The parable with which this chapter opens, sets forth in a few plain words, and in highly pregnant touches, the moral history of Israel as under the dealings of God. In what follows we have the various classes of Israel successively exposing themselves, while they were attempting to perplex the Lord. They thought to judge Him; the result was, they were themselves judged. But in the parable with which the chapter begins, the Lord sets forth God's dealings with the nation as a whole. “A certain man planted a vineyard and set an hedge about it.” There was everything done on God's part both to give them what was of Himself, and separate them from the rest of sinful men. They were duly warned against contamination by heathen corruptions. He “digged a place for the winefat.” There was every suited preparation for the full results of their work, and there was also full protection, for He “built a tower.” Thus the owner let it out to husbandmen, and “went into a far country.” This set forth their responsibility. The Jewish system in the past is man under probation. “At the season He sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard.” It is the moral trial of man exemplified in Israel's conduct. Man is bound to make returns to God, according to the position in which God has set him. Israel had every possible advantage given them by God. They had priests, religious ordinances, fast-days, feast-days, every help of an outward kind and even miraculous testimony from time to time. There was nothing wanting that man could have, short of Christ Himself; and even of Him they had the promise, and were after a sort, we know, waiting for Him as their King. They had promises held out to them, and a covenant made with them. In short, there was nothing they had not that could be of any avail, had it been possible to have got any good thing out of man. But can any good thing come out of the heart? Is not man a sinner? Is he not utterly defiled and unclean? Can you get a clean thing out of an unclean? It is impossible by any means used, to act upon man. You may bring a clean thing among unclean, but if a creature merely, it becomes defiled. If it be the Creator, He can deliver, but not even so by merely coming down into the midst of men. It requires more than this—His death. Death is the only door of life and redemption for the lost.
The Lord, then, gives the history of what they did render to God. The servant being sent, “they caught him and beat him and sent him away empty.” There was no fruit to God—nothing but evil. There was insult to Himself and injury to His servants. “And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away (not only empty, but) shamefully handled.” One sin leads to a greater sin where it is not judged. “And again he sent another; and him they killed; and many others, beating some and killing some.” They are rapidly sliding down the descent to destruction. There remained only one possible motive to act upon the heart of man. “Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my Son.” Would not one be acceptable who was infinitely greater in dignity and absolutely without a fault? For even prophets had faults; though there was great power of God in and by them, they were encompassed with infirmities, like other men. But the Sun was perfection: what if He were to come? Surely they must feel that the Son of God had an incomparably higher claim upon their affections and their reverence. And so it would have been, had not man been utterly lost. And that was the moral lesson as to man brought out in the cross. Man was then proved to be utterly corrupt. God allowed it to be shown to the uttermost practically by the people of Israel. Nothing proved it so completely as the mission of the Son of God. The trial then closed in His rejection: but His rejection was their rejection before God. Man, no matter how tried or how greatly privileged, ends in proving his total opposition to God, his hopeless ruin in His sight. “But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” It was an opportunity for the will of man not to be lost. Satan led them on to wish to have the world to themselves. This is what man most values—to shut God out of His own world: and it was consummated by no act so much as by their killing the Lord Jesus—by His cross. It was man's rejection of God in the person of His Son. Henceforth he was shown to be evidently not only weak and sinful, but God's enemy. Even when He was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself man not only preferred but was determined to have the world without God. In fact this manifests that the world lies in the wicked one; and Satan, who was really the prince of the world before, became, on the casting out of Him who was God, the god of the world then. Man must have some god over him; if he rejects the true God in the person of Christ, Satan becomes his god not really alone, but in this case manifestly. “And they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard.” This closes the probationary measures. “What shall therefore the Lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.” Nothing is said here of their rendering Him the fruits in their seasons, as we have in Matthew. It is the breaking of the old links with Israel (indeed with man), and the giving the place of privilege to others. But more than that; the destruction of the old husbandmen follows. This has already taken place in part in the downfall of the Jewish people and of Jerusalem. Nor is this all. “Have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner: this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?” The Spirit does not here introduce the further fact related in Matthew. Not only is the stone to be exalted, the rejected prophet to become the exalted Lord (that is quite in keeping with Mark's object), but in Matthew the other positions of the stone are developed more. First of all, He is a stone of stumbling on the earth; and next the stone, after His exaltation, falls upon its enemies at the close and grinds them to powder. This is connected with the prophecies and their accomplishment for both the Jews and the world. The Jews did trip upon Him in His humiliation when He was upon the earth; but when they finally take the place of adversaries, not only in unbelief, but in deadly opposition, forming indeed the chosen party of His great enemy, the Antichrist—upon them He will fall destructively at the end of the age. In Mark, however, it is simply that the rejected stone is exalted. This at once was felt by the hearers. “They sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people; for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them: and they left him and went their way.”
Now comes the trial of the different classes into which the Jews were divided. “They send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians to catch him in his words:” ominous alliance! for ordinarily the Pharisees and Herodians were bitterly hostile to each other. The Pharisees were the great sticklers for religious forms; the Herodians were more the courtier party, the men who cultivated every means of advancing their interests in the world, as the others did for securing a religious reputation. But where Christ is concerned, the most opposed can unite against Him or His truth. “And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth.” They stooped to flattery and falsehood to effect their malicious end. What they said was, no doubt, true in itself, but it was utterly false as the expression of their feelings and judgment about Him. “Is it Lawful to give tribute to Cesar, or not?” Shall we give, or shall we not give?” They wished to involve the Lord in a Yea or Nay that would compromise Him either with the Jews or with the Romans. If He said, Yes, then He was giving up the hopes of Israel apparently; He was but sealing them up in their bondage to the Romans. How could he be a truehearted Jew or still more the Messiah their expected Deliverer, if He left them as much as ever slaves of the Roman power? If He said, No, then He would make Himself obnoxious to that jealous government, and give them a handle against Him as a setter-up of seditious claims for the throne of Palestine. But the Lord replies with consummate and divine wisdom; and “knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? Bring me a penny that I may see it. And they brought it. And He saith unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” This answer was complete and absolutely perfect: For in truth there was no conscience in them. Had they felt aright they would have been ashamed of the fact that the money current in their land was Roman money. It was their sin: and man, while he rejects Christ, refuses to look at his own sin. The Lord Jesus leaves them where their sin had brought them, makes them feel that it was their own fault and sin that had put them under the Romans' authority. He simply says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” If you are here by your own fault, subject to Caesar for your sins, own the truth of your state and its cause, and pay what is due to Caesar; but forget not that God never ceases to be God, and see that you render to Him the things that are His. They were neither honest subjects of Caesar, nor were they, still less, faithful to God. Had they been true to Him, they would have received the Lord Jesus. But there was neither conscience nor faith.