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view of John seems to have been clear enough—but tactical, involving the
danger of “loss of face”. To voice their true view of John would have
exposed them to popular anger, but to give an insincere answer would
expose them to ridicule, since their rejection of John’s message was well-
known, as Jesus will confirm in v. 32. While there is some ambivalence
about the popular response to John as Jesus describes it in 11:16–19, the
presupposition is that they went out to him as a prophet (11:9), even if his
style of prophetic ministry proved not to be to their taste. John’s prophetic
image is confirmed in 16:14, and his popular appeal, already mentioned in
14:5, is presupposed in v. 32.
27 Their decision that silence is the more prudent course allows Jesus to
adopt the same approach without loss of face. But it is not true that “the
whole dialogue has to do with nothing deeper than saving and losing face.”¹
No-one who heard Jesus’ response could fail to understand the implied
claim to continuity between his ministry and that of John, and therefore to a
divine authority for it. The popular opinion that Jesus too was a prophet (v.
46) was a natural deduction from this exchange.
B. Three Polemical Parables (21:28–22:14)
See above, p. 769, for the groups of three around which the confrontation in chs.
21–22 is constructed. The other groups are shared with Mark, but at this point
Matthew has taken the single parable which occurs at this point in Mark and
Luke and expanded it by the addition of two others whose themes are closely
related so that the three together form an impressive and startling body of
teaching. All three parables focus on the failure of the current Jerusalem
leadership to respond to God’s call, and go on to explore the consequences of
their failure for the future of the people of God. While the explicit target of the
polemic remains the group of leaders who have just challenged Jesus’ authority
(further specified in 21:45 as “the chief priests and the Pharisees”), there are
broad hints within these parables that the effect of their failure extends beyond
their own role of leadership: 21:31 speaks of who is to “go into the kingdom of
God;” 21:43 speaks of a “nation” which will take over from the evicted tenants;
and 22:7 includes “their city” along with the reluctant guests as the object of the
king’s reprisals. In all three parables two groups of people are contrasted, those
who assume that they have a right to their privileged position and those who
instead find themselves unexpectedly promoted (and who, in 21:31, are the
people most despised by those presently in power).
All three parables thus speak of a radical and unexpected reversal of roles, and
so raise far-reaching and troubling reflections about how the Israel of Jesus’ day
relates to the people of God in the future. They clearly indicate that the current
leadership is to be replaced, but hints of a wider effect on the city and the nation
will continue to surface in the following chapters, especially in the lament over
Jerusalem (23:37) and the prediction of the destruction of the temple (23:38;
24:2), which is then further developed in the discourse of ch. 24 to envisage the
sufferings of “Judea” (24:16) in which everyone, not just the leaders, will be
involved (24:15–22). While the attitude of the Jerusalem crowd will remain at
least ambivalent during chapters 21–23 (see on 21:46), by the time of Jesus’
Roman trial they will have turned decisively against him, and in 27:24–25 the
chilling words accepting responsibility for his death will be attributed to “all the
people.”
Seen in the light of Matthew’s distinctive development of this theme, the
statement (in Matthew only) that the kingdom of God will taken away from
“you” and given to “a nation” that will yield its fruits (21:43) might be read as a
manifesto for the total rejection of Israel and its replacement by Gentiles (see
comments on 21:43). But that is a good deal too simple. The vineyard, after all,
represents Israel, and the vineyard remains to produce its fruit after its original
tenants are evicted. The tax-collectors and prostitutes who will go first into the
kingdom of God (21:31) are presumably as Jewish as the establishment they
replace. What is envisaged seems to be more than merely a “régime change,” but
less than a total repudiation of Israel as the people of God. What appears to be in
view is rather a reconstitution of Israel, such as we saw outlined in 8:11–12, with
new and unexpected members drawn in to replace those rejected by their lack of
faith, but with a recognizable continuity with the OT people of God. The balance
is well expressed in some words of C. H. Dodd in relation to the NT theme of the
new temple:
“The manifest disintegration of the existing system is to be preliminary to the
appearance of a new way of religion and a new community to embody it. And
yet, it is the same temple, first destroyed, that is to be rebuilt. The new
community is still Israel; there is continuity through the discontinuity. It is not a
matter of replacement but of resurrection.”¹
Of the three parables here brought together, one (21:28–32) is found only in
Matthew, one is shared with Mark and Luke but is given a distinctively Matthean
application in 21:43, while the third, the Wedding Feast, shares a basic motif
with the parable of the great dinner in Luke 14:16–24, but is so differently
related as to be in effect a separate parable; its final scene in 22:11–13 has no
parallel in Luke. The whole complex, therefore, bears the clear mark of
Matthew’s editorial work, and reflects his distinctive theology of Israel.²
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