What does Luke 13:28 mean?
Again, Jesus frames salvation in terms of separation. All people are the same in that they can die at a moment's notice (Luke 13:1–5). Those who refuse to repent are different. They knock on the door, but too late. They are separated from Jesus, the owner of the house. They are even separated from the patriarchs of their own people. Genetic heritage does not ensure spiritual heritage. If Jews don't repent and identify with Jesus, they are not from the patriarchs (Luke 13:23–27; Luke 3:8).The Jews are God's chosen people—as a group, as a nation. The Abrahamic covenant is promised to the descendants of Isaac and Jacob as a nation. The covenant will be fulfilled in the millennial kingdom. That doesn't mean that every individual Jew will be saved just because they are descended from Jacob. They must pass through the "narrow door:" repentance and faith in Jesus (Luke 13:5).
On another occasion, Jesus says, "the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 8:12). The "sons of the kingdom" represent Jews, not Jesus-followers in God's kingdom. "Weeping and gnashing of teeth" describe sorrow and despair that results in both emotional and physical distress. "Outer darkness" doesn't mean that unbelievers will literally be outside the city of God, but they will be outside of God's kingdom, in hell.
Jesus ties in the patriarchs with the prophets. One of the reasons the religious leaders reject Jesus is because although they claim to revere the prophets in the Jewish Scriptures, they refuse to compare their descriptions of the Messiah with Jesus and His ministry. In the Old Testament, many prophets were killed because the Jewish leadership didn't want to hear their condemning warnings. Jesus tells the lawyers of the Pharisees that when they dismiss the prophets—especially when they refuse to teach the truth about Jesus as written in the prophets—they are heirs of the prophets' murderers (Luke 11:47–52). Stephen will revisit this charge right before his own murder (Acts 7:51–53).
