Luke 20:10, commentary and pictures

This verse belongs to the parable of the vineyard picturing Christ's first advent and the treatment He received, in which Jesus represents the world as a vineyard. At the season, the harvest time or appointed time, the vineyard owner, God, sent a servant to the husbandmen, the leaders of the Jewish nation, to receive and collect the fruit due and owed Him from His vineyard. The husbandmen were responsible to return that fruit to its owner in its season.

God patiently sent messengers to the vineyard's stewards to urge His claim upon His people. The servants represent God's prophets, first sent to ancient Israel to reach hearts and turn the people to God. The beating of the servant and sending him away empty means his message was not heeded. Instead of welcoming the prophets, the stewards treated them as enemies with contempt, injustice, and cruelty, persecuted and killed them, and responded to later messengers with still greater hatred in repeated mistreatment.

The husbandmen are the priests, teachers, and leaders of the Jewish nation who reject God's messengers and refuse to render the fruits God requires, and the guilt lies with them because they refused to return to their lord the fruit of his ground. They robbed God of the service He claimed by misleading the people and turning the nation away from Christ and His precepts. They set human teaching above God's word and refused to give up their man-made commandments, traditions, ordinances, and customs to obey the law of God presented by Christ as the great standard of obedience unmixed with human tradition, because they would not sacrifice pride of reason and praise of men for truth's sake. When Christ came presenting God's claims, rebukes, and warnings, they denied His right to come between them and the people, set themselves to turn the people against Him, and worked to bring about His destruction. Their rejection of Christ made them responsible, so that a nation's sin and a nation's ruin were due to the religious leaders.

The servant's rejection prepares for the sending of the son as a last resort, meaning God finally sent His own Son. The killing of the son means the people killed Christ, a work done by Satan through men gathered under his banner. This treatment exposes the deceptions of the priests and rulers and shows their unfaithfulness. Because of it the Lord will punish the Jewish nation with fearful severity, taking the kingdom and vineyard from them and giving it to those who will obey its Ruler.

The parable applies not only to the Jewish nation but also to the church in this generation, which has received great privileges and blessings and from which God expects a corresponding return. The vineyard is the Lord's work entrusted to His people to cultivate every part faithfully and return its fruits through unselfish service. The sending of a servant for the fruit still takes place today, with God's messengers coming at the Master's bidding demanding obedience to the word of God and presenting His claim to the fruits of the vineyard. Those fruits are love and humility and self-sacrificing service that grow only by obedience to God's law, since obedience in the spiritual world is the condition of fruit-bearing as in the natural world. The husbandmen today are the religious teachers and leaders of the Lord's vineyard, and many follow the Jewish leaders by turning men away from the plain requirements of God's word, teaching from the pulpits that God's law is not binding, educating in transgression instead of obedience, and exalting human traditions, ordinances, and customs. When the claim of God's law is set before the people, these husbandmen are stirred to anger like the Jewish leaders and use their influence to lead men to reject it, beating the servant and sending him away empty. By teaching disregard for God's commandments they prevent the people from bearing fruit to His glory, withhold from the Lord the fruits of His vineyard, and neglect parts of the vineyard or keep its facilities for one field instead of using them where needed, so the good news of salvation is to reach every people; such teachers God calls unfaithful servants.