AR 12:1-12:12{IN order to understand this parable, it will be well to consider first at what moment Jesus spake it, and to whom he addressed it.
He had made his solemn entrance into Jerusalem, with the shouts of " Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest."
On the morrow (ver. 12) he had pronounced sentence upon the barren fig-tree, and had cast out them that bought and sold in the temple, "saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves."
Then on the third day, " as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the Chief Priests, and the Scribes, and the elders, and say unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things? And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me. And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people: for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed. And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things."
Thereupon it was, that "he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard."
The principal terms of this parable may, I think, be explained in the following manner; though I by no means wish to exclude other explanations:-
He who planted the vineyard, is God (Isa. 5:7). The vineyard comprehends two things; the land and the vines which are planted therein.
The land is the land of Canaan or Palestine (Psa. 80:8, 9; Isa. 5:7).
The vines are the men of Israel (Isa. 5:7; John 15:1).
. The fence, the wine press, and the tower, show us that the proprietor of the vineyard had neglected nothing which could make it fruitful (Isa. 5:4). He had protected it against the intrusion of the passer-by and of the wild beasts (Psa. 80:13; Sol. 2:15; Isa. 5:2,5). He had made every necessary arrangement possible that it should bring forth grapes (Isa. 5:2). He had established means suitable for habitation, oversight, and protection (Psa. 61:3; Prov. 18:10; Isa. 5:2).
And then he had let it out to husbandmen, in order that it might receive the care needful and might bring forth fruit. The husbandmen are all those whom God has established as conductors or pastors of Israel in Palestine, as Joshua, the Judges, the Kings, the royal governors of Chaldea and of Persia, and even of the Roman emperors, the Priests and Elders.
Then the proprietor of the vineyard went into a far country, in order to allow the cultivators time to show how they would cultivate the vineyard, and to the vineyard time to produce fruit; in other words, God left his people and their conductors for a time under their own individual responsibility.
The season for fruit is the time at which he judged that the labor of the cultivators might fairly be put to the proof, and what fruit the vineyard had produced be seen.
The servants whom he sent to the cultivators to receive from them of the fruit of the vineyard, are the prophets from Samuel (Acts 3:24;13. 20; 1 Chron. 29:29) down to John Baptist (Matt. 11:9-13). They have also in principle been sent to the kings and to those who possessed any authority; in support of which, it may suffice to name Samuel, Nathan, Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and even John the Baptist (Matt. 3:7-9).
The history which the word of God gives us of these prophets, shows us how they were scourged and stoned and wounded; how they were rejected with opprobrium and were killed (Matt. 23:29-36), and how they were sent empty away (Isa. 5:2; Jer. 2:21; Hos. 10:1).
And last of all, the one only Son, the well-beloved, is the Jesus whom the Old Testament had already pointed out repeatedly in these very terms (Gen. 22; Psa. 22:20; 35:17; Isa. 5:1), and whom the New Testament expressly calls the only begotten of the Father (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9); The beloved (Matt. 3:17; 12:18; 17:5; Mark 1:11;9. 7; Luke 9:35; Eph. 1:6).
And thus we are come to the moment in which this parable was spoken.
Jehovah had, in his goodness and by his power, delivered his people from under the bondage of Egypt, and had introduced them into the good land, a land flowing with milk and honey, which he had promised to Abraham their father, and after having, moreover, on several occasions delivered them, by the judges, from their enemies who had subjugated them as a punishment for their unfaithfulness, He had at length begun, by His prophets to ask for the fruit of that vineyard wherein he had planted them.
Although that land was his peculiar possession (Lev. 25:23), and He alone was the king of His people (1 Sam. 8:7); He had acquiesced in their desire to be like other nations, and had given to them a king taken from among themselves. But quickly it was seen that neither did this royal power fulfill its purpose. And Saul, that carnal man, and David, the man after God's own heart, and Solomon, the king of righteousness and peace, had been more or less deaf to the words of God addressed to them by the prophets; the kingdom was rent in twain, and the kings, whether of Israel or even of Judah, were, spite of the warnings and threatenings reiterated by the prophets, fallen into such a state of disobedience and of idolatry, that the patience of God was exhausted, and He sent into captivity the men of Israel, and even them of Judah, so that there were left but a few of the poorest of the land to be husbandmen of the vineyards and laborers (2 Kings 25:12).
But, although God had thus withdrawn his glory from the temple and the city of Jerusalem (Ezek. 9-11) and had given the dominion of the world to the nations (Dan. 2:37,38). His goodness and His protection were not withdrawn from His people. He permitted some of His people to re-enter the land out of which they had been driven, and to rebuild the temple and the city, yet under a foreign yoke; He encouraged and warned them by means of His prophets, yet they continued to reject the warnings, and finally the Romans, the fourth of the monarchies to which God gave the dominion of the world, had, on the one hand, got possession of the land, and, on the other, after a series of overthrows and acts of violence, the Scribes and the Pharisees had placed themselves in Moses' seat (Matt. 23:2) and gave themselves out for the husband men of the vineyard.
It was under these circumstances, the land inhabited by various runaways of the captivity of Babylon, and the calamities consequent thereon, and directed, under the Roman government, by certain Scribes and Pharisees, that John Baptist proclaimed that the kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and that the king himself appeared, and that, after having, during a while, made preparation for his inauguration in his kingdom, he, at last, entered as king (at least for all those who had the will to receive Him as such) into Jerusalem (Matt. 11:14), the city of the Great King (Matt. 5:35), and purged the temple of God His Father (Matt. 21:12; Luke 2:49).
The moment was then come for the husbandmen to receive the Son of the owner of the vineyard and to yield to him of its fruit. But, instead of recognizing His authority, they asked Him whence it was? Then, not being altogether without discernment, they sent certain Herodians to Him to entangle Him and to ask of Him, is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar. After all, recognizing in Him the Heir, they say among themselves, " This is the Heir, come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance will be ours! And when they had slain Him, they cast Him out of the vineyard." The chief-priest, together with the chiefs of the temple and all the council exercising authority in religion, united with Pilate, who possessed the political power, to put to death Him whom they would not that He should reign over them (Luke 19:14); and they crucified Him outside of the city.
" What shall, therefore, the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give. the vineyard unto others." He has already destroyed those who put His Son to death; and yet a little while, when the land shall again be beneath the dominion of the resuscitated Roman empire, and shall be anew dwelt in by the descendants of those who dwelt there when the Son was rejected; when they will again, like their fathers, kill the servants that are sent unto them, and will rejoice in their deaths (Rev. 11:7-10). The Lord will destroy those husbandmen (Rev. 11:13); then will he avenge Himself on the vineyard of that land whose husbandmen refused Him the fruit of the vine; but it will be to cast the vintage into the great wine-press of the wrath of God; and it will be trodden outside of the city (Rev. 14:17-20.) Then when the vineyard has been cleansed and purified (Rev. 19:19-21; Ezek. 39:1-16) it will be given to others, to the children of the kingdom who will bring forth fruit, one grain giving thirtyfold, another sixty, and another an hundred (Matt. 13:18-23; 21:41, 43), and Jesus Will then be able to drink with his own of the fruit of the vine in the kingdom of His Father (Matt. 26:29).
Such is the explanation of the parable, imperfect and defective doubtless, yet, I think, true according to the principal traits. Let us now pass to certain applications.
Although the position of the Church be different from that of Israel, in that our country is heavenly and not earthly., yet our responsibility is the same as to fruits which had to be brought forth. In the Church also, God has done everything which was necessary in order that it might bring forth fruit; in the Church also He established at the beginning cultivators, that is to say, apostles, overseers, and servants (John 21:15-17; Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 4:1-4;12. 28; 1 Tim. 3:5; 1 Peter 5:2); but soon also, when he sent messengers to ask for fruit, those who loved to have the pre-eminence received them not (3 John, 9, 10) and at Pergamos, Antipas was put to death (Rev. 2:13). They heaped up teachers to themselves according to their own lusts (2 Tim. 4:3). Persons who had no calling of God sat, of their own will, so to speak, in the seat of the apostles, and even despised the authority of the only-begotten Son, the well-beloved of the Father, and lorded it over his heritage (1 Peter 5:3). All this assemblage will, ere long, be spewed out of the mouth of the Lord (Rev. 3:16). In the meanwhile, the child of God who has ever so little spiritual discernment, will recognize such persons, in whatsoever position they may be, by their fruits (Matt. 7:16,20), and he will refuse to recognize their authority with the very same care which he will display to recognize that of the true Head of the Church, and to obey Him.
As to the political order of things, the application of the parable is yet more striking. Pontius Pilate, who delivered up Jesus; was at Jerusalem the representative of the Roman empire, and though he might wash his hands, he is not the less, before God, as well as that which he represented, morally responsible for the death of the Heir of the kingdom. They killed Him to take possession of the inheritance; their authority is then that of the usurper, and all the powers which are the successors thereof, whatsoever they may be, remain in the same position; time has brought with it so much the less of change, in that we know that the Roman empire, though lost to view for a time, will appear in force again; in every case; if the existing powers deny their Romish origin, there remains for them, according to the word of God, no foundation whatsoever. The child of God will assign to each thing its place, and will bestow on each thing its name.
Will he then deduce as a consequence, that he must not recognize these authorities, must not yield them submission? He might have done so, if God had not taken care to give us in His word directions of another tendency, " Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation ... For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.... For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing" (Rom. 13:1, 2, 4, 6).
But how reconcile this with that which we have just said above, that the powers which exist are illegitimate? To do so is not very difficult.
Every power which exists is ordained of God, not only in the sense in which it is said, that not one sparrow falls to the ground without the leave of God (Matt. 10:29), but also in a more positive sense, because all the powers which actually exist form part of that power which God expressly accorded to Nebuchadnezzar, and which passed from the Chaldeans to the Medes, and to the Persians, then to the Greeks, then to the Romans; in this sense all existing powers have been positively ordained of God.
But, it may be objected that the Roman empire, however legitimate at the commencement, can only have enjoyed the privilege of being legitimate up to the moment when God Himself resumed His rights in the world, by sending his son to take possession of the vineyard. This is true; and it is precisely thus that we enter into the application of the parable. Evidently, from the moment when Pilate delivered Jesus to be crucified, his authority, legitimate as it was before, became illegitimate, and that of all the successors of the emperor. Tiberius has continued illegitimate in itself, and in respect of those who exercise the authority; and it is in this point of view that God will call them to account; for He will destroy the husbandmen and will give the vineyard to others.
But it is otherwise, looked at from the position we are in, from the position the Church is in. For them that love God, all things work together for good (Rom. 8:28), and the magistrate is the servant of God for their good (Rom. 13:4). They know that all that happens to them, all the circumstances in which they find themselves placed, and particularly the powers under which they live, are of God (1 Cor. 11:12; 2 Cor. 5:18), and they yield Him thanks, therefore. In particular, they give thanks for His having placed them under the authority of magistrates, who are not a terror to good works, but to the evil (Rom. 13:3), and they are subject to them not only for wrath's sake, but also for the sake of conscience (Rom. 13:5).
These are things which every pious soul feels, even though it understands them not; but every position in which there is zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Rom. 10:2) has its dangers; we should grow in knowledge (Col. 1:10; 2 Pet. 3:18). I pray God that He may deign of His goodness and by His spirit, to make these lines subservient to the advancement of some in the knowledge of the truth, as to those matters to which they refer.
(Signed) Steven Van Muyden.
Etudes Scripturaires, 24 June, 1852.