Every Last Word

Guest (Male): What’s the best story you’ve ever heard? Well, today Dr. Philip Ryken is going to retell one of the greatest stories that Jesus ever told. It insulted his audience, and the climax of the story highlights Jesus, but there's a twist: someone is murdered.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Every Last Word, a radio and internet program with Dr. Philip Ryken teaching the whole Bible to change your whole life. We're working our way through the Gospel of Luke, getting closer and closer to Jesus' death. In the message today, Jesus gives us great insight into the kingdom of God.

Phil, in today's parable, the stewards of the land abuse and even kill those who came to represent the master of the land. Is this a real-life story?

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: You know, it is, Mark. Some of the stories that Jesus told are ones that he just made up in a very imaginative way, and this was an imaginative story as well. It was a parable, but Jesus was really telling the story of Israel. So many of the prophets came speaking a true word from the Lord God of Israel, but those prophets were abused and some of them were even put to death. And that's the story that this parable tells.

Guest (Male): Well, in this passage, Jesus refers to himself as the cornerstone. Just what is a cornerstone, Phil, and how is Christ that stone for us?

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: You know, this is what Jesus says at the end of the parable, Mark, because he's talking about people abusing and even killing the son of the master of the vineyard, and he's really telling his own story. But the people listening don't believe it. They can't imagine that somebody would actually kill the son of a master.

And Jesus makes it clear he's really talking about himself. He's the cornerstone, and he's that foundational stone on which the whole temple of the people of God is built. But Jesus is giving a warning here: not everyone will receive his grace and believe his gospel. And in that case, that stone isn't just a building stone; it's actually something that will crush people. And here's the very important warning at the end of the parable, Mark: either we will be saved by Jesus or we will be judged by him and ultimately destroyed.

Guest (Male): What an important message that is for us to hear, and to hear it very clearly from, I think, maybe the most important parable that Jesus ever told. All right, thank you, Phil. Let’s turn in our Bibles now to Luke chapter 19 verse 41 through chapter 20 verse 8 and listen together to Dr. Ryken.

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: Please turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke chapter 20, where this week we consider a parable that Jesus told as recorded in verses 9 through 18. Surely Jesus of Nazareth is the greatest storyteller who ever lived, the prince of parables. None of his stories is more than a page long, and yet each one of them is a perfect masterpiece.

What stories Jesus told: stories about rocks and trees, about sinners and saints, about farmers and businessmen, about fathers and sons. And with each story that Jesus tells us, he inspires our imaginations and at the same time gives us a deeper understanding of the kingdom of God. And also, with each story that Jesus told, he was drawing one step nearer to the cross.

Jesus was in Jerusalem now, the city where he had come to die. And everything in the Gospel of Luke has been building us to this point, has been preparing us for the work that Jesus has come to do in this city. Here was a man who was destined to die. And as we come closer to the cross, we see that the storyteller and the suffering servant are one.

And so it only seems natural for him to tell this last full parable in the Gospel about the death of a father’s only son. It was the last week of Jesus' life on earth, and he told a gospel parable about the cross and about the judgment to come.

Here is how Jesus began the story: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent another servant, but they also beat and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent yet a third. This one also they wounded and cast out.”

Now, often it’s important not to read too much into all the details of a parable, and yet this parable, I think, is really an allegory in which each of the main characters stands for someone. I want to begin by just drawing some of the basic connections and then focus on one of these characters in particular before giving you the warning that Jesus gave at the end of this story.

I think rather obviously, the man who planted the vineyard stands for God. In effect, he is Israel’s landlord. He is that property owner who gave them the promised land in order that they should work the ground for his glory. And here in the parable, the owner is a kind of absentee landlord. He has been gone for a very long time.

And also, I think you would agree, a long-suffering landlord, because despite the ill-treatment that the people give to these servants sent to collect the rent, he patiently and mercifully gives them every opportunity to pay what they owe. This is the character of God, that even when we fall again and again, he very patiently invites our repentance, longing for the day of our obedience.

Now, if God is the landowner, then what is the vineyard? Well, I think the vineyard stands for the people of Israel. And I say that in part because this is a very familiar image from the Old Testament. This is a parable, really, that requires us to understand the full biblical background.

Let me just say, for example, that when Asaph praised God for the Exodus and what God had done for his people in those days, he described it like this: “You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it.” We find the same imagery used in the prophets. Jeremiah spoke of God planting Israel like a choice vine. Hosea called it a luxuriant vine. This is the imagery that was used to describe God’s people in the Old Testament days.

Perhaps the most famous prophecy comes from Isaiah, and let me encourage you to turn there in your Bibles, Isaiah chapter 5, in which we find a love song. Or really, you might also say a lament, the song of the vineyard. The prophet begins in Isaiah chapter 5 at the first verse saying, “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard.”

And then he tells the story of this beloved vineyard: “My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.” And the prophet goes on to describe the hard work that the owner had to do to start the vineyard. And yet, by the end of verse 4, we see it all ending in disappointment because the fruit is only wild grapes and it’s not suitable for winemaking. And so in the end, the vineyard had to be torn down.

And in case you’re not sure what the prophet is really saying, I think it’s clarified in the last stanza. He says, “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel.” You see, this was a familiar national symbol that God had planted his people like a vineyard, and they were supposed to be fruitful and produce for him. And yet in so many ways, they had just produced wild grapes and really in the end needed to be brought under judgment.

And whenever the Israelites encountered this imagery of the vineyard, they knew immediately it referred to their national identity. It would be very similar, for example, to the way a Canadian thinks about the maple leaf, or maybe the way an American thinks about a bald eagle. You see that symbol even in something like a political cartoon, you know it’s referring to your whole nation. And so when Jesus begins speaking about a vineyard, the people knew that he was speaking about them and about their relationship to God.

And in fact, right there in the very temple where Jesus was speaking, there was a carved image of a vineyard. It was sculpted around the door that led from the porch to the Holy Place. Its branches and leaves were of finest gold, and from time to time, people would donate gems to be included in that symbol of the vine. It represented their national identity. These people were the vineyard of God.

Who then were the tenants? Who were these men who held the lease to the owner’s vineyard? Well, you could ask the question another way: Who was it who was responsible to care for those people of Israel, that vineyard of God, so that they would bear good fruit and produce the wine of sweet obedience?

Of course, the answer is that those tenants are the spiritual leaders of Israel. They are the very priests and scribes and elders introduced to us back in verse 1 of this chapter who were challenging the authority of Jesus right there in the temple and trying to destroy him. You see, these were the men who were responsible for God’s people and for their spiritual growth.

In effect, God had been away for a long time. Maybe you could even say he’s been away ever since Adam and Eve were sent out of the Garden of Eden. And while he was away, these spiritual leaders were supposed to cultivate the people. They were supposed to feed them, prune them, protect them so that they would grow. They were supposed to love God’s people the way that a winemaker loves the best grapes in his vineyard, and then the people could be for God and for his glory.

And yet these tenants were abusing their authority. We’ve seen it really all the way through the Gospel, and in this parable, Jesus is telling to show them the way that they are failing in their responsibility.

In the parable, he describes the situation in which several years have passed and there’s been enough time, you see, for the vines to start producing good wine. And so the landowner sends his servants to begin collecting the profits paid to him, presumably in the wine itself. He was ready to drink his share of the profits. This is the way payment was made for this kind of tenancy in those days.

And the servants came, and they were there to collect the latest vintage. And yet the tenants refused to make the proper payment. Not only do they keep the wine for themselves, but they abused every last one of the owner’s servants.

Now, according to the terms of this allegory, who are the servants? Well, they are the prophets. They are the prophets whom God sent to his people again and again. And so often in the Old Testament, God calls them by this name. He says, “my servants the prophets.” The prophets were the servants. And when God sent Isaiah and Jeremiah and Hosea and all the rest of them, it’s as if he’s sending his servants out to the vineyard to bring back the good fruit of obedience.

This is what the prophets were doing. They were calling the people to faith. They were telling them to bear good fruit. They were warning them that if they did not repent, they would perish. And we saw that in the warning that Isaiah gave.

And what did these servants receive for their troubles? Well, they received the same kind of response we see in the parable: rejection, persecution, abuse, and particularly at the hands of the tenants of the vineyard. How often the prophets went to the people, and yet they were rejected, particularly by the leaders.

The prophet Jeremiah speaks about this. God said, “I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them day after day, yet they did not listen to me.” And many of the prophets—maybe most of them—were ill-treated. Many of them came to a violent end. Think of Jeremiah, ridiculed and rejected before being thrown down to the bottom of a muddy pit and left for dead. Think of Zechariah, murdered in the precincts of the very temple. Think of John the Baptist, who was beheaded.

And then consider the testimony of Stephen not long after these words of Jesus, himself only moments from his own martyrdom, saying, “Which of the servants did our fathers not persecute?” He said, indeed, they even killed those who announced the coming of the Righteous One.

Do you understand the meaning of this story, this parable, in a way this allegory? Each of the people here stands for someone and teaches us something about living for God. You see the long-suffering landowner and it reminds you of God. It shows you how patient he is, how he’s waiting for your repentance.

You see the vineyard and that reminds you of your responsibility as the people of God to bear good spiritual fruit. You see the wicked tenants and you see what kind of spiritual leadership God loves and what kind of spiritual leadership God hates. You see how important it is for spiritual leaders to see that the people of God are for God and not for themselves. You see the suffering servants. They represent the prophets, and they teach us to expect persecution and difficulty if we preach in the name of Christ.

Those are all valuable lessons to learn, but we do not come to the heart of the parable until we see the sending of the owner’s son and see the place that he occupies in this story and his murder at the hands of evil men. Listen to what the owner says: “What shall I do?” Verse 13, “What shall I do? I will send my beloved son.”

As soon as we hear these words, we know that we’re standing on the holy ground that’s at the heart of the universe. Because the beloved son, or the only beloved son, is a precious person in the whole story of salvation. We catch our first glimpse of him, I think, in the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac.

Remember how God called that famous patriarch to make the costliest of all sacrifices, and how he said to him, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and offer him as a burnt offering.” And there you see the beloved son and you see the call of God to Abraham to sacrifice that beloved son.

And of course, it was all part of God’s preparation for the coming of Christ, because he too is a beloved son. He is the beloved son. He is the only son of the loving Father. Luke has testified to this from time to time in his Gospel. He tells us the story of the baptism of Jesus, and he tells us that a voice came from heaven and said, “You are my beloved son.” Or again, when Jesus went up on the Mount of Transfiguration, a voice came from heaven saying, “This is my son.”

And so do you see what Jesus is doing? When he tells us a story about a beloved son, it’s a story about himself. Because if it’s about a beloved son, it must be about him. He is the most beloved of all sons. And it’s as if he can’t tell a parable about himself as the son without adding this adjective. He has to put it in there. He has to say, you have to see this is a beloved son. That’s what kind of son he is.

And when we see that the story is about the beloved son, as we hear it our hearts are drawn to Jesus the son and to God the Father who loves him. Now, some skeptical scholars doubt whether Jesus really understood his own divine identity, just as the scribes and elders of his own day doubted whether he had divine authority.

But can you see here that Jesus knows exactly who he is, that he is the Father’s beloved son? And that therefore, when he tells this parable about the sending of a beloved son, he’s bearing witness to the love that he has enjoyed with the Father from all eternity. Jesus is the eternally beloved son of the Father from eternity past to eternity future. The Father is always loving and loving and loving the son. And so if you want to understand who Jesus is, you have to understand that he is the beloved son. And this parable is pointing to that. Jesus is testifying to his status as the beloved son.

But understand that this beloved son is not simply loved with the Father’s love, but also sent on the Father’s mission. Because out of his loving heart, the Father is sending his beloved son. That’s what he says. That’s the verb he uses in verse 13: “I will send my beloved son.” He asks the question, “What shall I do?” and then he gives this costly answer. He says, “I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him.”

Well, immediately we want to tell this man he’s making a terrible mistake. Because even without hearing the rest of the story, we know that the wicked tenants will not respect the man’s son any more than they respected his servants. When you come to this point in the story, really you would want to say to the man, don’t do it. Don’t send your beloved son. Don’t you know what they will do to him?

And of course, that is exactly what they did to him. For Jesus goes on to say that when the tenants saw him, verse 14, they said to themselves, “This is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours.” And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

See, apparently after such a long absence, these tenants assumed that the owner must be dead, and thus they seized this opportunity to claim the vineyard for themselves. They knew that the son was the son, and yet they refused to acknowledge his rightful claim to the vineyard, but instead in their foolish wickedness, they take him out and kill him.

And can you see that this story is much more than a parable? Really, it is, as one commentator said, a prophetic autobiography. The storyteller is telling the story of himself. Jesus knows who he is. He is the last in the long line of prophets sent to the people of God. And more than that, he knows that he is the beloved son.

And he also knows what he is doing, because he knows that in sending the son, the Father is sending him to die. Oh, there is such an air of inevitability about this entire story. You know as it’s developing how the story will end, and Jesus knew it too. He knew what would happen to himself at the hands of evil men.

Already the religious leaders of that day had rejected him. They were denying his divine authority. They were refusing to acknowledge that he came from the Father. That’s the whole context of this story at the beginning of chapter 20. Luke has told us that they are now plotting to destroy him. Indeed, that very week they would conspire to commit his murder. Having persecuted all the prophets, they would now slaughter the beloved son.

How wicked it was. How foolish it was. God is the owner of all creation. What could possibly be gained by murdering his beloved son? You see, the people should have been giving him all of their worship and all of their service and all of their honor and all of their praise. As the Father’s son, he had a right to the good spiritual fruit of God’s vineyard.

But instead, the people are rebelling against the authority of God. They’re refusing to give Jesus his due. They’ve rejected all of the prophets, and now they are getting ready to crucify the only begotten son. What a brutal, horrible, terrible crime it was—the most awful thing that anyone has ever done: the murder of God’s infinitely perfect son.

And yet we need to see it was also part of God’s plan. And if we were to ask the Father and say to him, don't you know what they are going to do to your beloved son, he would say, “Yes, I know it. And that is why I have sent him into the world. Don't you know that? That I have sent my beloved son to do the work of salvation?”

And here in this amazing parable that Jesus tells in the last week of his life, we see that the Father and the son both know what will happen. The Father is sending the son to suffer and to die for sinners. This is the main business of his life. And so it is that the Scriptures say that “God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

The question is, do you believe in Jesus or not? If that is what is true, in believing the son you will have life and not perish. Do you believe in him or not? The Father has sent the son so that you might be saved. And yet some people refuse to acknowledge his sonly authority. They prefer, as these religious leaders did, to work their own religion, to worship the god of their own understanding. Or perhaps they imagine that God the owner is dead, and that if somehow they can simply deny Jesus as the son, they can have life all to themselves on their own terms.

And this is the choice that everyone has to make. It’s the choice that no one can make for you but you. Will you believe in Jesus or not? Jesus himself said, “Whoever believes in the son is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.”

Now, what will happen if we do not believe in the son? What will the consequences be? That’s the question that Jesus himself asks at the end of this parable. He wants to give us a serious warning. And so he poses this question at the end of verse 15: “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?”

Well, what do you think the owner should do? These tenants have murdered his beloved son. They have murdered him. What does justice require? Well, Jesus goes on to say in verse 16, “He will come and destroy those tenants and he will give the vineyard to others.”

I suppose people don’t always like the way that God deals with sinners. I doubt, though, really whether you can argue with him here on the basis of justice. These men have murdered the owner’s beloved son. They surely do not deserve to work any longer in his vineyard. No, indeed, they deserve to die.

Now, remember that this story is really an allegory and understand what Jesus is saying here: that the people in the story all stand for someone in real life. And when Jesus said that the vineyard would be taken away and given to others, what he was really saying was that Israel’s priests and scribes and elders—those religious leaders who were challenging his authority, who were planning his murder—those men would no longer lead the people of God. Their spiritual leadership would be transferred to the apostles of the church, as the gospel in days to come would go out to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews.

Now, the people who were listening to what Jesus said knew exactly what he was saying. They could hardly believe it. Luke tells us in verse 16 that when they heard this, they said, “Surely not. Surely not, Jesus. Surely you can’t mean what we think that you’re saying. Surely God would never take the vineyard away from these leaders and, in a way, from the Jews and give it over to the Gentiles and to the apostles.”

I mean, it was completely unthinkable. It was unthinkable to them, you may remember, because they had so little spiritual concern for people outside of Israel that they had turned the court of the Gentiles virtually into a grand bazaar. That was what we saw at the end of chapter 19.

It’s interesting here what made these people angry, isn’t it? It’s not the death of the beloved son. That’s not the thing that provokes their outrage here; it’s the idea that they’re going to lose their place of spiritual leadership. These men were not concerned with the person and work of Jesus Christ, but only their own important position in the religious community. And how deadly that attitude always is in Christian ministry because as soon as we become concerned about our own position, our own reputation, our own place of service in the church, and more concerned about that than the honor of Jesus Christ—well, when we take that kind of attitude, we no longer deserve any kind of leadership in the church. No, indeed, we ought to be replaced, as Jesus said that these men ought to be replaced.

Now, in order to confirm what he was saying, Jesus quoted from the Scriptures. And I want to give you just a little bit more of the background here so that you will fully understand the importance of what he is saying. The people are saying to him, “Surely not.” And Jesus wants to say to them, “Yes, indeed.”

And to do that, he quotes to them from the Scriptures. We read in verse 17, “He looked directly at them and said, ‘What then is this that is written: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?’” And he went on to say this: “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

Now, this is a hard saying. Hard to understand in a way, but also hard to accept. Understand, though, that it is worth struggling to understand because this is one of the most important things Jesus ever said. This quotation is essential to his own understanding of his saving work.

Now, if you notice perhaps from the note in your Bible, you’ll see that this quotation comes from Psalm 118. Let me encourage you to turn there in your Bibles, Psalm 118. It’s the very psalm, significantly, that people had been singing as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Remember what they were singing on Palm Sunday? They said, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Well, that’s right here from Psalm 118. You see it in verse 26: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” That’s the kind of praise that people had been giving to Jesus that very day.

But the part of the psalm that Jesus wanted to quote comes earlier in verse 22: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Now, this statement refers to an unusual incident that occurred during the building of Solomon’s temple. In those days, the great stones for the temple were cut at the quarry and then chiseled into the proper shape. And after that, they were transported to Jerusalem directly to the temple work site and then they were slid into place.

And one large stone had turned out to be the wrong size and shape. And so when it arrived at that building site, the workmen had to set it aside. You see, it was the stone that the builders rejected. And yet to everyone’s surprise, that unwanted stone later turned out to be exactly the right size and shape to serve as the cornerstone. Or perhaps the word means the capstone, the keystone, the thing that holds the whole structure together.

The psalmist was using that stone as a metaphor for the whole nation of Israel. Because you see, like the cornerstone, the people of God were rejected. They were rejected among the nations. In a way, they were rejected by God when they were taken into captivity. And yet later, God rescued them. He re-established them in Jerusalem. He rebuilt the temple. He restored them to their place of honor. And so they could sing not just about some stone at the temple, but about themselves in their relationship to God. They could sing: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

And Jesus, in quoting this verse at the end of his parable, was saying that this was really a prophecy about himself fulfilled in his coming as the Messiah. Jesus Christ, he is the stone that the builders rejected. Indeed, that’s what the religious leaders were doing at that very time in destroying him. They were rejecting the cornerstone of salvation. And that’s what the parable was about. Those wicked tenants who killed the owner’s son, they were like these builders who rejected the chosen stone. They were acting against the beloved son.

And so these words from the psalm were coming true. The rejected stone was about to become the murdered son. And yet that wasn’t the end of the story. Because that stone that was rejected became the cornerstone. And Jesus quoted the full prophecy; he quoted it in full because he knew it was a promise about the gospel.

As the son, he would be rejected unto death. But he would not be rejected forever because as the beloved son, the Father would raise him up again. And that stone rejected at the cross would become the cornerstone of resurrection life.

And here right at the end of this parable he tells about his death, Jesus is also, I think, giving a hint that he would come back from the grave. It’s a promise of the whole gospel; it’s the resurrection as well as the crucifixion as the stone becomes the cornerstone.

And all of that, I think, brings us back to the same crucial question. It’s the most important question anyone could ever ask you: Do you believe in this Jesus or not? Do you believe that his rejection is your salvation, that he died on the cross for your sins? And do you believe that his resurrection is your life, that he rose again so that you could live forever?

If you do not believe this, you need very seriously to consider this warning at the end of the parable. Let me encourage you to turn back to Luke 20. I want to read the verse again. It’s a warning about the heavy stone of the wrath of God. Jesus says, “Everyone who falls on that stone”—this is verse 18—“will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

And I think those are words to heed, because Jesus knew better than anyone else in the whole history of the world what will happen to people who reject him, who do not believe in him, who do not accept him as the beloved son. And the truth is, as Jesus speaks about here, many people get tripped up when they encounter Jesus. They stumble over him, so to speak.

They don’t accept him as the Son of God and Savior of the world. They think that he is not really relevant to their life or experience. They can’t get past him or what the Bible says about him as the perfect Son of God.

And what a crushing mistake that is to make. Because Jesus says here that people who trip over him will be broken to pieces. I think that refers to something that happens already in this life. If we refuse to accept Jesus as the beloved son of God, eventually life falls apart. But you see at the end of the warning something much worse that happens at the final judgment. Jesus Christ himself, that stone of salvation, will crush us completely if we have not believed in him.

Jesus said it himself. He’s the precious stone God’s chosen him to be the cornerstone. But if we trip over him, then he’ll fall on us at the end with crushing force. And don’t you remember, this is why Jesus was weeping as he rode into Jerusalem. We saw it back in chapter 19. He saw the people. He knew that they would come to reject him, so many of them, and he cried great tears over them because he knew the judgment that would fall upon them.

And this is also why Jesus said these things, why he gave this warning: because he wanted people to know his identity as the beloved son of God. He wanted to warn them about the crushing weight of the judgment of God so that we would be saved and not destroyed.

And so the question comes to us again. Will you come to Jesus in faith, or will you stumble over him? I want you to imagine, just for a moment, that you knew by reliable testimony that some enormous boulder was about to come crashing through the ceiling of this room and fall right on the place where you are sitting with crushing force, driving all the way down into the ground.

Now, if you knew that was about to happen, what would you do? You would move out of the way. I dare say you would if you believed that that word of warning was really true. Well, what then will you do with the word of warning that comes to you from Jesus Christ? Will you move out of the way of judgment? Will you come to him for salvation? Don’t stumble over the stone of salvation. Don’t fall under the judgment of God. But believe in the beloved son.

Our Father in heaven, we give you praise for your great love for Jesus, your only son. And we also give you praise for your great love for us. You have said that we, through faith in Jesus, are your beloved sons and daughters. Father, we pray that we may find safety in Christ from the crushing weight of your judgment. And Father, we pray this not only for ourselves, but for our families, for our friends, for a lost city in need. In Jesus' name, amen.

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Every Last Word with Bible teacher Dr. Philip Ryken, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance exists to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of reformed theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide Christian teaching that will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

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