Jesus is the true messenger of God who spoke three explicit parables of judgment upon the Jews (Mt. 21:28-22:14). In the end, the Jews did not repent. They challenged Him. They embarrassed themselves. And instead of admitting their error they remained silent and awaited their cursing.

Introduction

In an atomic weapon, a handful of neutrons cause a chain reaction ending with the vaporization of entire cities and the deaths of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people. The chain of events happens sort of like this. A free neutron is released in the presence of Uranium atoms. Once it collides with one of those atoms, it enters Uranium’s nucleus causing it to become so unstable that the atom will split. When this happens, 3 additional neutrons are set free that end up colliding with three additional atoms of Uranium. The process occurs again netting 9 free neutrons, and before long (roughly six hundred billionths of a second) an uncountable amount of nuclear reactions will have occurred unleashing unimaginable havoc in all directions. No matter how quickly the chain reaction occurs, it would not be possible without specific sequential events that magnify in intensity.

Similarly, God unleashed a chain reaction upon unstable Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago. Based on specific sequential events that increase in intensity (detailed in Matthew 21-23), Jesus collided with the leadership of the city and the result was a city reduced to ash and rubble. Today, we jump right into the middle of that reaction and notice four specific events that occur from the end of Matthew 21 to the end of Matthew 22 that set the stage for this implosion.

The Ones Reduced to Rubble

While a deeper treatment of the issues is well in order, I must briefly summarize how this escalation is unfolding. Matthew 21 ends with an incredibly provocative statement by Jesus that has massive implications for how the events transpire in Jerusalem. He says:

Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone; This came about from the Lord, And it is marvelous in our eyes? 43 Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. 44 And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.

Jesus is not only accusing them of being ignorant of the Scriptures, such as Psalm 118 where this quote comes from, but He is also demonstrating how they will be the ones to reject Him, and that He will be the stone upon which God’s Kingdom will be built. This is why Jesus can look at the Pharisees and Scribes and say that the Kingdom will be taken away from them and given to another people because they will be crushed under the weight of the rock of ages and scattered like chaff to the four winds in Judgment.

This kind of judgment language goes well beyond the typical evangelical interpretation, where the Jews simply made a poor choice. That line of thinking might view the Jews in the same league as every other unbeliever who weighed the evidence, was not convinced, and chose wrongly. Or, if you are Calvinist, they were not elect and acted like every other reprobate who ever lived. But this is not what is happening here. These are people who had the kingdom and were losing the kingdom, which is not true for unbelievers in general.

Jesus uses verses 43 and 44 to remind the Jews of promises made in Daniel 2, where God will cut our an eternal rock (Da 2:34), who will strike a brittle kingdom (Da 2:43), that will topple and crush the empires of antiquity to dust (Da 2:35a), that will scatter them like chaff to the ends of the earth (Da 2:35b) and will be the inauguration of God’s true kingdom (Da 2:44) that will end up capturing the entire world and bringing it under the dominion of God (2:35, 44-45).

Jesus is telling them that He is that rock sent by God. He is showing them that He is the one who will not only bring God’s Kingdom to all the nations but will do so by striking them, crushing them, and scattering them to the ends of the earth. This is exactly what happened when God used Rome to end the nation of Judah and we are living in that eternal Kingdom that Christ Himself created. We see again that His coming is for the salvation of some and the judgment of others.

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