Luke 20:1-8 Jesus' authority as a
teacher is questioned. This passage is pretty much straightforward. If people
want to question Jesus' credentials, then they have opened the door to an
across-the-board philosophical debate of who has credentials. The chief priests
claimed authority derived from the Mosaic law. But they had departed so far
from what God had in mind, even though they held to the outward religious form,
that Jesus took them down a different road. He had already tried to reason with
them from the Scriptures. So He put them on the spot with John's baptism. And
they had no answer.
Luke 20:9-18 Parable of the vineyard
owner seems to be a continuation of this thought. Parallel versions in Matthew
21:33-44 and Mark 12:1-12. Jesus
recapitulates one of the Prophets' stories. (Isaiah 5:1-7) However, in Jesus'
version, the failure is not in the vineyard itself (representing the house of
Israel in Isaiah's version) but in the people who were hired to run the
vineyard. In Jesus' story, the stewards of the vineyard want to take over, so
they kill the owner's son. He is clearly pointing to the Priests, scribes,
Levites, and Pharisees as the stewards of the vineyard, and Himself as the son.
Foretelling His own death, He then goes on to talk about the consequences of
their actions. After the temple was destroyed in 70AD there was no longer any
approved location for the sacrifice for sin for the people. In modern times,
there does not appear to be a caste of priests, Levites, or scribes. The
Pharisees as a sect do not seem to be around any longer. The Jewish faith is
largely led by rabbis, who teach in synagogues.
In
one sense, the entire Old Testament sacrificial system had been created to
point to the coming of Christ, in faith, and that once He had offered Himself
for the sins of all people, the Old Testament system had served its purpose and
was dispensed with. But Jesus is putting the onus on the leaders of that
system. God's purposes would now be accomplished through the church, those who
would receive Jesus gladly and serve Him and walk with Him. The Priests and
their helpers were in a sense like Pharaoh - raised up to serve God's purposes
- but in another sense, also like Pharaoh - people who had made choices in
rebellion against God and would ultimately receive the consequences of that
rejection.
To
make the point clear, Jesus quotes from Psalm 118:22. From a purely human
viewpoint, this has nothing to do with the parable about the vineyard. However,
when we look at other New Testament passages, we realize that Jesus is again
talking about religious structures. The Temple in the Old Testament was a
foreshadowing of the Church. I Peter 2:4-8 explains that individual believers
are living stones, and that we are built upon the chief cornerstone that Jesus
mentions here. And Paul explains that we are, individually and collectively, the
temple of the Holy Spirit (I Cor 3:16-17, 6:19). Jesus is trying to convey,
through symbolism of the Temple, that He is the one upon whom the entire plan
of God is built and that those who come to Him will be broken but ultimately
placed into this ecclesiastical body, the church, of which He is also the
cornerstone. Just as He is the heir of the vineyard, Israel, that the keepers
of the vineyard would kill in a vain attempt to get ownership of it for
themselves.
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