The Perils of Rejecting Christ

GOLDEN TEXT: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”—John 14:6

THE two parables constituting today’s lesson formed a part of our Lord’s discourses on the last five days of His public ministry. He had been teaching daily in the Temple, and the people, much impressed by His mighty works and His wonderful words, “were very attentive to hear Him.” (Luke 19:47,48) But the more His fame spread abroad and the people were influenced by His teaching, the more the envy and the opposition of the scribes and Pharisees increased and intensified into a settled murderous hatred, which plotted and schemed to accomplish His death. It was in this spirit and intent that the chief priests and scribes and elders of Israel came upon Him with what they esteemed puzzling questions, seeking to entrap Him in His words and thereby to gain some pretext for His arrest.

The shrewdness with which our Lord met their attacks commands the admiration of all. He was more than a match for all the gainsayers, putting them to silence and to shame. Then He spoke these two parables, which they perceived to be against them, and which the more angered them, so that they would have laid hands on Him then had they not feared the people.

In the parable of the vineyard, the owner represented God, and the vineyard represented the Jewish nation as described under the same figure in Isaiah 5:1-7: “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant.” God had done much for His vineyard in the way of planting and care and cultivation; and in view of this He inquires (Isa. 5:4), “What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?” But nevertheless it repaid Him with wild grapes instead of good grapes—“and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.” The “husbandmen” to whom the vineyard was let were the divinely constituted religious leaders of the nation. These husbandmen had their stewardship from the time of the exodus down to the time of the coming of Messiah, a period of more than sixteen centuries.

At various seasons during the age God specially looked for fruits of righteousness, sending to them His faithful prophets, who were lightly esteemed and ill-treated—especially by the husbandmen.—Matt. 23:31,32

Last of all, in the harvest or end of the age, God sent unto them His Son saying, “They will reverence My Son.” But no, in their selfish ambition to retain their stewardship, they said among themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill Him, and let us seize on His inheritance.” So “they … cast Him out of the vineyard, and slew Him.” The application of the parable was too plain to be misunderstood. Their guilty consciences needed no further accusation. The self-righteous hypocrites perceived that the great Teacher had read their hearts and was aware of their dark designs.

In the further progress of the parable was the prophecy of His own final triumph, even though they should kill Him; for He was the stone of which the Psalmist prophesied, saying, “The stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner” (Psa. 118:22), the building of God being referred to as a pyramid, of which the top-stone is the chief corner stone.—See also Zech. 4:7.

In stumbling over Christ at His first advent, the Jewish nation was indeed broken to pieces; and ever since they have been a nation scattered abroad, all the world being witness to the fact. The world is also witness to the fact that those wicked husbandmen who crucified the Lord were destroyed as such. They lost their honor and office (and many of them doubtless perished literally in the destruction of Jerusalem), and were superseded by the more worthy apostles and teachers of the gospel of Christ.

Coming down to our day, we should not overlook another prophecy, pointing to a double fulfillment—first, upon fleshly Israel, and, secondly upon nominal spiritual Israel, or the nominal Christian church. It reads: “And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to BOTH the houses of Israel.” (Isa. 8:14) In this as in other things the two houses of Israel—the nominal fleshly house of the Jewish age, and the nominal spiritual house of the Gospel age—stand related to each other as type and antitype; and the likeness is striking.

The attitude of the public teachers of this harvest period, like those of the Jewish harvest, has been against the truth now due in these days of His presence. Closing their eyes to the light now shining, both leaders and their followers are stumbling into the ditch of infidelity, and are in darkness as to the meaning of the great tribulation into which the world has entered, and of which the Lord and the prophets forewarn us.—Matt. 24:21; Dan. 12:1; Rev. 18:4-8

The result of the stumbling of the nominal gospel church over this stone will be the same as it was in the case of the Jewish house—they will be broken; the whole institution will be disintegrated, and only the faithful remnant of this age (as of the Jewish) will be gathered into the Kingdom of God—a “little flock” to whom “it is the Father’s good pleasure to give the kingdom.”—Luke 12:32

But when this corner stone crowns the finished temple of God, the church glorified, when the Kingdom is established in glory and power, upon whomsoever this stone falls it will grind to powder; it will utterly destroy. “Every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.”—Acts 3:23

With the example of the stumbling of fleshly Israel in view, how careful should every Christian be to see to it that he is not among those of this age who form the antitype—either of the blind leaders or of the blind multitudes who follow their leading into the yawning ditch which shall surely engulf all of the unfaithful.

QUESTIONS:

What were some of the reasons the scribes and Pharisees rejected and opposed Jesus?

Have many of the nominal Christian house also failed to understand the fullness of the teachings of Jesus?

Did Jesus forecast His own death in the parable of the vineyard?

Did Jesus forecast His own exaltation in the parable of, “the stone which the builders rejected”?

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