Matthew 21

Matthew 21:23-46

Subdivision 2. (Matthew 21:23-46.)Rejection and its Consequences. The opposition gathers strength, although still kept in check by the power displayed in Him, and by the revealing words in which He lays bare the condition of things and their hypocrisy and unfrankness in their rejection of Him. They are made to feel how well He knows them, and their intent, and how its success would leave Him Master still, themselves alone undone by it. Quiet, simple, strong, irrefutable words, they penetrate through all the defenses of a seared conscience and a hardened heart, and confound, if they do not convert. We do not read of conversion; but then we are here occupied with another and very different subject, and tracing Israel’s rejection of her King, as it goes on step by step to the end now so near, when He leaves desolate the House (no longer His Father’s, but their own) to the Gentile invader.

1. For the moment He is in the House which He has cleansed, teaching publicly, as was His wont, and there the chief priests and elders of the people come upon Him with the question; “By what authority doest Thou these things? and who gave Thee this authority?” It was the Sanhedrim, the highest religious authority itself among the people, that asked this; and their question implied their disclaimer of any authorization on their part. But it was a vain and foolish question: for as they knew on the one hand that He was no Rabbi of the schools, so on the other, as we know, the testimony of Scripture united with that of His miracles to proclaim Him what He was even now declaring Himself to be. But for those who were questioning Him there was a yet more simple ground of appeal. They had sent a special mission to the Baptist to investigate his claim; and the Baptist’s own recognition of the Lord was known to all. They “sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth.” What then was “the baptism of John? was it of heaven or of men?” Either they had decided about John’s authority, or else they were incompetent to pronounce as to the Lord; and their verdict as to the one would necessarily include both: in any case they had the means of answering their own question. Answer it, however, they cannot: if they said the mission of John was from heaven, they had to believe the testimony that he gave; if they said, of men, they would be in direct opposition to the people, and theirs was no martyr-spirit to suffer for their convictions. It was easier, with all the humiliation it involved, to profess their ignorance; but then they were no court to adjudicate in claims of this kind: “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
2. Plainly it was conscience they needed, and the Lord has in turn a question for them. A man had two sons: one who to his bidding, “Go, work today in my vineyard,” answers openly and defiantly “I will not;” while the other expresses at once his ready obedience. After all, the first repented and went; the second never did go. Which, then, did the will of his father? The answer is put into their mouths: they could only say, The first.

Then He makes application for them: the tax-gatherers and harlots would go into the Kingdom of God before them. For John came in the way of righteousness, only demanding on their part an upright conscience to receive manifest truth, but, built up in legal self-righteousness, they had turned from him; while the people of evil life had been convicted and believed; and even this witness of repentant sinners they had refused. 3. He searches them out with another parable, in which Israel’s history as a whole is shown to be of a piece with this, while He follows it on to the end soon coming, and shows them how their success against Him would only be ruinous defeat for themselves at last. The figure of a vineyard had been used of old in the prophets with reference to Israel. The “man,” the householder, could only partially represent God. Was it not a representation of things according to their own thoughts merely, that God was like a man in a far country, and things were in their hands as they proudly assumed? Yet their responsibility was fully granted, and let them take heed to it. All through the ages down, God had been sending to those in trust for Him, to get the fruit of His vineyard; and the prophets had been His messengers to them to present and urge His claim. How had they treated them? Certainly they well knew, whose claim had been; that if they had lived in their fathers, days, they would not have been “partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.” They had beaten one, killed another, stoned another, and so whenever God had sent flesh witnesses. But now He had sent His Son: there the full glory of the Speaker is flashed upon them; had He not title to say, without taking into account His divine knowledge, “They will respect My Son”? But indeed He is not ignorant to what He sends Him: and now all that is in their hearts to do and what they will accomplish is pictured for them, as if it were a history of the past. What a testimony to the actors in it that are to be, - He face to face with them, with those clear, deep, always compassionate eyes looking into theirs! think after this of their going on to fulfil it. “But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves” - not, who art Thou? or who gave Thee this authority? but on the contrary, “This is the heir;” and their after action is all grounded upon this. Yes, they could have been very tolerant of a false claim: the true one was quite another matter. The claim of God is uncompromising, and His yoke intolerable to the natural heart. The second psalm represents the refusal of Messiah as the Lord does, as the manifestation of the spirit which said, “Let us burst their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” Here it breathes of murder, - “Come, let us kill Him, and lay hold of His inheritance.” And the thing is done. The Lord quietly assures them, as He had done before with His disciples, that He is in fact to die. But if He be in reality the Son; will that secure them what they seek? “when the lord of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?” and they are forced to pronounce what is their own doom. He confirms it from their own scriptures: for was not the chief corner stone of which the psalmist spoke to be a stone rejected by the builders in Israel? Was not “the Lord’s doing” to be the reversal of their deed? But the result of it for that generation would be the taking from them of that Kingdom which in the person of its King they were thus refusing. It would be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof: that is, not the Christian Church, but the Israel of the future; in fact the first nation which will be all holy. The terms of the new covenant expressly assure us of this. Meanwhile “whosoever shall fall on this stone” - as the nation then were doing - “shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall” - in the day when it strikes the feet of the image, as Nebuchadnezzar, the head of the image, saw it - “it shall grind him to powder.” At the coming of the Lord judgment will do its complete and effectual work. The chief priests and Pharisees knew that it was of them that He was speaking; but His words held the people, and they could as yet do nothing. Those who have lost the fear of God are just those who will be most completely dominated by the fear of man.