(a) Our Lord here places Himself in the line of the prophets as coming
for a similar purpose. The mission _to Israel_ was the same. The
mission _of His life_ was the same.
The last words of the lawgiver certainly point to a person (Deut.
xviii. 18): 'A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you like
unto me. Him shall ye hear.' How ridiculous the cool superciliousness
with which modern historical criticism 'pooh-poohs' that
interpretation! But the contrast is quite as prominent as the
resemblance. This saying is one which occurs in all the Synoptics, and
is as full a declaration of Sonship as any in John's Gospel. It
reposes on the scene at the baptism (Matt, iii.): 'This is My beloved
Son!' Such a saying was well enough understood by the Jews to mean
more than the 'Messiah.' It clearly involves kindred to the divine in
a far other and higher sense than any prophet ever had it. It involves
pre-existence. It asserts that He was the special object of the divine
love, the 'heir.'
You cannot relieve the New Testament Christ of the responsibility of
having made such assertions. There they are! He did deliberately
declare that He was, in a unique sense, '_the_ Son' on whom the love
and complacency of the Father rested continually.
II. The aggravation of men's sins as tending to the enhancement of the
divine efforts.
The terrible Nemesis of evil is that it ever tends to reproduce itself
in aggravated forms. Think of the influence of habit; the searing of
conscience, so that we become able to do things that we would have
shrunk from at an earlier stage. Remember how impunity leads to
greater sin. So here the first servant is merely sent away empty, the
second is wounded and disgraced, the third is killed. All evil is an
inclined plane, a steady, downward progress. How beautifully the
opposite principle of the divine love and patience is represented as
striving with the increasing hate and resistance! According to
Matthew, the householder sent other servants '_more than_ the first,'
and the climax was that he sent his son. Mightier forces are brought
to bear. This attraction _increases_ as the square of the distance.
The blacker the cloud, the brighter the sun; the thicker the ice, the
hotter the flame; the harder the soil, the stronger the ploughshare.
Note, too, the undertone of sacrifice and of yearning for the son
which may be discerned in the 'householder's' words. The son is his
'dearest treasure,' his mightiest gift, than which is nothing higher.
The mission of Christ is the ultimate appeal of God to men.
In the primary sense of the parable Jesus does close the history of
the divine strivings with Israel. After Christ, the last of the
prophets, the divine voice ceases; after the blaze of that light all
is dark. There is nothing more remarkable in the whole history of the
world than that cessation in an instant, as it were, of the long,
august series of divine efforts for Israel. Henceforward there is an
awful silence. 'Forsaken Israel wanders lone.'
And the principle involved for us is the same.
'Christ crucified' is more than Christ miracle-working. That 'more' we
have, as the Jews had. But if that avails not, then nothing else will.
He is 'last' because highest, strongest, and all-sufficient.
He is 'last' inasmuch as all since are but echoes of His voice and
proclaimers of His grace.
He is 'last' as the eternal and the permanent, the 'same for ever'
(Heb. xiii. 8). There are to be no new powers for the world; no new
forces to draw men to God. God's quiver is empty, His last bolt shot,
His most tender appeal made.