Chapter 20:1-6, shows, to explain it, that while recompensing each sacrifice faithfully according to His goodness, God is sovereign in what He gives; and that if He judges good, He can find the occasion of giving, to those who, in man's estimate, might not have labored so much, the seine reward as to those who wished to gain according to their labor. The first workman has for principle, so much labor, so much pay the others betake themselves to the goodwill of the lord of the vineyard. You shall receive what is just; and grace recompenses beyond all desert of labor. Such is the great principle of all true service rendered to the Lord. There is the principle in question, and the final phrase (ver. 16), refers to what was said at the beginning: “So the last shall be first, and the first last.” It is the inverse, however, of what is said (chap. 19: 30), at the beginning of the parable, where this sentence refers to the thought of man, “What shall we have therefore?” whilst the final phrase refers to the thought of God who takes pleasure in blessing, according to the riches of His grace and power according to His goodness. It is always thus in every case. The workman shall receive according to his labor, as that happened to the first that was called. God gives according to His goodness and His grace. There had not been a refusal to the invitations among the last (ver. 6, 7): God called them when the moment that pleased Him arrived.
In the last words by which He closes the parable, the Savior establishes in a formal manner this principle of grace. Many are called, but few chosen. This principle is laid down as the foundation of all for many. We find the same principle in chapter 22:14, where it is also laid down as the basis of all. A single man furnishes the example of it. A mass of people unite under the standard of Christianity, giving themselves up to the call of God; a small number only among them comes under the influence of the word of God, and is the fruit of it. It is this sovereign grace which is the true and only source of all blessing. Here the Lord, after having spoken of the operation of this grace in the parable, lays it down in an abstract way as the basis of all.
There are yet some other moral traits of deep interest which relate to this in connection with the Savior's humiliation. (Ver. 17-28) The Lord warns His disciples on the way to Jerusalem, that He must be condemned to death by the Jewish authorities, and delivered to the Gentiles, but that He will rise again the third day.
The sons of Zebedee (ver. 20) raise the question, which is that of the whole gospel we are studying, but in a thoroughly selfish spirit. They think, for they believe in Jesus as the Messiah—of the immediate establishment of the kingdom, since the king was there, and they would wish to possess the most exalted places in it—to sit on the right hand and on the left of the King. But God was thinking of things of a very different character of excellence which also belonged to the moral state of man and his relations with God; now God was revealed in Jesus. There, moreover, is the key to the Lord's history—the Messiah, in fact, was there—this King announced in the promises and prophecies., Now, after the flesh, the Jews were the children of the kingdom and the heirs of the promises. But the revelation of God, necessary to the accomplishment of these promises, revealed the hatred of the human heart against God, and that the more that this revelation was being accomplished in humiliation in grace to save. Had He come in judgment, all would have been taken away. He came then in grace. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”
Farther, there was need of expiation, without which no sin could have been forgiven. Always, whatever was the grace with which God was there, it was always God, and man would have none of it; and Jesus, the true Messiah, in whom all the promises were Yea and Amen, found Himself rejected. But God in His divine wisdom made use of this hatred to accomplish expiation, absolutely necessary to save any one whatever, or for Israel itself to be blessed; showing thus the state of man's heart with respect to God, and opening at the same time the door of salvation to the Gentiles.
Thus the Son of man (a far wider title than that of Messiah, since it embraces all the rights of Christ in the counsels of God) was to suffer, to be rejected, put to death, then to arise from among the dead in order to lay the foundation of the eternal blessing of man, and even the temporal blessing of Israel, on the assured basis of the atoning work which Christ was about to accomplish. These things could only be accomplished according to the power of an altogether new position—beyond death, the power of the enemy, and the wrath of God; according to the position of man risen, fruit of a work accomplished and approved by God, and a proof of divine power; a position consequently unchangeable, and not a blessing dependent on the responsibility of man, under which all was called in question, as in the case of Adam, who, in fact, failed in it. Here, the blessing was to rest on a work in which God was about to be perfectly glorified. He has been, in fact, put to the proof, this gracious Savior, but only to manifest His perfect faithfulness and obedience, whatever may have been besides the depth of His sufferings. But then He must drink the cup; the cross was His lot. Not only that, but His disciples must follow Him in that path. A. victorious Messiah would place His own on thrones of judgment, but with a Savior dying on the cross, all that must, for the moment, be laid aside. He must first accomplish a work of a far different character of glory; and open to His disciples (with regard to what would result from it here below) a pathway like His own. They must follow it; there was the path which He Himself trod, and which he was tracing for them to follow Him. The two disciples, their hearts filled with carnal desire of greatness, their spiritual sight wholly obscured by the thought of Messiah's earthly reign, and only looking at human glory, ask of Jesus the favor of sitting on His right and on His left in the kingdom of their desires. But as in many other circumstances the folly of the flesh is only an occasion for the Savior to bring to light the thought of the Spirit. In the world this kind of greatness was doubtless met with everywhere; but this was not Christianity. He who seeks to be great, and to take the lead among Christians, has entirely falsified the Christian character. He will be the last of all; and the true way of having the highest place is to serve, considering oneself as the slave of the wants of other disciples. It was so that Jesus had done; He was not come to be ministered to in this world, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. A lesson simple and clear indeed, but of all importance! The seeking for personal exaltation is only the selfishness of the flesh, the spirit of the world which is enmity against God. Love delights to serve—this is what Christ did; pride and selfishness love to be served, and to take priority of others. In reading of such instructions, we are evidently beyond the idea of a Messiah come to reign and we find ourselves in the thoughts of a God of love; in presence of the revelation of grace and the Word made flesh, in Him who emptied Himself, who humbled Himself and who is now exalted. This passage is so much the more important because it terminates all the history of the Lord except His last days at Jerusalem. All His life of service ends here, and these words impress an indelible character on this blessed life, showing us solemnly, and in a manner as touching, as it is powerful, what ought to be the character of our own! To serve in love, and as far as this world is concerned, to be content to be nothing, while following in the footsteps of our precious Savior. Oh that His own may learn this lesson in which the flesh could not have been a part, but which gives us the joy of finding ourselves following Jesus, where purified from selfishness, our eyes may contemplate the beauty of that which is heavenly, and where we enjoy the brightness of God's face; where, in a word, life of Jesus in us, enjoys that which belongs peculiarly to Himself.
In the first evangelists, those called Synoptic, the account of the last days of the Savior commences here. Then in order to present Himself for the last time to the Jews, He resumes the character of Son of David. Would Jerusalem yet receive her king?
We may here indicate briefly the difference between those three evangelists and John. The three are historic; they relate to us the life and the ministry of Jesus from three different points of view: as Emmanuel the Messiah, as the Prophet-servant, and as Son of man in grace. Moreover, in these evangelists, His service is accomplished entirely in Galilee, in the midst of the poor of the flock. The result is that He is rejected; but He is presented to men in order that they may receive Him. They will have none of it, but it is there for them. We have already seen that while there as prophet and Son of David, He manifested God in this world. If man, or Israel, had received the Son of David, Son of man in grace, they could only receive Him with all the divine features which were peculiar to him, consequently they could not but bow before the manifestation of that which was divine. It could not be otherwise, for God was there. This is what man did not wish.
In the gospel of John, He is presented at the outset as God Himself, and consequently as already rejected, as He is seen in chapter i. 10,11. The Jews from the beginning, and throughout the whole of this gospel, are treated as reprobates. The necessity of the divine work in its two parts, the new birth and the cross, is asserted. Election and the sovereign action of grace, and its absolute necessity for salvation, are brought out everywhere. No one can come to Jesus, unless the Father who hath sent Him, draw him. His sheep receive eternal life and shall never perish. In this gospel nearly all takes place at Jerusalem except what is related in the last chapter.
Let us remember that Jesus presents to the heart of His own the spirit in which they must walk in this world as the spirit in which the Savior Himself walked, He, the Lord of all, meek and lowly in heart, serving the others by love.
The Lord, going out of Jericho (ver. 29) accepts from the blind men the title which He bears in relation to Israel, to whom also He is about to present Himself for the last time as having a right to this title. “Have mercy on us, O Son of David,” says the blind men. Not lending Himself to the impatience of the world which would not occupy itself with the misery of the blind men, the Lord stops, heals them, and they follow the Son of David, a clear testimony rendered to the reality of His title. But He presents Himself here too as the “Lord,” that is, as Jehovah Himself.