day had no contract as to amount of wages; they entered the vineyard and
laboured without a bargain. They did not know what wages they would be
paid with, but they knew what master they were working for; they were
prepared to accept whatever he might be pleased to bestow. In this
respect they correctly represent the truest of Christ's disciples--those
little-child Christians whom he sets up as a pattern for others. Those,
on the other hand, who were first in point of time, and therefore first
in point of quantity, made their bargain before they began. This is like
disciples who slide back in some measure from the simplicity of faith
and allow a mercenary motive to mingle in their devotions. Especially is
it like Peter when, contrasting his own large sacrifices with the
refusal of the young man to sacrifice anything, and counting himself
first, while he looked down on others as last, he cunningly
inquired,--Lord, what shall we get for leaving all and following thee?
In answer to his egotistical inquiry, he is informed in plain terms that
he is one of those first who shall be last. This, however, according to
all the analogy of Scripture, is not, in regard to Peter or any
individual disciple, an absolute prediction of what shall be, but a
warning of what may be if the same spirit remain.
Our Scottish forefathers at the period of the Reformation suffered much
for Christ; some pined long in prison, some died at the stake. These
were first, and we who contribute a few pounds to a missionary society,
or teach a Sabbath school, or visit some poor families, are last in
respect to the quantity of our doing and suffering in the Saviour's
cause. But if any of those first were proud of their sufferings, they
will be last in the reward; and whosoever of these last give their mite
in simple love to the Lord that bought them, will be first when he
comes to bring home his own.
Such is the structure of the parable that it must express the difference
by giving one labourer not an absolutely but a comparatively greater
amount of wages than another. The last are recompensed at a higher rate
than the first, yet all go home with the same sum of money. But although
the labourers are all equal in the absolute amount of wages received,
the last are made higher than the first by a distinct addition to the
pecuniary recompence--that is, a contented, loving, thankful mind.
See the two groups of labourers as they severally wend their way home
that evening. As to amount of money in their pockets, they are all
equal: but as to amount of content in their spirits there is a great
difference. The last go home each with a penny in his pocket, and
astonished glad gratitude in his heart: their reward accordingly is a
penny, and _more_. The first, on the contrary, go home, each with a
penny in his pocket, and corroding discontent in his soul: their reward
accordingly is _less_ than a penny. Those who know how great a gain is
godliness with contentment, and how small a gain is even godliness, when
discontent is eating into it like rust, will allow that, while the
labourers first and last alike had each his penny, yet the last were
first and the first last in the real value of their reward.
Considering that Peter is evidently designated as one of the first who
shall be last, I cannot understand the parable otherwise than as showing
differences among the disciples of Christ,--differences in simplicity of
spirit while the labour lasts, and consequently in the value of the
reward when the labour is done. As all the labourers get the wages of a
day, so all who are represented by them, inherit the kingdom: but as
one star differeth from another star in glory, so shall it be when
Christ comes to gather all his own. They will wear the brightest crowns
who thought most of their Redeemer's goodness, and least of their own
sacrifice and work.
The latter clause of the 16th verse, "for many be called, but few
chosen," being evidently attached to the parable as its application by
the Lord, demands our earnest attention.[37] If we should understand by
it, that many hear the call of the Gospel, but few are chosen by God and
admitted through regeneration into his family, it would not be possible,
as far as I can perceive, to assign to it any proper connection with the
lesson of the parable. But by the terms in which this sentence is
introduced, it is clearly intimated that it is the very conclusion and
kernel, so to speak, of the doctrine which the parable was intended to
convey. Whether we shall be able to understand it or not, it certainly
must be something precisely in the line of the preceding instructions.
In that direction we must seek for its meaning; for it is manifestly
introduced as a gathering up in short and condensed form of all that the
parable contained.
[37] While in some cases the application of the parable which the
Lord himself makes at the moment is full and perspicuous, it is in
other cases like the parables themselves, and doubtless for good
reasons, short, sententious, and partially veiled. In some cases the
subjoined doctrine must be read in the light of the parable itself
ere it can be understood. "Majus vero et certius auxilium interpreti
paratur in illis locis, in quibus ipse Jesus sensum parabolarum
explicat, quod quidem modo luculentius, ut in orationibus Mat. XIII.
modo paucis tantum verbis fit. Saepe enim praemittitur vel
subjungitur ab eo doctrina per parabolam prolata, quae tamen ipsa
interdum paulo obscurius exprimitur, ita ut nisi per parabolam ipsam
intelligi non possit."--_Schultze de par._ 86.
The exposition suggested by Bengel is simple, consistent, and clear; and
it is, I think, correct. Taking the term "called" as signifying not all
to whom the call of the Gospel is addressed, but those only who are
effectually called,--not those who only hear, but those who also obey
the call,--taking the term in this sense, which is a sober and
scriptural view, he finds that this is not a distinction between saved
and lost, but between two classes of the saved. The called and the
chosen are both true disciples of Christ, and heirs of eternal life, and
yet there is some distinction between them. Chosen must here therefore
mean, what it did sometimes mean in ancient times, and does often mean
still, the best of their kind. We constantly speak of choice or select
articles, meaning the most excellent. The phrase, whether used
proverbially before Christ's time or not, is in nature and structure
proverbial. He either found it a proverb and used it, or he made it a
proverb there and then, for such it essentially is. It seems to have
been employed by the Lord on more than one occasion, and differently
applied at different times. As we might say among a great number of
manufactured articles, all true and genuine, "few are first-rate;" so,
among a great number of real disciples, few stand out unselfish,
unworldly, and Christ-like, honouring their Lord, and making the world
wonder. Most, even of those who are disciples indeed, and shall inherit
eternal life, are so marred by self-righteous admixtures, and
unsanctified temper, and conformity to the world, that their light is
dim and their witness inarticulate. Peter, for example, was one of the
called, in that he heard and obeyed Christ, and was saved; but he was
not a chosen or choice disciple, when he demanded of his Saviour what he
should get for what he had done; or when in the hour and power of
darkness, he denied all connection with Jesus of Nazareth. Alas! though
there are many Christians, how few there are who forget the things
behind, and press forward till they reach the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus.[38]
[38] In the transaction with the young man from which this parable
remotely springs, an analogous expression is employed to indicate a
chosen or choice disciple; "Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be
perfect, go and sell that thou hast," &c. (xix. 21.) The term
"perfect" in that text seems to be entirely parallel with "chosen."
The meaning of both is determined by the main drift of the parable;
and the meaning thus given accords with the analogy of faith.
Another remarkable confirmation of this exposition is found in the
use of the same term, [Greek: eklektoi], in Rev. xvii. 14. The word
in that passage must have the same meaning that we have attributed
to it in the parable. Two reasons, a supreme and subordinate, are
given to account for the victory of the Lamb,--his own omnipotence,
and the trustworthy character of the instruments whom he employs.
"The Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords and King of
kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and
faithful;" [Greek: klêtoi kai eklektoi kai pistoi]. If you
understand here by [Greek: eklektoi], chosen by God in the eternal
covenant, the logical arrangement becomes obscure. It would be
strange if, in enumerating the qualifications of soldiers, one
should represent first that they were summoned to the warfare, next
that they were chosen for that purpose before, and last that they
were stanch in the battlefield. If this had been the meaning of
[Greek: eklektoi] it must have stood first in order. The fact that
it stands second suggests another explanation. Take it, in the sense
which it readily assumes and frequently bears, and the order of the
series becomes at once transparent. The soldiers were "called, and
choice, and faithful." They were enlisted in the cause, excellent in
character, and found unflinching when the fight began.
Some obvious practical lessons may be appended to the exposition.
1. Judge not. Let a man examine himself rather than his neighbour. When
Peter saw the young man refusing to make a sacrifice for Christ, he
complacently remembered his own sacrifices, and thought he had done
remarkably well. Ah, Peter, Satan desires to have thee that he may sift
thee as wheat; but what by the Master's rebukes addressed to him, and
what by prayers poured out for him, he will be saved; yet so as by fire.
You left all, you say, to follow Jesus; and how much was that? a share
in a boat and some nets, both probably the worse for wear. Ah, Peter, if
you had been as rich as this young man, I am not sure whether you would
not have done as he did,--gone away, sorrowful indeed, but away from
Jesus!
Disciples of Christ that are poor, should beware of judging the
disciples who are rich. You were enabled to break the tie that bound you
to the earth; and you see a neighbour struggling with the yoke still on
his neck. Be not high-minded but fear. The line that bound you was a
slender cord; the line that binds that brother is a cart rope. He, if he
is set free at a later day, may be first in the day of reward, and you
last.
2. All whom the Lord meets and calls are sent to work, and all go. From
the moment they meet the Master till the evening of life's labour-day,
they work for him. They not only labour for the Lord, they labour "in
the Lord." Thus it is not a pain but a pleasure; it is their meat and
their drink.
God needs not our work, but we, for our own sakes, need work in his
kingdom. He can find other servants; but if we refuse his call we shall
never find a "good Master."
3. The true spirit of a worker is love to the Master, and to the work
for the Master's sake. The moment that a thought of merit glides into
the servant's heart, it brings him down, not indeed from the number of
true disciples, but from the highest to the lowest class there.
Among the motives that, in these matters, sway a human heart, there are
two forces equal and opposite: one is a humble, broken-hearted
consciousness that you deserve nothing, and receive all free; the other
is a self-righteous conceit that your valuable services deserve a great
reward. If this latter spirit is the main spring of your activity, it
determines your position to be altogether outside of the circle of true
believers; if it intrudes more or less as a temptation, and tinges with
self-righteous blemishes a substantial faith in Christ, it reduces you
from the highest to the lowest rank of disciples, and from the first to
the last in the final award of those who serve the Lord.
In one of its aspects the lesson of this parable is parallel with that
which is taught by the experience of the penitent thief. Both greatly
magnify the patience and long-suffering of God: they record and
proclaim, each in its own way, that there is hope at the eleventh hour.
But in such a case, a perverse carnal mind frequently turns the grace of
God into lasciviousness. Because the mercy of our Redeemer is stretched
to the furthest verge of safety to leave room for the outcast to enter,
when on the darkening evening of the day of grace he flees at last from
the wrath to come; souls cleaving to the dust, take the liberty of
stretching their expectations a little further than Christ stretched his
offer, and find the door shut, when they come too late. Ah, when the
tender Saviour of sinners, by his parable, and the experience of the
thief, gives you encouragement to come, although you are late; beware
lest you take from his words wrested an encouragement to be late in
coming.
GROUP--THE TWO SONS, THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN, AND THE MARRIAGE OF THE
KING'S SON.
MATT. xxi. 28; xxii. 14
The natural history of a parable is like the (probable) natural history
of a pearl. Something alien and irritating has alighted upon life, and
forthwith a covering of pure and precious matter is thrown over it.
After this manner, indeed, as we have already noted, a greater than the
parable came. In this way redemption began, and grew. Sin entered Eden
and fastened upon that image of God which had appeared on earth in the
person of primeval man; forthwith holy promises from heaven began to
cluster round the sin-spot. As age succeeded age these promises
distilled like dew and crystallized around the original nucleus, until
redemption was completed in the sacrifice of Christ and the ministry of
the Spirit: that glorious gospel on which we now fondly look, gathered
round the fall. The sin of man, though not the cause of God's salvation,
became its occasion and determined its form.
The particular lessons which Jesus taught in the course of his ministry,
followed in this respect the analogy of his redeeming work as a whole;
in most cases his instructions were called forth and fashioned by hard,
bold outstanding sins. Some of the brightest jewels which shine in the
life of Christ are the pure pearly coverings which he threw around
Pharisaic pride, or Sadducean unbelief, or the self-righteous stumbles
of his own disciples. Thus he made the wrath, and the malice, and the
deceit of men to show forth his own praise; thus rust-spots were
converted into shining pearls; thus human errors, as they sprung up,
were seized and choked and buried under a mantle of glorious grace.
Here in Matthew's Gospel, we encounter a group of three parables, the
two sons, the wicked husbandmen, and the marriage of the king's son,
connected with each other historically in a consecutive report, and
logically as successive steps in the development of one argument. The
portion, chapters xxi. xxii. xxiii., is the compact record of a single
scene. Approaching by the Mount of Olives, Jesus entered Jerusalem in a
simple but significant triumphal procession, heralded by the hosannahs
of the multitude, which, if for the most part neither intelligent nor
permanent, were sincere and spontaneous. Arrived in the city he at once
made his way to the Temple, and there assumed an unwonted and severe
authority. The mercenary profaners of the temple he cast out; the blind
and lame he healed. On the way to and from Bethany, where he lodged for
the night, the fruitless fig tree withered under his word. Next morning
as he was teaching in the temple, the heads of the Jewish external
theocracy, stung to rage by his words and deeds on the preceding day,
formally demanded the exhibition of his authority, as a preliminary step
to the violent suppression of his work. Jesus knew the hearts of these
men; he knew that while, in virtue of their office, they affected to
expound and apply the divine law, and to rule the people in accordance
with it, they were at once ignorant of God's word and tamely subservient
to the passions of the people. To tear off, or rather to compel them
with their own hands to tear off their cloak of hypocrisy, he addressed
to them that question of wonderful simplicity but wonderful power, The
baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or of men? Knowing that if
they should confess the divine origin of John's mission they would
thereby establish the Messiahship of Jesus to whom John had borne
witness, and that if they should deny it they would forfeit the favour
of the people, they answered, We cannot tell, meaning, It is
inconvenient to express an opinion. As they could not venture to
pronounce whether a ministry which had left its impress deep on the
whole land, was a human usurpation or a divine mission, they had
obviously no right to sit in judgment on the credentials of Jesus. When
on this point they were condemned out of their own lips the Lord, rising
now more into the stern dignity of judge when his ministry was drawing
to a close, advances against the discomfited and stunned hierarchs, with
another, another, and yet another stroke, unveiling the hypocrisy of
their religious profession, predicting the consummation of the crime,
the murder of the Father's well beloved, which they were already
cherishing in their hearts, and denouncing finally the doom which in the
righteous government of God should fall upon themselves and their
city.[39] Such are the occasion, the places, the object, and the nature
of the three parables which Jesus spoke that day in the Temple, and the
Evangelist Matthew has recorded in this portion of the word. The first
is the parable of--
[39] "He now constrains them, in the first parable, to declare their
own guilt; and, in the second, to declare their own punishment; and
as they had now decided to put Him to death, He describes to them,
in the third parable, the consequences of their great violation of
the covenant and ingratitude,--the destruction of their ancient
priesthood, and the triumphant establishment of his new kingdom of
heaven among the Gentiles."--_Lange in loc._
X.
THE TWO SONS.
"But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the
first, and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and
said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came
to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go,
sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father?
They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say
unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of
God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness,
and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed
him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye
might believe him."--MATT. xxi. 28-32.
From this parable, in connection with that of the labourers in the
vineyard, we incidentally learn that among the cultivators of Palestine
in those days there was the same admixture of large and small farms
which prevails in our own land. In order to provide for the structure of
the preceding parable, an agriculturist is introduced who cultivates on
a large scale. Group after group of labourers are hired wholesale, and
sent successively into the vineyard; in the evening a steward pays each
labourer under the general instructions of his chief. There in a few
strokes you have the picture of an ancient Israelitish magnate, owning a
broad estate and affording employment to a multitude of dependants. In
the parable which is now under review, we have a picture equally
distinct, but representing another class of countrymen. This is neither
on the one hand a great proprietor, nor on the other a landless
labourer. Here is a man who has a stake in the country, a portion of
ground of size sufficient to provide for the wants of his family; but
his farm cannot afford employment and remuneration to a gang of
labourers; the work must be all done by the owner himself and his
children. This is a desirable condition of life, and the class who
occupy it are valuable to society. There, in the middle, they are
sheltered from many dangers to which their countrymen on either extreme
of social condition are exposed. Woe to the country in which there are
only two classes,--the greatest and the smallest,--the large proprietors
and the floating sea of labourers. The strong fixed few and the feeble
surging many are to each other reciprocally dangerous. Give me a country
dotted all over with homesteads, where father and mother, sons and
daughters, till their own ground and eat the fruit of their own labour.
"To the first he said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." The first
was none other than the one whom the father first met that morning. To
have intimated whether he was the elder or the younger, would have
introduced a disturbing element, and obscured the meaning of the lesson.
There is no question here between elder and younger, or between Jews and
Gentiles. At all events, if those who maintained a place within the
theocracy are distinguished from those who stood without its pale, we
must conceive of the Father approaching on this occasion from without
towards the centre, coming in contact first with those who were excluded
as aliens, and afterwards reaching the inner circle, who counted
themselves the seed of Abraham.
This son, rebellious in heart, and not trained to cover his disobedience
under a smooth profession, meets his father's command with a rude, blunt
refusal. I think the humble husbandman had received a similar answer
from the same quarter more than once before. This is not the first
unseemly word which the young man had spoken to his father: neither
himself nor his wickedness has grown to maturity in a day. The habit of
dishonouring his parents had sprung from a seed of evil in his infancy,
and grown with his growth until he and it had reached full stature
together. The father seems not to have spoken a word in reply. Probably
he knew by experience that an altercation on the spot would only have
made matters worse: perhaps he sighed, perhaps he wept as he turned
gently round and went away. I do not know how often and how long he had
meditated on the grand practical question for a father, when he should
be severe, and when he should show indulgence. May God guide and help
parents who have disobedient sons; they need much patience for bearing,
and much wisdom for acting aright.
"But afterward he repented and went." There is much in these few simple
words. He repented; perhaps his father's silent grief went to his heart
at length and melted it. He saw himself in his true colours, and loathed
himself for his sin. The son, who probably obtained a glimpse of his
father's tears, wept himself in turn, and, as the best amends he could
make, went silently into the vineyard, and did a good day's work there.
Thus, when Jesus, suffering, bearing reproach before Pilate's
judgment-seat, looked on Peter sinning, Peter went out and wept. When he
was called to suffer for Christ, he had rudely answered, "I will not;"
but afterwards he repented and went--to work, to witness, to suffer, to
die for the Lord whom he loved.
Perhaps the father, from beneath the cottage eaves, saw the son on the
brow of the hill toiling in the noon-day heat,--saw and was glad. The
value of a day's labour was something; but it was as the small dust of
the balance in comparison with the price he set on the repentance and
obedience of his child. I suppose there was a happy meeting at night
when the son came home. I suppose the father was a happy man as he saw
the robust youth wiping the sweat from his brow, and sitting down to his
evening meal.