The Other Tenants
In the beginning, when Adam and Eve sinned, they exchanged God’s truth for a lie. By disobeying, they surrendered their dominion to Satan. Yet God, in His mercy, had a redemption plan. While passing out judgment for each party’s involvement in the sin, God said to the serpent that the seed of the woman would crush its head (Genesis 3:15).
After God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden, humanity multiplied on the face of the earth until Noah’s time. When man’s wickedness became great in the earth, God judged man with a flood that destroyed every living thing except for Noah, his family and all the animals in the ark. After the floods, the population multiplied again into many nations from Noah’s descendants.
Generations later, God called Abram, Noah’s descendant from Shem and told him: “1 Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:1–2, ESV). Abraham obeyed God and left for Canaan.
God kept his promise to faithful Abraham and made a great nation out of Abraham’s descendants. Jacob, Abraham's grandson, had twelve sons who became the nation of Israel. Three months after the people of Israel had departed from Egypt where they had lived for 430 years (Exodus 12:40), they arrived in the Wilderness of Sinai and camped before a mountain. Moses, their leader, went up the mountain to meet God, and God reminded the Israelites how He had delivered them from bondage, carrying them on eagles’ wings and bringing them to Himself. This moment highlighted God’s initiative in choosing and rescuing them by His grace (Exodus 19:1-4).
The Lord declared in Exodus 19:5-6, “5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” (ESV)
God told Israel that they would be His possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation only if they kept the conditions of obeying His voice and keeping His covenant. To be God’s treasured possession meant that Israel was chosen by God’s grace alone. To be a kingdom of priests meant Israel would represent God to other kingdoms. And to be a holy nation meant Israel was to be set apart to reflect God’s holiness to other nations (Leviticus 20:26).
Yet centuries later, over 1500 years after the Exodus, the Apostle Peter applied those same words not to Israel but to a different entity.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:9–10, ESV).
In this passage, the Apostle Peter was writing to Christian believers made up mostly of Gentile converts and Jews in Asia Minor. Peter applied God’s declaration to Israel from Exodus 19:5-6 to the Church of Christ.
Why the shift?
Israel had sworn to obey, but repeatedly broke God’s covenant. God had told Israel: “ Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be … ” When Moses conveyed these words to the people, Exodus 19:8 says, “All the people answered together and said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD.”
Yet, in reading the Old Testament, we discover the many ways Israel disobeyed the Lord’s voice and failed to keep his commandments. Israel chased after other gods (Judges 2:17; Leviticus 17:7; Ezekiel 6:9; Hosea 4:12; Hosea 9:1), sacrificed to false gods (Leviticus 20:5), killed the prophets whom God had sent to them (Jeremiah 26:20–23; 2 Chronicles 24:20–22), compromised and assimilated to their neighbors.
Israel did not represent God well as a kingdom of priests, nor did they set themselves apart as a holy nation. During Jesus’ time, Israel’s disobedience came to its climax. Many in Israel rejected the one God had promised, the Seed of the woman who would crush Satan at the cross. This rejection brought swift judgment onto apostate Israel, as prophesied by Jesus on various occasions. In Matthew 24:1-2; Mark 13:1, 2; Luke 21:5, 6 , Jesus prophesied the Romans would destroy Jerusalem in AD 70. And in Matthew 23:34-38, Jesus assured unbelieving Israel that the blood of all the murdered prophets would be avenged on them before their generation passed.
In the parable of the tenants recorded in the Gospels, Jesus explained this transfer of stewardship that Peter talked about in 1 Peter 2:9–10.
33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. (Matthew 21:33–43, ESV)
God is the Master, the vineyard is His kingdom, Israel were the tenants and the prophets were His servants—beaten, stoned, and killed. For example, Zechariah was stoned in the temple court (2 Chronicles 24:20–22), Uriah was killed by the sword (Jeremiah 26:20–23), Jeremiah was beaten, imprisoned and thrown into a pit (Jeremiah 20:2; 38:6; 11:21), Jezebel threatened Elijah (1 Kings 19:2–10), Micaiah was imprisoned (1 Kings 22:26–27), Stephen was stoned to death (Acts 7:52-60).
Finally, He sent His Son, Jesus, but they crucified Him at Golgotha outside of Jerusalem (Matthew 27; Acts 2:23; Matthew 23:37).
Jesus concluded: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits” (v 43, ESV).
Those “other tenants” are the people of faith—Christ’s Church. God took the royal priesthood, holy nation and possessiveness and gave it to a people identified not by their father’s ethnicity but by their father’s faith.
“Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7, NKJV)
28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:28-29, NKJV).
It is those who have faith in Christ, you and I, the disciples of Christ, who are the “other tenants”.
But what qualifies us to be God’s kingdom’s new tenants? Is it because we are better than the first ones? Is it because we are more worthy than the first tenants? Absolutely not. It’s by His grace alone that God calls the Church:
A chosen race—sons and daughters by faith, not ethnicity.
A royal priesthood—called to represent Him to the lost world.
A holy nation—set apart to display His holiness.
His own possession—purchased with the precious blood of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1;18-19).
And what does God require of His new tenants? The same as He required from the old tenants: obedience and fruits. God expects the “other tenants” to obey Him and to produce fruits for His kingdom.
The Fruit God Seeks
Faithful Representation
As royal priests, we must represent God well to the world. We must be shepherds to the world. Is the Church of Christ a good shepherd to the world? Christ commanded us to “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). It’s those who has received the light that go out as shepherds to the world still living in darkness.
The world should look at the Church and see something worth desiring—not compromise with culture, but a witness that magnifies Christ as King. They should want to serve our King because we have represented Him well. Not the other way around, like Israel, who demanded that God give them a king so they could be like their neighbors when God was already their King (1 Samuel 8).
Kingdom Growth
As a holy nation, we are called to be distinct. Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth… the light of the world… a city set on a hill” (Matthew 5:13–14). Do we still shine with distinctiveness, or have we blended into the world? Sadly, much of the modern church has bowed to the idols of politics, popularity, pluralism, tolerance, and compromise. If we do not repent, we risk the fate of the first tenants. We have to remember who we are, “other tenants”, we are not the owners.
True fruitfulness comes only by abiding in the Christ, the true Vine.Christ says: “1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the Word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. John 15:1–8 (ESV)
The Holy Spirit convicts us where we are barren and prunes us to bear more fruit. Just as Jesus spoke to the seven churches in Revelation, He affirmed what was good but also warned where they fell short. The Holy Spirit does not only identify areas of your insufficiency but will also highlight areas of good production. Let us examine our hearts and ask the Holy Spirit for help.The vineyard belongs to God; we are only laborers. If we do not bear fruit, we too will be cut off.
We are the “other tenants.” May we never forget it is by grace alone, through Christ alone, that we have been entrusted with the vineyard. Let us live as His chosen people, His royal priests, His holy nation—bearing fruit that glorifies our Master.
Amen.
