Matthew 21:43, commentary and pictures

The vineyard stands for Israel, richly blessed and chosen to reveal the character of God's kingdom, while the unfaithful tenants stand for its priests, leaders and people, and the sentence warns that sacred privileges forfeited by fruitlessness would be taken away and entrusted to others who would render fruit in its season. The kingdom was taken because Israel rejected God's messengers and murdered His Son and heir, seeking its own glory, withholding its fruit, and misrepresenting God to the world instead of bearing a life of obedience that honored Him. What was taken from the Jews was transferred to the Gentiles and to faithful disciples gathered from all nations, a people marked by receiving Christ in faith, obeying its Ruler, and making known His glory and salvation to the world. That removal began at once and was fulfilled in the end of Israel's time as a specially favored nation, in the destruction of the city and temple and the dispersion of the people about forty years later, when more than a million perished in the siege of Jerusalem. The same sentence reaches beyond that nation to the church in every generation, for God withdraws responsibility and blessing from those who persist in sin and misuse His trust and gives their place to those who will faithfully represent Him, and if those newly entrusted refuse to repent they too will be humbled and removed.

Parable Setting and Hearers

The saying belongs to the parable of the vineyard, in which the vineyard is Israel, a people chosen and richly blessed by God and expected to bear fruit by revealing the principles and character of His kingdom. In that parable the husbandmen picture the Jewish leaders, chief priests, Pharisees and nation, and the story lays open their past and future history, their true religious character, and their breach of trust. Jesus spoke it as a plain sentence of warning and application after the parable of the unfaithful tenants, that those who failed to live up to sacred privileges would lose them.

It stands together with the rejected stone become the head of the corner by God's work, identifying Christ as the basis of the kingdom, with the warning that to fall against the stone bruises but for the stone to fall upon anyone grinds to powder. When asked what the lord of the vineyard would do, the priests unwittingly pronounced their own doom by answering that he would miserably destroy those wicked men and let out his vineyard to other husbandmen who would render the fruits in their seasons, thereby condemning themselves and fastening guilt where it belonged. The same self-condemnation is seen where the leaders' own verdict on the wicked tenants exposed their guilt and foretold the transfer of the vineyard's work and privileges, and where their answer showed they knew the parable referred to them and had pronounced their own sentence.

The hearers perceived the application was so plain that He spoke of them, recognizing their own methods and practices and admitting the justice of the coming punishment. They were given a vivid momentary picture of their condition and peril and cried out in dismay, but closed their eyes, hardened their hearts against conviction, and determined to carry out their purpose to kill Him. The chief priests and Pharisees recognized the warning as directed at them and wanted to seize Jesus at once to silence Him, even taking up stones to kill Him in mortification and madness when the plain truth was applied to their hearts. They were restrained by God through fear of the multitude who took Him for a prophet, and again and again His life was guarded by heavenly angels and kept by the power of God until His work was ended and the time came when the case of the Jews as a nation should be decided.

The saying belongs to the account of Christ's journey to Jerusalem at His triumphal entry, a powerful chapter to study and understand, holding out the hope to see the despised and rejected Man crowned and seated on His throne. It warns against being like the pretentious fig tree that bore no fruit, representing those whose names are on church books and who profess to serve God but bear no fruit to His glory. Israel's rejection came at a decisive test of obedience with eternal life or eternal death at stake, when selfishness led the people to deny God's claim over the entrusted vineyard and become responsible for the crucifixion of the Holy One.

Why the Kingdom Was Taken

Because Israel failed to fulfill God's purpose, the nation forfeited His blessing, and the kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to a people producing its fruits. The sentence announces the consequence of breach of trust and final doom, declaring their loss and the transfer of the vineyard's stewardship to other husbandmen. God's favor does not sustain those who persist in sin and misrepresent Him.

The kingdom was taken because they rejected God's messengers and were preparing to kill His Son and heir, refusing to render the required fruit and murdering the heir. Their rejection of Christ cut them off from God and brought the judgment they had chosen as just retribution. The leaders' own condemnation of the wicked tenants exposed their guilt, for they briefly saw the peril and result of their course but hardened themselves against conviction.

The Jews rejected Christ through pride, self-sufficiency, and belief in their own superiority, holding exalted views of themselves as heaven's favorites and the only people of God while not keeping God's law. Israel's privileges came from God's mercy, to be answered with tithes, offerings, and willing obedience, yet instead they failed to represent what was good and right. Only the humblest remnant received Jesus, while the nation's religious leaders rejected Him.

Entrusted with God's vineyard, the leaders failed their duty: rather than teaching God's goodness and claims and serving Him, they sought their own glory and the vineyard's fruit. By greed and misuse they robbed His work of its means and deprived others of religious guidance, giving the Gentile world a distorted picture of God and His kingdom. Year after year the wicked husbandmen selfishly enjoyed all its benefits and appropriated its goods to their own use while returning no fruit to God, shamefully treating His messengers and crucifying His beloved Son.

The priests and teachers withheld the vineyard's fruit from its owner by placing human traditions above God's law, turning the people from God's precepts, and leading them to reject Christ, thereby bearing responsibility for the nation's sin and ruin. Claiming to have the only true religion of the world, they turned from truth itself and rejected and condemned Christ who was the Light of the world and the truth, crucifying Him because He bore witness against their evil works. Their religion had become a religion of oppression, exalting valueless traditions and rites above the Word of God, and proved unable to reform them, and by resistance of righteousness they had served their day so the vineyard would be given to other husbandmen. Light shone amid moral darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not.

The Lord of the vineyard would punish the nation with fearful severity because they treated His servants with contempt, injustice, and cruelty. Israel failed as the appointed bearer of sacred truth and light to the Gentiles, though its privileges as guardian of God's truth were meant to bless the world and make salvation known among the nations, and through disobedience and failure to use that trust to bless the world that privilege became condemnation. The kingdom was taken from the Jewish nation as a whole, not only its teachers and leaders, who had received God's living oracles and were promised prosperity if they faithfully obeyed, but failed to keep His law and persecuted and killed His messengers.

The removal was warned of beforehand to happen unless they repented and were converted, but they did not believe it. Though they claimed to be Abraham's children they were unlike Abraham, who was called the friend of God because he bore the trying test by starting at once on the long painful journey to offer the promised son without hesitating until he could reason it out. Christ would have averted the doom of the nation if the people had received Him, but they cherished the idea that they were heaven's favorites and would always be exalted as God's church, and by lives of unfaithfulness prepared for heaven's condemnation and separation from God. Envy and jealousy made them implacable and determined not to receive Jesus as Messiah; they rejected the Light of the world, and their souls were surrounded with darkness as the darkness of midnight.

God's favor and the kingdom are not secured by being a chosen people or by claiming to belong to God. Unless those given light walk in God's ways and keep His commandments, He cannot bless and sustain them. He forgives those who repent, but removes His favor from those who persist in sin, exalt themselves, and mix the sacred with the common.

Nation Receiving the Kingdom

The kingdom would be taken from those who rejected God's messengers and killed His Son and given to a people who produce its fruits in their season. The new recipients are marked by bearing those fruits, by obeying the Ruler of the kingdom, and by receiving Christ in faith. The Roman centurion illustrates this reception, for though he was not of Israel and lacked Israel's opportunities, he showed greater faith and appreciation of Christ than the people entrusted with sacred truth. Spoken in the parable of the vineyard, the sentence exposed the deceptions of the scribes and Pharisees and declared that the Lord of the vineyard would punish the Jewish nation with fearful severity because they had treated His servants with contempt, injustice, and cruelty. They knew the parable referred to them and that they had pronounced their own sentence, and they were filled with anger and would have laid hands on Him at once to silence Him if they had not feared the people.

Because Israel failed to serve as the appointed bearer of sacred truth and light to the Gentiles and rejected Christ, its work was transferred so that God's salvation would be made known among the nations and Christ's kingdom established to bring deliverance to the world. The sacred trust, the oracles of God, the work it was their privilege to do, and the covenant promises given to the Jews were taken from them and committed to the Gentiles and to other peoples and nations. That removal had been warned of beforehand to happen unless they repented and were converted, but they did not believe it, for they held exalted views of themselves as heaven's favorites and the only people of God, and though they had the truth and the law of God they did not keep the law. Though they claimed to be Abraham's children they were unlike Abraham, who was called God's friend because he bore the trying test by starting at once on the long painful journey to offer the promised son without hesitating until he could reason it out. Those who know the truth are held responsible for the souls with whom they associate, and Christ's disciples are now the depositories of His truth and grace, holding them in trust to communicate to others.

The transfer opened the way for the gospel to spread among the Gentiles and foretold the gathering of the Gentiles into God's people among all nations, while the apostles continued to preach to Jews wherever they could. The privileges and work abused or neglected by the Jewish leaders were entrusted to others, for Christ turned from those leaders and called the disciples to carry out the work they had failed to do, so that God's glory, word, and kingdom would be made known and established in the world. After Israel rejected the Master of the vineyard, the kingdom's work and covenant promises would be entrusted to a faithful remnant that bore fruit, gathered from all nations, through whom God's purpose for Israel and the world would be fulfilled. Israel's rejection of God's chosen vine would not destroy it, for God would remove it from their power and plant it beyond their reach, with its branches still extending outward so that others could be joined to it.

The vineyard represents Israel, chosen and richly blessed by God and expected to bear fruit by revealing the principles and character of His kingdom. That fruit is a life honoring God in keeping with privileges received, and what God requires and expects from His vineyard is fruit produced by those to whom stewardship is given. Responsibility for this fruit-bearing work belongs not only to priests and rulers but to every person whatever position or abilities, each being given talents to use diligently in service. The resulting active virtues are to make the truth's saving power visible to others.

Fulfillment in Israel's Fall

The taking away of national privileges had already commenced and would end not only in the destruction of the temple and city but in the dispersion of the nation. That foretold judgment came upon the nation in Jerusalem's destruction and the suffering of the people, as just retribution for rejecting God's messengers and preparing to kill His Son. The doom so foretold fell upon the Jewish nation when more than one million people perished in the siege of Jerusalem.

Judgment came because Jerusalem failed to recognize the time of its visitation, and the prophecy was fulfilled in Jerusalem's destruction about forty years later. When Christ was rejected and crucified, Israel's time as a nation specially favored and blessed by God came to an end, as part of the nation's impending doom.

The rejected stone would be exalted while those who rejected Him would be punished, and the destruction of the Jewish city and temple shows the judgment that fell on them. The stone falling upon them pictures their glory being shattered and broken and scattered. Christ, who bore abuse humbly, rises in life and power over those who despised Him, and to them becomes a crushing judgment.

Warning to the Church Today

The vineyard parable reaches beyond the Jewish nation to the church in every generation and to the wider world, for God gives His people privileges and blessings and expects the corresponding fruits in return. The kingdom was taken from the Jewish nation as a whole, not from its teachers and leaders alone, because though entrusted with God's living oracles and promised prosperity on faithful obedience, they failed to keep His law and persecuted and killed His messengers. The same word contrasts those who receive the truth and work with God against those who resist it.

God withdraws His favor from those who persist in sin, exalt themselves, corrupt what is sacred, break trust, and refuse to walk in His commandments and be corrected. No church can expect His blessing and support on those terms, for being a chosen people or claiming to belong to God does not secure the kingdom unless those given light walk in God's ways and keep His commandments. He forgives those who repent, but persistent unfaithfulness brings judgment, and misleading conduct with false claims to holiness brings judgment.

God removes responsibility and privilege from those who misuse what He entrusts to them and refuse correction, and gives their place to those who will faithfully represent Him and pass on what they receive. Those entrusted with influence and talents are accountable for the light and duties given them, and if they remain unrepentant punishment follows proportionate to the light disregarded. When a church is unfaithful to God's Word He can entrust its responsibilities to others, and the same taking away and giving to others will happen to professing Christians who follow the wicked husbandmen. That following consists in rejecting God by rejecting His truth, being angered when the claims of God's law are kept before them, hating the light of Christ's pure doctrines, selfishly enjoying the vineyard's benefits while returning no fruit, shamefully treating His messengers, and yielding to Satan to continue warfare against God and His truth.

Those chosen in place of the unfaithful must live pure lives, uphold holy principles, use what God lends them in His service, and bring forth fruit instead of misusing means for self-gratification and self-exaltation. God tests His stewards as He tested ancient Israel, and if they go wrong and refuse to repent He may humble them, remove them from their place, and make them a reproach. If those now entrusted with God's cause do not awake to its importance, raise the standard, and acquit themselves in earnest reformation and gospel power in this time of gross spiritual darkness and low piety, they will be left behind. God will then raise up another people to be His instrumentalities in carrying His truth with power until the earth is lighted with its glory.

Christ's disciples are now the depositories of His truth and grace, holding them in trust to communicate to others, for those who know the truth are held responsible for the souls with whom they associate. The judgment on the unbelieving Jews warns all who remain impenitent and refuse Christ as Redeemer, and God's judgment reaches all who reject the benefits of His grace. Safety lies in building on Christ the right foundation, for hopes built on untested foundations will fail. Christ, the rejected stone who bore abuse humbly, will be exalted and rise in life and power over those who despised Him, becoming to them a crushing judgment that breaks and scatters their glory, as shown in the destruction of their city and temple.