When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?
Christ asks the priests and rulers what the owner of the vineyard will do when he comes to tenants who have abused his servants and killed his son. Engrossed in the story without seeing themselves in it, they answer that he will miserably destroy those wicked men and lease the vineyard to others who will render fruit, thereby unwittingly pronouncing their own doom and condemnation. Their answer means the taking of national privileges from unfaithful Israel is just, a work ending in the destruction of temple and city and dispersion of the nation because they did not care for the vineyard or return its fruits. Because they failed to bear its fruits, the kingdom of God shall be taken from them for rejecting the Son and given to a nation bringing forth its fruits, to the Gentiles, carried forward through a faithful remnant entrusted as faithful husbandmen. The parable applies also to the church in the present generation, which has received great privileges and is accountable to make corresponding returns, for God gives each person abilities and responsibilities and requires diligent, faithful stewardship that produces fruit belonging to Him.
Vineyard and Husbandmen Identified
The vineyard is Israel, the people God chose and richly blessed, whom He expected to honor Him by bearing fruit and showing the principles and character of His kingdom. Through obedience they could have fulfilled His purpose, but their failure meant forfeiting His blessing and bringing ruin upon themselves. Their answer to the question of what the owner will do to the tenants who abused His servants and killed His son — that he will destroy the wicked tenants and lease the vineyard to others who will give its fruit — pronounces their own judgment and warns that stewardship will be taken from leaders who rejected God's messengers and His Son.
The vineyard is Israel taken as a vine out of Egypt and planted in Canaan, where God nourished and cared for it to bring forth good grapes. It is also the whole house of Israel and the church, and the union that should exist between Christ and the church is that of vine and branches. The trust of the vineyard belonged to the people, not only to their leaders and teachers, for Israel received exceptional covenant blessings and the land of Canaan so its people would cultivate it for the Lord and represent His kingdom. Canaan tested their obedience as Eden had tested Adam and Eve, and obedience to the conditions God gave would have brought spiritual and temporal prosperity.
The vineyard also represents the world, a figure used in several of Christ's parables and meriting study. God's world belongs to Him by creation and redemption, yet the husbandmen's failure to honor His claim is reflected in ingratitude, neglect of blessings, and selfish use of what He gives. The Lord's vineyard has been put in the use of the people of the world, and they have brought little in return to Him for it. The vineyard figure also teaches training in cultivation of the soil and various lines of manual labor to fit workers for mission fields and for any line of work to which they are called, applied to schools as more faithful cultivation of the land and more disinterested care of the buildings by students so that the love of sports and amusements perplexing school work passes away.
The husbandmen are Israel's priests, teachers, rulers and leaders, entrusted with guiding God's people and returning His fruit. They are the unfaithful caretakers who rejected God's messengers and killed His Son in order to keep control of what belonged to God, and their rejection of Christ brought condemnation and separation from God. Engrossed in the narrative, the very men plotting to take His life answer against themselves, declaring destruction for the wicked men and transfer of the vineyard to others who will render fruit in season, and by that denunciation they pronounce their own sentence. The husbandmen are also described as the Jewish nation and people entrusted with God's oracles and gifts and required to be faithful, but guilty of violence against God's messengers. After the exile they repeated the sins of earlier generations, and the prophets sent to correct them met the same suspicion and scorn as before, adding to their guilt.
The servants sent to receive fruit are God's messengers and prophets, whose warnings and invitations were despised, mocked, abused and met with violence, and the son and heir is Christ, sent as a final appeal. The parable portrays God's care for Israel, the prophets whom the people had killed, and Jesus as the Son whose coming exposed the Jews' murderous purpose against Him. The vineyard's ruin reflects the consequences of Israel's resistance to grace and neglect of its privileges. The lord of the vineyard is God, who as owner has a just claim and right to expect revenue and a certain amount of fruit in its season from the husbandmen entrusted with His vineyard. His coming is God's retribution for their deeds and Christ coming in person after the servants had been sent, and the parable calls for solemn, watchful preparation for Christ's second coming and earnest work to awaken people and prepare them for that day. Jesus' life exposed their selfish refusal to honor that claim, their rejection of Him culminated in His crucifixion, and their response to Him was the final test of obedience, with eternal life for obedience and eternal death for disobedience.
Question Asked and Answered
Christ put the question to the priests and rulers, even to the very men who were then plotting to take His life, asking what the owner will do when he comes to tenants who have abused his servants and killed his son. The owner’s coming is God’s retribution for rejecting and killing His messengers and planning to kill His Son. The question was part of His final warning to an unbelieving people and evidence of His divine mission.
He held before the Jews in it their past and future history and their true religious character, portraying their crowning act of wickedness so that they would answer and condemn themselves and admit the justice of the punishment soon to fall upon them. He intended the priests and rulers to answer and so condemn themselves, their answer picturing the retribution awaiting those who would put Him to death. The question called the unfaithful tenants to judgment for abusing the trust placed in them.
Engrossed in the narrative and following the story with deep interest without seeing its application to themselves, the hearers answered against themselves. They answered that he will miserably destroy those wicked men and lease the vineyard to other husbandmen who will render fruit in its season. The Jewish rulers thereby declared destruction for the wicked men and transfer of the vineyard to others who would give its fruit.
By that answer they unwittingly pronounced their own doom, sentence and condemnation. By that denunciation they fastened the guilt where it belonged and admitted the justice of taking away their national privileges. Their condemnation pronounced their sentence that the nation’s breach of trust would bring judgment and loss of stewardship.
Jesus then fastened the guilt where it belonged and made the application plain to their hearts, showing they are the ones illustrated before the people and declaring the kingdom of God shall be taken from them for rejecting God’s Son and given to a people bringing forth its fruits. Their condemnation carried that warning of the consequences which He then stated plainly. The plain truth sent home enraged them in mortification and madness so they took up stones to cast at Him and set snares to destroy Him, and again and again He escaped because heavenly angels attended Him and guarded His human life by the power of God until the case of the Jews as a nation was decided and His day of work was ended. Judas had often seen this pattern and reasoned that Christ would certainly not allow Himself to be taken by the Pharisees and Sadducees this time either, so he could act his part in selling his Lord and obtain his reward while the people were cheated out of their money.
Judgment on Unfaithful Israel
The answer declares that taking away their national privileges is just. That work had already commenced and would end not only in the destruction of their temple and city but in the dispersion of the nation. The foretold doom came upon the nation in the siege of Jerusalem, when more than one million people perished. They had great light, rich blessings, and wonderful prosperity, yet proved unfaithful to their trust, did not care faithfully for the Lord's vineyard nor render Him its fruits, and acted as though there were no God, so calamity overtook them.
The leaders cherished the idea that they were the favorites of heaven and would always be exalted as the church of God. Although they claimed to have the only true religion in the world, they pursued ambitious desires until the love and fear of God departed from them. Through envy and jealousy, ambition, Pharisaical pride, self-exaltation and cruelty, their religion became hollow formalism, they resisted righteousness and grace, refused mercy and the opportunities and privileges given by a compassionate God, rejected the Light of the world, turned from the truth itself and condemned and crucified the One who is the truth. By rejecting Christ they brought condemnation upon themselves and were left in midnight darkness and separation from God.
From age to age they abused their privileges, would not accept His invitation of mercy, and from national apostasy persecuted and killed the messengers sent to them. Though He sent prophets to warn them and gave the sacrificial system to keep the one great Sacrifice before them, they met correction with suspicion and scorn, adding to their guilt. After the exile they repeated the sins of earlier generations, and the vineyard's ruin reflects that resistance to grace and neglect of privileges. At last they rejected the Son of God Himself and were ready to put Him to death, so the cloud of retributive judgment was about to burst upon them in unrestrained fury. Their response to Him was the final test of obedience, with eternal life for obedience and eternal death for disobedience.
The priests and rulers recognized that the sentence of destruction pictured their own course in rejecting and killing the Son of God. Their own answer—that he will miserably destroy those wicked men—shows their just doom. At Christ's return they face that recognized sentence with terror.
Kingdom Given to Others
When the owner asks what will be done to the tenants who abused his servants and killed his son, the priests and rulers, even the very men then plotting to take his life, are so engrossed in the story that they do not see its application to themselves. They answer with deep interest that he will miserably destroy those wicked men and lease his vineyard to other husbandmen who will render him fruit in its season. In that answer they unwittingly pronounce their own judgment, sentence, doom and condemnation, fastening guilt where it belongs. The tenants picture the priests, scribes and Pharisees, and the vineyard represents Israel, exposed for deception and for treating his servants with contempt, injustice, cruelty and violence.
The question holds before them their crowning wickedness and true character, warning that because they cherished the idea that they were heaven's favorites always exalted as God's church yet proved unfaithful, they were preparing for condemnation and separation from God. Jesus then makes the application plain, showing the verse means that because they failed to bear the kingdom's fruits and rejected God's messengers and His Son, the kingdom of God shall be taken from unfaithful Israel and given to a nation and people bringing forth its fruits and obeying its ruler. Christ would have averted that doom if they had received Him, but through envy and jealousy they rejected the Light of the world and were left in midnight darkness. The foretold doom came upon the Jewish nation in the siege of Jerusalem, when more than one million people perished in terrible punishment for impenitence.
The privileges taken from the Jews would be given to the Gentiles, and the same warning reaches professing Christians who oppose God's law and truth and reject entrusted light, for they will lose their sacred trust which will be given to others. God's purpose is still carried forward through a faithful remnant, and His church is entrusted with the vineyard as faithful husbandmen. The vine God planted in Israel was despised and cast out by the men of Israel, but God removed it beyond their reach where it could not be harmed by them. Its branches still hang over the wall, so that others can be joined to it.
Warning to God's People Today
The question about what the owner will do when he comes is not confined to the Jewish nation, for the parable reaches to the church in the present generation. That church has received great privileges and blessings and is held accountable to make corresponding returns when the owner comes to reckon with unfaithful tenants. The judgment pronounced upon tenants guilty of violence against entrusted oracles and messengers stands also as a warning against stubborn resistance to truth throughout the world.
The church is beloved, yet persistence in sin, self-exaltation, mixing the sacred with the common, and misrepresenting God cannot be sustained. Those who repent are loved and forgiven, but favor is withdrawn from the unfaithful and terrible judgments fall upon them. As Israel's unfaithfulness brought ruin through ingratitude, neglect of blessings, and selfish use of what belongs to God by creation and redemption, so the same sin brings ruin upon the world.
Professing Christians who oppose God's law and truth and reject entrusted light will lose their sacred trust. As privileges taken from unfaithful Jewish leaders were given to the Gentiles who would render fruit, so that trust will be given to others.
The unfaithful husbandmen represent religious teachers who withhold God's due service, mislead the people, and turn them from Christ. By teaching disregard for God's law they prevent the bearing of love, humility, and self-sacrificing service. Instead of teaching God's goodness and claims and living by the Scriptures, they sought their own glory and the vineyard's fruit, burdened people with human rules, misused what was entrusted, misrepresented God, and gave Gentiles reason to misunderstand His character and kingdom.
God as Owner examines responsible men and institutions to see whether they unselfishly do the entrusted work and return fruit in due season. He watches how they trade upon His goods, sending servants and message after message as to ancient Israel, and leaves room in every entrusted work for development of character. Faithfulness means cultivating barren wastes and neglected parts, sowing truth, planting the standard in cities and countries that have never heard the warning, cooperating intelligently with God, and supplying His messengers with entrusted means to carry the work forward.
Unfaithful stewards selfishly and covetously appropriate His means and mingle selfishness with His service, dishonoring Him. They bind blessings, facilities, and money in the one portion under their own supervision and center every advantage in a few places, while other fields lie desolate, bare, and unworked though with proper advantages they could bear as good fruit as any other portion. They use common fire in place of the sacred, warp the message that should go to every kindred, tongue, and people to suit worldly business success, and invest and bind money in worldly enterprises and schemes not after His order. So the Lord's way is not prepared, His paths are not made straight, and He cannot gather fruit from the trees of His planting.
If through selfishness stewards refuse to cultivate those wastes, close doors He has opened for blessing, and fail to cooperate and supply His messengers, He will remove His gifts and leave them barren of resources. He will find another way to accomplish His purpose, pass the work to other agencies, and give the vineyard to those who will honor the trust and magnify His name in all parts of the world by aiding the more destitute fields. His vineyard shall be worked, and the trust will be taken from those who prove untrustworthy from ancient Israel to the present day.
Fruit the Lord Requires
The question of what the owner will do when he comes is a call to account for what has been done with his vineyard, and the parable applies to everyone, not only to priests and rulers. God gives each person abilities and responsibilities, and diligent use of them produces fruit that belongs to Him and that He expects to receive. Those who believe are to serve actively and let their lives show the saving power of the truth as they wait for His appearing, for He requires His people to return to Him what is His and approves faithful stewardship that produces fruit.
God expects fruit from His vineyard from people who have received the light of truth and bear responsibility for His work, and that fruit results from the labor of His workers. Every believer has work to do for Him, and no true Christian should be idle. Those establishing the work in foreign fields should have special and abundant advantages and should not be hindered in their efforts. He calls for honest men to fill His appointed places as stewards and return to Him the fruits of His vineyard.
Those who have received light are accountable for that light and must reflect it by precept and example to draw their fellow men from the pit of destruction, while those who have not had light and advantages will not answer for light they never had. Work in the vineyard is varied hard work requiring different kinds of ploughing that the ground may produce a harvest of different kinds of fruit, and idleness or pleasure-loving is never excused. Christ gave the example by coming to save lost, fallen humanity, working ingeniously to obtain access even to the higher class who knew not God and did not keep His commandments, including not merely the outcasts but those in places of high honor. Through the discipline of work in and through Christ, His people learn how to gain the true riches, perfect a character after the divine likeness as a sample of the character of Christ, and secure the only treasure that can be taken to the heavenly courts, a complete character gained in and through Jesus Christ.
What God entrusts is the vineyard itself: money, goods, houses and lands, with physical and mental powers, all to be used in His service to advance His work and return to Him what is His. Using these gifts for self-gratification is self-exaltation that hinders His purposes, and He tests His stewards as He tested ancient Israel. Faithful cultivation should produce returns to Him in tithes and offerings, including support for the ministry and relief for the poor and suffering of the church. The true nature of fruit-bearing is benevolence springing from appreciation of His rich gifts, returning to Him His due by sustaining every good work and advancing His kingdom.
Such liberality in lines that advance the kingdom counterworks selfishness and self-indulgence, reveals the power of the truth, and is the very best tangible evidence of the sincerity of faith, with love expressed in deeds, without which character cannot be complete. The reckoning falls especially on rich people who treat their possessions as their own rather than as goods entrusted to them, neglecting the poor and oppressed, robbing the great Proprietor, and returning abuse instead of fruit. He judges these unfaithful stewards and rewards each person according to works, so that avarice and injustice bring judgment. In this sense the vineyard has been put in the use of the people of the world, and they have brought little in return to Him for it.
The vineyard figure also teaches training in cultivation of the soil and various lines of manual labor to fit workers for mission fields and for any line of work to which they are called, with practical life education making instruction effectual. Applied to schools, it means more faithful cultivation of the land and more disinterested care of the buildings by students. This faithful practical work will cause the love of sports and amusements that perplexes school work to pass away. He remains the Master of the vineyard to whom workers should bring their needs when difficulties arise.
Christ asks the priests and rulers what the owner of the vineyard will do when he comes to tenants who have abused his servants and killed his son.
Engrossed in the story without seeing themselves in it, they answer that he will miserably destroy those wicked men and lease the vineyard to others who will render fruit, thereby unwittingly pronouncing their own doom and condemnation.
Their answer means the taking of national privileges from unfaithful Israel is just, a work ending in the destruction of temple and city and dispersion of the nation because they did not care for the vineyard or return its fruits.
Because they failed to bear its fruits, the kingdom of God shall be taken from them for rejecting the Son and given to a nation bringing forth its fruits, to the Gentiles, carried forward through a faithful remnant entrusted as faithful husbandmen.
The parable applies also to the church in the present generation, which has received great privileges and is accountable to make corresponding returns, for God gives each person abilities and responsibilities and requires diligent, faithful stewardship that produces fruit belonging to Him.
Vineyard and Husbandmen Identified
The vineyard is Israel, the people God chose and richly blessed, whom He expected to honor Him by bearing fruit and showing the principles and character of His kingdom. Through obedience they could have fulfilled His purpose, but their failure meant forfeiting His blessing and bringing ruin upon themselves. Their answer to the question of what the owner will do to the tenants who abused His servants and killed His son — that he will destroy the wicked tenants and lease the vineyard to others who will give its fruit — pronounces their own judgment and warns that stewardship will be taken from leaders who rejected God's messengers and His Son.
The vineyard is Israel taken as a vine out of Egypt and planted in Canaan, where God nourished and cared for it to bring forth good grapes. It is also the whole house of Israel and the church, and the union that should exist between Christ and the church is that of vine and branches. The trust of the vineyard belonged to the people, not only to their leaders and teachers, for Israel received exceptional covenant blessings and the land of Canaan so its people would cultivate it for the Lord and represent His kingdom. Canaan tested their obedience as Eden had tested Adam and Eve, and obedience to the conditions God gave would have brought spiritual and temporal prosperity.
The vineyard also represents the world, a figure used in several of Christ's parables and meriting study. God's world belongs to Him by creation and redemption, yet the husbandmen's failure to honor His claim is reflected in ingratitude, neglect of blessings, and selfish use of what He gives. The Lord's vineyard has been put in the use of the people of the world, and they have brought little in return to Him for it. The vineyard figure also teaches training in cultivation of the soil and various lines of manual labor to fit workers for mission fields and for any line of work to which they are called, applied to schools as more faithful cultivation of the land and more disinterested care of the buildings by students so that the love of sports and amusements perplexing school work passes away.
The husbandmen are Israel's priests, teachers, rulers and leaders, entrusted with guiding God's people and returning His fruit. They are the unfaithful caretakers who rejected God's messengers and killed His Son in order to keep control of what belonged to God, and their rejection of Christ brought condemnation and separation from God. Engrossed in the narrative, the very men plotting to take His life answer against themselves, declaring destruction for the wicked men and transfer of the vineyard to others who will render fruit in season, and by that denunciation they pronounce their own sentence. The husbandmen are also described as the Jewish nation and people entrusted with God's oracles and gifts and required to be faithful, but guilty of violence against God's messengers. After the exile they repeated the sins of earlier generations, and the prophets sent to correct them met the same suspicion and scorn as before, adding to their guilt.
The servants sent to receive fruit are God's messengers and prophets, whose warnings and invitations were despised, mocked, abused and met with violence, and the son and heir is Christ, sent as a final appeal. The parable portrays God's care for Israel, the prophets whom the people had killed, and Jesus as the Son whose coming exposed the Jews' murderous purpose against Him. The vineyard's ruin reflects the consequences of Israel's resistance to grace and neglect of its privileges. The lord of the vineyard is God, who as owner has a just claim and right to expect revenue and a certain amount of fruit in its season from the husbandmen entrusted with His vineyard. His coming is God's retribution for their deeds and Christ coming in person after the servants had been sent, and the parable calls for solemn, watchful preparation for Christ's second coming and earnest work to awaken people and prepare them for that day. Jesus' life exposed their selfish refusal to honor that claim, their rejection of Him culminated in His crucifixion, and their response to Him was the final test of obedience, with eternal life for obedience and eternal death for disobedience.
Question Asked and Answered
Christ put the question to the priests and rulers, even to the very men who were then plotting to take His life, asking what the owner will do when he comes to tenants who have abused his servants and killed his son. The owner’s coming is God’s retribution for rejecting and killing His messengers and planning to kill His Son. The question was part of His final warning to an unbelieving people and evidence of His divine mission.
He held before the Jews in it their past and future history and their true religious character, portraying their crowning act of wickedness so that they would answer and condemn themselves and admit the justice of the punishment soon to fall upon them. He intended the priests and rulers to answer and so condemn themselves, their answer picturing the retribution awaiting those who would put Him to death. The question called the unfaithful tenants to judgment for abusing the trust placed in them.
Engrossed in the narrative and following the story with deep interest without seeing its application to themselves, the hearers answered against themselves. They answered that he will miserably destroy those wicked men and lease the vineyard to other husbandmen who will render fruit in its season. The Jewish rulers thereby declared destruction for the wicked men and transfer of the vineyard to others who would give its fruit.
By that answer they unwittingly pronounced their own doom, sentence and condemnation. By that denunciation they fastened the guilt where it belonged and admitted the justice of taking away their national privileges. Their condemnation pronounced their sentence that the nation’s breach of trust would bring judgment and loss of stewardship.
Jesus then fastened the guilt where it belonged and made the application plain to their hearts, showing they are the ones illustrated before the people and declaring the kingdom of God shall be taken from them for rejecting God’s Son and given to a people bringing forth its fruits. Their condemnation carried that warning of the consequences which He then stated plainly. The plain truth sent home enraged them in mortification and madness so they took up stones to cast at Him and set snares to destroy Him, and again and again He escaped because heavenly angels attended Him and guarded His human life by the power of God until the case of the Jews as a nation was decided and His day of work was ended. Judas had often seen this pattern and reasoned that Christ would certainly not allow Himself to be taken by the Pharisees and Sadducees this time either, so he could act his part in selling his Lord and obtain his reward while the people were cheated out of their money.
Judgment on Unfaithful Israel
The answer declares that taking away their national privileges is just. That work had already commenced and would end not only in the destruction of their temple and city but in the dispersion of the nation. The foretold doom came upon the nation in the siege of Jerusalem, when more than one million people perished. They had great light, rich blessings, and wonderful prosperity, yet proved unfaithful to their trust, did not care faithfully for the Lord's vineyard nor render Him its fruits, and acted as though there were no God, so calamity overtook them.
The leaders cherished the idea that they were the favorites of heaven and would always be exalted as the church of God. Although they claimed to have the only true religion in the world, they pursued ambitious desires until the love and fear of God departed from them. Through envy and jealousy, ambition, Pharisaical pride, self-exaltation and cruelty, their religion became hollow formalism, they resisted righteousness and grace, refused mercy and the opportunities and privileges given by a compassionate God, rejected the Light of the world, turned from the truth itself and condemned and crucified the One who is the truth. By rejecting Christ they brought condemnation upon themselves and were left in midnight darkness and separation from God.
From age to age they abused their privileges, would not accept His invitation of mercy, and from national apostasy persecuted and killed the messengers sent to them. Though He sent prophets to warn them and gave the sacrificial system to keep the one great Sacrifice before them, they met correction with suspicion and scorn, adding to their guilt. After the exile they repeated the sins of earlier generations, and the vineyard's ruin reflects that resistance to grace and neglect of privileges. At last they rejected the Son of God Himself and were ready to put Him to death, so the cloud of retributive judgment was about to burst upon them in unrestrained fury. Their response to Him was the final test of obedience, with eternal life for obedience and eternal death for disobedience.
The priests and rulers recognized that the sentence of destruction pictured their own course in rejecting and killing the Son of God. Their own answer—that he will miserably destroy those wicked men—shows their just doom. At Christ's return they face that recognized sentence with terror.
Kingdom Given to Others
When the owner asks what will be done to the tenants who abused his servants and killed his son, the priests and rulers, even the very men then plotting to take his life, are so engrossed in the story that they do not see its application to themselves. They answer with deep interest that he will miserably destroy those wicked men and lease his vineyard to other husbandmen who will render him fruit in its season. In that answer they unwittingly pronounce their own judgment, sentence, doom and condemnation, fastening guilt where it belongs. The tenants picture the priests, scribes and Pharisees, and the vineyard represents Israel, exposed for deception and for treating his servants with contempt, injustice, cruelty and violence.
The question holds before them their crowning wickedness and true character, warning that because they cherished the idea that they were heaven's favorites always exalted as God's church yet proved unfaithful, they were preparing for condemnation and separation from God. Jesus then makes the application plain, showing the verse means that because they failed to bear the kingdom's fruits and rejected God's messengers and His Son, the kingdom of God shall be taken from unfaithful Israel and given to a nation and people bringing forth its fruits and obeying its ruler. Christ would have averted that doom if they had received Him, but through envy and jealousy they rejected the Light of the world and were left in midnight darkness. The foretold doom came upon the Jewish nation in the siege of Jerusalem, when more than one million people perished in terrible punishment for impenitence.
The privileges taken from the Jews would be given to the Gentiles, and the same warning reaches professing Christians who oppose God's law and truth and reject entrusted light, for they will lose their sacred trust which will be given to others. God's purpose is still carried forward through a faithful remnant, and His church is entrusted with the vineyard as faithful husbandmen. The vine God planted in Israel was despised and cast out by the men of Israel, but God removed it beyond their reach where it could not be harmed by them. Its branches still hang over the wall, so that others can be joined to it.
Warning to God's People Today
The question about what the owner will do when he comes is not confined to the Jewish nation, for the parable reaches to the church in the present generation. That church has received great privileges and blessings and is held accountable to make corresponding returns when the owner comes to reckon with unfaithful tenants. The judgment pronounced upon tenants guilty of violence against entrusted oracles and messengers stands also as a warning against stubborn resistance to truth throughout the world.
The church is beloved, yet persistence in sin, self-exaltation, mixing the sacred with the common, and misrepresenting God cannot be sustained. Those who repent are loved and forgiven, but favor is withdrawn from the unfaithful and terrible judgments fall upon them. As Israel's unfaithfulness brought ruin through ingratitude, neglect of blessings, and selfish use of what belongs to God by creation and redemption, so the same sin brings ruin upon the world.
Professing Christians who oppose God's law and truth and reject entrusted light will lose their sacred trust. As privileges taken from unfaithful Jewish leaders were given to the Gentiles who would render fruit, so that trust will be given to others.
The unfaithful husbandmen represent religious teachers who withhold God's due service, mislead the people, and turn them from Christ. By teaching disregard for God's law they prevent the bearing of love, humility, and self-sacrificing service. Instead of teaching God's goodness and claims and living by the Scriptures, they sought their own glory and the vineyard's fruit, burdened people with human rules, misused what was entrusted, misrepresented God, and gave Gentiles reason to misunderstand His character and kingdom.
God as Owner examines responsible men and institutions to see whether they unselfishly do the entrusted work and return fruit in due season. He watches how they trade upon His goods, sending servants and message after message as to ancient Israel, and leaves room in every entrusted work for development of character. Faithfulness means cultivating barren wastes and neglected parts, sowing truth, planting the standard in cities and countries that have never heard the warning, cooperating intelligently with God, and supplying His messengers with entrusted means to carry the work forward.
Unfaithful stewards selfishly and covetously appropriate His means and mingle selfishness with His service, dishonoring Him. They bind blessings, facilities, and money in the one portion under their own supervision and center every advantage in a few places, while other fields lie desolate, bare, and unworked though with proper advantages they could bear as good fruit as any other portion. They use common fire in place of the sacred, warp the message that should go to every kindred, tongue, and people to suit worldly business success, and invest and bind money in worldly enterprises and schemes not after His order. So the Lord's way is not prepared, His paths are not made straight, and He cannot gather fruit from the trees of His planting.
If through selfishness stewards refuse to cultivate those wastes, close doors He has opened for blessing, and fail to cooperate and supply His messengers, He will remove His gifts and leave them barren of resources. He will find another way to accomplish His purpose, pass the work to other agencies, and give the vineyard to those who will honor the trust and magnify His name in all parts of the world by aiding the more destitute fields. His vineyard shall be worked, and the trust will be taken from those who prove untrustworthy from ancient Israel to the present day.
Fruit the Lord Requires
The question of what the owner will do when he comes is a call to account for what has been done with his vineyard, and the parable applies to everyone, not only to priests and rulers. God gives each person abilities and responsibilities, and diligent use of them produces fruit that belongs to Him and that He expects to receive. Those who believe are to serve actively and let their lives show the saving power of the truth as they wait for His appearing, for He requires His people to return to Him what is His and approves faithful stewardship that produces fruit.
God expects fruit from His vineyard from people who have received the light of truth and bear responsibility for His work, and that fruit results from the labor of His workers. Every believer has work to do for Him, and no true Christian should be idle. Those establishing the work in foreign fields should have special and abundant advantages and should not be hindered in their efforts. He calls for honest men to fill His appointed places as stewards and return to Him the fruits of His vineyard.
Those who have received light are accountable for that light and must reflect it by precept and example to draw their fellow men from the pit of destruction, while those who have not had light and advantages will not answer for light they never had. Work in the vineyard is varied hard work requiring different kinds of ploughing that the ground may produce a harvest of different kinds of fruit, and idleness or pleasure-loving is never excused. Christ gave the example by coming to save lost, fallen humanity, working ingeniously to obtain access even to the higher class who knew not God and did not keep His commandments, including not merely the outcasts but those in places of high honor. Through the discipline of work in and through Christ, His people learn how to gain the true riches, perfect a character after the divine likeness as a sample of the character of Christ, and secure the only treasure that can be taken to the heavenly courts, a complete character gained in and through Jesus Christ.
What God entrusts is the vineyard itself: money, goods, houses and lands, with physical and mental powers, all to be used in His service to advance His work and return to Him what is His. Using these gifts for self-gratification is self-exaltation that hinders His purposes, and He tests His stewards as He tested ancient Israel. Faithful cultivation should produce returns to Him in tithes and offerings, including support for the ministry and relief for the poor and suffering of the church. The true nature of fruit-bearing is benevolence springing from appreciation of His rich gifts, returning to Him His due by sustaining every good work and advancing His kingdom.
Such liberality in lines that advance the kingdom counterworks selfishness and self-indulgence, reveals the power of the truth, and is the very best tangible evidence of the sincerity of faith, with love expressed in deeds, without which character cannot be complete. The reckoning falls especially on rich people who treat their possessions as their own rather than as goods entrusted to them, neglecting the poor and oppressed, robbing the great Proprietor, and returning abuse instead of fruit. He judges these unfaithful stewards and rewards each person according to works, so that avarice and injustice bring judgment. In this sense the vineyard has been put in the use of the people of the world, and they have brought little in return to Him for it.
The vineyard figure also teaches training in cultivation of the soil and various lines of manual labor to fit workers for mission fields and for any line of work to which they are called, with practical life education making instruction effectual. Applied to schools, it means more faithful cultivation of the land and more disinterested care of the buildings by students. This faithful practical work will cause the love of sports and amusements that perplexes school work to pass away. He remains the Master of the vineyard to whom workers should bring their needs when difficulties arise.