the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 3 of 5
Matthew 21:33-46
Another parable illustrates the terrible condition of the people and its bad leaders. God expected fruit from His vine, Israel. He had done everything possible to procure it (cf. Isaiah 5:1-2). The Jews (and men in general) have demonstrated not only their incapacity to produce it, but also their spirit of revolt and hatred against the true Owner of all things. They have despised and rejected His servants, the prophets, and they now set themselves to drive out – and in what a way – the Heir Himself, in order to remain the sole masters of the inheritance, that is to say, the world (1 Thessalonians 2:15).
The Lord leads these men on to pronounce their own condemnation (vv. 40, 41). Then He shows that He Himself is "the chief corner-stone, elect, precious", whom God had placed in Israel. Those who were the builders (the leaders among the Jews) had not wanted it so, according to Psalms 118:22-23. Indeed He has also become the chief corner-stone of a "spiritual house", the Assembly, and "a stone of stumbling" for the disobedient (1 Peter 2:4-8). According to this passage, Christ is, strictly speaking, the touchstone of faith. Precious before God, and having this great value to us who believe, He is however rejected by men in general, and becomes a stone of stumbling to unbelievers.
