'Then began He to speak to the people this parable; A
certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to
husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long
time. 10. And at the season he sent a servant to the
husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of
the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent
him away empty. 11. And again he sent another servant:
and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully,
and sent him away empty. 12. And again he sent a third:
and they wounded him also, and cast him out. 13. Then
said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will
send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him
when they see him. 14. But when the husbandmen saw him,
they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the
heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may
be ours. 15. So they cast him out of the vineyard, and
killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the
vineyard do unto them? 16. He shall come and destroy
these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to
others. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid.
17. And he beheld them, and said, what is this then that
is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the
same is become the head of the corner? 18. Whosoever
shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on
whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
19. And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour
sought to lay hands on Him; and they feared the people:
for they perceived that He had spoken this parable
against them.'--LUKE xx. 9-19.
As the crisis came near, Jesus increased His severity and plainness
of speech. This parable, which was spoken very near the end of the
protracted duel with the officials in the Temple, is transparent in
its application, and hit its mark immediately. The rulers at once
perceived that it was directed against them. The cap fitted too well
not to be put on. But it contains prophecy as well as history, and
the reference to Jesus' impending fate is almost as transparent as
the indictment of the rulers, while the prediction of the
transference of the vineyard to others is as easy of translation as
either of the other points.
Such plain speaking was fitting for last words. The urgency of
Christ's pleading love, as much as the intensity of His moral
indignation, made them plain.
I. We note, first, the vineyard, its lord and its tenants. The
metaphor was familiar, for Isaiah had 'sung a song touching' Israel
as God's vineyard, and other prophets had caught up the emblem, so
that it had become a commonplace, known by all. The parable
distinctly alludes to Isaiah's words, and almost reproduces them.
Matthew's version enlarges on details of the appliances provided by
the owner, which makes the parallel with Isaiah still more
noticeable. But Luke summarises these into the simple 'planted.'
That covers the whole ground.
God had given Israel a system of revelation, law, and worship, which
was competent to produce in those who received it, the fruit of
obedience and thankfulness. The husbandmen are primarily the rulers,
as the scribes and chief priests perceived; but the nation which
endorsed, by permitting their action, is included. The picture drawn
applies to us as truly as to the Jews. The transference of the
vineyard to another set of tenants, which Christ threatened at the
close of the parable, has been accomplished, and so we, by our
possession of the Gospel, are entrusted with the vineyard, and are
responsible for rendering the fruits of holy living and love.
The owner 'let it out, and went into another country for a long
time.' That is a picturesque way of saying that we have apparent
possession, and are left free to act, God not being manifestly close
to us. He stands off, as it were, from the creatures whom He has
made, and gives them room to do as they will. But all our
possessions, as well as the revelation of Himself in Christ, are
only let to us, and we have rent to pay.
The collectors sent for the fruit are, of course, the series of
prophets. Luke specifies three--a round number, indicating
completeness. He says nothing about the times between their
missions, but implies that the three covered the whole period till
the sending of the son. Their treatment was uniform, as the history
of Israel proved. The habit of rejecting the prophets was
hereditary.
There is such a thing as national solidarity stretching through
ages. The bold charge made by Stephen was only an echo of this
parable, when he cried, 'As your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the
prophets did not your fathers persecute?' Each generation made the
ancestral sin its own, and staggered under a heavier burden of
guilt, till, at last, came a generation which had to bear the
penalty of all the blood of prophets shed from the beginning.
Nations live, though their component atoms die, and only national
repudiation of bequeathed sins can avert the crash which, sooner or
later, avenges them.
The husbandmen treated the messengers with increasing contumely and
cruelty. Content with beating the first, they added shameful
treatment in the second case, and proceeded to wounding in the
third. If God's repeated appeals do not melt, they harden, the
heart. The persistence of His messengers leads to fiercer hatred, if
it does not produce yielding love. There is no bitterness equal to
that of the man who has often stiffened conscience against the
truth.
II. So far, no doubt could be entertained of the meaning of the
scathing parable. There was probably as little about that of the
next part. We cannot but notice the broad distinction which Jesus
draws between Himself and the mightiest of the prophets. They were
the owner's 'slaves'; He was His 'beloved Son.' The writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews begins his letter with the same contrast,
which he may have learned from the parable. It is a commonplace for
us, but let us ponder how it must have sounded to that hostile,
eager crowd, and ask ourselves how such assumptions can be
reconciled with the 'sweet reasonableness' of Jesus if he belonged
to the same category as an Isaiah or a Micah.
The yearning of divine love for the fruit of reverence and obedience
is wonderfully expressed by the bold putting of an uncertain hope
into the owner's mouth. He must have known that he was running a
risk in sending his son, but he so much desires to bring the
dishonest workmen back to their duty that he is willing to run it.
The highly figurative expression is meant to emphasise God's longing
for men's hearts, and His patient love which 'hopeth all things' and
will not cease from effort to win us so long as an arrow remains in
His quiver.
III. Our Lord now passes to prophecy. Deep sadness is in His tone as
He tells how the only effect of His coming had been to stir up
opposition. They 'saw Him' and were they touched? No, they only
gripped their privileges the tighter, and determined more fiercely
to assert their ownership.
Nothing is more remarkable in the parable than the calmness of Jesus
in announcing His impending fate. He knows it all, and His voice has
no tremor, as He tells it as though He were speaking of another. The
very announcement that He penetrated the murderous designs hidden in
many of the hearers' hearts would tend to precipitate their
execution of these; but He is ready for the Cross, and its nearness
has no terror, not because He was impassive, or free from the
shrinking proper to flesh, but because He was resolved to save.
Therefore He was resolved to suffer.
The husbandmen's reasonings with one another bring into plain words
thoughts which probably were not consciously held by any even of the
rulers. They open the question as to how far the rulers knew the
truth of Christ's claims. They at least knew what these were, and
they had fought down dawning convictions which, fairly dealt with,
would have broadened into daylight. They would not have been so
fiercely antagonistic if they had not been pricked by an uneasy
doubt whether, after all, perhaps there was something in these
claims.
Nothing steels men against admitting a truth so surely as the
suspicion that, if they were to inquire a little farther, they might
find themselves believing it. Knowledge and ignorance blended in
these rulers as in us all. If they had not known at all, they would
not have needed the Saviour's dying prayer for their forgiveness; if
they had known fully, its very ground would have been taken away.
The motive put into their mouths is the wish to seize the vineyard
for their own; and was not the very soul of the rulers' hostility
the determination to keep hold of the prerogatives of their offices,
while priests and people alike were deaf to Jesus, because they
wished to be no more troubled by being reminded of their obligations
to render obedience to God? The root of all rejection of Christ is
the desire of self-will to reign supreme. Men resent being reminded
that they are tenants, and are determined to assert ownership.
Jesus carries the hearers beyond the final crime which filled the
measure of sin, and exhausted the resources of God. The sharp turn
from narrative to question, in verse 15, not only is like the sudden
thrust of a spear, but marks the transition from the present and
immediate future to a more distant day. The slaying of the heir was
the last act of the vine-dressers. The owner would act next. Luke,
like Mark, puts the threatening of retribution into Christ's lips,
while Matthew makes it the answer of the rulers to his question.
Luke alone gives the exclamation, 'God forbid!' The ready answer in
Matthew, and the pious interjection in Luke, have the same purpose,--to
blunt the application of the parable to themselves by appearing to be
unconcerned.
Their levity and reluctance to take home the lesson moved our Lord
to sternness, which burned in His steadfast eyes as He looked on
them, and must have been remembered by some disciple whose memory
has preserved that look for us. It was the prelude to a still less
veiled prophecy of the fall of Israel. Jesus lays His hand on the
ancient prophecy of the stone rejected by the builders, and applies
it to Himself. He is the sure foundation of which Isaiah had spoken.
He is the stone rejected by Israel, but elevated to the summit of
the building, and there joining two diverging walls.
The solemn warning closing the parable had its special meaning in
regard to Israel, but its dread force extends to us. To fall on the
stone while it lies lowly on the earth is to lame one's self, but to
have it fall on a man when it rushes down from its elevation is ruin
utter and irremediable. 'If they escaped not who refused Him that
spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from
Him that speaketh from heaven.'