Dear in Christ,
The most important thing to be noted is that Jewish religious leaders understood that the parable is about them. (Matt 21:45).
Verses 33 to 36 talk about a landlord planting a vineyard, getting a winepress made and going to a far country. Before leaving, he leased out the vineyard to tenants. (The vineyard is Israel and Judea - Isaiah 5 and the landlord is God)
When the time of the harvest came, he sent his servants to gather the produce. (These servants stand for prophets). The tenants manhandles and murders those servants.
The only option left with the landlord was to send his only son, hoping that the tenants would honor him, at the least. (Obviously, this son is Jesus) - Verse 38.
The tenants, together, kills the son as well. (Verse 39)
At this point in his narrative, Jesus asked his audience as to how the landlord would react when he would come back, and they told him that the landlord would destroy those tenants and let out the vineyard to OTHER tenants. (Obviously, NOT the same Israelites or Jews).
Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22, 23 and tell them:
Did ye never read in the scriptures, THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THE SAME IS BECOME THE HEAD OF THE CORNER: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? (Verse 42).
Whatever be the contextual meaning of this phrase in Psalm 118, here in this verse (Matt 21:42) the REJECTED STONE (I think) is about the OTHER tenants to whom the vineyard would be let out.
Mat 21:43 Therefore say I unto you, THE KINGDOM OF GOD SHALL BE TAKEN FROM YOU (Jews, Israelites), AND GIVEN TO A NATION BRINGING FORTH THE FRUITS THEREOF.
THIS WOULD TAKE PLACE AT THE TIME THE LANDLORD WOULD COME BACK, WHICH EVERY PRETERIST AGREES TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN 70 AD. Is there any reasonable way to prove that the landlord would take the Kingdom from Jews/Israelites and give it back to themselves? If that be the case what was the point in taking it from them? (If you were an employer, will you reappoint an employee who was fired for corruption and misconduct? Hope you won't) If the Kingdom (the vineyard) were restored to them, why were they destroyed in 70 AD?
The talk is about taking the Kingdom (Sonship, Sonhood) away from Jews/Israelites and giving it to a mixed populace, consisting the faithful among Jews and everyone from all the nations, tribes, tongues...of the world.
Mat 8:11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. (everyone, irrespective of their ethnicity, accepted as sons or the Kingdom.)
Mat 8:12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (These were the previous tenants, from whom the Kingdom/Sonship was taken away.)
Claiming that this parable isn't presented in the chronological order of events doesn't make sense.
In Christ,
Tomsan Kattackal
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