Matthew 21:33-41

The Parable Of The Faithless Tenants (21:33-41). .

The final build up of Jesus, and of what He has come to do, continues. He has entered Jerusalem as its King (Matthew 21:1). He has taken over the Temple, casting out all that is commercial and to do with Mammon, and making it a place of the healing of the lame and the blind, turning it from a robber's den into a house of prayer (Matthew 21:12). He has been declared in the Temple to be the Son of David by those from whose mouths, according to Scripture, proceeds God's truth (Matthew 21:15). He has portrayed by a miraculous sign the final demise of the old unbelieving and unfruitful Israel (Matthew 21:18). He has reinforced the authority of John before the people and reminded them that he came from God (Matthew 21:23). He has demonstrated that all men stand judged on the basis of how they have responded to John's ministry, exposing by that the inconsistency of the Jewish leaders (Matthew 21:28). Now He will make clear His ultimate claim. That He is the only Son, that He too has come from God, and that they will do to Him whatever they will. And that because they are so possessive of Israel, and so determined to fashion it in their own image, that they are unable to see their own folly. Here is the ultimate prophecy. The declaration beforehand of what they are going to do to Him (as in their hearts they well knew, but He was not supposed to know) because they have come to look on Israel as theirs.

Thus He wants them to know that having rejected John and the prophets, He is aware that they are now behaving towards Him in a spirit of enmity and malice that will result in His death. And he wants them to realise that they will be judged accordingly, because all that the prophets have pointed to is now here. It is a final plea to their consciences and to their hearts. And He will then indicate that the end of the old nation is approaching and that it will issue in the new (Matthew 21:43). The new age is in process of beginning.

In the section chiasmus this parable is in parallel to the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. There we were given the picture of the true labourers of the future, here we have described those who have had charge of the vineyard in the past, with the final indication that they will be replaced.

It should be noted also that this is the middle parable of three in succession. The first contrasted how people had responded towards His Forerunner, bringing out how even the riffraff responded because they accepted that John's authority came from God, while the religious leaders did not. This one will describe how the leaders of Israel will behave towards Him as the only Son of the owner of the vineyard, just as they did towards John, and what the consequences will be for them and for the old Israel. The third parable will reinforce and underline His position as the King's Son, and will bring out again that it is the poor and the needy who respond who will enjoy the future time of blessing, while those who should have done so will be rejected because they refuse to respond to His invitation, or wear His insignia and thus bear His Name.

Any who for some strange reason have decided for themselves that Jesus could not have used allegory (partly because some have misused it) try to ‘simplify' the parable and thereby can make it whatever they want it to mean. However, we have already argued with regard to the parable of the sower that Jesus undoubtedly did demonstrably use allegory to a certain extent so that there are no real grounds for denying allegory here. Nor, except for those who against all the evidence deny that Jesus saw Himself as uniquely the Son and different from all others, are there any theological grounds for denying this to Jesus. Indeed if it had been an allegory invented by the later church we would have expected to find some indication of the son's resurrection, instead of just a handing over of the vineyard to others, (especially in view of the illustration of the stone which follows) and also the introduction of the idea that the son had come to make atonement. Such ideas could hardly have been resisted. But there is no hint of them in the parable. Furthermore having emphasised John's work in the previous parable we would actually expect Him to turn attention to Himself as a greater than John (a son as compared with a prophet - Matthew 3:11; Matthew 3:14) as He has constantly made clear earlier (Matthew 11:2; Matthew 11:11; John 5:33), and does in the next parable which also introduces the further idea of royalty.

Analysis.

a “Hear another parable. There was a man who was an estate owner, who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to vineyard workers, and went into another place” (Matthew 21:33).

b “And when the season of the fruits drew near, he sent his servants to the vineyard workers, to receive his fruits” (Matthew 21:34).

c “And the vineyard workers took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another” (Matthew 21:35).

d “Again, he sent other servants more than at first, and they treated them in the same way” (Matthew 21:36).

e “But afterward he sent to them his son, saying, ‘They will reverence my son'.” (Matthew 21:37).

d “But the vineyard workers, when they saw the son, said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and take his inheritance.' ” (Matthew 21:38).

c “And they took him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him” (Matthew 21:39).

b “When therefore the lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do to those vineyard workers?” (Matthew 21:40).

a “They say to him, ‘He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will let out the vineyard to other vineyard workers, who will render him the fruits in their seasons” (Matthew 21:41).

Note than in ‘a' the owner lets his vineyard out to vineyard workers, and in the parallel he destroys them and lets it out to other vineyard workers because the first ones have failed. In ‘b' he sent to receive the fruits due to him, and in the parallel he comes himself to bring them to account. In ‘c' we have the behaviour of the vineyard workers towards the servants, and in the parallel their behaviour towards the son. In ‘d' he continued to send servants, and they treated them badly, and in the parallel the son arrives and they determine to treat him badly. Centrally in ‘e' was the wish and hope of the father, that they would reverence his son.