Luke 16:16

“The law and the prophets were until John, from that time the Good News of the Kingly Rule of God is preached, and every man enters violently into it (or ‘every man is overpowered by it').”

Their next major failure lay in their having failed to recognise God's intervention in history. They professed to honour the Law and the Prophets, and that was good in so far as it was true, but they had failed to recognise that with the coming of John the Baptiser, and especially in His own coming, these were in process of fulfilment. Now as promised by Isaiah 61:1 the Good News of the Kingly Rule of God (Luke 4:43; Luke 8:1; Acts 8:12) was being proclaimed, and men were ‘pressing into it with great violence'. They were ‘striving to enter in at the narrow door' (Luke 13:24). They were ‘taking up their crosses and following Him' (Luke 14:27; Luke 9:23). A great work of revival was taking place. The Pharisees themselves, on the other hand, having failed to recognise it, were failing to enter. That was their problem. They were so bound by their own teaching that they failed to recognise heavenly realities. And in the same way they also failed to recognise the dangers of wealth and divorce, which hit at the very root of men's lives.

Alternately the verb can be translated as in the passive voice in which case it means ‘every man is overpowered by it'. Then we may see it as signifying that the fire of His word, which He has cast on the earth, has possessed them (Luke 12:49), the Kingly Rule of God has overpowered them and taken them captive.

Whichever is the case the ‘all' refers to the disciples to whom He had spoken the previous parable. In contrast with the Pharisees they have revealed their determination to be under the Kingly Rule of God.