Luke 20:9 - Meaning and Application

Christ spoke this parable against those who were determined not to accept his authority, even though the evidence for it was clear. It came at just the right time, because by questioning his authority they lost their own. By refusing to accept the owner of the vineyard, they gave up their lease and all claim to it.

The parable here adds nothing new to what we already have in Matthew and Mark. Its purpose is to show that the Jewish nation, by persecuting the prophets and finally Christ himself, had provoked God to take away their church privileges and leave them to ruin. It teaches us that those who enjoy the blessings of the visible church are like tenants and farmers who have a vineyard to care for and rent to pay. God has planted a vineyard by setting up revealed religion and ordered worship in the world, and he lets it to the people among whom his tabernacle is found (Luke 20:9). They have vineyard work to do, work that is needed, steady, pleasant, and useful.

While sin condemned mankind to toil in the ground, those who have a place in the church are brought back to something like Adam’s work before the fall, to tend and keep the garden. The church is like a paradise, and Christ is the tree of life in it. They also have fruit to bring to the Lord of the vineyard. There are rents to pay and services to perform, and though these do not match the worth of what they have received, they still must be paid and done.

This also shows that God’s ministers are sent to call those who enjoy church privileges to bear fruit in keeping with them. They are God’s rent collectors, reminding people of what they owe, or rather reminding them that they have a landlord who expects to hear from them and to receive some sign of their dependence and gratitude (Luke 20:10). The Old Testament prophets were sent to the Jewish church for this purpose, to demand the duty and obedience owed to God.

It has often been the lot of God’s faithful servants to be badly mistreated by his own tenants. They have been beaten and shamed by those who were determined to send them away empty. Those who are determined not to do their duty to God cannot bear to be called back to it. Some of the best people in the world have received the harshest treatment, even for their best service.

God sent his Son into the world to carry on the same work the prophets had done, to gather the fruit of the vineyard for God. One would have thought he would be honored and welcomed. The prophets spoke as servants, saying, “Thus says the Lord,” but Christ spoke as a Son, among his own people, saying, “Truly, I say to you.” Sending someone with that kind of honor should have won them over.

Those who reject Christ’s ministers would reject Christ himself if he came to them. This has already been proved, since the persecutors and murderers of his servants, the prophets, were also the persecutors and murderers of Christ. They said, “This is the heir, let us kill him.” When the servants were killed, other servants were sent. But if they could kill the son, there would be no more son to send, and then they would no longer be troubled with these demands. They could keep the vineyard for themselves.

The scribes and Pharisees, Jewish religious teachers and leaders, hoped that if they could remove Christ, they would rule over the Jewish church forever. So they took the bold step they had long planned, casting him out of the vineyard and killing him. By putting Christ to death, they filled up the measure of their wickedness and brought ruin on themselves without remedy. Nothing else could be expected than that God would destroy those wicked tenants. They began by refusing to pay their rent, then they beat and killed the servants, and at last they killed their young master too.

Those who live in neglect of their duty to God do not know how far sin is carrying them, or how near destruction is getting.

To the application of the parable, there is here added their protest against the doom it warned of (Luke 20:16). When they heard it, they said, “God forbid,” meaning, “May it never be.” That is how it should read. They could not help admitting that such a punishment was fair for such a sin and could be expected, but they could not bear to hear it said plainly. It is a sign of the folly and dullness of sinners that they keep going in their sinful ways, even while they fear the destruction that lies at the end of those ways. They try to escape it with a cold “God forbid,” while doing nothing at all to stop it. But will that make God’s warning useless? No. They will learn whose word stands, God’s or theirs.

Christ’s answer to this childish protest is also noted. He looked at them with pity and sorrow, grieved to see them fooling themselves toward ruin (Luke 20:17). He watched to see whether they would blush at their own folly, or whether he could see any sign that they were softening. Then he sent them back to Scripture: “What then is this that is written? How can you escape God’s judgment, when you cannot stop the exaltation of the one you despise and reject? The word of God has said that the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

The Lord Jesus will be lifted up to the Father’s right hand. All judgment and all authority have been given to him. He is the cornerstone and capstone of the church, and if that is so, his enemies can expect only destruction. Even those who look down on him, stumble over him, and take offense at him will be broken, and that will be their ruin. But those who do more than reject him, those who hate and persecute him, as the Jews did, he will fall on and crush. Their condemnation will be much worse than that of careless unbelievers.

Finally, we are told how angry the chief priests and scribes became because of this parable (Luke 20:19). They saw that he had spoken it against them, and he had. A guilty conscience does not need an accuser. Yet instead of giving in to conscience, they grew angry at the one who had stirred up that sleeping lion within them, and they tried to seize him. Their evil desires rebelled against their convictions and won out.

It was not fear of God or fear of his wrath that held them back. It was only fear of the people that kept them from striking him then and there. They were almost ready to act out the very words of the parable: “This is the heir, let us kill him.”

When people are fully set on doing evil, even the clearest warnings about the sin they are about to commit, and the consequences of it, make no impression on them. Christ tells them that, instead of honoring the Son of God, they would kill him. That should have humbled them deeply and made them say, in effect, “Am I so low and hardened that I would act like this?” But instead, they answer as if they were saying, “Yes, we will do it. Come on, let’s go after him now.” Even while they fear the punishment of sin, they are already planning the sin itself.