First_Baptist

Pastor Lars Larson, PhD                                                                                                  FBC Sermon #619
First Baptist Church, Leominster, MA                                                                              July 10, 2011
Words for children: stone, servants, Jesus                                                                         Text: Matthew 21:33-46
Scripture reading: Psalm 118:14-29

The Gospel of Matthew (83)
Parables of Resistance to the King (cont.)

Our current progress through Matthew:

I. Prologue (chs. 1, 2)
II. The Kingdom Comes (chs. 3-7)
III. The Works of the Kingdom (chs. 8-10)
IV. The Nature of the Kingdom (chs. 11-13)
V. The Authority of the Kingdom (chs. 14-18)
          A. Jesus’ Character and Authority (chs. 14-17)
          B. The Fourth Discourse: The Character and Authority of the Church (18:1-35)
VI. Kingdom Blessings and Kingdom Judgments (chs. 19-25)
          A. From Galilee to Jerusalem (chs. 19, 20)
          B. The King enters Jerusalem (chs. 21-23)
                    1. Triumphal Entry and Cleansing the Temple (21:1-22)
                    2. Parables of Resistance to the King (21:23-22:14)

*****************

The tension between our Lord and the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem was intensifying by the hour. Our Lord was teaching the people in the courts of the Jerusalem temple, and the Jewish leaders were not pleased with the content of His teaching or with the favorable response of the people.
Our Lord taught a number of parables before the people. Some of them made veiled reference to the Jewish leaders, revealing that they were opposed to God and opposed to His Servant. Beginning with Matthew 21:33 we have…

I. The Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers (Matt. 21:33-46)

          33“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
          40When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
          41They 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 in their seasons.”
          42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
          43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
          45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that He was speaking about them. 46And although they were seeking to arrest Him, they feared the crowds, because they held Him to be a prophet.

We should always beware of allegorizing Scripture, which is assigning spiritual meanings to words and details, meanings that are not apparent in the context. But there are some places which dictate a measure of allegory present. And we have such a passage here. But care and caution is necessary. We will see that some details of this parable should be understood as having allegorical meaning, but others do not.

          Our Lord gave this parable of the master who planted a vineyard in order to teach a number of lessons. He gave the parable to teach the people, to confront and warn the Jewish leaders, and to inform His disciples. Through this parable He revealed the repeated centuries-long failure of Israel’s leaders to lead His people rightly on behalf of God. He shows them to have been insensitive and hardened against God, refusing to care for and lead His people on His behalf, but rather they exploited His people for their own interests and benefits. He speaks of their refusal to hear His prophets, whom God had sent repeatedly to warn them and confront them in their sin. And then our Lord also spoke of their treatment of Him. He reveals Himself to be the Son of God, whom the Jewish leaders would reject and put to death. He also foretold that God, in spite of their rejection of His Son, would enthrone His Son as King over His people. In doing so, He would remove the blessing and the stewardship of the kingdom of God from the Jewish leaders and entrust the kingdom to others.
          It is clear that what our Lord desired to convey was that the landowner is God, the vineyard is the kingdom of God, the servants are the (Old Testament) prophets, the son is Jesus, the tenants are the Jews who oppose Jesus, the killing of the son is the crucifixion, and the removal of the tenants is the transfer of the kingdom to a new people of God that includes Gentiles.[1]
          But there are other details of the parable that should not be allegorized. The Lord spoke of the Lord setting a hedge around the field, digging a winepress, and building a watchtower to guard the field (21:33). These details only serve to show the care of the owner for his field, or of God for Israel, and how God had provided everything necessary for the vineyard to produce good grapes. These details are not to be interpreted allegorically, but they do serve to aggravate the guilt of the Jews that failed to believe and obey God.

A. The use of the vineyard as a metaphor of Israel and its responsibility to God

When our Lord gave this parable, it was to a people who would have been familiar with the theme of the Israel as God’s vineyard. The metaphor is used in Isaiah 5:1-7.

1Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard. 4What more was there to do for My vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5And now I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 7For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant planting; and He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!

Here in Isaiah 5, recorded in the 8th century BC, God declared His judgment upon Israel for its failure to live before Him. He was Israel’s owner, the Master of the vineyard. He had every right to expect that is people live according to His laws, according to His will. Their refusal to do so was met with His promise of judgment. This judgment came in history when God sent the Assyrians into the land to conquer and vanquish His people.

          By the way, there is an interesting play on words in the original Hebrew text of Isaiah 5:7, which reads, “He (God) looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!” God looked for
לְמִשְׁפָּט   (“justice”), behold מִשְׂפָּ֔ח   (“bloodshed”); for לִצְדָקָ֖ (“righteousness”), behold
צעקה   (“outcry”, or “iniquity”).[2] Though you may not know Hebrew, if you look at the four words, you can see the repetition of letters. The similarity and repetition of sounds in these two pair of words would have served to emphasize the message and perhaps secure the message in the minds of the people.

          When our Lord gave this parable in the temple before the Jewish people, not only was He reciting the common way in which God had dealt with His people, but He is showing that the Jewish leaders’ rejection of Him, was the full realization of the prophecy of Isaiah 5.
          God had been good to Israel. He had formed it; He owned it, as a man owns a vineyard. He could rightly expect those whom He entrusted to manage His vineyard to regard their position of responsibility and accountability to Him. They deserved His rejection and punishment. He was right to entrust His “vineyard” to others who would care for it on His behalf.
          There are other places in the Old Testament that speak of God replacing Israel’s corrupt leaders with faithful men. We read in Jeremiah 23 in which the Lord promised to replace the leaders of Israel. In this passage the metaphor that He uses is that of Israel as His flock and the leaders of Israel are the shepherds of His flock. He looks forward to bringing a remnant of His people back to the land of Israel after their extended exile in Babylon. It would be to a remnant He would send the promised Son of David, being the Lord Jesus. God promised that He would replace those leaders who had failed to lead His people rightly.

1“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD. 2Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered My flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds,” declares the LORD. 3“Then I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing,” declares the LORD.

5“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,
And He shall reign as King and deal wisely,
And shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
6In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely.
And this is the name by which he will be called:
‘The LORD is our righteousness.’” (Jer. 23:1-6)

B. The Jewish leaders were guilty of rejecting God’s prophets.

In the parable Jesus said,

34When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them.

The owner of the vineyard, being God, sent His “servants”, who were His prophets. God often sent His prophets to confront the kings and corrupt priests of the nation. Generally speaking, the leaders of Israel, both priests and princes, rejected the message given to them and they put to death God’s spokesmen.
In another place in Matthew’s Gospel, the Lord declares that the accumulated guilt of the Jewish leaders in their treatment of God’s prophets would result in their judgment upon the generation of Jews to which our Lord ministered.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35so that on you may come all the righteous bloodshed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (Matt. 23:29-36)

This prophecy of our Lord was fulfilled when the Lord sent the Roman armies to lay siege and destroy Jerusalem. Its destruction occurred in AD 70.

C. The Lord in His parable of the vineyard identifies Himself as the Son of God.

In the parable the Lord Jesus speaks of the owner of the vineyard sending his Son.

37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Here is one of the clearest assertions of our Lord that He is the Son of God. It would have been in veiled terms to all who heard Him on this occasion, except for His apostles. They would have probably recognized that He was alluding to Himself as the eternal Son of God. You will recall that this truth of the deity of the Lord Jesus had been revealed to them earlier.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 16:13-17)

Our Lord also spoke of the His rejection and death due to the Jewish leaders’ evil treachery. They would conspire to kill Him. They say in the parable, “Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance” (Mat. 23:38). Moreover, it may be that our Lord was hinting that they would take Him outside of the city in order to kill Him. Jesus said in verse 39, “And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.” This detail may reflect the theology in the epistle to the Hebrews respecting the crucifixion outside the city walls of Jerusalem. We read in Hebrews

10We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 11For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through His own blood. 13Therefore let us go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach He endured. 14For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. (Heb. 13:10-15)

There was an occasion when Jesus said to His disciples: “I have meat to eat that you know not of” (John 4:32), referring to the pleasure derived from telling a woman about life in Himself. Here the writer is saying that as Christians we have something available to “feed upon” for nourishment of which others have no access—which is the person of Jesus Christ. The “altar” that the priests had to feed upon was the brazen altar on which sacrifices were burned; the food sacrificed on the altar belonged to the priests and their families. They benefited from the sacrifice which had been offered.
But there was a sacrifice which the priests were not allowed to eat, that of the sacrifice on the annual day of atonement. The priests were to remove the animal from the camp and burn it in entirety. We read of this in Leviticus 16:27:

And the bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the Holy Place, shall be carried outside the camp. Their skin and their flesh and their dung shall be burned up with fire.

In contrast, our “altar” , that is, the altar from which we as Christians feed upon our sacrifice, was located “outside the gate”; that is, outside and away from the camp of the Israelites; more specifically, Jesus was sacrificed on an altar (the cross) outside the “gate” of Jerusalem, which was the center of Judaism. The writer reasons, therefore, if someone desires to benefit from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, he, too, must go outside the confines of Judaism where Christ is. If Christians are to “feed” on Jesus, that is, experience and enjoy the nourishment and strength that comes from the benefits of His sacrifice, they too, would have to “go out” of Judaism. The writer was telling his readers, as Jesus suffered the shame and rejection of the Jews which was epitomized by the manner of His humiliating death; they too, must be willing to suffer the rejection and humiliation that He endured. Then he gives another reason in Hebrews 13:14, “For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.” The contrast is between the temporary nature of the earthly tabernacle and camp of the Israelites and the eternal, solid and secure New Jerusalem. And so, when Matthew includes the detail in 21:39, “And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him”, he may have been alluding to this idea found in Hebrews.

D. The Lord leads the Jewish leaders to acknowledge their just condemnation and judgment.

After our Lord told the parable, He asked the people who heard Him (perhaps He asked the Jewish leaders before Him), “When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” (v. 40). They responded to Him, sentencing themselves to a just punishment: “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 in their seasons.’”
They described exactly what God intended to do. He would remove the Jewish leaders from their privileged position of leaders of God’s people. He would replace them with others. The other “tenants” would either be His Twelve Apostles whom He would give authority over His people, those who receive Him as their Jewish Messiah, or it would refer to the church itself, who now has stewardship of the kingdom of God.

E. The Lord cites Scripture to show that God had intended this to be His will in history. (Matt. 21:42ff)

42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” (Matt. 21:42-44)

The Lord quotes Psalm 118:22f. He uses it as a prophecy of His rejection and crucifixion, but His Father’s vindication of Him when He raised Him from the dead and exalted Him to be the Lord, the King over the kingdom of God. The Psalm also foretells the overthrow and judgment of Israel’s leaders who rejected Jesus as the Messiah.

F. The reaction of the Jewish leaders to our Lord’s parable (Matt. 21:45-46)

45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that He was speaking about them. 46And although they were seeking to arrest Him, they feared the crowds, because they held Him to be a prophet.

The Jewish leaders react with anger and hostility. They would have arrested Jesus then and there, if it were not for their fear of the people.

II. Some lessons for us

A. Some doctrinal matters to ponder

1. God brought an end to His dealings with ethnic Israel and instead now shows His favor toward people who receive and embrace Jesus as Lord. He took away the stewardship of the kingdom of God from Israel and gave it to His church.

2. There is continuity between God’s dealings with Israel through the history of the Old Testament and His church of the New Testament. One gave way to the other.

3. God holds His people, those who profess to believe and follow Him, responsible to live before Him in faith and obedience. This was true of Israel. John the Baptist told the people,

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matt. 3:8-10)

And similarly the apostle Paul says of Christians:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (2 Cor. 5:10)

The writer to the Hebrews declared to professing Christians, warning them against apostasy,

For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” 31It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Heb 10:30f)

4. God brings judgment upon them that refuse to render honor and obedience to His Son.

B. The considerations of our own responsibility and accountability before God.

We should not think that because we are Christians, that we are immune from God’s just dealings with us. Our Lord holds us responsible to live before Him in faith and obedience. It is easy for us to read these events merely as historical happenings, and not be challenged with their significance for our lives. We should not do this. There are principles here which are very applicable to us.

1. The principle of God’s ownership and rule. As God owned Israel, He owns all things. Everything we have, and we ourselves belong to him. He has graciously given to us places in which we may live and serve Him. And we enjoy the fruit of doing so. But all things are His. And we should remember that we have a responsibility to Him in all that we do. We are to acknowledge His ownership of all things. We are to render Him thanksgiving for all things. We are to render to others acts of kindness in His name. We are to order all of life under His authority.

2. The principle of hearing and heeding His Word. God sent Israel His prophets declaring His Word. He reminded them of Who He is and His rights of ownership of all things. He does the same for us. We are to hear and respond to His claims. We are to subordinate all things to Him. He has given His laws under which we are to order our existence. He has sent His Son Who is heir of all things and we are to embrace Him, submit to Him, yielding all of life to Him and ordering our lives according to His directives.

3. The presence of a spirit of rebellion within each of us. There was nothing unique about these leaders rejecting Jesus’ authority in those things touching their experience. We tend to do the same things respecting His claim on areas of our own lives. We question, challenge His authority. We want to have authority as to how we govern ourselves.

4. The certainty of His victory. Christ has become the head of the corner. All who refuse to have Him as their head will suffer dire consequences. There is room for only one God in His creation and it is not you or me. He will have no rivals.

5. The responsibility we have to humble ourselves and submit to Him in faith and obedience.

Based upon the description of our Lord cursing the fig tree earlier in our passage, Albert Barnes gave these words of warning:

If we make a profession, and do not produce fruit, Jesus will curse us, and we will soon wither away, (verses 19 and 20). He will suffer none to enter His kingdom on the ground of profession only. If we bear fruit, and live lives of piety, we are Christians; if not all our professions are like the blossoms of spring, or the leaves of a tree. They will not save us from the withering frown of Jesus.[3]

6. The graciousness and goodness of God of all that He has afforded us in Christ brings great responsibility upon us. In the parable, our Lord spoke of the privilege and blessing that was Israel’s: “There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower…” How much more has He been kind and merciful to us in His provision in Christ. He has given to His people everything necessary to live holy lives before Him.

2May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Pet. 1:2-5)

Let us be mindful and grateful for our great privilege. But let us also be mindful of our greater responsibility than any generation that has ever preceded us in this world!

7. The similarity between the Jewish leaders and those who reject the Gospel today, although they are in a place of privilege and opportunity. J. C. Ryle wrote:

The chief priests and elders at last discovered that our Lord’s parable was specially meant for themselves: the point of its closing words was too sharp to be escaped. “They perceived that He spake of them.
There are many hearers of the Gospel in every congregation who are exactly in the condition of these unhappy men. They know that what they hear Sunday after Sunday is all true; they know that they are wrong themselves, and that every sermon condemns them: but they have neither will nor courage to acknowledge this. They are too proud or too fond of the world to confess their past mistakes, and take up the cross and follow Christ. Let us beware of this awful state of mind. The last day will prove that there was more going on in the consciences of hearers than was at all know to preachers. Thousands and ten thousands will be found, like the chief priests, to have been convicted by their own consciences, and yet have died unconverted.[4]

Conclusion:

All of our religiosity will be less than nothing if we persist in a life of opposition to His authority over our lives. We can be members of churches, teachers of the Word, but if we reject the authority of the Lord Jesus over our lives, our fate is a certain and dismal. We must in faith embrace Him as the Son of God Who is inheritor and ruler of all things. May He give us the grace and ability to believe on Him and submit to Him.

*************************

Footnotes:

[1] Note in The Reformation Study Bible (Thomas Nelson Pub., 1995), p. 1541.

[2] G. K. Beale, and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker Academic, 2007), p. 72.

[3] Albert Barnes, Barnes Notes on the New Testament (Kregel Publications, 1968), p. 103.

[4]J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Matthew (Banner of Truth, 1986, orig. 1856), pp. 278f.