In truth, what profound iniquity marks their conduct! They had been occupied with their particular interests which Jesus thwarted, but the testimony of John, which they dared not disown, was plainly before them. And how perfectly opposed was their interest with that of the people! Alas! it is ever so. With the interest of souls, of God's people as a mass professedly, always are they the instrument and power of evil, and hindrance of good. They sought nothing but their own credit. But there was One who put them to a loss in their shame. Indeed the question was one of confusion and helplessness. No discernment, no power of judging, nor, if evil as they alleged it, power to hinder it. They come to demand from Him. They condemned what was the source of His power and authority. It assumed indeed authority on their part, but demonstrated total want of power. It also demonstrated their want of interest in, and insensibility to good. A conscience toward God would have honored the righteous zeal of God's house, love of truth received His teaching, as bowed their hearts too before the testimony of His miracles. But the jealous question: " Who gave thee this authority," marks where all their interest was. Authority ill placed cannot bear power if accompanied by ever so much goodness and truth. But this is the ecclesiastical spirit always, when the spirit of mere service is gone. The Lord appeals at once to their conscience, when they dared not own or disown, and thus rested self-condemned, for this authority is, after all, dependence. It is also of mercy to us that the Lord's appeal puts all question of miracles aside, for John did no miracles, but all he said was true, and wrought in the power and testimony of the Spirit. There was no principle in them confessing their incapacity to judge a matter which concerned the whole nation from God, which all the people bore witness to (because it bore to Him really). The Lord declined to recognize their authority. But in all this there is a much more open taking of a place by the Lord. He does not hide Himself, and go out of the temple; the ministry was ended, the crisis come, and full testimony must be borne. He sits there publicly in the temple teaching, and owns and silences the chief priests and elders when they come to Him, yet never assuming anything, nor giving up His place of meekness, but knowing how to deprive them of all power to act by revealing their real place and nothingness to themselves by themselves, for He had the key of conscience. This is more or less ours according to our measure in the Spirit, so that all our adversaries should be ashamed.
-9. The Lord by presenting a case, in which through want of integrity they had to avow their utter want of capacity to direct the people of God, having entirely set aside these rulers, yet by themselves, assuming nothing to Himself, and refusing nothing in them of which they had the form, but having their own avowal of incapacity, yet as we have seen in a far higher tone than of old, for the time for judgment, the judgment of truth, was come, proceeds to announce to the people the real state of the case, and instruct them, for He could, of the result, and of their conduct, God's judgment of their conduct. Silencing the rulers did not set aside the power of evil, though it might prove the evil, for it was not the time now to vindicate the right, nor execute judgment, though the case was clear. If they did not render the good, nor discern the good, they would seek to get rid of all testimony and claim to it, and make good their security in evil, if they altogether rejected, as they failed to produce, good and righteousness. Their responsibility was thus doubly complete in evil, failure to render, and violent rejection of all claim of God.
-13. What affecting patience! God is, as it were, at a loss how to act, and get at the conscience and heart of those He had so favored, and by one immense act tries if anything can recall them to a sense of their position, but it did but bring out the evil. " My beloved Son "-the Lord presents what was in God's mind. How He acted from it, and from His estimate, as it were, of such ways, not from the wretched selfishness and rebellion in which the heart of men, of His favored people, was plunged, in such love to them that He will venture all on the hope to reclaim them, for He loved His people! It was not here question of purpose in the act, though God's character and purpose really go together. He reveals one by the accomplishment of the other. But here it was responsibility flowing (as it ever flows) from the fullest revelation of God's character, acting generously, shall I say, after the manner of men, on the generous expectation or hope of sensibility, capacity to reel in others if not good. " I will send my beloved Son." How should One, perfectly good, estimate the deep malignity of impotent but pure evil and malice? As Judge surely He will and does, but God acts so as to produce, by the real demonstration of His character, the fullest responsibility in that which He presents to man. The life-giving power of His grace is another thing, and is in His hand, and He accomplishes, as He has fully provided for it, in Jesus, His death, His life. But He lays the ground of responsibility acting in love, and that by what has withal the highest claim on our obedience, subjection, affection, and respect-He sends His Son, under this character, His heart going forth in doing it. " What shall I do? I will send my beloved Son." So did God to this unhappy and self-destroying people, whom He had taken from the iron furnace, and now dealt with in the last and highest sources of His patient love. But all in vain; for what is the heart of man? That well of corruption and selfishness, the slave of Satan, and willful only, in its enmity to God.
-14. " That the inheritance may be ours," characterizes the whole principle. It is the source of their ways and action, and so of the world. They reject Him, just as having no right or business in the vineyard, and then kill Him. Necessary judgment follows. They felt the force of this, and, involuntarily, as it were, cry out: " God forbid." Such were none of their thoughts. Poor people! However involved in the ruin and sin, they were far from wishing the results. No! Israel was not thus to suffer, and be set aside. Their heart could look for no such thing; it clung, in fond though untrue associations, round the name of their glory. " The vineyard given to others " rung upon the heart of a Jew. The Lord felt this, entered into this awakened feeling, this involuntary " God forbid." His heart echoed this in a sense, and He fixed His regard upon them. " Looking upon them," He said, " What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner? " Is it not prophesied that the builders will do thus? They had not denied the justice of the conclusion, but its character had produced, when presented to them, the shock expressed in the exclamation. The Lord from the word, they thus now susceptible, proves the fact on which that judgment hung. He adds on the authority of His own, now judging, word, for He plainly declares things to them at this period; it was faithfulness, needed faithfulness at such a period. " Everyone falling on that stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it shall grind him to powder." A general and full statement abstractedly accomplished in more than one instance. The Lord in the plainest terms declares the judgment now on His rejection, for everywhere He appears as the Superior. He who fell on the Stone, this Stone of stumbling, would be broken, as many did then, the nation did then. They stumbled at the stumbling Stone. On the individuals who rejected, the Stone fell. And so at the end, wherein also the apostate Gentiles will have part, and a chief part. It was a general principle, destruction, judgment, breaking to pieces as to their actual condition, if they stumbled at it, as the nation did in their ignorance. But when Christ fell in judgment as on that race, as on the anti-Christian confederacy, and specially anti-Christ himself, and the false prophet, it should be utter confusion and ruin. Thus presented as Messiah, the Lord, the King, Satan would seek to entangle the Savior in questions of the supremacy of Caesar. All wickedness was in the question, for he used the extent and effect of their guilt (which they resisted in pride) to entangle and destroy the righteous. The subjection of God's people to Gentiles was indeed an evil, but who had brought them there? But at least they thought He should offend against Caesar, or lose His reputation with the people. They saw clearly the parable was against them, while the people only cared for the sorrowful announcement, in a certain sense with a just, at least natural feeling. We see their object, the object of these wicked men., They could not take hold of His words before the people. May grace give holy and just influence over the people! It is the only holy resource against the authority and subtlety of the leaders of a system opposed to God. It was this in service to God, and not attacking them which distinguished the Lord, and the apostles too. Satan humbles himself, that the bands of the poor may fall into the hands of his captains (Psalm 10: 10), and the Lord's servants may at least do the same in grace, that they may be delivered. The wisdom of the Lord's answer is too obvious to need comment. He was not come then to deliver the nation from Caesar. He could not, for they rejected Him. In adding: " The things of God to God," they were condemned in all their ways, while in saying: " Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," He left them in the position into which their guilt and sin had brought them, and where their guilt kept them; for how delivered from Caesar, when they rejected Messiah, the Son of the Most High, their God, come in mercy and lowliness to enter into their sorrows? Was He to deliver, according to their mind, rebels, to sanction them in their rebellion? That were not mercy, for it was rebellion against God their Lord and Savior. He leaves, therefore, the nation, and leaders in their condition, only fully warning the people.
It is interesting to observe the constant use of this term: " The Stone " relative to the Lord; it is consecrated to this purpose. In Isa. 28 we have Him declared to be the Stone laid in Zion, foundation mad judgment against the evil Jews who made their alliance with Antichrist and evil. In chapter 8: 14, He is the Sanctuary, but a Stone of stumbling and rock of offense. In Psa. 118, as here cited, His rejection by the builders of the Jews, and exaltation. In Zechariah, He is the Foundation of the Lord's house in the all-discerning purity and vigilance of the Spirit. Trace also there "eyes of the Lord," which here form part of the foundation, for otherwise, if the perfect discernment of evil and righteousness were not there, how should He maintain the foundation of Jehovah's house, and receive Jehovah's blessing? Here, because He had this, He is rejected by the builders, for they were judged, for indeed it tried all things. In Zech. 4:7, 9, 10, as Headstone, we find the house by the same finished. In Dan. 2, as we have seen it, a Stone of judgment, as of stumbling for Israel, and also of foundation and blessing. It is ever as the Stone of judgment on the whole Gentile power. Here, in Luke, it falls on Jews at least; it is put generally " On whomsoever " as on Gentile. In Peter, though writing to Jews indeed, yet in them, familiar with this type or symbol of Christ, we find it the Foundation in them of the Church, and we withal however living stones built on it, for there is always this difference.
-20, et seq. We have in these passages, not, as in Matthew, a successive judgment of the different classes of Israel, but a clear transition from the Jewish system and estate to the heavenly economy and privileges. Having pronounced the judgment on the husbandmen, and declared what the power of the rejected Stone would-they, understanding the application, for judgment reaches the conscience of the, icked, send instruments to entangle Him in His speech before the people. His answer, which left them silent, was however of the last importance. It left the subjection of Israel to the Gentiles entirely where it was; a fact of the greatest possible importance, allied to the rejection of the King Messiah. But in few and simple words, they are left there. They had rejected Him, and He broke His staff, and the poor of the flock would understand that it was the word of the Lord. And it rescued the things of God entirely from the question of Cesar's power over the Jews. This was a fatal judgment for them, for all their relation and association with Messiah, their Jewish hopes, did hang on this deliverance, and the things of God, on Jewish principles, demanded nationally national deliverance. But the staff was really broken, and He owned them not at all. They in their madness, loathed Him, and His soul abhorred them. In the bitterness of their need and darkness, they, unhappy people, had, with more truth than they were aware of, to cry out: " We have no king but Cesar," and they pronounced therein their own judgment. It was an awful thing for a Jew to say.
After the setting aside thus of the Jewish economy, there is the introduction of the resurrection economy of fellowship with the Lord, or the state of that world and the resurrection- children of God and children of resurrection. And then, after some of the scribes owning the power of the truth in His word, at least with their understanding, and all being now hushed by the wisdom of Him who spake as never man spake, surely it was so, the Lord takes up, in an allusion to one of their own scriptures, not merely the state of the raised faithful, but the nature of the intervening economy as to its basis, before the judgment of the Jewish people, Jehovah saying to David's Son and David's Lord: " Sit on my right hand till I make thy foes thy footstool," revealing the state of the risen, and intimating the position of Messiah, and the ground of the delay of judgment: " Sit on my right hand till." He proceeds then, notwithstanding the applause of the scribes, to the separate instruction of His disciples, beginning with warning against them, though perhaps there might even be a remnant there also.
-27. It is evident that the Sadducees connected the resurrection with the letter of the Jewish economy. When the pain of its introduction is over, man's heart which loves a large self, and that which attaches itself to his position, attaches all to the economy in which his glory is. It is not the Word, or the revelation of God to the conscience, but the lazy honor of circumstances, in which we are, which requires no faith. The Lord transplants it at once into another economy and dispensation, and the difference between the two is distinctly marked. There was a great general principle; " this world," and the introduction of the resurrection kingdom and glory (by the rejection of Jesus by the Jews) threw necessarily all the Jewish system, as the Gentiles, into a common " that world." It belonged to this life, this nature, this world and its principles. But there was " that world " to which the resurrection from amongst the dead belonged, which stood in the power and nature of a quite other life. Those who had title to it were children of God, being born by the power of resurrection, the energy of the divine life communicated through Him in whom was life, whom death could not hold, but who had power to lay down and to take up. Both demanded the same power of the Life of God.
There was a world for the fallen Adam, heir of death, and interests, and principles which belonged to it. There was a world for the Second Adam according to the principles, and objects, and character of that power of life which was manifested in His resurrection, and in which what was suited to One that had passed into it by the condemnation of His death, the annihilating by His death of all that flesh was heir to, and in a new life which had no association with the springs of joy of fallen Adam-suited to the risen Lord, and His co-heirs through grace would be found. They also are children of resurrection. Fallen man cannot be child of God. Innocent man there is none. All must be begun afresh by that which justified all of God in the condemnation of the old, told the truth of its state, and yet produced those who were subject to it, according to the energy of Him who had removed every defilement in the power of a life which necessarily had its own character and its own desires. A new world, and a Second Adam were needed to accomplish the glory of God in a benevolence and excelling worthy of Him, and that Adam must be His Son, for who else could it be? And that world, and that Adam were in resurrection, and children of God in a higher, better, infallible shape.
The only question which arises on it at all is what room it leaves in its testimony for the existence of men in the flesh during the period of " that world," and it does not seem to me to touch that question. On the other hand, the state of the departed as the final state of the believer is entirely negatived by this passage. The existence of man is adduced as proof of the necessity of his resurrection, and while this continued existence is asserted as life not to man visibly indeed, but to God, the idea of that state as a recognized state of continuance is not even supposed. Moses intimated the resurrection in saying God was the God of Abraham, when Abraham was, according to man's thought, dead. A Sadducee saw nothing beyond this life. The word of the Lord revealed another, but it was a resurrection one, not a vague, uncertain continuance of something which continued already, but of which the continued existence of those who were dead before God was the pledge and proof. And this was owned in the word of the Lord: " I am the God of Abraham." Further, the Lord intimates that this was no extraordinary revelation of the prophets, no peculiar effect of a dispensation now introduced, though this might be avowedly based on the truth now revealed. It was not only a truth, but the economy was based on this truth, for man in his state of nature was treated as lost. It rested on the primary revelation given to the people of God, when the relation in which He stood towards those first called out from the world was revealed. Moses intimated it. It lay at the root of all Israel's real hopes, for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob could not participate with Israel in the hopes of Israel, unless they were raised from the dead. In sending Moses to call Israel out of Egypt, God declares that He is the God of Abraham, etc., thus indicating that the promises of God rested for accomplishment for a future dispensation, in which these fathers would have part, and consequently there would be resurrection of the dead. The manner and order are not intimated. They might be raised to have part here below, not the same part, but part, or else in the heavenly places, or all might be raised. But this is not entered into here, but the great fact of a relationship with God which stood in a life in the power of resurrection, and this in the very earliest bases of Jewish promise and Jewish hope, the name of God, on which all their hope was based, for indeed they are beloved for the Fathers' sakes. The Law is but entered in by the bye.
All heresies touch the foundation when judged by the Spirit of God. That God was the. God of Abraham, was the foundation of Jewish hope and Jewish promise. That God was the God of a dead man that did not exist, was folly. If all lived to Him, which was true, yet if it was merely his spirit in heaven, he as a man was under the power of death, and there could be no association whatever with Israel or the promises, and hopes of man thus put separated for God's earthly people. The patriarchs must rise again. It stood, as we have said, as the link of the Name God took, and Israel's hopes. When these hopes were centered in David, the sure mercies of David convey to the mind of the apostle, by the Spirit, the same necessary conviction in its accomplishment in the resurrection of Jesus, in whom these promises were to be fulfilled Here the necessity of resurrection, and the continuous life which proves and assures it, are mentioned in the same sentence. It is exactly the principle of the apostle in 2 Cor. 5, though the order be inverse, for here it is the revelation from what God was—there the consequence of what man was heir to and assured of, the nature and ground of his inheritance, and the conclusion drawn to the intermediate life, here from God's nature, and promise, and the intermediate life revealed.
Having thus based the promises of God, and that even in their expression to Abraham, or at least as in relation with Abraham when making Himself the God even of earthly hope and earthly promise, the Lord proceeds to lay the foundation of it all in the glory of His Person, which, necessary when searched into, set the glory above the earth, and introduced principles, which were not Jewish, and which in fact had their accomplishment in the rejection of Christ by Israel, accomplishment founded on the plain manifestation of the incapacity of man to be blessed here below in relationship with God, but which had its source and firmness in the divine glory of the Person of the Messiah, making Him capable of sitting on the right hand of God, His perfect accomplishment of His Father's will, and of all the counsel of God in obedience, having glorified God fully on earth, which rendered Him qualified in strict and necessary righteousness to take His place there, and thus while righteously owned meanwhile, prove the case and position of those who had rejected Him who came in the fulfillment of their own hopes and prophecies here below, and by abundant mercies should have attracted the heart of man, let his hope or his ignorance be what it might. But learning, not ignorance, formed the barrier, for Christ made His way to the heart of the ignorant; learning made its difficulties for vanity's sake. To these learned it was that the Lord presented a question which, while it rested on the most important question of their religion, really condemned, or had its accomplishment in their entire condemnation. The Lord cites not this till they are in this state of condemnation, and signalizes this state by the citation. It placed Messiah in a heavenly state, the Jews in the place of enemies. While the Lord however proves the entire incapacity of the scribes to instruct the people, by their ignorance of the most important point of the whole system of Jewish truth, He condemns them, as is ever the case, before the people on the plainest points of hypocritical conduct.
- 35. This is exceedingly plain. Note also the life of the righteous is evidence of their resurrection, quod nota; therefore their resurrection of their life. This utterly destroys the notion (unbelieving, I think) of those who feign that the souls of the just are not properly alive till the resurrection, and the appearing of Jesus. They are indeed confounding the whole specialty of revelation in this matter, as well as unbelievingly denying the believer's hope, to wit, to be with Christ alive on leaving the body. Also it is expressly affirmed here in the statement of the blessed Lord, " For for him all live," in a distinct and revealing way, in which the " for him " has great force, for indeed they are not manifested. And here we may compare John's discovery in due time of " the souls of those beheaded," Rev. 20:4. Note also, though there we have only those under the Gentile dispensation, here we have both, nay the conclusion drawn from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then laid upon its general necessity, for indeed they deprive the Lord of half His kingdom, or else make Him a God of the dead, who disbelieve that those who are dead are asleep till the resurrection. Nay! but let us rather believe that, whether we the we die unto the Lord, so that whether we live or die we are the Lord's. For indeed the thing could not be, for if we did not live to Him we should never live again, nor be the same persons. And the idea of the soul's sleeping is nonsense. But we believe that them that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him. In a word it is mere unbelief.