A summary of Matthew Chapter 21
Sunday, 9 August 2026
A summary of Matthew Chapter 21.
Chapter 17 revealed that there is a future for Israel in God’s redemptive plans. The main message of Chapter 18 was that childlike faith is required to enter into the kingdom. The final parable, that of the wicked servant, dealt with Israel’s rejection of Christ’s fulfillment of the law, showing that they would be delivered up until they entered the New Covenant. Chapter 19 took the reader through various topics to reveal what God prioritizes. The contrasts between law and faith were seen throughout the chapter.
Chapter 20 was a chapter filled with hints of the transition from the dispensation of the law to the dispensation of grace. It dealt with order and propriety concerning each step of the redemptive process to ensure that nothing is dealt with until the previous steps are completed.
It also presented the truth that God has made faith in what He has done the necessary condition. Nothing more can be added to it, and without meeting that one condition, there is no chance of obtaining access.
Chapter 21 continues that thought, but it deals specifically with the object of that faith, Jesus Christ. The chapter began with the details concerning Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He came to Bethphage, the House of Unspiced Figs.
The fig pictures a spiritual connection to God. These being unspiced picture those who have not yet received their spiritual reconnection to God. Once spiced, the connection is made.
It was said to be at the Mount of Olives. A mountain typologically refers to a large but centralized group of people. The olive is a symbol of religious privilege. The picture anticipates those who will have the spiritual connection and who will become a part of receiving religious privilege through faith in Christ.
At Bethphage, Jesus directed two disciples to find the donkey with her colt tied at her side. As seen, the female donkey signifies permanence. She represents patient endurance. The colt signifies humanity, but being a colt that was unyoked, it signifies innocence concerning the yoke of sin. It is a picture of Christ, unstained by Adam’s sin, despite having come from the line of humanity.
Matthew noted that what occurred was fulfillment of prophecy, demonstrating that Jesus is the anticipated Messiah and that Scripture was being fulfilled in Him. The spreading of the garments was seen to be a recognition by the people of Jesus’ kingly status and authority.
But this kingly authority was acknowledged to be the fulfillment of the messianic promises to David. The people’s proclamation recognized this in the words “Hosanna! The ‘Son, David’.” It is Jesus who came in the name of Yehovah. Whether the people realized it or not, their words are the Bible’s confirmation that He is Yehovah incarnate.
When Jesus entered the temple, He drove out those who defiled it with their selling and exchanging money. After all the time of the law, the corruption of the people was never satisfactorily dealt with. Jesus’ cleansing of the temple proved it was so.
How could a corruptly run temple provide cleansing for the corruption of sin in the people? The answer is that it could not. It was only a shadow of what would be fully accomplished in Christ. That was confirmed in Jesus’ healing of the people in the temple.
The sin of the people could not be dealt with through the temple’s rites and rituals, but Jesus demonstrated that the consequences of sin could be dealt with through Him. And He demonstrated this while right at the temple complex. While He was doing these things, the children cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
When the leaders at the temple heard it, they were indignant. What did Jesus do? He cited Scripture, clearly implying that He is the fulfillment of what is recorded there. He is the purpose and point of the prophetic word. After that, Jesus went out to Bethany.
Various suggestions for the meaning of the name were given. Based on the surrounding context, it seems that House of Figs answers the imagery. Jesus left a place with an unacceptable spiritual connection to God because of its defilement and went to a place with a typological connection to God apart from that place.
That is then seen in the next verses where Jesus cursed the fig tree, saying that it would never bear fruit again. As seen, that was a picture of the temple, where He was heading, which was to lose its place as the point of mediation between God and man.
After that, the disciples were amazed at what took place concerning the fig. From there, Jesus’ words were precise –
“Answering, also, the ‘Jesus’, He said to them, ‘Amen, I say to you, if you should have faith, and not you should waver, not only the ‘the fig tree’ you will do, but and-if the ‘mountain, this’, you should say, ‘You be borne, and you be cast into the sea’, it will become. 22And all, as much – if you should ask in the prayer, believing, you will receive.’”
As explained in those commentaries, the mountain is the mountain of the law, Horeb, which Paul says is the temple in Jerusalem. The prayer is the prayer of salvation, receiving Jesus, such as is indicated in Romans 10:9, 10 –
“...that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
In receiving Jesus, the burden of the mountain of the law is forever removed from that person.
In verses 23-27, there was the question of John’s authority, where it came from. The chief priests and elders would not answer. In turn, Jesus did not respond to their question. The law and the prophets, completed in John, fully testify to Christ Jesus. If someone will not acknowledge the source of authority concerning those things, they will never be able to identify where Jesus’ authority is derived from.
Because of their lack of willingness to proclaim what should be obvious, Jesus gave the parable of the two sons. The leaders of Israel, who are supposedly the obedient by saying they will do the things the Father directs, do not do them at all.
On the other hand, the tax collectors and harlots who supposedly rejected what the Father told them to do, ultimately do them when they come to Christ. This is because Christ is the fulfillment of all the work necessary to be saved. To say you will do God’s will and not accept Jesus means you failed to do God’s will.
Next came the parable of the wicked vinedressers, a parable the speaks for itself. This is so much the case that the chief priests and Pharisees knew Jesus was speaking of them. Despite their desire to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitude and did not do so. This final thought is summed up in Jesus’ own words –
“Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” John 10:17, 18
Jesus’ time had not yet come. Therefore, until He was ready to lay down His life, obstacles to others laying their hands on Him would continue to exist.
Life application: The chapter continues the Bible’s theme of the law versus grace, which comes through faith. It details the means of re-obtaining the spiritual connection to God, which is only through faith in the sinless Christ. In proclaiming Christ, salvation is realized.
Israel would lose its right to be the vineyard of God. It would be taken from them and transferred to the church, a body comprised of people of faith from around the world. All people, including those of Israel, must be willing to come to Christ to be saved.
The law was and is an ineffectual means of obtaining salvation, except as it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Believe today and be saved!
Lord God, thank You that the pressure and burden of the law is removed from us. Thank You that we have full, final, and forever access to You through the precious shed blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
Matthew 21
21 And when they neared unto Jerusalem, and they came unto Bethphage toward the ‘Mount, the Olives’, then Jesus, He sent two disciples, 2Saying to them, “You go into the village, the ‘opposite you,’ and immediately you will find ‘donkey, having been bound’, and ‘colt, with her’. Having loosened, you bring to Me. 3And if anyone, to you, he says anything, you will say that the Lord, these – need, He has. Immediately, also, he will send them.”
4This also, all, it having become that it should be fulfilled, the ‘having been spoken through the prophet,’ saying:
5“You say to the ‘daughter, Zion’,
‘You behold! The ‘King, yours’, He comes to you,
Benignant and having been upon-stepped upon a donkey,
Even upon ‘colt, son under-yoked’.’”
6Having gone, also, the disciples, and having done just as He directed them, the ‘Jesus’, 7they brought the donkey and the colt, and they upon-set atop them the ‘cloaks, theirs’, and He upon-sat atop them. 8The ‘also most crowd’, they spread their ‘the cloaks’ in the road, others, also, they chopped branches from the trees, and they strewed in the road. 9The ‘also crowds’, those preceding, and those following, they croaked, saying:
“Hosanna! The ‘Son, David’!
Having been blessed, the ‘coming in Name, Lord!’
Hosanna in the uppermosts!”
10And having entered, He, into Jerusalem, it was shaken, all the city, saying, “Who is this?”
11The ‘also crowds’, they said, “This, He is the Prophet, Jesus, the ‘from Nazareth, the Galilee’.”
12And He entered, the ‘Jesus’, into the ‘temple, the God’, and He ejected all those selling and buying in the temple. And the ‘tables, the coin-dealers’ He overturned, and the ‘benches, those selling’ the doves. 13And He says to them, “It has been written: ‘The ‘house, Mine’, ‘house, prayer’ it will be called.’ You also, it, you made ‘cave, robbers’.”
14And they approached Him, blind and lame, in the temple, and He cured them. 15Having seen, also, the chief priests and the scribes, the ‘wonderfuls’ that He did, and the boys croaking in the temple, and saying, “Hosanna! The ‘Son, David’,” they outraged. 16And they said to Him, “You hear what these, they say?”
The ‘also Jesus’, He says to them,
“Yes. Never, you read that, ‘From ‘mouth, infants and sucklings’ You prepared praise.’?”
17And having left them, He proceeded out of the city to Bethany, and He overnighted there.
18Daybreak, also, returning to the city, He hungered. 19And having seen ‘fig tree, one’ upon the road, He came upon it, and nothing, He found in it, if not leaves only. And He says to it, “Not more from you fruit it should be, to the age.” And it desiccated straightaway, the fig tree.
20And having seen, the disciples, they wondered, saying, “How, straightaway, it desiccated, the fig tree?”
21Answering, also, the ‘Jesus’, He said to them, “Amen, I say to you, if you should have faith, and not you should waver, not only the ‘the fig tree’ you will do, but and-if the ‘mountain, this’, you should say, ‘You be borne, and you be cast into the sea’, it will become. 22And all, as much – if you should ask in the prayer, believing, you will receive.”
23And having come, Him, into the temple, they approached Him teaching, the chief priests and the ‘elders, the people’, saying, “In where-such authority these, You do? And who to You, He gave the authority, this?”
24Answering, also, the ‘Jesus’, He said to them, “I will entreat you, I also, word one, which if you should say to Me, I also to you, I will say in where-such authority these I do. 25The ‘immersion, John’, whence it was? From heaven or from men?”
These, also, they deliberated with themselves, saying, “If we should say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Through why, therefore, not you believed him?’ 26If, also, we should say, ‘From men,’ we fear the crowd, all, for, as a prophet, they have the ‘John’.” 27And answering, the ‘Jesus’, they said, “Not we have known.”
He said to them, also He, “Nor I, I tell you in where-such authority these I do.”
28“What, also you, it seems? A man, he had ‘sons, two’, and having approached the first, he said, ‘Son, you go this day. You work in the ‘vineyard, mine’.’ 29The ‘also answering’, he said, ‘Not, I will.’ Afterward, also, having regretted, he went. 30Having approached, also, the second, he said as thus. The ‘also having answered’, he said, ‘I, lord.’ And not he went. 31Which from the two, He did the ‘determination, the father’?”
They say to him, “The first.”
He says to them, the ‘Jesus’, “Amen! I say to you that the taxmen and the prostitutes, they precede you into the ‘kingdom, the God’. 32He came, namely, John to you in ‘way, righteousness,’ and not you believed him. The ‘also taxmen and the prostitutes’, they believed him. You, also, having seen, not you regretted afterward the ‘believe him’.”
33Another parable, you hear, “‘Man, certain’, he was ‘housemaster who, he planted –vineyard’, and circuited, it, he encircled, and he dug in it – winepress, and he built – tower, and he leased it to land-workers, and he abroaded*. 34When also it neared, the ‘juncture, the fruits’, he sent the ‘servants, his’ to the agronomists to receive the ‘fruits, his’. 35And having taken, the agronomists, the ‘servants, his’, one, indeed, they scourged. One, also, they killed. One, also, they stoned. 36Again, he sent other servants, ‘greater, the first’, and they did to them as thus. 37Afterward, also, he sent to them the ‘son, his’, saying, ‘They will be in-turned* of the ‘son, mine’.’ 38“The ‘also, agronomists’, having seen the son, they said in themselves, ‘This, he is, the heir. You come, we should kill him, and we should retain the ‘inheritance, his’.’ 39And having taken him, they ejected from the vineyard, and they killed.
40When, therefore, he should come, the ‘lord, the vineyard’, what he will do to the agronomists, to those?”
41They say to Him, “Worthless! Badly, he will destroy them, and the vineyard, he will lease to other farmers who, they will give him the fruits in the ‘junctures, theirs’.”
42He says to them, the ‘Jesus’,
“Never you read in the Scriptures?
‘Stone – which they rejected, those building – this,
It has become to ‘head, corner’.
From ‘Lord’, it was, this,
And it is marvelous in ‘eyes, ours’.’”
43“Through this, I say to you that it will be lifted from you, the ‘kingdom, the God’, and it will be given to ethnicity producing the ‘fruits, it’. 44And the ‘having fallen upon the stone, this,’ he will be pulverized. Upon whoever, also, if it should fall, it will winnowize* him.”
45And having heard, the chief priests and the Pharisees, His parables, they knew that concerning them, He speaks. 46And seeking Him to seize, they feared the crowds, since as ‘prophet’, Him, they held.
*Verse 33 – Greek: apodémeó, to go abroad. Abroaded is a coined word.
*Verse 37 – Greek: entrepó, to invert. In a good sense, to respect, in a bad one, to confound, as in put to shame.
*Verse 44 – Greek: likmaó, from likmos (a basket used for winnowing). Thus, it signifies to powderize something to a state where the winds will winnow it. Winnowize is a coined word (see NAS – “it will scatter him like dust”).
