Israel. In 2004, I was a volunteer with the Ansari X-Prize at the winning launches of SpaceShipOne. Member of Society of Biblical Literature, American Academy of Religion, and The Authors Guild
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