The Sanhedrin's refusal to answer Jesus' question, and their refusal to accept His right of power and authority, led Him to relate a surprisingly, very pointed parable about Wicked Tenants in a vineyard. This you can read about in Luke 19:9-19.
To recap, a man planted a vineyard and rented it out to tenants, and then left for a long time. Who knows, perhaps it was the nobleman from another parable who had left his servants with a gold mina coin each to mind, while he went off to acquire the kingship of the region.
Anyway, at harvest time this landlord sent a servant to collect the harvest. It could be that in lieu of currency, the tenants paid rent in terms of produce: grapes, in this case. The tenants, being wicked, beat the poor soul up and sent him away empty-handed.
The land owner sent two more such servants who received the same maltreatment as the first chap. The owner then believed the tenants would respect his only son.
How very wrong he was! The son got murdered and thrown out of the vineyard.
The vineyard owner came and did away with the wicked servants and replaced them.
Although Jesus' parable was told to the ubiquitous crowds that clamored about Him, His real target was the religious leaders from the Sanhedrin. He wanted to point out to these Jewish leaders that God would destroy them if they rejected and killed Him.
He was saying that the vineyard owner represented God, and that He was God's Son that was killed and thrown out; rejected. Added to that was that the wicked tenants, representing the Jewish religious leaders in particular, and the Jewish nation in general would have their places in the Kingdom of God given to others. They, like these wicked tenants in the parable, would be replaced by others.
Who were these others? Why, the very Gentiles they despised and tried to keep out of the Temple Court of the Gentiles. The Jews, as a nation would be set aside, making way for the Gentiles; those from the rest of the peoples of the world.
I do not mean to say the Jews no longer have a chance of relationship with God their Heavenly Father ever again! NO! Recall that God made a promise to King David, ever so long ago that he would forever have a descendant upon the throne. So, the individual Jewish person can take heart.
Salvation is unto all who receive Jesus Christ as Savior. Jews and Gentiles, alike, have this wonderful gift offered to them. They are all welcomed when each repents, confesses their sins and has Jesus wash their sins away. They are then a child of God, in His family of people from every tribe, nation, and people.
The different slaves or servants sent by the landlord to collect the harvest, typify the various Old Testament prophets God sent over the years of Israel's history. Time and again they strayed from God's laws and hankered after other 'gods'. The One True God then sent His men to tell the Israelites where they were going wrong, to repent, come back and obey God and to serve Him alone.
These were such prophets as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah and Daniel, among others. Many were badly treated. Jeremiah, for example, was thrown into a miry pit and left to die by angry men who didn't want to hear the message. Thankfully, some of Jeremiah's friends managed to haul him out with ropes (Jeremiah 38:1-13).
In the New Testament, it was John the Baptizer whom the religious leaders of his and Jesus' day, did not want to admit, was sent by God.
Finally, God sent His own Son, Jesus. Look what these jealous leaders did to Him. Killed Him, they did, as rather explicitly told in Jesus' parable.
This rather enraged the Jewish religious leaders and they plotted to kill Jesus.
All along, Jesus did not directly declare His divine nature in words, so much as in this parable. Perhaps, as Jesus' time of death was nearing He began to reveal Himself more. In a way, He was also telling the Sanhedrin members from whence He got His power and authority.
This was also serving as a warning to them of the consequences of rejecting His authority and attempts to get rid of Him.
The people's reaction was great surprise and horror at what had happened to the servants, but more so to the owner's son. "God forbid!" they exclaimed. They just could not grasp it.
Jesus' analogies went on. He spoke of the cornerstone which was rejected. A cornerstone was a very important piece in any construction of buildings in ancient times. It was the very first piece to be put in place. It would be set in the corner of the foundation to determine the two walls on either side of it. These walls needed to be absolutely straight, of course, as they were aligned to the cornerstone. If the cornerstone was off kilter, so would the walls be and the whole building would then be rather shabbily put together and in jeopardy of collapse.
Cornerstones could be rejected for whatever reason. Possibly they were not smooth or not square, potentially rendering the the building not square.
Jesus' response to the peoples' reaction that the son would be killed and thrown out, was that He, Jesus, the Son and "cornerstone," would be termed 'worthless" and therefore, rejected. This rejection inflicted by the very ones, who should have known who He was and welcomed Him with opened arms--the recognized Jewish leaders.
Another aspect of the cornerstone, besides its need of perfection, is that it had potential destructive power. If it were to fall upon anyone or anything, it would crush the person or item, breaking them to smithereens, even to dust.
What could this mean? The homology here, is that people may oppose and reject Jesus, but they would be the ones to suffer in the end. There is future judgment even for people who reject Christ, today. This is solemn and terrible.
Jesus always wanted people to understand those things and by talking about this cornerstone, could be seen to be warning the crowds about rejecting Him too. The consequences of judgment would be upon the person who rejects Him; an eternity in Hell with the devil and his minions.
Once again, the teachers of the law and chief priests who were listening, look for a way to arrest Jesus. They knew He was talking about them and their anger, and hatred deepened. They did not march Him away just yet, however, as they were restrained by their fear of the people revolting. They did not want the mobs stoning them nor creating a riot. Riots attracted Roman attention, and this was vastly undesirable to them.
Pause a while here.
As always, we need to examine ourselves. Have we accepted Jesus as Savior? How about as Lord? There's a difference you know. To accept Jesus as Savior is to repent and confess our sins to God and to receive his forgiveness of sins through Jesus. It is to receive His eternal life and the Holy Spirit.
To make Jesus Lord of our life is to make Him our "Boss" or Master, or King over us; to make a throne out of our heart and allow Jesus to sit there as King and to call the shots of our life. We are obedient to Him so when we read God's Word and He asks us to do certain things and we reject Him, we reject the Holy Spirit's work in our lives; that's NOT making Him Lord. However, if we align ourselves to Him, we make Him our Lord, as well as Savior, we make Him the Boss, and our Cornerstone.
If we always try to be like Jesus, this means we are aligning ourselves to the cornerstone who is Jesus. Jesus was (and still is) perfect. Even though the religious leaders did not accept that, we know that Jesus is perfect. So, we can align ourselves up to Jesus and aim for perfection.
Of course, we are not God, so we will never be 100% perfect but we can certainly aim for that. There's actually a verse in the Bible which asks us to do just that, "aim for perfection" (2 Corinthians 13:11 NIV). If you aim for it, you could very well get very close to it.
We aim for perfection by reading God's Word, and obeying it and listening to the Holy Spirit's guidance in our lives.
Our God and Father, we thank-You so much for this lesson from one of Jesus' parables. Help us not to reject Your Son Jesus as the cornerstone of our lives; rather to accept Him as Savior and Lord.
We know Father, that it is not always easy to live our lives in this manner but once again, we thank-You for the dynamic power of Your Holy Spirit that You have given to each one of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as Savior.
Your Holy Spirit can empower us to obedience and to refreshing our minds and hearts with Your word so we will live our lives in obedience to You and in pleasing manner to You, we can them aim for that perfection we need to align ourselves to Your Son Jesus, our Cornerstone.
Bless and keep each reader of this blog entry. Bless and keep them; make Your face shine upon them and give them peace. I ask this in Jesus our Cornerstone's Name.
~ERC August 2020~
Based on Luke 20:9-19 NIV
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