The Parables of Our Lord Part 11

modo paucis tantum verbis fit. Saepe enim praemitt.i.tur vel subjungitur ab eo doctrina per parabolam prolata, quae tamen ipsa interdum paulo obscurius exprimitur, ita ut nisi per parabolam ipsam intelligi non possit."--_Schultze de par._ 86.

The exposition suggested by Bengel is simple, consistent, and clear; and it is, I think, correct. Taking the term "called" as signifying not all to whom the call of the Gospel is addressed, but those only who are effectually called,--not those who only hear, but those who also obey the call,--taking the term in this sense, which is a sober and scriptural view, he finds that this is not a distinction between saved and lost, but between two cla.s.ses of the saved. The called and the chosen are both true disciples of Christ, and heirs of eternal life, and yet there is some distinction between them. Chosen must here therefore mean, what it did sometimes mean in ancient times, and does often mean still, the best of their kind. We constantly speak of choice or select articles, meaning the most excellent. The phrase, whether used proverbially before Christ's time or not, is in nature and structure proverbial. He either found it a proverb and used it, or he made it a proverb there and then, for such it essentially is. It seems to have been employed by the Lord on more than one occasion, and differently applied at different times. As we might say among a great number of manufactured articles, all true and genuine, "few are first-rate;" so, among a great number of real disciples, few stand out unselfish, unworldly, and Christ-like, honouring their Lord, and making the world wonder. Most, even of those who are disciples indeed, and shall inherit eternal life, are so marred by self-righteous admixtures, and unsanctified temper, and conformity to the world, that their light is dim and their witness inarticulate. Peter, for example, was one of the called, in that he heard and obeyed Christ, and was saved; but he was not a chosen or choice disciple, when he demanded of his Saviour what he should get for what he had done; or when in the hour and power of darkness, he denied all connection with Jesus of Nazareth. Alas! though there are many Christians, how few there are who forget the things behind, and press forward till they reach the high calling of G.o.d in Christ Jesus.[38]

[38] In the transaction with the young man from which this parable remotely springs, an a.n.a.logous expression is employed to indicate a chosen or choice disciple; "Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast," &c. (xix. 21.) The term "perfect" in that text seems to be entirely parallel with "chosen."

The meaning of both is determined by the main drift of the parable; and the meaning thus given accords with the a.n.a.logy of faith.

Another remarkable confirmation of this exposition is found in the use of the same term, e??e?t??, in Rev. xvii. 14. The word in that pa.s.sage must have the same meaning that we have attributed to it in the parable. Two reasons, a supreme and subordinate, are given to account for the victory of the Lamb,--his own omnipotence, and the trustworthy character of the instruments whom he employs. "The Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful;" ???t??

?a? ???e?t?? ?a? p?st??. If you understand here by ???e?t??, chosen by G.o.d in the eternal covenant, the logical arrangement becomes obscure. It would be strange if, in enumerating the qualifications of soldiers, one should represent first that they were summoned to the warfare, next that they were chosen for that purpose before, and last that they were stanch in the battlefield. If this had been the meaning of ???e?t?? it must have stood first in order. The fact that it stands second suggests another explanation. Take it, in the sense which it readily a.s.sumes and frequently bears, and the order of the series becomes at once transparent. The soldiers were "called, and choice, and faithful." They were enlisted in the cause, excellent in character, and found unflinching when the fight began.

Some obvious practical lessons may be appended to the exposition.

1. Judge not. Let a man examine himself rather than his neighbour. When Peter saw the young man refusing to make a sacrifice for Christ, he complacently remembered his own sacrifices, and thought he had done remarkably well. Ah, Peter, Satan desires to have thee that he may sift thee as wheat; but what by the Master's rebukes addressed to him, and what by prayers poured out for him, he will be saved; yet so as by fire.

You left all, you say, to follow Jesus; and how much was that? a share in a boat and some nets, both probably the worse for wear. Ah, Peter, if you had been as rich as this young man, I am not sure whether you would not have done as he did,--gone away, sorrowful indeed, but away from Jesus!

Disciples of Christ that are poor, should beware of judging the disciples who are rich. You were enabled to break the tie that bound you to the earth; and you see a neighbour struggling with the yoke still on his neck. Be not high-minded but fear. The line that bound you was a slender cord; the line that binds that brother is a cart rope. He, if he is set free at a later day, may be first in the day of reward, and you last.

2. All whom the Lord meets and calls are sent to work, and all go. From the moment they meet the Master till the evening of life's labour-day, they work for him. They not only labour for the Lord, they labour "in the Lord." Thus it is not a pain but a pleasure; it is their meat and their drink.

G.o.d needs not our work, but we, for our own sakes, need work in his kingdom. He can find other servants; but if we refuse his call we shall never find a "good Master."

3. The true spirit of a worker is love to the Master, and to the work for the Master's sake. The moment that a thought of merit glides into the servant's heart, it brings him down, not indeed from the number of true disciples, but from the highest to the lowest cla.s.s there.

Among the motives that, in these matters, sway a human heart, there are two forces equal and opposite: one is a humble, broken-hearted consciousness that you deserve nothing, and receive all free; the other is a self-righteous conceit that your valuable services deserve a great reward. If this latter spirit is the main spring of your activity, it determines your position to be altogether outside of the circle of true believers; if it intrudes more or less as a temptation, and tinges with self-righteous blemishes a substantial faith in Christ, it reduces you from the highest to the lowest rank of disciples, and from the first to the last in the final award of those who serve the Lord.

In one of its aspects the lesson of this parable is parallel with that which is taught by the experience of the penitent thief. Both greatly magnify the patience and long-suffering of G.o.d: they record and proclaim, each in its own way, that there is hope at the eleventh hour.

But in such a case, a perverse carnal mind frequently turns the grace of G.o.d into lasciviousness. Because the mercy of our Redeemer is stretched to the furthest verge of safety to leave room for the outcast to enter, when on the darkening evening of the day of grace he flees at last from the wrath to come; souls cleaving to the dust, take the liberty of stretching their expectations a little further than Christ stretched his offer, and find the door shut, when they come too late. Ah, when the tender Saviour of sinners, by his parable, and the experience of the thief, gives you encouragement to come, although you are late; beware lest you take from his words wrested an encouragement to be late in coming.

GROUP--THE TWO SONS, THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN, AND THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON.

MATT. xxi. 28; xxii. 14

The natural history of a parable is like the (probable) natural history of a pearl. Something alien and irritating has alighted upon life, and forthwith a covering of pure and precious matter is thrown over it.

After this manner, indeed, as we have already noted, a greater than the parable came. In this way redemption began, and grew. Sin entered Eden and fastened upon that image of G.o.d which had appeared on earth in the person of primeval man; forthwith holy promises from heaven began to cl.u.s.ter round the sin-spot. As age succeeded age these promises distilled like dew and crystallized around the original nucleus, until redemption was completed in the sacrifice of Christ and the ministry of the Spirit: that glorious gospel on which we now fondly look, gathered round the fall. The sin of man, though not the cause of G.o.d's salvation, became its occasion and determined its form.

The particular lessons which Jesus taught in the course of his ministry, followed in this respect the a.n.a.logy of his redeeming work as a whole; in most cases his instructions were called forth and fashioned by hard, bold outstanding sins. Some of the brightest jewels which shine in the life of Christ are the pure pearly coverings which he threw around Pharisaic pride, or Sadducean unbelief, or the self-righteous stumbles of his own disciples. Thus he made the wrath, and the malice, and the deceit of men to show forth his own praise; thus rust-spots were converted into shining pearls; thus human errors, as they sprung up, were seized and choked and buried under a mantle of glorious grace.

Here in Matthew's Gospel, we encounter a group of three parables, the two sons, the wicked husbandmen, and the marriage of the king's son, connected with each other historically in a consecutive report, and logically as successive steps in the development of one argument. The portion, chapters xxi. xxii. xxiii., is the compact record of a single scene. Approaching by the Mount of Olives, Jesus entered Jerusalem in a simple but significant triumphal procession, heralded by the hosannahs of the mult.i.tude, which, if for the most part neither intelligent nor permanent, were sincere and spontaneous. Arrived in the city he at once made his way to the Temple, and there a.s.sumed an unwonted and severe authority. The mercenary profaners of the temple he cast out; the blind and lame he healed. On the way to and from Bethany, where he lodged for the night, the fruitless fig tree withered under his word. Next morning as he was teaching in the temple, the heads of the Jewish external theocracy, stung to rage by his words and deeds on the preceding day, formally demanded the exhibition of his authority, as a preliminary step to the violent suppression of his work. Jesus knew the hearts of these men; he knew that while, in virtue of their office, they affected to expound and apply the divine law, and to rule the people in accordance with it, they were at once ignorant of G.o.d's word and tamely subservient to the pa.s.sions of the people. To tear off, or rather to compel them with their own hands to tear off their cloak of hypocrisy, he addressed to them that question of wonderful simplicity but wonderful power, The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or of men? Knowing that if they should confess the divine origin of John's mission they would thereby establish the Messiahship of Jesus to whom John had borne witness, and that if they should deny it they would forfeit the favour of the people, they answered, We cannot tell, meaning, It is inconvenient to express an opinion. As they could not venture to p.r.o.nounce whether a ministry which had left its impress deep on the whole land, was a human usurpation or a divine mission, they had obviously no right to sit in judgment on the credentials of Jesus. When on this point they were condemned out of their own lips the Lord, rising now more into the stern dignity of judge when his ministry was drawing to a close, advances against the discomfited and stunned hierarchs, with another, another, and yet another stroke, unveiling the hypocrisy of their religious profession, predicting the consummation of the crime, the murder of the Father's well beloved, which they were already cherishing in their hearts, and denouncing finally the doom which in the righteous government of G.o.d should fall upon themselves and their city.[39] Such are the occasion, the places, the object, and the nature of the three parables which Jesus spoke that day in the Temple, and the Evangelist Matthew has recorded in this portion of the word. The first is the parable of--

[39] "He now constrains them, in the first parable, to declare their own guilt; and, in the second, to declare their own punishment; and as they had now decided to put Him to death, He describes to them, in the third parable, the consequences of their great violation of the covenant and ingrat.i.tude,--the destruction of their ancient priesthood, and the triumphant establishment of his new kingdom of heaven among the Gentiles."--_Lange in loc._

X.

THE TWO SONS.

"But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father?

They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of G.o.d before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him."--MATT. xxi. 28-32.

From this parable, in connection with that of the labourers in the vineyard, we incidentally learn that among the cultivators of Palestine in those days there was the same admixture of large and small farms which prevails in our own land. In order to provide for the structure of the preceding parable, an agriculturist is introduced who cultivates on a large scale. Group after group of labourers are hired wholesale, and sent successively into the vineyard; in the evening a steward pays each labourer under the general instructions of his chief. There in a few strokes you have the picture of an ancient Israelitish magnate, owning a broad estate and affording employment to a mult.i.tude of dependants. In the parable which is now under review, we have a picture equally distinct, but representing another cla.s.s of countrymen. This is neither on the one hand a great proprietor, nor on the other a landless labourer. Here is a man who has a stake in the country, a portion of ground of size sufficient to provide for the wants of his family; but his farm cannot afford employment and remuneration to a gang of labourers; the work must be all done by the owner himself and his children. This is a desirable condition of life, and the cla.s.s who occupy it are valuable to society. There, in the middle, they are sheltered from many dangers to which their countrymen on either extreme of social condition are exposed. Woe to the country in which there are only two cla.s.ses,--the greatest and the smallest,--the large proprietors and the floating sea of labourers. The strong fixed few and the feeble surging many are to each other reciprocally dangerous. Give me a country dotted all over with homesteads, where father and mother, sons and daughters, till their own ground and eat the fruit of their own labour.

"To the first he said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." The first was none other than the one whom the father first met that morning. To have intimated whether he was the elder or the younger, would have introduced a disturbing element, and obscured the meaning of the lesson.

There is no question here between elder and younger, or between Jews and Gentiles. At all events, if those who maintained a place within the theocracy are distinguished from those who stood without its pale, we must conceive of the Father approaching on this occasion from without towards the centre, coming in contact first with those who were excluded as aliens, and afterwards reaching the inner circle, who counted themselves the seed of Abraham.

This son, rebellious in heart, and not trained to cover his disobedience under a smooth profession, meets his father's command with a rude, blunt refusal. I think the humble husbandman had received a similar answer from the same quarter more than once before. This is not the first unseemly word which the young man had spoken to his father: neither himself nor his wickedness has grown to maturity in a day. The habit of dishonouring his parents had sprung from a seed of evil in his infancy, and grown with his growth until he and it had reached full stature together. The father seems not to have spoken a word in reply. Probably he knew by experience that an altercation on the spot would only have made matters worse: perhaps he sighed, perhaps he wept as he turned gently round and went away. I do not know how often and how long he had meditated on the grand practical question for a father, when he should be severe, and when he should show indulgence. May G.o.d guide and help parents who have disobedient sons; they need much patience for bearing, and much wisdom for acting aright.

"But afterward he repented and went." There is much in these few simple words. He repented; perhaps his father's silent grief went to his heart at length and melted it. He saw himself in his true colours, and loathed himself for his sin. The son, who probably obtained a glimpse of his father's tears, wept himself in turn, and, as the best amends he could make, went silently into the vineyard, and did a good day's work there.

Thus, when Jesus, suffering, bearing reproach before Pilate's judgment-seat, looked on Peter sinning, Peter went out and wept. When he was called to suffer for Christ, he had rudely answered, "I will not;"

but afterwards he repented and went--to work, to witness, to suffer, to die for the Lord whom he loved.

Perhaps the father, from beneath the cottage eaves, saw the son on the brow of the hill toiling in the noon-day heat,--saw and was glad. The value of a day's labour was something; but it was as the small dust of the balance in comparison with the price he set on the repentance and obedience of his child. I suppose there was a happy meeting at night when the son came home. I suppose the father was a happy man as he saw the robust youth wiping the sweat from his brow, and sitting down to his evening meal.

"He came to the second, and said likewise." The second son had an answer ready, sound in substance and smooth in form. It was a model answer from a son to his parent: "I go, sir," said the youth, without hesitation or complaint. I am not sure that the father was overjoyed at the promptness and politeness of this reply: probably he had received as fair promises from the same quarter before, and seen them broken. At all events, this young man's fair word was a whited sepulchre; he did not obey his father. Whether he fell in with trivial companions on his way to the vineyard, and was induced to go with them in another direction, or thought the day too hot and postponed the labour till the morrow, I know not; but he said, and did not. It was profession without practice. The tender vine-shoots might trail on the ground for him till their fruit-buds were blackened; he would not put himself to the trouble of tying them up to the stakes, although the food of the family should be imperilled by his neglect.

Now comes the sharp question, "Whether of them twain did the will of his father?" The answer is all too easy. The light is stronger than is comfortable for those owl-eyed Pharisees, who were prowling about like night-birds on the scent of their prey. The sudden glance of this sunbeam dazzles and confounds them. In utter helplessness, they confess the truth that condemns themselves; they say unto him "The first."[40]

[40] At an earlier stage of the same interview, when a question regarding the ministry of the Baptist was addressed to them, fearing the consequences which an answer might involve, they had sought shelter under the plea of ignorance. As they gained nothing by their duplicity on that occasion, they may have been unwilling to try the same policy again; and, accordingly, they give frankly the obvious answers to the questions that resulted both from this and the succeeding parable.

In the first example the Lord represents chief sinners repenting; and in the second, the form of G.o.dliness without its power. The publicans and harlots, who had forsaken their sins and followed the Saviour, sat for the first picture; the chief priests and elders, who concealed their thirst for innocent blood under a mantle of long prayers and broad phylacteries, sat for the second.

Let us look first to the two distinct and opposite answers, and next to the two distinct and opposite acts.

_The answers._--That of the first son, "I will not," was evil, and only evil. It is of first-rate practical importance to make this plain and prominent. Looking to the son in the story, we see clearly that the answer was outrageously wicked: it was an evil word flowing from its native spring in an evil heart. Looking next to the cla.s.s of persons whom that son represents, we find they are the openly and daringly unG.o.dly of every rank in every age. This son, when he rudely refused to obey his father, meant what he said; he was not willing to obey, and he plainly said so. This represents those who have neither the profession nor the practice of true religion; they neither fear G.o.d nor pretend to fear him.

At this point, among certain cla.s.ses, a subtle temptation insinuates itself. In certain circ.u.mstances, unG.o.dly men take credit for the distinct avowal of their unG.o.dliness, and count on it as a merit. They are not, indeed, submissive in heart and life to the will of G.o.d; but they do not tell a lie about the matter; they make no pretension. The frank confession, that they are not good, seems to serve some men as a subst.i.tute for goodness. By comparing themselves complacently with fellow-sinners of a different cla.s.s, they contrive to rivet the fatal error more firmly on their own hearts. Observing among their neighbours here and there a rank hypocrite, they compare his sanctimonious profession with his indifferent sense of honesty, and congratulate themselves that they are not hypocrites.

Well, brother, suppose it were conceded that you are not a hypocrite; what then? If you have lived unrepenting, unforgiven, unchanged; if with your whole heart and habits you have departed from the living G.o.d, and not returned to him through the Mediator,--will all be atoned for and made up by the single fact that to all your other sins you did not add the cant of a hypocrite? It is true, a hypocrite is a loathsome creature; but his badness will not make a profane man good. When he is cast away for his hypocrisy, it will be no comfort to you as you keep him company that it is for open unG.o.dliness, and not for lying pretensions to piety, that you are condemned. Hypocrites are, indeed, excluded from the kingdom of G.o.d; but it is a fatal mistake to a.s.sume that, provided you are not a hypocrite, you will be welcomed into heaven with all your vices on your back.

I scarcely know a more subtle or more successful wile of the devil than this. Many strong men are cast down by it. You don't pretend to be good; well, and will that save you? What comfort will it afford to the lost to reflect that they went openly to perdition, in broad daylight, before all men, and did not skulk through by-ways under pretence that they were going to heaven?

The answer of the other son was evil too, if you look not to its body, but to its spirit. There is no reason to suppose that it was, even at the moment, an act of true obedience to his father. "He said, I go, sir; and went not:" he said one thing, and did another, an opposite; but there is no ground for believing that he meant to go when he promised, and afterwards changed his mind. His smooth language was a lie; and his subsequent conduct showed, not that he had changed his mind when his father was out of sight, but that he concealed it while his father was present. It is worthy of notice, that although the first son changed his mind after he had given his answer, there is no intimation of any change having pa.s.sed on the second son, between his answer and his act. By its silence on this point, the narrative leads us to infer that the purpose of the disobedient son was the same while he was promising well as when he acted ill. The course of the life flowing full in the direction of disobedience, proves that the expression of the lips which ran in the opposite direction, was a lie; it was like a glittering ripple caused by a fitful breeze, running upward on the surface of the river, while the whole volume of its water rolls, notwithstanding, the other way.

Thus is even the worship of hypocrites worthless: Not every one that _saith_ unto me, Lord, Lord; but he that _doeth_ the will of my Father which is in heaven. The want of the subsequent obedience shows that the promise was not true.

Thus at first both these sons were in a false and unsafe position. Their characters were not the same,--were not similar: they differed in thought and word; but the difference, in as far as their answers were concerned, indicated only varieties of sin. Legion is the name of the spirits that possess and pollute the fallen; but all the legion do not dwell in every man. Different temptations tinge different persons with different hues of guilt. At the time when the father uttered his command, the character of the first son was bold, unblushing rebellion; the character of the second was cowardly, false pretence. The one son neither promised nor meant to obey; the other son promised obedience, but intended not to keep his word.

In the first instance, therefore, there is no ground for preferring the one to the other. While they stood severally in their father's presence, and before either had repented of his sin, they were both, and both alike evil. The blasphemer has no right to boast over the hypocrite, and the hypocrite has no right to boast over the blasphemer. In either case it is a body of sin, but there is a shade of difference in the colour of the garments. The one pretends to a goodness which he does not possess; and the other confesses, or rather boasts, that he is dest.i.tute of goodness. They measure themselves by themselves; and therein they are not wise. The one thinks his smooth tongue will save him; and the other counts himself safe because he has not a smooth tongue.

We come now to the ultimate _act_ of either son. The first, after flinging a blunt refusal in his father's face, repented of his sin. The turning-point is here. A change came over the spirit of the man, and a consequent change emerged in his conduct: his heart was first turned, and then his history. The honesty of his declaration--the absence of duplicity in giving his answer, would not have justified him before either G.o.d or man. He repented; he turned round. He grieved over his sin; he was sorry that he had disobeyed his father. Repentance immediately brought forth fruit after its kind. He went into the vineyard, and laboured there with a will all day at the kind of work which he knew would please his father. These two things go always in company, and together make up the new man--they are the new heart and the new life.

The grieved father would weep for joy, as he looked up the precipitous hill-side on which the terraced vineyard hung, and saw there the head and hands of his son glancing quickly from place to place among the vine plants. Thus there is joy in heaven--deep in the heart of heaven's Lord--over one sinner that repenteth. Among the vines that day work was worship: the resulting act of obedience--fruit of repentance in the soul, was an offering of a sweet-smelling savour unto G.o.d.

The other son promptly promised, but failed to perform. The first was changed from bad to good, but the second was not changed from good to bad. No change took place in this case, and none is recorded. It is not written, that having promised, he afterwards repented and did not go.