This is the heir; come, let us kill him

Having repelled the religious leaders’ challenge to His authority, vv. 27-33, Christ exposed their malevolent intent through the vineyard parable. In Isaiah’s song ‘the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel’, Isa. 5. 7; in the Gospel parable the vineyard symbolizes the kingdom of God as entrusted to Israel, Mark 12. 9. God gave Israel every possible advantage to induce fruitfulness, Isa. 5. 1, 2, 4. The ‘fruitful hill’ where God planted this choicest vine stands for the land of Canaan, while the surrounding hedge, Mark 12. 1, corresponds to God’s protective care for the nation. The removal of stones, Isa. 5. 2, speaks of the extermination of the Canaanites. The ‘winepress’ may refer to the temple where God was worshipped, and the tower may represent Jerusalem the capital city itself.

Sadly, when God ‘looked that [His vineyard] should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes’, Isa. 5. 2. In the Gospel parable the problem was not the vineyard’s fruitlessness, but the refusal of the farmers (Israel’s leaders, past and present) to give over the fruit. With escalating violence they rejected God’s servants the prophets, Mark 12. 2-5, their rebellion culminating in the slaying of His Son, vv. 6-8. In Isaiah’s song God punished Israel’s persistent sinning by allowing Gentile nations to plunder and destroy the Holy Land, Isa. 5. 5. Here Christ warned that those guilty of His death would also be judged most severely, and the vineyard given to others: a repentant generation of Israelites, Mark 12. 9.

The symbolism now alters so that the murdered Son becomes the rejected Stone, soon to be exalted, to the delight of genuine believers, vv. 10, 11. This primarily refers to Christ’s exaltation in relation to His kingdom, for He is the stone ‘cut out without hands’ who will smite all earthly kingdoms. His kingdom, like a great mountain, will fill the whole earth, Dan. 2. 34, 35, 44, 45. He is also exalted in the church to be ‘the chief corner stone’, Eph. 2. 20.

Israel’s leaders dared not apprehend Him; instead, they sent others to ‘catch him in His words’, Mark 12. 12, 13. But those who were sent ‘marvelled at him’, v. 17.