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Christ’s Object Lessons
other messengers, but they received the same treatment as the first,
only that the husbandmen showed still more determined hatred.
As a last resource, God sent His Son, saying, “They will reverence
My Son.” But their resistance had made them vindictive, and they said
among themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill Him, and let us
seize on His inheritance.” We shall then be left to enjoy the vineyard,
and to do as we please with the fruit.
The Jewish rulers did not love God; therefore they cut themselves
away from Him, and rejected all His overtures for a just settlement.
Christ, the Beloved of God, came to assert the claims of the Owner of
the vineyard; but the husbandmen treated Him with marked contempt,
saying, We will not have this man to rule over us. They envied Christ’s
beauty of character. His manner of teaching was far superior to theirs,
and they dreaded His success. He remonstrated with them, unveiling
their hypocrisy, and showing them the sure results of their course of
action. This stirred them to madness. They smarted under the rebukes
they could not silence. They hated the high standard of righteousness
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which Christ continually presented. They saw that His teaching was
placing them where their selfishness would be uncloaked, and they
determined to kill Him. They hated His example of truthfulness and
piety and the elevated spirituality revealed in all He did. His whole
life was a reproof to their selfishness, and when the final test came,
the test which meant obedience unto eternal life or disobedience unto
eternal death, they rejected the Holy One of Israel. When they were
asked to choose between Christ and Barabbas, they cried out, “Release
unto us Barabbas!”
Luke 23:18
. And when Pilate asked, “What shall
I do then with Jesus?” they cried fiercely, “Let Him be crucified.”
Matthew 27:22
. “Shall I crucify your King?” Pilate asked, and from
the priests and rulers came the answer, “We have no king but Caesar.”
John 19:15
. When Pilate washed his hands, saying, “I am innocent of
the blood of this just person,” the priests joined with the ignorant mob
in declaring passionately, “His blood be on us, and on our children.”
Matthew 27:24, 25
.
Thus the Jewish leaders made their choice. Their decision was
registered in the book which John saw in the hand of Him that sat upon
the throne, the book which no man could open. In all its vindictiveness
this decision will appear before them in the day when this book is
unsealed by the Lion of the tribe of Judah.