There is a pattern woven throughout the Scriptures that people seldom notice, or if they do notice it, they don’t think it applies to them personally. The pattern is this: God gives authority and anointing to people, and when those people despise that gift through disobedience, pride, or complacency, he takes it away and gives it to someone else.
This isn’t a minor theme. It runs from Genesis to Revelation. It’s a warning, and it’s meant for you.
The Sons of Jacob
Let’s start at the beginning.
The eldest son in a Hebrew family normally received the birthright of the firstborn. That meant a double portion of the inheritance and the responsibility of leading the family after the father died. It was a tremendous privilege, and it came with tremendous expectation. The firstborn was trained from birth to be worthy of it. In practice, it didn’t always work out this way.
Jacob had twelve sons, but the firstborn privileges were not handed to any single one of them. They were divided among four sons, and the reason they were divided is instructive.
Reuben was Jacob’s first son. By all rights, the double portion, the family leadership, and the family priesthood should have been his. But Reuben slept with his father’s concubine, Bilhah (Genesis 35:22), possibly in an attempt to take the birthright without waiting for Jacob to die. That single act of moral failure cost him almost everything. When Jacob gave his final blessings in Genesis 49, he said of Reuben: “You shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father’s bed.” (Genesis 49:4) Reuben wasn’t cut off entirely. His tribe was still counted as Israel and received an inheritance in the land, but he lost his place at the head of the family. He forfeited the position of firstborn by his own choices.
Simeon was next in line. When Reuben disqualified himself, Simeon should have stepped up. He didn’t. When their sister Dinah was violated by the Canaanite, Shechem, Simeon and his brother Levi took matters into their own hands. They tricked the men of the entire city into getting circumcised, and then while those men were incapacitated, they slaughtered every single one of them. (Genesis 34) It wasn’t just Shechem they killed. It was an entire city. Jacob was horrified. He said they had made him a stench to the Canaanites. In his final blessing, he grouped Simeon and Levi together and declared that their descendants would be scattered and divided throughout Israel because of their anger and cruelty. (Genesis 49:5-7) In the final allotment of land, Levi was given individual cities scattered throughout Israel and Simeon was given territory completely surrounded by Judah and was eventually absorbed by the larger tribe.
So the birthright that should have been Reuben’s was broken into three parts, each given to a different son based on merit.
Levi received the family priesthood. This is remarkable when you consider what we just read. Levi had participated in the same massacre as Simeon, and yet his tribe was later chosen to serve God as priests and Levites. What changed? At the foot of Mt. Sinai, when Israel broke the covenant before it was even sealed and worshiped the golden calf, it was the tribe of Levi who stood with Moses and with God. They took up their swords and executed judgment on the idolaters, even when that meant killing their own brothers, friends, and neighbors. (Exodus 32:26-29) God didn’t forget the first sin, but he rewarded later faithfulness. Levi’s tribe demonstrated that their zeal, however misplaced in Canaan, could be directed toward God. Because of that, they received the priesthood.
Judah received the family leadership: the scepter, the authority to rule. Why Judah? He was the fourth son, not even close to the front of the line. But read Genesis 44. When Joseph, whom the brothers still believed was a stranger, threatened to keep their youngest brother Benjamin as a slave, it was Judah who stepped forward and offered himself in Benjamin’s place. He had given his word to his father that he would bring Benjamin home safely, and when the moment of crisis came, he was willing to pay the price with his own freedom. Jacob blessed Judah with the scepter: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute/Shiloh comes to him.” (Genesis 49:10) Leadership went to the one who proved he was willing to lay down his life for his people.
Joseph–or rather, his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh–received the double portion. This was the economic birthright, the extra share of the inheritance. Joseph had every reason to be bitter. His brothers had hated him, conspired to kill him, thrown him in a pit, and sold him into slavery. He spent years in an Egyptian prison for a crime he didn’t commit. And yet, when God raised him to power and his brothers were at his mercy, Joseph forgave them. He wept over them, saying, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” (Genesis 50:20) God rewarded his humility and faithfulness with the double portion, giving it through his two sons who were adopted into the twelve tribes.
Notice what God was doing. He wasn’t following a formula. He was watching and evaluating. He was testing and paying attention to who people actually were and what they actually did, and he was distributing his gifts accordingly.
Saul and David
Fast-forward a few centuries to Israel’s first king.
Saul was not a self-appointed ruler. God told Samuel to anoint him. Saul was chosen by God, filled with the Spirit of God, and given everything he needed to succeed. But Saul was proud and impatient, more concerned with what the people thought of him than with what God commanded. He offered a sacrifice he had no authority to offer because he was afraid the army would scatter without it. (1 Samuel 13) He was told to completely destroy the Amalekites, but he kept the best of the livestock and spared the king, because–as he later admitted–he feared the people and obeyed their voice rather than God’s. (1 Samuel 15:24)
Samuel’s response is one of the most sobering passages in the whole Bible:
Because you have rejected the word of YHWH, he has also rejected you from being king.
1 Samuel 15:23
And a few verses later:
YHWH has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you.”
1 Samuel 15:28
That neighbor was David. Not a king, not a warrior, but a shepherd boy, the youngest of his brothers, the one who wasn’t even invited into the room when Samuel came to anoint a king. But God said, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but YHWH looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) And David’s heart–despite his very real and very serious failures later in life–was oriented toward God. He was a man after God’s own heart. (1 Samuel 13:14)
The kingdom was taken from Saul and given to David because of his character, not his credentials.
Yeshua’s Warning to the Leaders of Judea
Now we come to the text that ties all of this together.
In Matthew 21, Yeshua had just ridden into Jerusalem to enormous crowds shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David!” He had driven the money changers out of the Temple. He had healed people in the Temple courts. And the chief priests and elders were furious. They challenged his authority. He turned it back on them, told them three parables, and then said this:
“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’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
Matthew 21:42-44
This passage is often read as though Yeshua was talking about all Jewish people, as if he was announcing that God was done with Israel and was handing everything over to the Gentiles. That reading is wrong, and it has caused centuries of harm. Read who he was talking to. He was talking to the chief priests and the elders of the people. (Matthew 21:23) He was talking to the political and religious leadership of Judea.
The people who lost the kingdom were not all Jews. God could not reject them as his people because he had made a covenant with them and promised never to break it no matter what they did. The people God rejected were the leaders who had despised their anointing, who had turned the Temple into a marketplace, burdened the people with rules no one could keep, cared more about their position than about God, and plotted to murder the Messiah because his popularity threatened their power.
And who were the new leaders of the Kingdom of God? They weren’t foreigners. They were a new Sanhedrin drawn from among the common people: twelve Jewish disciples of Yeshua, given authority to bind and loose (Matthew 18:18), sent to all the nations with the message of the Kingdom. The same pattern that ran through Genesis ran right through the first century. The people who proved themselves worthy by their fruit received the mantle of leadership. The people who despised their anointing lost it.
The Cycle Repeats
Here’s what you need to understand for today: this didn’t end in the first century.
Pick any era of church history and you’ll find the same pattern. God raises up a movement. The movement brings renewal, faithfulness, fruit in keeping with the anointing. Then it institutionalizes. It accumulates wealth and power and becomes more concerned with preserving itself than with obeying God. The leaders start making compromises and stop confronting sin. They start treating their authority as a personal possession rather than a stewardship delegated by a Higher Power. Eventually, God raises up something new to replace them, often from the margins, often led by people the establishment considers unqualified.
The Reformation. The Great Awakening. The global spread of Pentecostalism. Over and over, God has bypassed the corrupt and the comfortable and raised up the faithful and the humble.
The warning in all of this is personal.
If God has given you authority–whether over a congregation, ministry, family, or community–you do not own it. It is not yours by right. You are only a steward. The authority belongs to God, and he gives it to whom he wills and takes it away from whom he wills. Your title, your ordination, your position, your history, your tradition…none of these things protect you if you despise your anointing.
Reuben had the birthright. He lost it.
Saul had the kingdom. He lost it.
The chief priests had the Temple and the Sanhedrin. They lost it.
What did they have in common? They all took their position for granted. They all let their own desires–their appetite, their anger, their fear, their pride–override their obedience to God. None of them thought they were in danger until it was too late.
Don’t be Reuben. Don’t be Saul. Don’t be the chief priests.
Bear fruit worthy of the anointing you’ve been given, or don’t be surprised when God gives it to someone who will.
“He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.”
Luke 1:52
