Luke 20
CHAPTER 20
Luke 20:1-19 . THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS QUESTIONED, AND HIS REPLY--PARABLE OF THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN.
2. these things--particularly the clearing of the temple.
4. baptism of John--his whole ministry and mission, of which baptism was the seal.
5. Why then believed ye him not?--that is, in his testimony to Jesus, the sum of his whole witness.
7. could not tell--crooked, cringing hypocrites! No wonder Jesus gave you no answer ( Matthew 7:6 ). But what dignity and composure does our Lord display as He turns their question upon themselves!
points are given, taken literally from Isaiah 5:2 , to fix down the application and sustain it by Old Testament authority.husbandmen--the ordinary spiritual guides of the people, under whose care and culture the fruits of righteousness might be yielded.
went, &c.--leaving it to the laws of the spiritual husbandry during the whole length of the Jewish economy.
10. beat, &c.--( Matthew 21:35 ); that is, the prophets, extraordinary messengers raised up from time to time.
13. my beloved son--Mark ( Mark 12:6 ) still more affectingly, "Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved"; our Lord thus severing Himself from all merely human messengers, and claiming Sonship in its loftiest sense. (Compare Hebrews 3:3-6 .)
it may be--"surely"; implying the almost unimaginable guilt of not doing so.
14. reasoned among themselves--(Compare Genesis 37:18-20 John 11:47-53 ).
the heir--sublime expression of the great truth, that God's inheritance was destined for, and in due time to come into the possession of, His Son in our nature ( Hebrews 1:2 ).
inheritance . . . ours--and so from mere servants we may become lords; the deep aim of the depraved heart, and literally "the root of all evil."
15. cast him out of the vineyard--(Compare Hebrews 13:11-13 , 1 Kings 21:13 , John 19:17 ).
16. He shall come, &c.--This answer was given by the Pharisees themselves ( Matthew 21:41 ), thus pronouncing their own righteous doom. Matthew alone ( Matthew 21:43 ) gives the naked application, that "the kingdom of God should be taken from them, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof"--the great evangelical community of the faithful, chiefly Gentiles.
God forbid--His whole meaning now bursting upon them.
17-19. written--(in Psalms 118:22 Psalms 118:23 . erection of which a certain stone, rejected as unsuitable by the spiritual builders, is, by the great Lord of the House, made the keystone of the whole. On that Stone the builders were now "falling" and being "broken" ( Isaiah 8:15 ), "sustaining great spiritual hurt; but soon that Stone should fall upon them and grind them to powder" ( Daniel 2:34 Daniel 2:35 , Zechariah 12:3 )--in their corporate capacity in the tremendous destruction of Jerusalem, but personally, as unbelievers, in a more awful sense still.
19. the same hour--hardly able to restrain their rage.
Luke 20:20-40 . ENTANGLING QUESTIONS ABOUT TRIBUTE AND THE RESURRECTION--THE REPLIES.
20-26. sent forth--after consulting ( Matthew 22:15 ) on the best plan.
spies--"of the Pharisees and Herodians" ( Mark 12:13 ). See Mark 3:6 .
21. we know, &c.--hoping by flattery to throw Him off His guard.