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Prophets and Kings
they rejected the Holy One of Israel and became responsible for His
crucifixion on Calvary’s cross.
In the parable of the vineyard, Christ near the close of His earthly
ministry called the attention of the Jewish teachers to the rich bless-
ings bestowed upon Israel, and in these showed God’s claim to their
obedience. Plainly He set before them the glory of God’s purpose,
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which through obedience they might have fulfilled. Withdrawing the
veil from the future, He showed how, by failure to fulfill His purpose,
the whole nation was forfeiting His blessing and bringing ruin upon
itself.
“There was a certain householder,” Christ said, “which planted a
vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a wine press in it,
and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far
country.”
Matthew 21:33
.
Thus the Saviour referred to “the vineyard of the Lord of hosts,”
which the prophet Isaiah centuries before had declared to be “the house
of Israel.”
Isaiah 5:7
.
“And when the time of the fruit drew near,” Christ continued, the
owner of the vineyard “sent his servants 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.”
Having portrayed before the priests their crowning act of wicked-
ness, Christ now put to them the question, “When the lord therefore of
the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?” The
priests had been following the narrative with deep interest; and without
considering the relation of the subject to themselves, they joined with
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the people in answering, “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.”
Unwittingly they had pronounced their own doom. Jesus looked
upon them, and under His searching gaze they knew that He read the
secrets of their hearts. His divinity flashed out before them with unmis-