2. The Kingdom Taken Away

Jesus confronted religious leaders often, teaching them not to use spiritual authority for their own ends. Let's examine a parable he directed to the Pharisees one day.

The Pharisees wanted to have full control of God's Kingdom—but instead of earning that authority legitimately, they conspired to snatch it from Jesus. So, Jesus reacted by promising them that they would be stripped of the Kingdom authority God had so graciously entrusted to them.

In the story, the landowner is God, the vineyard is Israel, the farmers are the leaders of the Jews, the tenants are the Jewish people, the servants are the prophets, and the son is Jesus!

Observe how the tenants conspire to "take the inheritance" from the son in the parable. Jesus is the Heir of the Kingdom, and his enemies want to take his authority away, appropriating the Kingdom for themselves. But that ain't gonna happen!

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So, they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

‘He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,’ they replied, ‘and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.’

… Therefore, I tell you that the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit (Matthew 21:33-41, 43).

If you heed Christ's exhortation, you will unite yourself to that "people who will produce the fruit" of the Kingdom of God, the Church. We are the true citizens of God's Kingdom by virtue of our covenant with God, the New Covenant in Christ's blood.

The fruit of righteousness, love, and peace is the fruit we produce--what Jesus calls "the fruit of the Kingdom."