Compare Luke 16:16. Our roles may be determined by grace, but grace does not erase human responsibility. Many people thought that God's kingdom would come by violent revolution against the Gentile nations, a view that Jesus clearly rejected (Mt 5:5, 9, 41); some think Jesus is rejecting such a program here, censuring revolutionaries or social bandits (for example, Cullmann 1956b:20-21). Others take the more likely approach that Jesus censures those who oppose Jesus, John and the kingdom (for example, Catchpole 1978).

But especially in Luke's form, the text does not read like censure, and it is not clear that Matthew intends the saying in this sense either. This saying may be a wisdom teacher's riddle (Stein 1978:18). Jesus regularly borrowed images from his society and applied them in shocking ways, and thus may speak favorably here of spiritual warriors who were storming their way into God's kingdom now (10:34-35; compare Vermes 1993:140). One second-century Jewish tradition praises those who passionately pursue the law; God counts it as if they had ascended to heaven and taken the law forcibly, which the tradition regards as greater than having taken it peaceably (Sipre Deut. 49.2.1).

These were the people actively following Jesus, not simply waiting for the kingdom to come their way. (Scholars frequently object that such language of violence is always used negatively, but Jesus' parables show that he did not hesitate to employ shocking images for the advance of God's reign, such as brutal tyrants, an unexpected thief, unjust judges and perhaps a naively benevolent landowner: Mt 18:25, 34; 24:42-43; Lk 18:2; Mk 12:6.) If John is Elijah (Mt 11:14-15; see comment on vv. 9-11), then he introduced the kingdom (Mal 4:5), a time of greater blessing and greater responsibility.