21:42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:
‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
21:43 For this reason I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 21:44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls will be crushed.”

This passage is relevant to the debate about so-called ‘replacement theology’.  A cluster of interpretative questions are raised:-

• When our Lord says that ‘the kingdom of God will be taken away from you’, is he referring to the nation as a whole, or just to the current leaders of the nation?
• Is the removal of the kingdom of God permanent, or temporary?
• If the kingdom of God is to be ‘taken away from ‘you’ and ‘given to a people who will produce its fruit’, is ethnic Israel to have no role in it at all?

Whom is Jesus addressing?

It is possible that Jesus is still addressing ‘the chief priests and elders’ (v23), especially when we take v25 into account (‘they knew he was talking about them’).

Osborne, however, says:

‘It is questionable whether the antecedent of “you” (ὑμῶν) in “taken away from you” refers to the religious leaders or the nation as a whole, but it is unnecessary to choose between them, as the leaders stand for the nation.’

The gist of this saying

One view is that…

‘If this verse were isolated, it could teach that God was finished with Israel and that the church has replaced Israel, but it cannot possibly teach that since Christ Himself said that He is not finished with Israel. He said they would not see Him TILL they repent (Mt. 23:39).’

But this strikes me as a bit tenuous.

Vlack (Has the Church Replaced Israel?), cites Mt 23:37–39 and Lk 19:41–44 (which record Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem), to support his view that our Lord is referring to the nation as a whole.  The kingdom of God will be taken away from the present nation of israel, and given to a future nation of Israel.  This hope, for Vlack, is expressed particularly in Mt 23:39 (“You will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'”

For France,

‘This is ‘the most explicit statement in Matthew of the view that there is to be a new people of God in place of Old Testament Israel.’  Note the singular, ‘a people’: this is not the Gentiles as such (that would require a plural), ‘but a people of God derived from all nations, Jew and Gentile, who now, as 1 Peter 2:9 makes clear, constitute the “holy nation, God’s own people”, which was Israel’s prerogative according to Exodus 19:5f.  There is thus both continuity and discontinuity: the reign of God continues, and remains focused on a “nation”, but the composition of that “nation” has changed, not just by the replacement of its leaders, whose failure the parable has highlighted, but by the new principle of belonging which has been set out in Mt 3:8-10; 7:15-23; 8:11-12; 12:39-42; 21:28-31; etc; it is a nation which produced fruits, not one whose membership is automatic.’

Citing this passage, Travis says that

‘The role of the Jewish nation as the people of God was being transferred to the people who accepted him as Messiah.’ (I Believe in the Second Coming of Jesus)

Hagner:

‘The word [translated “a people”] in the singular here need not be thought of as excluding Jews, however, since the new nation, the church (cf. Mt 16:18), consists of both Jews and Gentiles (and Jews are included in Mt 28:19). Matthew’s church, after all, consists mainly, if not exclusively, of Jewish Christians.’

Blomberg:

‘Jesus is not so much foreshadowing the shift of God’s activity from Jewish to Gentile realms as anticipating the replacement of Israel by the church, which will unite both Jew and Gentile.’