Cleansing the Temple
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more favorable position before God than the haughty and self-righteous
priests and rulers.
They were unwilling to bear these searching truths, but remained
silent, hoping that Jesus would say something which they could turn
against him; but they had still more to bear. Jesus looked back upon
the past, when his ministers, the prophets of God, were rejected and
their messages trampled upon by the ancestors of the very men who
stood before him. He saw that the sons were following in the footsteps
of their fathers, and would fill up the cup of their iniquity by ting to
death the Lord of Life. He drew from the past, present and future to
compose his parable:—
“Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which
planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress
in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far
country. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants
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to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the
husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and
stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and
they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son,
saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw
the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill
him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast
him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the Lord therefore of the
vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?”
Jesus addressed all the people present; but the priests and rulers,
not anticipating that the parable was to be applied to them, answered
at once, “He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let
out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the
fruits in their seasons.” Again they perceived that they had pronounced
their own condemnation in presence of the people who were listening,
with rapt interest to Jesus. The Saviour referred to messenger after
messenger that had been sent in vain to Israel with reproofs, warnings
and entreaties. These faithful bearers of truth had been slain by those
to whom they were sent, even as the faithful servants were slain by
the wicked husbandmen. In the beloved son whom the Lord of the
vineyard finally sent to his disobedient servants, and whom they seized
and slew, the priests and rulers suddenly saw unfolded before them,
a distinct picture of Jesus and his impending fate. Already they were
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