Deeper Commentary

20:1 And it came to pass, on one of the days he was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, there came to him the chief priests and the scribes with the elders- Matthew says the Lord "entered" the temple to teach. "Entered" is erchomai , and is matched by the priests and elders 'coming' to Him, proserchomai. The impression is created of direct confrontation, head on. His teaching was the preaching of the Gospel- of the Kingdom of God. But His take on the good news of the Kingdom, as witnessed by multiple parables about the Kingdom, was that the principles of the future political Kingdom on earth must be lived now. All the people wanted was to see the Messianic Kingdom come literally. In chapter 19 we saw how He set up a mock triumphal entry to explain that this was not for now. And now He backs that up by explaining what "the Kingdom" at this stage was really all about in personal terms. Indeed, His view of the Kingdom was totally opposed to theirs. And so in His next parable, He explains that actually Israel must kill their king as they killed their prophets, in order for the Kingdom to come as they wished.

20:2 And they spoke, saying to him: Tell us. By what authority do you do these things?- Presumably they thought they had Him caught out, because exousia was supposedly solely with Rome. He could hardly say the Romans had given Him such authority. And yet if He said anything other than 'Rome', then He could be reported to the Roman authorities. However, their reference may have been to what we noted at Mt. 21:14- the Lord had held back the temple guard from arresting Him and stopping His forceful overthrowing of the temple traders. This question was quite to be expected of a man who had recently used violence to overthrow tables and force men off the premises. Who had given Him such authority?  

Or, who is he that gave you this authority?- To this day this question is heard. People, especially religious people, find it so hard to accept that somebody can have a personal relationship with God which enables and empowers them to operate as sovereign free agents amongst mere men. This cry is especially heard from those who themselves think they have authority and seek to hold on to their petty power at all costs. It is the typical cry when someone obeys their Lord's command to baptize people, takes the initiative to extend fellowship to another etc. 

20:3 And he answered and said to them: I also will ask you a question. Now tell me- It is not necessarily wrong to avoid answering a question- although few of us could do so in the spiritually and logically flawless way the Lord did here, let alone at a moment's notice.

The AV is mistaken in translating "If you tell me, I will tell you". The sense rather is: 'If you answer this question, then in that answer you will have My telling you the answer to your question'. They finally answered in :7 that 'We cannot know' (Gk.).

20:4 The baptism of John- Perhaps John's message was so centred around the appeal for baptism that "the baptism of John" is being put for 'the teaching and ministry of John'. Or maybe the Lord has in view His own baptism by John. In this case, His reasoning would be that His authority came from the fact that He had been baptized by John. Seeing John's work was from God and had Divine authority, this meant therefore that the Lord was empowered by that baptism to operate with God's authority. If that is indeed what the Lord intended, then we have another window onto the perplexing question of why the Lord was baptized by John.  

Was it from heaven, or from men?- Gamaliel uses the same logic in Acts 5:38,39 in urging the Jews to boil all the personal feelings and doubts down to a simple issue: Are these men and their work of God or man? This approach is helpful to us too, assailed as we are by unclarity about others. Is a man in Christ or not? Does God work through him or not? Is he of God or men? There is no middle ground here. This is what I submit concerning myself to those who doubt me, and it is the approach I seek to take with others with whom I have to engage in spiritual life. And Gamaliel rightly concluded that if something is of man and not of God, then we have little to worry about. Finally it will come to nothing. We should be concerned rather with the eternal consequence of refusing those who are clearly of God. If of God, we must accept them. 

 

20:5 And they discussed it among themselves, saying: If we shall say from heaven, he will say, why did you not believe him?- This could imply they withdrew for discussion amongst themselves. But such a withdrawal would've been a sign of weakness. More likely we have here an insight into their own internal reasonings. In this case, the statement in :7 that they answered that they couldn't tell was uttered by each of them in turn as the Lord asked them individually.

20:6 But if we shall say, from men, all the people will stone us- The punishment for religious heretics. They all considered John as a prophet, whereas the chief priests and elders did not. We see here a marked difference between the people and their religious leaders. Indeed, the leaders despised the common people: "This people who know not the Law are cursed" (Jn. 7:49). And yet very soon now, the leaders would be apparently controlling the people to cry for the blood of Jesus. But this chapter so far has shown that this was not really the reason why the masses turned against Jesus. They turned against Him because of His dashing of their hopes and refusal to pander to their expectations, exemplified by His wilful parody of a triumphal entry into the city and temple. The huge gap between the elders and the masses was so great that it cannot be credible that the elders managed to manipulate them so quickly to turn 180 degrees and to reject the Jesus whom their hero John had insisted was the Messiah.

For they are persuaded that John was a prophet- And yet the Lord had said that “the men of this generation” held John to be demon possessed, i.e. crazy (Lk. 7:33). We can on one hand feel and state respect for someone, whilst in reality not accepting them as any authority at all, and effectively considering them as if they are mad, not to be taken seriously. 

20:7 And they answered that they did not know- They had set themselves up as defenders of the Faith, whose duty it was to analyse the claims of teachers and decide whether or not they were false prophets. But now they are beaten in fair intellectual fight. They can give no answer, and yet by saying they could not judge John's claim to be a prophet, they were abdicating the very role of assessors of teachers which they claimed to have, and which they were using against the Lord.

20:8 And Jesus said to them: Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things- He meant that they knew in their consciences and did not need Him to spell it out to them in words. This was again His style in His silence before His judges, and in His brief answer to Pilate: "You are saying it" (Lk. 23:3). The answer was in Pilate's own words rather than the Lord's.

20:9 And he began to speak to the people this parable- 'From where do you get your authority? What is your exact nature and relationship to God?' was answered by the parable of the servants who refused to receive the Son and give fruit to the owner (Lk. 20:9-16). The Lord could've answered: 'My authority? From God, He's my Father, I had a virgin birth, you know'. But He wasn't so primitive. Instead He appealed to them to realize their own responsibilities to their creator and to accept His authority by giving fruit to the Father. The absentee landlords at times demanded fruit in lieu of repayment of debt. Perhaps the idea was that Israel were deeply in debt to God. Matthew 21 prefaces this parable with the one about the son who refused to even work in the vineyard.

There are strong similarities between the Lord's parable and the song of the vineyard of Isaiah 5:1-7, especially in the LXX:
"Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about His vineyard [The genre is significant; what begins as a joyful, idyllic harvest song turns into bitter disappointment and declaration of judgment]. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill [The environment was ideal]. He dug it up [to dig was the work of the lowest servant, but God did this], gathered out its stones [the effects of the curse were ameliorated], planted it with the choicest vine ["the men of Judah"], built a tower in its midst, and also cut out a wine press therein. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between Me and My vineyard. What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? [Absolutely all has been done to enable our fruitfulness. The Father wants fruit above all- in the Lk. 20 parable, the owner seeks the actual fruit, rather than cash payment. This element of unreality serves to show His passionate interest in fruit] Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes? Now I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall of it, and it will be trampled down [The downtreading of the temple at the hands of the Gentiles].  I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned nor hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns [The language of the curse in Eden. The land was as the Garden of Eden, but Israel sinned "as Adam"]. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it [the language of Elijah, prototype of John the Baptist]. For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant: and He looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness [the fruit required was justice and righteousness- instead, as Isaiah 5 goes on to explain, there was materialistic selfishness], but, behold, a cry of distress".

A man planted a vineyard- The language of planting a vineyard and eating the fruit of it is used in 1 Cor. 3:6; 9:7 about our work of preaching. Paul was unafraid to interpret the parable on multiple levels. We are to be fruitful; but in our work of sharing the Gospel with others we are also the planters who come seeking fruit on our converts. The suggestion could be that the owner personally did the planting and preparing. I say this because Isaiah 5, upon which the parable is based, includes this feature- of the owner doing so much personally. Matthew's version stresses that all has been done so that we can produce spiritual fruit; but so often we excuse our lack of fruitfulness by blaming environment factors. The situation in our country, our town, workplace, marriage, family, health etc. And we can put huge effort into trying to change environment because we consider that we can be more fruitful for God in a different environment. But whilst passivity and fatalism are just as wrong, it must be accepted that our environment in the bigger picture has been uniquely and thoughtfully prepared by God so that we might be fruitful. For it is clear from the parable that our fruitfulness is God’s most passionate desire and intention for us. He would hardly place us in any other environment, therefore, than one ideally prepared by Him in order to enable and enhance our fruitfulness.

And rented it to husbandmen, and went into another country for a long time- Not necessarily the ascension of the Lord Jesus. It could be a reference to God’s entry of covenant with Israel, at which "God came down on mount Sinai" (Ex. 19:20; 20:19) and then "ascended up on high" (Ps. 68:18).  The Greek specifically means to go into a foreign, i.e. Gentile, country. It is used of the prodigal son going into a far country (Lk. 15:13). Let us remember that the Son in the parable represents the Lord Jesus, the owner is clearly God. This going away is not therefore representative of the Lord's ascension to Heaven, although it appears to be used that way in Mt. 25:14,15; Mk. 13:34 ["the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey"]. This may just be the furniture of the parable, alluding to the common experience of absentee landlords. These were often characterized by being uncaring for their land; but this owner was particular careful for his project to the point of obsession. He wanted the fruit, not money. It therefore may be part of the impression given, that the owner appears to be absent and disinterested- but in reality He is passionately interested. And this is exactly the position with God, who is perceived as somehow distant and passionless about His project on earth. There may also be the hint that even before He considered giving His precious vineyard to the Gentiles, which appears at the end of the parable, He had in fact initially envisaged this, and had in some form gone to the Gentiles right from the start of His project with Israel.

Initially, the parable would've got the hearers on the side of the labourers; because it was a frequent complaint that absentee landlords abused their tenants, who worked hard just to send cash off to the landlord in another country. But the parable twists around, so that after initially identifying with this group, the people came to see that it was they who stood condemned.

20:10 And when the time came- A phrase used by Matthew about the drawing near of the Kingdom at Christ's time (Mt. 3:2; 4:17). But by the end of His ministry, the Lord was warning that false teachers would wrongly claim that "the time draws near" (Lk. 21:8). Clearly He taught that the time had drawn near, but not come. He taught at the end of His ministry how He was as a man who had gone to  a far country for a long time. This invites us to understand that with each appeal of the prophets, and of John as the last prophet, the time potentially could have come. God's purpose is thus open ended. Peter uses the same word to speak of how the end of all things is drawing near (1 Pet. 4:7), and Paul likewise (Rom. 13:12). It could have come in AD70- but again, a great delay, until our last days. This is why setting any date for the second coming is inappropriate- for it is a case of fulfilling preconditions, rather than awaiting a day fixed on a calendar. "The season" for fruit (Mk. 12:2) had indeed come, many times- all was potentially ready for it, but human failure meant there was no harvest.

He sent- The Greek apostello again encourages the apostles to see themselves as the equivalent of the Old Testament 'sent ones'- the prophets.

To the husbandmen a servant, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard; but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty handed- The prophets (2 Kings 9:7 and often). Note that the prophets were sent from God, as the Lord Jesus was; but this doesn't imply they were in Heaven with God before their sending, and neither was the Lord.

20:11 And he sent yet another servant, and him also they beat, and handled him shamefully, and sent him away empty handed- When the world reviled him, Paul saw himself as the beaten prophets Jesus had spoken about (2 Cor. 11:24,25). The first servant could be the former prophets, the second servant the latter prophets; for Judaism strongly recognized this distinction. Beating, shaming, stoning and killing [according to Matthew's version] are Mosaic punishments for apostasy, and so the idea may be that Israel excused their lack of spiritual fruitfulness by judging as apostate the prophets who demanded this of them. This is typical- the unspiritual transfer their own anger with themselves and awareness of their own coming judgment onto others, whom they condemn as worthy of judgment and punishment.

20:12 And he sent yet a third, and him also they wounded and threw him out- Mk. 12:4 adds that the last servant was “wounded in the head”, surely a reference to the beheading of John the Baptist and shameful treatment of his severed head. He was the last of the prophets; their ministry was until John the Baptist. Although we have just read that the crowds recognized John as a prophet (:6), in reality they didn't. They rejected his message of the true nature of Messiah. Mass enthusiasm for a Christian teacher is not the same as real belief and spirituality, and acceptance of the real spirit of Christ. We note that the "beloved son" was "sent" (:13) after John the Baptist. 'Sending' was therefore at the start of the Lord's ministry, and not at His birth, as Trinitarians like to think.

20:13 And the lord of the vineyard said: What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. It may be they will respect him-God sent His Son to Israel, thinking "they will reverence him when they see him" (Lk. 20:13 AV). But Isaiah 53 had prophesied that when Israel saw Him, they would see no beauty in Him and crucify Him. Yet God restrained that knowledge, in His love and positive hope for His people. Likewise Jesus, it seems to me limited His foreknowledge of Judas. He knew from the beginning who would betray him. One of the 12 was a traitor. Yet Judas was His own familiar friend in whom He trusted. "It may be they...", Gk. isos, is tantalizingly hard to understand. It could mean 'Perhaps'; or equally it could mean 'They will, surely'. We wonder of course how the Father could truly feel like this if He is omniscient. My suggestion is that He limits His omniscience in order to enter fully into our human experience; which means that His expressions of shock and disappointment are legitimate reflections of how He actually feels.

“My beloved Son” means that the joyful harvest song of Is. 5:1, the "song of my beloved”, becomes the tragedy of "My beloved son". 

We have here an example of how several of the parables recorded in Luke all feature this internal dialogue- in this case, the owner asking Himself 'What shall I do?'. This features here in Luke's version of this parable, but not in Mark's version. Luke as a doctor was perhaps interested in things like self-talk and psychology. He also begins his Gospel by recording that the Lord Jesus would reveal the thoughts of many hearts, i.e. to ourselves (Lk. 2:35). He personally, and the things concerning Him, elicit the question "What shall I do?". The rich fool asks himself the same question: "What shall I do?" (Lk. 12:17). The outcome of God's internal dialogue is to give His Son, in the face of every evidence that gift will not be appreciated, and that it will cost Him all He has. The allusion is to Is. 5:4,5 LXX where God twice asks Himself "What shall I do to my vineyard?". He had "done" everything for it. The answer is provided in more detail by the Lord Jesus, here in this parable. What God decided to "do" was not simply to destroy the vineyard; but rather to send His Son, destroy the tenants but not the vineyard- and preserve the vineyard by giving it to other tenants. We could perceive here a slight change of plan within God, brought about by the experience of His Son. The vineyard is now not destroyed- the tenants are. God does not give up on His project, i.e. His strong desire for spiritual fruit in His land. The question "What shall I do?" may well have been a cliffhanger moment in the first telling of the story. The audience was left to think about it. They naturally would have wondered why the owner took such a risk in sending His Son. Surely the landowner guessed what was likely to happen to His Son? And so the audience would have wondered whether this landowner was perhaps so obsessed with getting the rent, i.e. the fruit, that He did take the risk. That surely is the conclusion any audience is led to at this point. And that indeed is the point- that God is so passionate for spiritual fruit that He would risk and give His Son for it. But we surely have here another element of unreality- no matter how he wanted the rent, no owner would surely send His beloved Son given the previous history with His servants. This unreality in the story serves to highlight God's desperate desire for fruit. And we see here His supreme interest in our developing the fruit of the Spirit. Our perspective should be the same, seeking to exclude influences which damage the fruit, and practically surrounding ourselves with influences which elicit spiritual fruit. And this has huge impact upon what we watch and listen to.

The Bible is full of people who are brought to ask themselves "What shall I do?". The answer is the same as God's answer to Himself- to give all. He had asked Himself the same question about His people earlier: "Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you?" (Hos. 6:4). And the painful answer was 'Keep on loving you'. The rich fool instead thinks only about where he can store his wealth, talking to himself from the wrong assumption that wealth lasts and can be stored up. The idea of course is that all of us, God and man, debate "What shall I do?". Saul / Paul asked "What shall I do?", the dishonest steward likewise when he is convicted of sin (Lk. 16:3), "What shall I do with Jesus?" Pilate effectively asked himsef (Mt. 27:22), the rich young ruler also ["What shall I do to inherit eternal life?"], the jailor ["What shall I do to be saved?"] as did the crowds at Pentecost (Lk. 18:18; Acts 2:37; 22:10) and the crowds who came to John ("What shall we do then?", Lk. 3:10,12,14) and the Jews who saw the Lord's miracles twice asked themselvs the same ("What shall we do? This man does many miracles", Jn. 11:47; Acts 4:16). The answer was begged really by the question; the questioners knew the answer was always to repent, resign all they had once held dear, and cast themselves and their lives upon the Lord Jesus. The rich fool debates with himself about how he is going to treat and pamper his "soul"; but then his soul or life is required of him, in that he dies. The reality of death just didn't figure in the man's self talk. He talks about his plans for his soul / life, and doesn't consider that God has other plans for his soul; he has left the Divine perspective quite out of account, speaking to himself about his life rather than to God, who in fact owns his soul / life. The answer ought to have been, to give his all for God and His people, and to repent of his materialism. The fool "said within himself", not 'thought within himself'. The idea is definitely of internal monologue and self talk.Job 31:14 has Job asking himself the same question but with the correct perspective, of final judgment: "What then shall I do when God rises up?".

The prodigal son asks himself what he could do in his predicament; the unjust judge and dishonest steward likewise. And in Lk. 12:45, the unfaithful servant reasons "My lord delays his coming...". All the humans in these parables are spiritually weak; their self-talk, we can assume, was related to their weakness and, in some cases, condemnation. Here we see the huge importance the Bible places upon internal dialogue and thought processes. And here in Lk. 20 we see how this is also a feature of God, in whose image man is made. Our self talk is therefore of critical importance; and it is this which God judges. The things of the deepest and most essential spirit. It is therefore no surprise that the records of the wilderness temptations are in fact perfectly in line with the general focus of the Gospels upon self talk and internal dialogue. The Old Testament has a similar focus- consider how Saul 'said within his heart...' in 1 Sam. 18:17,21.

20:14 But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned one with another, saying- That is, they conspired. This is quoting the LXX of Gen. 37:18. And the allusion is also to "When they shall see him, there is no beauty that they should desire him" (ls. 53:2). "Shamefully handled" (Mk. 12:4) is s.w. Is. 53:3 LXX "despised".

This is the heir!- The leaders of first century Israel initially recognized Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah (cp. Gen. 37:20; Jn. 7:28). They saw (i.e. understood, recognized) him, but then they were made blind by Christ (Jn. 9:39). It was because they "saw" Jesus as the Messiah that the sin of rejecting him was counted to them (Jn. 9:41). This explains why the Roman / Italian nation was not held guilty for crucifying Christ, although they did it, whereas the Jewish nation was. And yet there is ample Biblical evidence to suggest that these same people who "saw" / recognized Jesus as the Christ were also ignorant of his Messiahship. "You both know me, and you know whence I am... You neither know me, nor my Father... when you have lifted up the Son of man, then shall you know that I am he" (Jn. 7:28; 8:19,28) were all addressed to the same group of Jews. Did they know / recognize Jesus as Messiah, or not? As they jeered at him on the cross, and asked Pilate to change the nameplate from "Jesus, King of the Jews", did they see him as their Messiah? It seems to me that they didn't. In ignorance the Jewish leaders and people crucified their Messiah (Acts 3:17 RV). And yet they knew him for who he was, they saw him coming as the heir. I would suggest the resolution to all this is that they did recognize him first of all, but because they didn't want to accept him, their eyes were blinded, so that they honestly thought that he was an impostor, and therefore in ignorance they crucified him. And yet, it must be noted, what they did in this ignorance, they were seriously accountable for before God.

Let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours- Their assumption therefore was that the landlord must have died, for otherwise, killing the son would not have given them the inheritance. They acted, as we can, as if God is dead; although they would never have admitted that. The apparent non-action of God can likewise lead to the wrong impression that He is effectively dead. Seizing a vineyard for personal possession reminds us of Ahab’s actions in 1 Kings 21:15,16- making Naboth a type of Christ, and associating the Jewish religious leadership with wicked Ahab. However, Ahab did repent- and one wonders whether the Lord built in this allusion in reflection of His amazing hopefulness for Israel’s repentance. The allusion to Ahab may have been born in the Lord's Bible-saturated mind by the way that Isaiah 5:6 spoke of rain being withheld from the vineyard, as happened in Ahab and Elijah's time. The confirmation of Israel in their evil way was brought to its climax in the crucifixion of Christ.

20:15 And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do to them?-Surely a reference to the Lord being crucified outside Jerusalem. In this case, the vineyard specifically speaks of Jerusalem and the temple. Mk. 12:8 appears in English to suggest a different order: Took, killed, cast out of the vineyard. But the Greek text doesn’t have to be read strictly chronologically. The killed-and-cast-out need not be chronological. Or it could be that the Lord is teaching that effectively, they had killed Him before casting Him out and crucifying; the essence of the cross was ongoing in His life. That is clear enough in a number of Gospel passages.

"Cast Him out" has obvious connection to the way in which the Lord was crucified outside the city limits of Jerusalem. But 'cast him out' is parallel with the stone being "rejected" by the builders (:17). The 'casting out' therefore speaks of religious rejection from the community. The same word is used of how the Lord was cast out of Nazareth (Lk. 4:29), and how believers would be cast out from Judaism (Lk. 6:22) and the synagogue (Jn. 9:34); and even from the legalistic church (3 Jn. 10 "casts them out of the church"). Any who experience being cast out of the visible body of God's people are thereby fellowshipping the Lord's crucifixion sufferings. Yet sadly the experience destroys many- when it can be taken as a share in His sufferings, knowing that if we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him. It is the same word used for the casting out of the rejected from the Kingdom to final condemnation (8:12; 22:13; 25:30; Lk. 13:28); those who cast out of the vineyard, which is the Kingdom, will themselves be cast out of the Kingdom at the last day.

The invitation "O inhabitants of Jerusalem… judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard" (Is. 5:3) is matched by the rhetorical question: "What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do unto them?" (Lk. 20:15). This too was addressed by the Lord to Jerusalem’s inhabitants.

 20:16 He will come and destroy these husbandmen- The Lord spoke of how the owner Himself would “come and destroy these husbandmen”. This is a shocking change in tempo- the owner has appeared impotent, distant and naive, to the point that the husbandmen considered He was effectively dead.  They reasoned that if they killed the Son, then the vineyard would be theirs. But this is exactly the nature of Divine judgment. The God who appears effectively dead, at least impotent, distant and naïve, will suddenly reveal Himself in direct judgment. We believe that now by faith, but it shall surely happen.

And will give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said: God forbid- The Lord will give the vineyard to the others. And yet He will come and destroy the vineyard, and the new nation He will choose will not just give Him some of the fruit, but will themselves become part of the vine, and themselves bear fruit to Him (Mt. 21:43; Jn. 15).

The Lord’s initial Palestinian hearers were well used to the scenario of absentee landlords. The parables of Israel would have been easily understood by them. The landlords lived far away, were never seen, and sometimes their workers took over the whole show for themselves. The Lord’s parable of the absentee landlord in Lk. 20:9-16 alludes to this situation. He sends messengers seeking fruit from the vineyard, but the tenants abuse or kill them, and he does nothing. When his son shows up, they assume that he’s going to do just as before- ignore whatever they do to him. After all, they’d got away with not giving him any fruit and ignoring his messengers for so long, why would he change his attitude? He was so far away, he’d been in a “far country” for a very long time (Lk. 20:9), they didn’t really know him. The Lord asked the question: “What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them?” (Lk. 20:15). The obvious answer, from the context provided within the story, would be: “Judging on past experience, not much at all”. But then the Lord presented the element of unreality in the story, as a sudden, biting trick of the tail: No, the lord of the vineyard would actually personally come and destroy them, and give the vineyard to other tenants. Even though his experience of having tenants farm his land had been a fruitless and painful experience that had cost him the life of his son. And it was that element of unreality that brings home to us the whole point of the story. The Father does appear distant and unresponsive to our selfishness, our rebellion, and our refusal to hear his servants the prophets. But there is a real judgment to come, in which He will personally be involved. And yet even His destruction of the Jewish tenants hasn’t taken away His almost manic desire to have workers, in His desperate desire for true spiritual fruit. The parables of Israel surely speak encouragement to each of us. The parable of the absentee landlord has a telling twist to it. Absentee landlords who had never visited their land for ages, and found the people they sent to the property beaten up, would usually just forget it. They wouldn’t bother. In the parable which draws on this, the Lord asks what the landlord will do (Lk. 20:15). The expected answer was: ‘Not much. He got what he could, he was never bothered to go there for years anyway’. But this landlord is odd. He keeps on sending messengers when any other landlord would have given up or got mad earlier on. But God’s patience through the prophets was likewise unusual. And then, when the tenants thought they must surely be able to get away with it because the Lord seemed so distant and out of touch… He suddenly comes Himself in person and destroys them. He doesn’t hire a bunch of people to do it. He comes in person, as the Lord will in judgment. And instead of deciding he’d had his fingers burnt and giving up vineyards as a bad job, this Lord gives the vineyard to others- He tries again. And so the Lord is doing with the Gentiles.

20:17 But he looked upon them, and said: What then is this that is written- Mt. 21:42 "Did you never read in the scriptures". They spent their whole lives reading Scripture, and Ps. 118 was a well known Passover Hallel. But we can read and yet never really read as God intends.

The stone which the builders rejected- The Lord would be "rejected of the elders, chief priests and scribes" (Mk. 8:31 s.w.); indeed, "rejected by this generation" (Lk. 17:25).

The same was made the headstone of the corner?- If the builders rejected this stone, the implication is that another set of builders used it in another building, which became the temple of God. This is precisely the situation with the vineyard being taken away from the Jewish tenants and another group of workers being taken on. The quotation is seamlessly in context with the parable.

20:18 Everyone that falls on that stone shall be broken to pieces, but on whoever it shall fall, it will grind him to dust- There is an unmistakable allusion here to the stone destroying the image, the Kingdoms of men, in Dan. 2:44. The choice we have is to fall upon Christ and break our bones, to get up and stumble on with our natural self broken in every bone; or to be ground to powder by the Lord at his return, to share the judgments of this surrounding evil world- being “condemned with the world...”. Yet strangely (at first sight) the figure of stumbling on the stone of Christ often describes the person who stumbles at his word, who rejects it (Is. 8:14,15; Rom. 9:33; 1 Pet. 2:7,8). In other words, through our spiritual failures we come to break ourselves, we become a community of broken men and women; broken in that we have broken our inner soul in conformity to God's will. As Simeon cuddled that beautiful, innocent baby Jesus, he foresaw all this: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again (resurrection) of many in Israel... that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (Lk. 2:34). If we are to share his resurrection, if we are to experience such newness of life in this life, we must fall upon him, really feel the cutting edge of his word. We must be broken now; or be broken and ground to powder at the judgment. See on Mt. 3:11. 

A passage in Ps. 118 is referred to in Lk. 20:18; Acts 4:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:6-8. One wonders if this was a proof text which the early believers would have known by heart. And one wonders likewise about Psalm 2- it is referred to so often.

20:19 And the scribes and the chief priests sought to arrest him in that very hour, but they feared the people. For they perceived that he spoke this parable against them- The connection with Isaiah 5 was so clear, and that song of the vineyard was a well known passage understood as the justification for the destruction of the first temple. The fear of the people was the reason why they didn't take the Lord. He realized this, and I suggested on chapter 19 that His mockery of a triumphal entry into Jerusalem was calculated to turn the people violently against Him. He was the psychologist extraordinaire. By manipulating things in this way, the Lord held total control over His death and the timing and manner of it, so that His arrest and crucifixion were in fact His giving of His life, rather than it being taken away from Him.

20:20 And they watched him and sent out spies, who pretended to be sincere- Rightly had the Lord called them hypocrites. Their attempt at acting as sincere enquirers would have been laughable. All the way through, the Lord is presented as the one totally in control, with the Jews and Romans acting exactly as He had set them up to act.

So that they might catch him in something he said; so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the Roman governor- The same word used of how they were to be entangled in condemnation (Lk. 21:35; Rom. 11:9). As they treated the Lord, so they were treated. Our attitude to Him is in a way our attitude to ourselves and our eternal destiny. We note they could not in fact catch hold of His words (:26). His death was not going to be because they outsmarted Him, but rather because He willingly set up a situation through which He willingly gave His life rather than it being taken from Him.

20:21 And they asked him, saying: Teacher, we know you say and teach rightly- Gk. orthos, from whence 'orthodox'. They were thereby trying to lead Him to make a right wing, conservative answer, namely, that tribute should be given to God and not Caesar. And then the Herodians with whom they were working in this plan (see Matthew) could legally swoop upon Him and have Him arrested for disloyalty to the empire.  

And show no favouritism to any person- This was an appeal to Jewish orthodoxy, whereby the righteous Jew was supposed to be obedient to God regardless of what others thought. They were trying to lead the Lord into a position whereby He said 'No' to the question about giving the tribute money. And the Herodians were ready to pounce on Him if He did; for according to Matthew, they were working together with the Pharisees in this. We can reconstruct how the Pharisees and Herodians worked together in this; the Pharisees were trying to lead the Lord by a path of theology and logic to a position whereby He denied the need to pay tribute- and then Herod's supporters could pounce on Him. The verisimilitude and internal agreement of the record is again strong encouragement to accept this as the inspired word of God, recording he actual words spoken rather than giving a mere summary or imagination of them from a distance of time and space.

But in truth teach the way of God- John the Baptist had attempted to prepare the way or path over which God's glory in Messiah could come to Zion. The only other occurrence of "the way of God" is when we read that Apollos, who knew only John's teaching, had to have "the way of God", i.e. John's message about the way, explained more fully to him (Acts 18:26). It may be that John had been so unworldly that he had not paid tribute to Caesar, or at least, he had been interpretted that way; and so now the Pharisees were commenting that if the Lord truly upheld John's teaching, then what was his answer about paying the tribute money? Because it was perceived, at very least, that John had advocated not paying it.

20:22 Is it lawful- This was purposefully vague, because they didn't clarify whether they meant the law of Moses or that of Rome. This was part of the trap. If the Lord said it was lawful according to Roman law, then they could accuse Him of breaking the law of Moses. If He said it was lawful according to the Law of Moses, and therefore that law must surely be obeyed, then He was breaking the law of Rome. But the Lord majestically rises above the trap, by (as usual) taking the whole issue to a far higher level.

For us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?- The word translated "tribute" was used by the Jews for the poll tax of Ex. 30:12-16; the argument was that this should be paid to the temple and not to Gentiles. By pushing the Lord for a yes / no answer, they thought they would force Him into an untenable position. Judas of Galilee had agitated about not paying the tribute money to the Romans (Acts 5:37) and had been executed for this in around AD6, in recent memory. The Lord as always appealed to higher principle- if it has Caesar's image, then give it to him; but what has God's image, your own body, then give it to God. The giving of our entire person to God made paying an annual tax to the temple seem cheap and irrelevant.

20:23 But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them- Mt. 22:18 says He perceived their wickedness. The wickedness could be their hypocrisy. But their "wickedness" could refer to their personal sins, and because in that moment the Lord perceived those sins, He thereby perceived their hypocrisy and therefore challenged them about their hypocrisy. He may have been given that perception of their sins by some flash of Divine insight, or it could be that His supreme sensitivity to people led Him to imagine correctly the kind of stuff going on in their secret lives. 

20:24 Show me a denarius- The Pharisees claimed that pagan coinage should not be brought into the temple courts. This is why the coin had to be brought to the Lord, according to Matthew. By so doing, the Lord was purposefully provoking the Pharisees; likely the Herodians (Mt. 22:16) brought it, not the Pharisees.

The tribute money had the inscription Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus Pontifex Maximus- “Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, High Priest”. Pedants would’ve quickly assumed that such blasphemous language and appropriation of titles appropriate to the Lord Jesus would mean that such coinage should not be used, nor should such tribute be paid to any man on this basis. But the Lord saw a bigger picture. He was quite OK with such token behaviours, but the far bigger issue was giving to God our own bodies and lives which bear His image.

The coin bore an image which strict Jews considered blasphemous, denoting Tiberius as son of God, the divine Augustus. The Lord doesn’t react to this as they expected – He makes no comment upon the blasphemy. He lets it go, but insists upon a higher principle. ‘If this is what Caesar demands, well give it to him; but give what has the image of God, i.e. yourself, to God’. He didn’t say ‘Don’t touch the coins, they bear false doctrine, to pay the tax could make it appear you are going along with a blasphemous claim’. Yet some would say that we must avoid touching anything that might appear to be false or lead to a false implication [our endless arguments over Bible versions and words of hymns are all proof of this]. The Lord wasn’t like that. He lived life as it is and as it was, and re-focused the attention of men upon that which is essential, and away from the minutiae. Staring each of us in the face is our own body, fashioned in God’s image – and thereby the most powerful imperative, to give it over to God. Yet instead God’s people preferred to ignore this and argue over the possible implication of giving a coin to Caesar because there was a false message on it. Morally and dialectically the Lord had defeated His questioners; and yet still they would not see the bigger and altogether more vital picture which He presented them with.

Whose image and superscription has it? And they said: Caesar's- He was setting them up for His point that whatever bears God's image and superscription is to be given to Him (:25); and that refers to our body and whole lives. We have His signature on us; perhaps the Lord had in mind by this the idea that Israel were God's covenant people, His servants bearing His marks.

20:25 And he said to them: Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's- The Jews were looking for immediate deliverance from Caesar. The Lord's parody of a triumphal entry into Jerusalem was designed to show that He was not bringing that kind of a Kingdom, that sort of salvation. By saying that tribute must indeed be rendered to Caesar, He was further dashing their Messianic hopes concerning Him, and further demonstrating that He was not the Messiah they were looking for. Thus He was consciously bringing about a situation whereby His popularity was turned into hatred, because of the whole psychology of dashed expectations making love turn to hate. The accusation that "We found this fellow... forbidding to give tribute to Caesar" (Lk. 23:2) was so utterly untrue.

The memories of the Maccabean heroes and their rebellion were strongly in the minds and consciousness of first century Israel. Their exploits were recited yearly at the feast of Hanukkah. Yet the Lord purposefully subverts the history of the Maccabees. Mattathias had taught violent resistance to Gentile occupation in the slogan: "Repay the Gentiles in their own coin" (1 Macc. 2:68 N.E.B.). But the Lord alludes to this, at least to the LXX form of the saying, when He advocated paying the Roman temple tax, giving the coin to them, and not violently resisting. See on Heb. 5:6.

And to God the things that are God's- The Lord taught that whatever bear's God's image must be 'rendered' to God, just as what bore Caesar's image must be rendered to Caesar (Lk. 20:25). Seeing that the human body bears God's image, He was clearly teaching that we should 'render' to God our whole being in the course of our human lives. But the same idea of rendering to God is picked up in 1 Pet. 4:5, where we are told that in the final judgment, we will 'render' [s.w.] ourselves to God. By the way we live now, the manner in which we render to God all that is not Caesar's, we are effectively rendering to Him our judgment account. And so we also find this Greek word for 'to render' in Rev. 22:12; Mt. 16:27; 20:8; 2 Tim. 4:8 and Rom. 2:6- at the day of judgment, where we render ourselves to God, He will "give" [s.w. 'render'] to every man according as his works have been. We're rendering ourselves to God right now, here in this life. And He will render that back to us in the last day- for we are right now giving our account to God. And there are times in life where perhaps God specifically intervenes in order to give us a taste of that final day of 'rendering' of ourselves to God- hence in the parable of Lk. 16:2, the man is asked to 'render an account' of his stewardship [s.w.]. It may be through illness, tragedy, loss, the intense introspection of depression, conviction of sin... in these things we are led to a specific preview of the 'rendering an account' which lies ahead. And we should be grateful that we have such opportunities.

What bears God's image, which is our whole body and mind (Gen. 1:26), is to be given to God. We have God's superscription written upon us, moreso if we are in Christ (Rev. 3:12; 7:3; 14:1). "It is he that hath made us, and [therefore] we are his" (Ps. 100 RV). We must be His in practice because He is our creator. So it is not that we merely believe in creation rather than evolution; more than this, such belief in creation must elicit a life given over to that creator.

The things which are God's are to be 'rendered' to Him. The Greek word means to pay back, to return; even giving our very bodies only giving back what He has given us.  The same word had been used recently by the Lord in teaching that we have a huge debt to God which must be 'rendered' or paid back to Him (Mt. 18:25,26,28). We can read the Lord's words here as meaning that concerns about pedantic issues relating to coinage are irrelevant compared to the paramount issue- that we owe God everything. Because we are created in God's image, the structure of our very bodies is an imperative to give ourselves totally to His cause (Mt. 22:19-21). Whatever bears God's image- i.e. our very bodies- must be given to Him. "It is he that hath made us, and [therefore] we are his" (Ps. 100:3 RV). We must be His in practice because He is our creator. So it is not that we merely believe in creation rather than evolution; more than this, such belief in creation must elicit a life given over to that creator.

"Should we give tribute to Caesar?" was answered with the comment that whatever has God's image on it should be given to God- and seeing we're made in God's image, the Lord was asking that they gave their very personal selves to God, every part of their mind and body- rather than worrying about the 'guilt by association' that might come from paying your taxes to Caesar (Lk. 20:23-25).

20:26 And they were not able to catch him in what he said in the presence of the people, so they marvelled at his answer and held their peace- The Greek for “catch him” is elsewhere used about the Jews finally taking hold of the Lord in arrest and crucifixion. The Jews are also recorded as not being able to do this physically to Him in public, “before the people”. But Luke speaks of the Jews doing these things in relation to “His words”. This is Luke’s way of saying what John says in so many words- that the Lord Jesus was so identified with His words, which were God’s words, that He was “the word made flesh”, the living personification of His own words, in whom there was perfect congruence between His essential self and His words.

They perceived what He was saying- for they "marvelled". Just as in the parable, the Jews heard the invitation to the banquet, and perceived that "this is the heir". But Matthew records that they went their way- and that way was the way to crucifying the Lord, killing the messenger of God.

20:27 And there came to him- Over 100 times we read in the Gospels of various people coming to Jesus- His enemies, the crowds, His disciples, people in need. Each came with their various motivations, agendas and pre-understandings of Him. His invitation to ‘come to Him’ was to come in faith. The repeated repetition of the phrase ‘came to Him’ is perhaps to invite us to see ourselves likewise as amongst those who ‘come to Him’ as we read or hear the Gospel record, ensuring that we are truly coming to Him and not merely on a surface level as so many did.

Certain of the Sadducees, they that say that there is no resurrection- The obvious response to a question from such people about the resurrection would be ‘But you don’t believe in a resurrection!’. They antilego, spoke against publically, the resurrection. Mark’s record adds that they also said that “In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise…” (Mk. 12:23). But the Lord was not so primitive as to point out their obvious untruth. He took their position as they stated it, and worked to demonstrate that even given that position, they were woefully ignorant of Divine truth. Long term, His approach stood a chance of working. If He had simply denounced them as liars and self-contradictory, there was no chance He would’ve ever contributed towards their possible repentance and change of heart. This approach needs to be take to heart by us. For there are large numbers of believers who seem to think that their service to God involves cruising internet forums or endlessly arguing with their neighbours in order to prove them wrong and self-contradictory about doctrinal matters. This may give a slight ego rush for a moment, but it is not in fact any real victory. For the victory we seek is not to tie another up in mental knots, but to lead them to repentance, to the Lord Jesus, and to His Kingdom. We also need to note that recently the Lord had resurrected Lazarus, with the result that He appeared to have won over many who had previously supported the Jewish leadership. They were now trying to prove that resurrection doesn’t happen. The Lord could’ve called many witnesses to the resurrection of Lazarus, but instead He takes their argument and works from it.

It has been observed that the Sadducees were generally hedonistic- and this surely was a result of their denial of the future resurrection and judgment. Their belief was that only the Torah was inspired, and it was Israel’s duty to live according to it in this life. They were a parade example of the effect of doctrine in practice.

20:28 And they asked him, saying: Teacher, Moses wrote to us- Matthew: “Moses spoke unto us”. The Lord picks this up in His answer in Mt. 22:31: “Have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God”. He is telling them that God and not Moses was the ultimate speaker to them; and that the word was not merely written but is a living word, actively speaking unto them. For all their much vaunted belief in Divine inspiration of the Scriptures, these men had failed to perceive that God was speaking to them personally through the human authors. And that criticism needs to be remembered today by those equally wedded to a declared belief in Divine inspiration of the Bible. It is to be to us a word spoken and not a dead letter written on paper.

That if a man's brother dies, having a wife but he is childless, his brother should take the wife and raise up seed to his brother- The Lord could have replied that if they read the entire passage in Dt. 25:5-7, they would see that God actually made a concession in this matter; and the whole principle only applied to “brethren dwelling together”. A man did not have to marry his brother’s wife. In any case, as most adult men were married, it would have usually been a case of polygamy. But again, the Lord didn’t point out that expositional error, but goes on to develop a far greater and higher principle concerning the nature of His Kingdom, in which such casuistry about marriage will be simply irrelevant. And again, He sets an example to those who have spent their religious lives arguing about divorce and remarriage and fellowship issues. Their arguments could be demonstrated to be expositionally faulty. But the higher principle is that such issues shall be irrelevant in God’s Kingdom; and we are to live the essence of the Kingdom life now as far as we can, in spirit at least. The Sadducees made a big deal of the fact that the word translated “raise up seed” is that used generally in the Septuagint for resurrection. Their idea was that resurrection is not of the body but through family life. To die childless was therefore tragic indeed. The same error is made by many today who effectively believe that family life is the ultimate form of spirituality. It is not, and God seeks to build a personal relationship with each of us, He is the personal God of Abraham, Isaac etc., and we shall experience a personal bodily resurrection at which we shall appear before God stripped of our family, and relate to Him as a single individual.

20:29 There were therefore seven brothers; and the first took a wife and died childless- This must have been a most unfortunate family. The Old Testament speaks of the failure to build up a house / family and the death of men in youth as being a curse from God for disobedience (Job 18:19; Ps. 107:38,39). Again, the Lord could have made capital of this- but He didn’t. There was no element of personal attack, but rather an appeal to higher principle.

20:30 And the second- As noted on :29, this was clearly not a true story.

20:31 And the third took her, and likewise the seventh also left no children, and died- Instead of asking 'And who and where was this family?', picking up the obvious contradictions within the story, the Lord let all that go. He wanted to focus upon essential principles, rather than getting caught up in proving that His opponents were lying. He sets an example which so many of His followers have not well followed.

20:32 Afterward the woman also died- She would have been judged to be a most unfortunate woman, likely under God’s judgment (see on :29). But the Lord doesn’t question the very unlikely story nor the contradictions within it- instead He works from what was presented to Him.

20:33 In the resurrection, whose wife of these shall she be? For the seven had her as wife- The Lord could’ve pointed out that they were well known for denying / speaking against the resurrection. But He doesn’t make that obvious point, instead focusing on the higher principles rather than point scoring.

'Who will be married to whom in the Kingdom?' was well answered by the Lord, but His final cut was that God is the God of the living and "all live unto Him", i.e. the fact we are alive means we are responsible for our actions to Him right now- and we must be moved by that, rather than by speculation about the physicalities of how others may be in God's Kingdom (Lk. 20:33-38).

20:34 And Jesus said to them: The children of this world marry and are given in marriage- The Lord attacks their assumption that the Kingdom will be a continuation of life as it is in this world, just minus some of the limitations and complications. That is not the case; "this world" is contrasted radically to "that world" (:35). Whilst we rightly look forward to seeing beloved family members again who were believers, we have to be aware that family relationships as we now know them are for "this world". The age to come will not be "this world" and its relationships somehow revived in a human sense. The question of the Jews was therefore a reflection of deep immaturity. And this was the context at the time- the Lord was being asked to set up a literal Kingdom in Israel, with Israel 'marrying and giving in marriage' in their own kingdom, totally independent of Rome. But His message was far beyond that. His Kingdom was to come in an age where all such things would be no more. The world of Lot and Noah's time married and gave in marriage right up until the day of judgment- and no longer, after that.

20:35 But they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage- See on :34. "Accounted worthy" means to be counted totally without blame and thereby totally worthy. I suggest this is another example of where Luke is preparing his readers for the Pauline explanations in Romans- that only through imputed righteousness, by faith through grace, can anyone be saved. The same word is used when Paul prays that God would count the Thessalonians "worthy" of their calling (2 Thess. 1:11). The Jews were assuming that they would be in the age to come, on account of their relation to Abraham by the flesh; and the Lord is saying that the only ones who shall be there are those counted totally worthy. The thoughtful hearer would have realized that this would mean that worthiness and righteousness had to somehow be imputed.

20:36 Neither can they die any more; for they are equal to the angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection- Note the present tenses. They are most striking in Greek: “Neither can they die… they are equal to the Angels: and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection”. Greek tenses, unlike Hebrew tenses, are precise. We would expect ‘They shall not die… shall be equal… shall be…’. But the present tenses are striking. The Lord is building up to His point that the question about marriage is inappropriate because God is outside of our kind of time; He sees the believers in Him as even now immortal, a point made more strongly in John’s Gospel. This is not the same as having an immortal soul, nor does it imply conscious survival of death. Rather is it a reflection of how God from His perspective outside of time sees His children. Jn. 3:3-5 makes the same point, that we are born again of water and spirit even in this life, and thereby are living the life eternal. But that is from God’s standpoint outside of time as we experience it.

 The Sadducees denied the existence of Angels (Acts 23:8). The Lord’s teaching that Angels do not marry was surely additionally an attack on the Jewish myths becoming popular at the time concerning the supposed marriage of Heavenly Angels with the daughters of men in Gen. 6. These myths are deconstructed in Jude and 2 Peter, but the Lord here is also correcting them. We marvel at how apparently ‘off the cuff’ He could speak in such a multi-faceted and profound way, addressing various issues simultaneously. Although His intellectual and spiritual ability was doubtless capable of such instant responses, I prefer to imagine the Lord reflecting deeply upon God’s word and preparing His ideas throughout the years of spiritual mindedness that preceded His ministry.

"We shall be as “the sons / children of God”, thereby answering the Sadducees' idea that it is a human duty to have children and thereby continue the race, for therein do we have our ‘resurrection’. Again the Lord is lifting the whole question to a far higher level. Luke adds that the Lord first said that “the children of this world marry…”. The Sadducees were assuming that the Kingdom of God would be a kind of continuation of this present life, just with eternity of nature. Whilst there are similarities and aspects of continuity between who we are and who we shall eternally be, we are mistaken in imagining the future Kingdom of God as some kind of ideal earthly situation, a tropical paradise holiday, which shall last eternally. This is the same mistake as thinking that we shall eternally be doing what “the children of this world” currently do. Instead of criticizing and exposing the faults in the argument presented, the Lord makes the point that the Kingdom of God will not be about marriage nor about casuistic arguments about the definition of marriage- the very arguments which have occupied the minds of far too many of His children. Paul uses the same logic in reasoning that arguments about food are irrelevant because the Kingdom of God will not be about such behaviour, but about love, peace and joy (Rom. 14:17). Paul, like the Lord here, could have exposed the fallacies of exposition being engaged with, but instead reasons on a higher level- that seeing we shall not be arguing about such things eternally, let us not do it now.

The fact Angels cannot die means they can't sin, for sin brings death (Rom. 6:23). This is therefore a fairly strong argument against immortal Angels being sinful.

20:37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, when he called the Lord: The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob- The Greek here says that Moses “calls” [present tense] God “the God of Abraham…”. Not only does this imply a living word which speaks to us today, but again the point is made throughout the passage that God is outside of time. This choice of tenses in this passage is purposeful, for elsewhere we read of how Moses said or commanded things in the past tense (e.g. Mt. 8:4 “things which Moses commanded”, “Moses wrote”, Lk. 20:28; “Moses gave you…”, Jn. 6:32).

If the Lord was looking merely for a reference to God being the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He had many places He could have quoted from. I suggest He chose Ex. 3:6 partly to show that the supremely intimate, personal revelation of God to Moses was just the same now to all individuals within Israel. It was a living word spoken to them personally. But also because the Lord wants to make the point that God is outside of time- and that passage goes on to climax in the revelation of that same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the “I am that I am” (Ex. 3:14). The God outside of time, witnessed by the way the tetragrammaton somehow straddles past, present and future tenses, therefore sees the dead as alive “unto Him”. The question put to the Lord was very much rooted in the assumption that time as we now know it is going to continue in the Kingdom of God, and the Lord is making the point that this is an immature way of looking at it; and therefore the question was irrelevant. The Exodus 3 passage also contains repeated assurance that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will receive what God has promised- which requires bodily resurrection for them. We need to ever remember that the Lord was not merely demonstrating intellectual prowess in all this reasoning and allusion. He considered them as the sheep who erred / were astray, and through all His teaching here He was merely seeking to steer them to Him and ultimate salvation.

At the time of the burning bush, Moses seems to have forgotten God's covenant name, he didn't immediately take off his shoes in respect as he should have done, he feared to come close to God due to a bad conscience, and he resisted God's invitation for him to go forth and do His work (Ex. 3:5-7,10,11,18; 4:1,10-14). And yet at this very time, the Lord says that Moses showed faith in the way he perceived God. This is indeed imputed righteousness.

God is His word (Jn. 1:2). Moses is likewise spoken of as if he is his word (Acts 15:21; 21:21; 26:22; 2 Cor. 3:18), so close was his association with it; just as we shall be judged by our words. The words and commands of Moses were those of God. “In the bush God spoke unto (Moses), saying, I am the God of Abraham... Isaac and Jacob” (Mk. 12:26; Mt. 22:31; Ex. 3:6). Yet Lk. 20:37 says that “that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calls the Lord the God of Abraham” etc. Yet this was what God said of Himself.

20:38 Now He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. For all live to Him- This Greek construction could mean ‘Not only the God of the dead, but also of the living’. But the context is the Lord demonstrating that the understanding of the Sadducees was very much a dead religion and their God was effectively dead. They denied the resurrection and considered that we have reward only in this life. In this case, God was the God of Abraham only in the past. The Greek phrase could literally mean ‘Not the God the dead, but the living [God]’, alluding to the well known phrase “the living God”. If God only acted for Abraham etc. in the past, then the God Abraham knew effectively died when Abraham died. But the living God seeks to impart life to the faithful.

"All live to Him” is the Lord is critiquing their division between this life and the life to come- by saying that the faithful live on now in God’s memory as they will eternally; He speaks of things which are not as though they are (Rom. 4:17), and in this sense whether we live or die we are the Lord’s (Rom. 14:8). Although the soul is mortal, the spirit returns to God and will be eternally “saved” at the last day. And the spirit refers to who a man essentially is, his thinking and character. This is preserved by God in His memory, and in that sense the faithful dead “live” before Him now. John’s Gospel puts this in so many words by saying that we can live the eternal life right now. Whilst bodily resurrection is so significant from our point of view, the God who is outside of our kind of time sees the dead as effectively living as He extends forwards into eternity from the present- in a way we cannot now do. I made the point above that recently the Lord had resurrected Lazarus, with the result that He appeared to have won over many who had previously supported the Jewish leadership. They were now trying to prove that resurrection doesn’t happen. The Lord at that time had emphasized that the resurrection of Lazarus was a visual reminder of the new life which those who believed in Him could experience right now: “Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn. 11:26). Luke’s comment that “all live unto Him” is saying roughly the same thing. If our spirit is focused upon living and thinking the Kingdom life now, then this spirit is preserved by God upon death. And it is this which God sees after our death, and the sense in which we live unto Him. See on Rom. 14:8,9.

"All live to him" is a phrase used by the Rabbis concerning the existence of the faithful Jews as immortal souls in Heaven; Adam Clarke quotes several examples from Jewish writings. It seems the Lord uses their phrase in order to deconstruct it. Salvation is through being 'counted worthy' by grace (:35), the same idea as being counted as live "to Him", and depends upon the resurrection of the body (:35). It is not at all automatic, as would be required by the idea of immortal souls.

20:39 And certain of the scribes answering said: Teacher, you have said well- This was the kind of admission of defeat which was not typical of the Lord's enemies; perhaps these were the scribes of the Pharisees who did later believe in the Lord Jesus (Acts 15:15).

20:40 And after that they dared not question him anymore- They dared not even try to engage Him in debate because He was as it were winning, and the crowds were realizing this.  These very words are used of how the disciples after the resurrection dared not ask who Jesus was (Jn. 21:12), which is the very context here. The connection is clearly to show that they too through their being too influenced by Jewish thinking found themselves in the same category as the unbelieving Jews- the difference being that they repented of it. The Greek for “questions” isn’t in the original; they dared not ask Him again. The implication from the context could be that they dared not ask Him ‘Who are You?’, for the answer was clear in their consciences. They knew, on one level, that He was Messiah, that He was the heir to the vineyard, whom they knowingly sought to murder.

20:41 And he said to them: Why do they say that the Christ is David's son?- The Lord had clearly done well in answering the questions, and it’s easy to misinterpret this as Him now going onto the thrust of an offensive, having successfully parried the attacks. But He was trying to steer them to Him, to repentance and salvation, and not to merely win an intellectual battle for its own sake. All the same, He capitalized upon their continued presence to seek to correct another major misunderstanding. His desire to save them is breathtaking. The fact there were Pharisees who later converted to Christ is proof enough that His strategy worked, at least for some (Acts 15:5). And remember that Saul the Pharisee was living in Jerusalem at the time, and may well have been listening carefully.

They were surely aware that Jesus was a son of David, on both the sides of Mary and Joseph. For the Jewish leaders would’ve done their homework as to His [apparent] family of origin.

Matthew records that the Lord addressed a question to the Pharisees about Messiah as David's son. Having let the Pharisees give the answer, He then asks others how this can be the case. Again, the Lord’s dialogues with the Pharisees was not simply to try to convert them, but in order that the audience would learn. See on Mt. 22:33 When the multitude heard this. Mk. 12:37 concludes the section by observing that “the common people heard Him gladly”, so again we see how the records seamlessly complement each other.

20:42 For David himself said in the book of Psalms: The Lord said- Clearly Yahweh. If the Divine Name was to be used in the New Testament, surely this would be the place for it. The fact it is not, when some Hebrew words are used (e.g. ‘Sabaoth’), shows clearly enough that the literal usage of the Tetragrammaton is not something God sees as important or even required.

To my Lord, Sit on My right hand- Biblically and historically, David’s immediate ‘Lord’ was Saul. Ps. 110 was originally a revelation to David of the potential possible for Saul, who was an anointed ‘Messiah’ figure. But Saul failed, and so the fulfillment of the prophecy was rescheduled and reapplied to the Lord Jesus. The “how” doesn’t imply that David’s Lord is not his son, but rather is a rhetorical question. How is the Messianic son of David, David’s “Lord”, to be his son or descendant? Mk. 12:37 says the Lord reinforced the question by asking “From whence is He his son?”. The answer had to be: ‘Through a woman in David’s direct line giving birth to Him’. And the questioners were fully aware that Jesus was in the direct line of David through Mary.

20:43 Until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet- The Lord’s enemies stood around Him as He applied this Psalm to Himself. And yet being at the footstool of the Lord doesn't have to mean being dominated by Him in judgment. It can refer to the great paradox whereby the Lord's enemies become His loyalest and most humble citizens, at His feet in submission, and thereby also at the Father's right hand of acceptance.

20:44 David therefore calls him Lord, so, how is he his son?- Judaism’s concept of Messiah has always been vague and not commonly agreed, but there was and is the idea that the likes of Abraham, Moses and David are greater than Messiah. The Lord is pointing out that David considered Messiah to be his “Lord”, just as Messiah was greater than Abraham (Jn. 8:58).

20:45 And in the hearing of all the people, he said to his disciples- This is typical of how the Lord intentionally focused upon the disciples. The accounts of the sermons on the mount and on the plain have the same feature; the crowds are gathered, but the Lord addresses the disciples. He realized they were His only hope; the masses were fickle, and He focused upon those who were open to His real teaching.

20:46 Beware of the scribes, who desire to walk in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces- The Lord’s reason for going to the market was to invite men to work in the vineyard and receive the penny of salvation (Mt. 20:3); and His people sitting in the markets sought to persuade others of the need to respond to the Gospel (Mt. 11:16). The Pharisees went to the markets to simply flaunt their external spirituality. Again, note how their behaviour was the very inversion of true spirituality.

And chief seats in the synagogues, and chief places at feasts- They wanted to be publically seen as spiritually superior. The whole structure of church life, whereby some must have public roles, is such that people can fall so easily into a love of publicity. The Lord realizes this, and often removes His beloved from such temptations. This explains the otherwise inexplicable way in which the Lord allows some of His most talented and capable servants to be removed from the public eye to serve Him in human obscurity. Note that the Lord here is repeating almost word for word what He has previously said about the Pharisees in Luke 11. To repeat so much text twice in the Gospel records, and for the Lord to give identical word-for-word teaching on two occasions, shows how important these warnings are for all readers. This consideration alone suggests that we each have the same tendency as the Pharisees; they are but epitomes of our own deepest tendencies and desires.

20:47 Who devour widows' houses- The language used here about the behaviour of the Scribes and Pharisees is elsewhere used about the righteous behaviour of the Lord and His followers; the Jewish leaders were living a religious life, but it was but a parody of true spirituality. The same words for “devour” and “house” are used of how the Lord Jesus was ‘eaten up’ or ‘devoured’ with zeal for His Father’s “house”. But by contrast the Scribes thought only of how they could devour the houses of widows, scheming how to get the house of a vulnerable single old woman left to them, and how they could devour that wealth upon themselves. We note that Mark and Luke conclude this section with the account of the widow who gave her entire wealth to the temple coffers (Mk. 12:42; Lk. 21:1). This was surely to add assurance that although her donation was misused, it was carefully noted by God to her eternal credit.

And for a pretence make long prayers- They were hypocrites. The word was used about an actor’s cloak, and thus connects with the theatrical term ‘hypocrites’, play-actors. The Lord uses the same word in Jn. 15:22: “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin”. When did He come and speak unto the Jews about their hypocrisy? Surely here in Mark 12. Although they did have a cloak for their sin before men, the Lord is saying in John 15 that they have no such cloak before Him.  

These shall receive greater condemnation- There will be degrees of punishment, although it will be self-inflicted.