Mark 12:1-12

3. THE REJECTED SON Matthew 12:1-12

TEXT 12:1-12

And he began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into another country. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruits of the vineyard. And they took him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant; and him they wounded in the head, and handled shamefully. And he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some. He had yet one, a beloved son: he sent him last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and killed him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard. What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others. Have ye not read even this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner: This was from the Lord, And it is marvellous in our eyes? And they sought to lay hold on him; and they feared the multitude; for they perceived that he spake the parable against them: and they left him, and went away.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 12:1-12

643.

Show how especially appropriate the parable was by way of time and persons.

644.

Who was the owner of the vineyard? i.e. who was represented by the owner?

645.

Why use parables at this time?

646.

Who was represented by the vine-growers?

647.

Who were the servants?

648.

Why was the owner of the vineyard so exceedingly patient?

649.

Did anyone understand the obvious prophetic words about the son?

650.

Who were the others to whom the vineyard was to be given?

651.

What was the import of the chief corner stone?

652.

If they wanted to seize and kill Him why didn-'t they do it?

COMMENT

TIME.Tuesday, April 4, A.D. 30, two days after the entry into Jerusalem.
PLACE.The words here were uttered in the temple, probably in the court of the Gentiles, where the Lord often taught the people. We shall later give a description of the temple and its courts.
INTERVENING HISTORY.On Sunday April 2, the Lord made his official entrance into Jerusalem, looked through the temple and then retired to Bethany for the night. On Monday, April 3, he returned and taught in the temple. This teaching continued over Tuesday, and embraces a number of parables and discourses, either referring to his own rejection, the end of the Jewish state, or the end of the world, either on Monday or Tuesday, probably the latter.

PARALLEL ACCOUNTS.Matthew 21:33-46; Luke 20:9-19.

LESSON OUTLINE.1. The Wicked Husbandmen. 2. The Son Rejected and Slain. 3. Judgment Inflicted.

ANALYSIS

I.

THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN, Mark 12:1-5.

1.

The Vineyard Planted. Mark 12:1; Matthew 21:33; Luke 20:9.

2.

Fruits Demanded. Mark 12:2; Matthew 21:24; Luke 20:10.

3.

The Lord's Servants Persecuted. Mark 12:3-5; Matthew 21:35-36; Luke 20:5.

II.

THE SON REJECTED, Mark 12:6-8.

1.

The Son Chosen. Mark 12:6; Matthew 21:37; Luke 20:6.

2.

Evil Counsel. Mark 12:7; Matthew 21:38; Luke 20:7.

3.

The Son Slain. Mark 12:8; Matthew 21:39; Luke 20:8.

III.

JUDGMENT INFLICTED, Mark 12:9-12.

1.

The Wicked Husbandmen Destroyed. Mark 12:9; Matthew 21:16; Luke 20:9.

2.

The Rejected Stone. Mark 12:10; Matthew 21:42; Matthew 21:44;Luke 21:10.

INTRODUCTION

The enemies of Christ had already determined on his death. Their only ground of hesitation was his popularity with the throngs who now crowded Jerusalem. This day was one of constant conflict. The chief ecclesiastical authorities had come to him to demand his authority for driving the money changers out of the temple but had been silenced by a question that he had hurled upon them. After Jesus had put to silence the chief priests and scribes, he spoke to them three parables. The Two Sons, recorded only by Matthew; the Wicked Husbandmen, and The Marriage of the King's Son, given only by Matthew. It was as if in a glass held up before them they might see themselves. Yet even these parables, wearing as they do so severe and threatening an aspect, are not words of defiance, but of earnest, tenderest lovespoken, if it were yet possible to turn them from their purpose to save them the fearful sin they were about to commit, to win them also for the kingdom of God.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

I.

THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN.

Mark 12:1. He began to speak to them. To the chief priests and scribes whom he had just silenced, as related in the last chapter. The people were present but his words and their rebuke are for their rulers whom he directly addressed in parables of which they could see the application, A certain man. The man who planted the vineyard represents the Heavenly Father who had planted the Jewish nation. A vineyard, Our Lord draws, as was his wont, his illustration from common life and familiar objects, Palestine was emphatically a vine-growing country, and fitted, in consequence of its peculiar configuration and climate, for rearing the very finest grapes. The image of the kingdom of God as a vinestock or as a vineyard is not peculiar to this parable, but runs through the whole Old Testament (Deuteronomy 32:32; Psalms 80:8-16; Isaiah 5:1-7; Isaiah 27:1-7; Jeremiah 2:21; Ezekiel 15:1-6; Ezekiel 19:10); and has this especial fitness, that no property was considered to yield so large a return (Song of Solomon 8:11-12). None was therefore of such price and esteem. It no doubt belongs to the fitness of the image, that a vineyard does, if it is to bring forth richly, require the most diligent and never ceasing care; that there is no season in the year in which much has not to be done in it. Set an hedge about it, Probably a hedge of thorns; possibly a wall. Enclosures of loose stone, everywhere catch the eye on the bare slopes of Hebron, of Bethlehem, and of Olivet. The hedge around them is the law, separating them from the Gentiles. By their circumscription through the law (Ephesians 5:14) the Jews became a people dwelling alone, and not reckoned among the nations; that law being at once a hedge of separation and defensea wall of fire, which, preserving them distinct from the idolatrous nations round them and from their abominations, gave them the pledge and assurance of the continued protection of God. Digged a place (or pit) for the wine-fat (or wine-press). The wine-press (Matthew 21:33) consisted of two parts(1) the press, or trough, above, in which the grapes were placed, and there trodden by the feet of several persons amidst singing and other expressions of joy (Judges 9:27; Isaiah 16:10; Jeremiah 25:30); (2) a smaller trough (yekeb), into which the expressed juice flowed through a hole or spout (Nehemiah 13:15; Isaiah 63:2; Lamentations 1:15). Here the smaller trough, which was often hollowed (digged) out of the earth or native rock and then lined with masonry, is put for the whole apparatus, and is called a wine-fat.Cambridge Bible. Built a tower. Towers were erected in vineyards, of a very considerable height, and were intended for accommodation of keepers, who defended the vineyards from thieves and from troublesome animals. Let it out to husbandmen. Representing the rulers of the Jews (Matthew 21:45); but the people as a whole, a nation or a church, are included (Matthew 21:43). It is customary in the East, for the owner to let out his estate to husbandmen; i.e., to tenants, who pay him an annual rent, either in money or, as apparently in this case, in kind. Went into a far country. For a long while (for time), adds Luke. At Sinai, the Lord may be said to have openly manifested himself to Israel, but then to have withdrawn himself again for a while, not speaking to the people again face to face (Deuteronomy 34:10-12), but waiting in patience to see what the law would effect, and what manner of works the people, under the teaching of their spiritual guides, would bring forth.

Mark 12:2. At the season. By the Mosaic law the fruit of the trees was not to be eaten for five years after planting. This reasonable provision, though based on religious grounds, gave the tree opportunity of maturing before use. Leviticus 19:23-25. In the vineyard of our probation all the time of our responsible years is harvest time, in which we are expected to bring forth fruit to Him who hath planted and let to us the vineyard. But as applied to Israel it refers to the period of her history when, Canaan being fully possessed, God sent his prophets to remind his people of their duty. Sent. a servantThe different sendings must not be pressed; they probably imply the fullness and sufficiency of warnings given and set forth the long suffering of the householder, and the increasing rebellion of the husbandmen is shown by their increasing ill-treatment of the messengers.Alford. These servants, like Elijah, Isaiah and Jeremiah, were sent to demand that a nation for whom God had done so much should yield fitting fruit to God.

Mark 12:3. They caught him. The gradual growth of the outrage is clearly traced: (1) The first servant they caught, beat, and sent away empty; (2) at the second they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled; (3) the third they killed. Empty. Empty-handed; i.e., without that which he came for. According to the obvious design of the whole parable, this is a lively figure for the undutiful and violent reception often given to the prophets or other divine messengers, and the refusal to obey their message. (See Matthew 23:29-31; Matthew 23:34; Matthew 23:37; Luke 11:47-50; Luke 13:33-34. Compare 1 Thessalonians 2:15; Revelation 16:6; Revelation 18:24).

Mark 12:4. Another servant. God sent many prophets to the Jews, as he sends many influences to us. Shamefully handled, or dishonored. It is the generic summing up of all that the imagination naturally suggests when we think of what must have been done to the man in the affray in which his head was seriously wounded.Morison.

Mark 12:5. Him they killed, Some of the prophets were not merely maltreated, but actually put to death. Thus, if we may trust Jewish tradition, Jeremiah was stoned by the exiles in Egypt, Isaiah sawn asunder by Manasseh; and, for an ample historical justification of this description, see Jeremiah 37, 38; 1 Kings 18:13; 1 Kings 22:24-27; 2 Kings 6:31; 2 Kings 21:16; 2 Chronicles 24:19-22; 2 Chronicles 36:16; and also Acts 7:52; and the whole passage finds parallel in the words of the apostle (Hebrews 11:36). The patience of the house holder under these extraordinary provocations is wonderful.

II.

THE SON REJECTED.

Mark 12:6. Having yet therefore one son. This was the last and crowning effort of divine mercy; after which, on the one side, all the resources even of heavenly love are exhausted; on the other the measure of sins is perfectly filled up. Undoubtedly they who were our Lord's actual hearers quite understood what he meant, and the honor which in these words he claimed as his own; though they were unable to turn his words against himself, and to accuse him, on the strength of them, of making himself, as indeed he did then affirm himself, the Son of God.Trench, One son, his well beloved, he sent him. This saying, put at that time by Jesus in the mouth of God, has a peculiar solemnity. There is his answer to the question, By what authority doest thou these things? See Mark 11:28. They will reverence my son. That is, they will respect and treat with due esteem such a messenger (John 3:16-17).Jacobus. The expression of the hope that the husbandmen will reverence the son implies, of course, no ignorance, but the sincere will of God that all should be saved.

Mark 12:7. This is the heir, He for whom the inheritance is meant, and to whom it will in due course rightfully arrivenot, as in earthly relations, by the death, but by the free appointment of the actual possessor. Christ is heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2). Come, let us kill him. The very words of Genesis (Genesis 37:20), where Joseph's brethren express a similar resolution. This resolution had actually been taken (John 11:53). It is the heart which speaks in God's hearing. The thought of men's hearts is their true speech, and therefore given as though it were the words of their lips. And the inheritance shall be ours. They were so connected with a system which must pass away with Christ, with wrong ideas and principles and customs which Christ was doing away, that, if Christ prevailed, they must fall. But they imagined that, if they could destroy Christ, they could continue in possession of the inheritance, be rulers over Israel, teachers and leaders of the people, the possessors of the nation. See, also, John 11:48.

Mark 12:8. And killed him. As the Jews did Jesus. They killed that they might possess; and because they killed they lost. Cast him out of the vineyard. This may involve an allusion to Christ suffering without the gate (Hebrews 13:12-13; John 19:17).

III.

JUDGMENT INFLICTED.

Mark 12:9. What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? In Matthew 21:41, the people answer this question. It may be that the Pharisees, to whom he addressed himself, and who gave the answer reported, had as yet missed the scope of the parable, answering as they did, and so, before they were aware, pronounced sentence against themselves. He will come. The coming of the Lord in this place is to be interpreted of the destruction of Jerusalem. And destroy the husbandmen. The polity of the Jews was destroyed, their temple razed to the ground, their capital laid waste by the Romans, about forty years after this. Give the vineyard unto others. Expressed by the apostle when he said, Lo, we turn to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). The others were the Christian Church which Christ ordained for his kingdom.

Mark 12:10. Have ye not read this scripture. Referring them to Psalms 118:22-23a psalm which the Jews applied to the Messiah. Peter twice applied it to him (Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7). In the primary meaning of the psalm the illustration seems to have been drawn from one of the stones, quarried, hewn, and marked, away from the site of the temple, which the builders, ignorant of the head architect's plans, or finding on it no mark (such as recent explorations in Jerusalem have shown to have been placed on the stones of Solomon's temple in the place where they were quarried, to indicate their position in the future structure of the fabric), had put on one side as having no place in the building, but which was found afterwards to be that on which the completeness of the structure dependedon which, as the chief corner-stone, the two walls met and were bonded together.Plumptre. The stone. The stone is the whole kingdom and power of the Messiah summed up in himself.Alford. The builders rejected. The builders answer to the husbandman; they were appointed of God to carry up the spiritual building, as these to cultivate the spiritual vineyard. The rejection of the chief corner-stone answers exactly to the denying and murdering the heir.Trench. Become the head of the corner. The most important foundation-stone, joining two walls. A reference to the union of Jews and Gentiles in Christ, as in Ephesians 2:19-22, may be included (see Alford); but the main thought is that the Messiah, even if rejected by the builders, should become the corner-stone of the real temple of God (his new spiritual kingdom),Schaff.

Mark 12:11. This was the Lord's doing. The making the Rejected Stone the head of the corner. It is still marvelous and incredible to many that one rejected, despised, and put to death as a malefactor, should be exalted as the Lord of life and glory.

Mark 12:12. And they sought to lay hold on him. The three accounts supplement each other here. The purpose to seize him is plainly stated in all. Mark shows that it was a continued effort (literally, they were seeking), while Luke tells that they would have done so on the spot, had they not been afraid of the people. For they knew, etc. Matthew gives the more general reason for this fear: Because they held him as a prophet. Their desire to seize him was increased by this parable; but their fear of the people was also increased, since they (i.e. the rulers) perceived that he spake the parable against them, and in the presence of the people (Luke 20:9), so that they felt themselves convicted before the people. Conscience made them cowards.Schaff.

FACT QUESTIONS 12:1-12

717.

At what particular place or area in the temple was this parable told?

718.

What was the only ground of hesitation in the plan to kill our Lord?

719.

Name the three parables Jesus gave on this Tuesday.

720.

What was the ultimate purpose in these parables?

721.

To whom was this parable addressed?

722.

Who was the certain manwhat was represented by the vineyard?

723.

Give two examples of Israel represented as a vineyard.

724.

What did the wall represent?

725.

What were the two parts to the wine-press?

726.

For what purpose were the towers?

727.

Read Matthew 21:45 and state who in the parable is here indicated.

728.

Wien did the Lord in a sense withdraw Himself for awhile?

729.

What is represented by the season?

730.

Elijah, Isaiah and Jeremiah are represented by whom?

731.

Show how the gradual growth of outrage is indicated.

732.

Who was sent empty away?

733.

Which of the prophets did they actually put to death?

734.

In what one act are all the resources of heaven's love exhausted and all the measure of man's sin filled up?

735.

Show how the words of Genesis 37:20 relate to the parable. Cf. John 11:53.

736.

How did the rulers and teachers of Israel imagine they would obtain the inheritance?

737.

How did the Pharisees pronounce sentence against themselves?

738.

When did the Lord of the vineyard come and destroy the husbandman? To whom was the vineyard given?

739.

How would the builders know which stone was the cornerstone?

740.

Show the importance of the cornerstone.

741.

To what incident in the parable does the rejection of the cornerstone compare?

742.

What was marvelous and incredible?

743.

What does Mark add about the effort to seize Him that is not included in Matthew or Luke?