Content
This parable is mainly spoken by Jesus against the religious leaders who have just challenged the source of his authority as stated in Mark 11:27-28. On hearing, they understood this parable was spoken against them: “they knew that he had spoken the parable against them.” (12:12) The son of the lord of the vineyard of course refers to Jesus himself. The religious leaders should understand this point since Jesus has publicly claimed that he was the son of God sent by the Father in heaven to this world. They were worried their religious leadership might be replaced by Jesus.
(God's plan of salvation)
This parable virtually reflects God’s plan of salvation and all the obstacles that stood in the way as He carried out His plan. Let us analyze this parable to see how it points to the messages of the plan of salvation.
1. Investing many resources
“A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat (NRSV, ‘wine press’), and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.” (v1) The purpose of planting a vineyard, of course, is to hopefully ripe the fruits of the vines. Apart from planting the vines, the lord of the vineyard has also invested a great many resources to the vineyard before he sent men in, such as: setting a hedge to protect the fruits from being stolen by the thieves or eaten by the wild beasts; building a winepress to produce grape wine; building a tower to set a watch guard to watch over the whole yard. When everything was ready, the lord let the ‘husbandmen’ (NRSV, ‘tenants’) manage the vineyard. While the ones who managed the vineyard were so-called ‘tenants’, the rent that the lord was supposed to receive from the tenants was not money but the fruits of the vine.
God has created the Garden of Eden and planted various kinds of trees in the garden. He then handed it over to man for management. So long as they managed it well, they were free to enjoy all the good things in that paradise. Before God created this paradise for man to enjoy, he has invested all the resources necessary for the plantation, such as sunlight, air and water. However, men were rebellious and disobeyed God’s instructions. They expressed their self-centered minds and behavior. Finally, they were cast out of the garden.
God has made a plan of salvation (the vineyard) for mankind. He has invested a lot of resources in this plan. He hoped that people would produce the fruits of repentance and stop from sinning and being disobedient to God anymore, just like the lord of the vineyard who anticipated the tenants to produce many sweet and ripe grapes. And that was supposed to be the responsibility of the tenants.
2. God’s kindness and patience / man’s rebellion
In the ripe season, the lord of the vineyard kept sending his servants to “receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard” but in vain. All his servants not only returned empty-handed, but were also harshly mistreated one after the other by the tenants. The ways the tenants treated the servants were becoming more and more violent--to the first, “they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty”; to the second, “at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled”; to the third, “him they killed”…In the end, the lord sent “his wellbeloved” son to receive the fruits, thinking that “they will reverence my son”. (v2-6)
This parable reveals the patience of God and His kindness in His plan of salvation, and his willingness to give people chances to trust and obey Him, to repent from their sinful lives, as reflected in II Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack (耽延) concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering (寬容) to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” First of all, He kept sending His prophets in different eras to proclaim to the people of Israel the gospel of repentance from sin. Even when many of his prophets were rejected, persecuted or killed, he still gave them chances once and again to repent, as Jesus sighed in Matt 23:37, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” Until the last moment, God had no other alternatives but sent His beloved son to the world and express His love and mercy for mankind without any reservation. His son did not cease preaching the gospel of repentance in the land of Israel, hoping that the people of Israel would “bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance” (Matt 3:8).
3. man’s self-centeredness
“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 out of the vineyard.” (v7-8) Seeing the coming of the son of the lord, the tenants not only disrespected him but plotted to kill him and claim the vineyard as their own, since they thought that the heir of the vineyard was no longer alive. They put their evil minds into action and murdered the son of the lord, showing the ruthless hearts of men and the hopelessness for any sign of their repentance.
These two verses indirectly reflect the evil hearts of the Jewish leaders. They hated Jesus and always plotted to kill him. They just did not want to see it happen that this “heir” replace their religious positions and take over the “inheritance” of their traditional religious status and power in Jerusalem. They wanted to keep their respect and honour from their people who would continue to listen to their doctrines, thus preserving their “inheritance” forever. They did not want to see the people’s hearts turn to Jesus and become his disciples. Eventually, these chief priests “moved the people, that he (Pilate) should rather release Barabbas unto them.” (Mark 15:11) As a consequence, the Jews demanded the release of a murderer and the execution of the innocent Son of God.
4. God’s sovereignty and judgment
“What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others. And have ye not read this scripture, ‘The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner: This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?’ ” (v9-11)
God’s plan is set to accomplish; no one can thwart His plan from being executed successfully. Jesus came to carry out the will of the Heavenly Father. Although he was finally executed, God’s plan of salvation continued without any interruption. Why? Jesus’ death on the cross was indeed the core part of God’s plan of salvation! Through the death of the Son of God, God’s perfect love was fully displayed. The crucified Jesus has become the Christ of resurrection and the head of the church: "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.” (v11) Paul in Ephesians 2 says that Christ Jesus “might reconcile both (the Jews and the Gentiles) unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh…Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” (Ephe 2:16-20)
“This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes .” (v11) In I Corinthians 1, Paul says, “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe…But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise (叫有智慧的羞愧); and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are (為要廢掉那有的): That no flesh should glory in his presence.” (I Cor 1:21,27-29) God’s plan of salvation is truly marvelous in our eyes!
The vineyard was owned by the lord. He did not allow anyone to grab it away. He could always claim it back and hand it over to someone else to manage. By the same token, God has His sovereignty on all His creation. In spite of the fact that the people of Israel were God’s chosen people, they rebelled Him all the time and ignored the prophets’ messages of repentance. What’s more, they refused to believe that Jesus the Son of God was Christ the Messiah. In the end, God turned His merciful eyes to the Gentiles, who gladly received His saving grace. Since then, the Gentiles carried out the mission of God and preached the gospel of repentance, bearing fruits of salvation everywhere, as Paul says, “I say then, Have they (the Jews) stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.” (Rom 11:11) “To provoke them to jealousy” grants the hope to the Jews that God has not given up His chosen people forever. Before the return of Jesus Christ, salvation will come upon them again.
For those wicked tenants who never repented but grabbed the inheritance instead, they would not have good fate. The lord of the vineyard finally destroyed the wicked tenants and let others take care of it. Jesus in Matthew 23 predicted that the rebellious scribes and Pharisees would inevitably receive God’s final judgment: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!... Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation (這一切的罪都要歸到這世代了).” (Matt 23:29,34-36)
5. Man’s stubbornness
“And have ye not read this scripture…And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people: for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them: and they left him, and went their way.” (v10-12)
The bible verse that Jesus quoted regarding “the head of the corner” comes from Psalm 118:22-23, “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.” Have the religious leaders not read the above scripture in the Book of Psalms? They have read it of course but never understood the meaning of it, until Jesus quoted this verse at the end of the parable. Now they understood that “the head of the corner” referred to Jesus himself, implying that the 'builders' in the psalm and the 'tenants' in the parable referred to themselves. So what? They still ignored his word and would not interpret the meaning of the parable from a positive perspective and self-examine their evil intent. They only perceived that the parable was spoken against them. They desired further to take revenge on Jesus, to arrest him and hand him over to the Jewish council for judgment. Their stubbornness and persistent rejection of him is exactly what the parable predicted to happen.
(Implication)
As the servants of the Lord, we are sent to his vineyard like the tenants to manage the vines and make sure they bear good fruits, meaning that we should repent from sin and produce good behavior: “bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.” (Matt 3:8) It’s time for us to return the sovereignty to our God and live a God-centered life. If we keep on rejecting our Lord’s warning message and continue to live a self-centered life, we are to bear serious consequence on our own selves, as John the Baptist said to the Pharisees and Sadducees: “who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance…And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” (Matt 3:7-10)