Luke 20:9-19

Butler's Comments

SECTION 2

Responsibility to Grace (Luke 20:9-19)

9 And he began to tell the people this parable: A man planted a vineyard, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country for a long while.10 When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, that they should give him some of the fruit of the vineyard; but the tenants beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. 11And he sent another servant; him also they beat and treated shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12And he sent yet a third; this one they wounded and cast out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, -What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; it may be they will respect him.-' 14But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselvs, -This is the heir; let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.-' 15And they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him, What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16He will come and destroy those tenants, and give the vineyard to others. When they heard this, they said, God forbid! 17But he looked at them and said, What then is this that is written:

-The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner-'?

18Every one who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but when it falls on any one it will crush him.

19 The scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on him at that very hour, but they feared the people; for they perceived that he had told this parable against them.

Luke 20:9-15 The Parable: The figure of a vine and a vineyard to portray God's chosen people was well known to the Jews. The Old Testament is rich in such imagery (cf. Psalms 80:8-18; Isaiah 5:1-10; Jeremiah 2:21; Jeremiah 6:9; Jeremiah 8:13; Jeremiah 12:10; Ezekiel 15:1-8; Ezekiel 19:10-14; Hosea 10:1). The grapevine was considered by some Jews to be the symbol of the Jewish nation. Herod had an ornate and expensive golden grapevine embossed on the great and beautiful gate of the Temple. The grape was the most important crop in the land of Palestine and the entire Mediterranean area at that time. The vineyard was usually planted on a hill; protected from animals and thieves by hedges, rock-fences and watch towers. Wine was the chief by-product of the grape harvest and wine presses and vats were built right into the vineyards and there the juice was squeezed out by the ancient method of human feet tramping on the gathered grapes. Often Jewish farmers merely rented or share-cropped the vineyards. While the farmer did all the labor, he was obligated to pay the owner of the vineyard a fixed amount, usually one-third or one-fourth whether the harvest was large or small. Jesus was using an illustration here in the realm of Jewish literature, of everyday life, and relating to the symbol of their national life. This parable is also recorded in Matthew 21:33-46 and Mark 12:1-12. It should be plain that the owner of the vineyard is God; the tenants are the Jewish people; the three servants the owner sent to collect some of the fruit of the vineyard represent the prophets of old; the heir is Jesus Christ, the Son. Jesus infers in this parable that the Jewish people (especially the religious and political leaders) recognized the heir well enough to decide to kill Him!

Luke 20:16-19 The Point: This parable tells about some tenants or stewards who took things into their own hands as soon as the Landlord left them alone, and when the Landlord sent servants to collect the rent, the tenants showed their rebellion by treating the servants shamefully. When the Landlord sent His Son, they killed Him. Redding says: This skit has caught man red-handed in his most characteristic crimeplaying God. The parable of the two sons teaches or exposes the hypocritical disobedience of the Jews; this parable of the wicked husbandmen foretells the fierce wrath of God upon disobedient tenants. This parable is really a tragic conclusion to Isaiah's vineyard parable (Isaiah 5:1-11). The Jews had many opportunities and privileges following Isaiah's expose of Israel's disobedienceeven the Son of the vineyard's Owner had now comebut the workers still were disobedient. This parable re-enforces Jesus-' manifestation of authority over the Jewish nation in the cleansing of the Temple by its declaration that He has come to demand fruit from them (repentance), and that He is the Son.

The Jewish nation had been blessed above all the nations of the earth, not because they deserved it, but because of God's sovereign grace. He blessed them for a purposethat purpose was that they might produce a people (harvest) of righteousness (cf. Amos 3:2; Deuteronomy 26:19; Deuteronomy 28:9-10, etc.). But they wanted to have what God gave them for themselves and produce nothing for Him. There is strong emphasis in this parable on the grace, and long-suffering of God. The most touching picture of God's love is the sending of His Son to plead with these criminals. But these wicked workers wanted the whole vineyard for themselves (Matthew 21:38; Mark 12:7; Luke 20:14). It is true to life every day that man undertakes to take possession of his own life and the whole universe and tries to cast the Owner out. God is Owner, never forget that! (Exodus 19:5;1 Chronicles 29:14; Psalms 24:1 ff; Psalms 50:10-12; Jeremiah 27:5, etc.). He cannot be cast out!

Matthew notes that Jesus asked His audience, When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They said to Him, He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits of their seasons. Luke adds, When they heard this, they said, God forbid. How masterful the Great Teacher's method: He compels them to come to the only right and just conclusion and thus to judge themselves. As the truth of it all. began to destroy the facade of their pretensions, they said, Let it not be! The Greek text has Me genoito, God is not in the original textit is an English translation.

No truth is more plain in the Bible: The patience of God can be exhausted with impenitent men. There is a limit even to Divine grace. After the wicked husbandmen refused to acknowledge the Son and killed Him, no more mercy could be shown. Why? Because God has reached the limits of what He can do and still leave man a free moral being. If men will kill the Incarnate Word, what else can God do? Man committed the greatest of crimes against God by rejecting Jesus Christ, His Son. The Jews, Jesus said, filled up the measure of their fathers (Matthew 23:29-39) and finished the transgression (Daniel 9:24), and were guilty of all murder from Abel to Christ.

Jesus had led this audience to the inexorable logic that God was going to reject the wicked husbandmen. They knew who these husbandmen were! They cried out, May it never happen! Jesus then plainly declared that the wicked husbandmen were the Jewish nation which would reject its Messiah. Their rejection of the corner stone had been predicted by the Old Testament. Jesus quoted Psalms 118:22. In its original context the verse refers to the covenant nation, the Jews. God had chosen them to be the typical corner-stone in His preliminary redemptive programbut the heathen world rejected that. And while this Psalm had typical and symbolic application to the nation Israel, its ultimate reference, even when it was written, was to the Messiah Himself. The prediction of Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah 28:16) indicates that it was not the nation Israel which was the ultimate stone. the builders would reject, for it would be the builders themselves (the rulers of Israel) who would reject the precious cornerstone. God was laying by prophecy and type that stone even in Isaiah's day. Who else could that be but the Suffering Servant whom they would despise (Cf. Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12). It may be, as Hobbs says, some Jewish scribes interpreted Psalms 118:22 as teaching the Messiah would be rejected by the builders and later become the stone which would join together two walls, but most modern Jewish interpretations of this verse applies the stone to national Israel, only. Socino Commentary (Jewish) on Psalms 118:22: ... Israel, despised by neighborly peoples, has been appointed by God to have an essential function to discharge in the construction of His kingdom on earth. cf. Isaiah, Vol. III, pgs. 277-280, by Paul T. Butler, College Press for notes on Jewish interpretation of the nation as the Messiah.

The builders (rulers of Israel) had been rejecting the messianic concept all the time God had been laying it! They rejected God's messengers, the prophets. These prophets kept insisting that a personal, humble, righteous, atoning, but suffering Messiah would come to rule in the minds and affairs of God's covenant people. The leaders of Israel kept on rejecting that teaching and those who taught it. They even killed some of the prophets who predicted such a Messiah. However obscure this passage may have been to the Jewish mind (more because of their own prejudice than its vagueness), Jesus fully expected the Jews of His day to have read it and understood it as applying to the Messiah. Matthew writes that Jesus said here, Have you never read in the scriptures: The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.. It is significant that there is no text of the Old Testament more frequently quoted (6 or 7 times word for word) or paraphrased in the New Testament. That the Messiah (Jesus Christ) was God's key-stone is thoroughly documented in the Bible (cf. Psalms 118:22; Isaiah 28:16; Zechariah 4:7; Zechariah 10:4; Isaiah 8:14; Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:6-7; Ephesians 2:20; Romans 9:33). The key-stone of man's relationship to God is a Person, Jesus, not a religious system.

The term, head of the corner is an interesting term. The head of the corner is the key-stone to an arch. In olden days, the procedure for building an archway out of stone was to construct the two sides first and the final, critical stone to be placed into the arch was last, at the very center or apex of the rise (much like the great metal Arch was constructed in St. Louis, Missouri, a few years ago). This is the stone which is absolutely necessary for the completion of the corner or arch. Without this stone being put in place the whole archway falls. The arch was a fundamental architectural support for buildings, aqueducts, bridges and other construction of that day. The Jews cast the key-stone out and their building collapsed and The Stone destroyed them. When they cast off the crucial Stone to their becoming God's building, they both stumbled over Him to their own destruction (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25) and He fell on them and crushed out their existence (cf. Daniel 2:44-45; Luke 21:5-33). Jesus plainly told this audience that the kingdom of God would be taken from the Jews and given to a nation producing the fruits of it (cf. Matthew 21:43). This nation would be the new Israel, composed of both Jew and Gentile, which would listen to the messianic message and believe (cf. Acts 13:46-48; Acts 28:28). The new Israel would be a new creation (cf. Galatians 6:15-16; 2 Corinthians 5:11-21). The Jewish people had been offered the grace of God through the promised Messiah, but they killed their Messiah, and spurned God's grace. God had given them the privilege to work in His vineyard as husbandmen, but they felt no responsibility or gratitude to His graciousness and greedily schemed to take over God's vineyard for themselves. There is a great lesson here for all who have now been called by grace into the new Israel. Let no Christian presume to take over God's vineyard. His kingdom (the church) belongs entirely to Him. No men have ever been enthroned to rule over His kingdom. All men are servantssome faithful and some unfaithful. Wild olive branches grafted into the Tree, may as easily be broken off and thrown away as the natural branches were, if the wild ones become proud and arrogant (cf. Romans 11:17-24). Indifference to the grace of God extended in Jesus Christ will be punished eternally. This is a fundamental issue of life.

There was no doubt in the minds of the chief priests and scribes as to the object of Jesus-' condemnation. And He had condemned them from their own Scriptures! They perceived that He had told this parable against them. The word against is pros in Greek and means toward, at. In other words, Jesus told this parable and it pointed directly at the rulers. Instead of contrition, repentance and seeking forgiveness, they tried to lay hands on Jesus right there. Apparently they made some overt move to take Jesus bodily and were prevented from doing so by the threats of the crowds listening intently to Jesus-' searching parable. These crowds had just proclaimed Jesus the Son of David. They would have assaulted the scribes and chief priests had they tried to arrest Him there. The rulers, afraid of the people, craftily postponed temporarily what they fully intended to do later, And in the meantime, they decided to confront Him with hard, catch questions which they hoped would destroy His image before the people. They planned to trap Jesus into giving an answer to a political or theological question which would make Him appear to be a seditionist, a traitor or a blasphemer. If they could do this, they could sway the multitudes into joining them in demanding His crucifixion.