Matthew 20:1

THE HEAVENLY HOUSEHOLDER

‘An householder … went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.’

Matthew 20:1

Consider the details of this parable:

I. Labourers required.—The Lord requires labour, not idleness, on the part of those whom He sends into His vineyard: for (a) He goes out early in the morning to hire labourers (Matthew 20:1), and again and again hires more (Matthew 20:3; Matthew 20:5), and (b) He chides those standing ‘idle’ in the market-place (Matthew 20:3; Matthew 20:6).

II. Not the criterion of reward.—Yet labour is not the criterion of reward, for He sets aside the supposition which the first-called entertained, that they should have received more than the last, because (a) they had laboured so much longer, and (b) had endured so much more hardship (Matthew 20:10; Matthew 20:12).

III. The reward is of grace.—It is a gift, not earned by labours, though accompanied with loving labours: Matthew 20:14, ‘give.’ The gift flows from (a) God’s sovereign will,—‘ I will give’; (b) from God’s goodness,—‘I am good’ (Matthew 20:15); (c) therefore bargaining hirelings have no real share in it (Matthew 20:2); nor boasters who rely on their length of labour and sacrifices (Matthew 20:12); nor murmurers against God, who also are grudgers towards their fellow-labourers (Matthew 20:11; compare Jude 1:16; James 5:9). They get their reward indeed, for God will be a debtor to no man: ‘Take that thine is’; ‘Didst not thou agree with me for a penny?’ (Matthew 20:2; Matthew 20:13). But it is not the everlasting reward. So (d) the warning and at the same time the comforting conclusion from the whole follows, ‘the last shall be first and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen’ (Matthew 20:16).

—Canon A. R. Fausset.

Illustration

‘Without attempting to apply every detail, it may well be pointed out how the parable represents the rejection of the Jews and the call of the Gentiles; how the Jews in the days of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets had repeated calls to work in God’s vineyard, while the Gentiles, without knowledge of God, had stood idly outside; how the Jews, by pride, hypocrisy, and self-seeking, merited rejection; how the Gentiles at the eleventh hour were to be called, notwithstanding the envy and opposition of the Jews. Thus, historically, the first were to be last, and the last first.’