Day 36 Lent 2023
I've jumped over chapters eighteen and nineteen heading right into twenty. I miscalculated and started too soon. I think I included Sundays in my math and skipped them this year. Let's get started.
1And it came to pass, that on one of those days, as he taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes came upon him with the elders,
2And spake unto him, saying, Tell us, by what authority doest thou these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority?
Luke 20:1–2 (KJV 1900)
“…by what authority…” Rabbis and scholars of the day proclaimed the heritage of their education to the people who listened to them. Sort of like a martial arts student explaining who his master is, who that master trained under, and so on, all the way up to the Grand Master of the martial arts style. The explanation allowed the listener to judge the quality of the Rabbi's education before deciding if he wanted to listen to them. Today, it would be the equivalent of asking someone on the internet for the source link behind their argument or statement so the reader can evaluate where the data comes from for themselves.
3And he answered and said unto them, I will also ask you one thing; and answer me:
4The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?
Luke 20:3–4 (KJV 1900)
Jesus already knows these men oppose Him. He knows they are looking for any way to discount what He says and even to condemn Him. Rather than just giving them the true answer that He is the Son of God, He asks them the same kind of entrapping question. It's brilliant. Luke goes on to explain why the Pharisees choose not to answer.
5They reasoned among themselves, saying, "If we say, 'From heaven,' He will say, 'Why did you not believe him?'
6 "But if we say, 'From men,' all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet."
7So they answered that they did not know where it came from.
Luke 20:5–7 (NASB95)
Jesus has them either way they turn. It's the same problem He would have faced if He'd given them any answer at all. Today, it is the same problem Christians face giving internet arguers any answer most of the time. We should learn to answer those people the way Jesus answered the Pharisees.
8And Jesus said to them, "Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things."
Luke 20:8 (NASB95)
Jesus doesn't leave it at that, either. He knows they know He has the authority to speak. The people listen to Him. They believe in Him, which is why the Pharisees want Him to stop.
9And He began to tell the people this parable: "A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey for a long time.
10 "At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, so that they would give him some of the produce of the vineyard; but the vine-growers beat him and sent him away empty-handed.
11 "And he proceeded to send another slave; and they beat him also and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty-handed.
12 "And he proceeded to send a third; and this one also they wounded and cast out.
Luke 20:9–12 (NASB95)
The man planting the vineyard is God. The vineyard is all of creation personified by Eden. The husbandmen are the people of the earth. The slaves sent to the husbandmen/vine-growers were the prophets who were often beaten and treated badly.
13 "The owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.'
Luke 20:13 (NASB95)
Jesus personifies God in this parable. God did not wonder what would happen. God knew what the people of the earth would do to His chosen messengers, which troubles me. It's on the list of questions I have for Him when I hopefully get to see Him. Why send these people to be ill-treated when you know that's what will happen? My only guess is so that we would have a record of what they said on His behalf and how His message was received and captured in the Bible. Hopefully, we can learn from this record, at least those of us who are able.
14 "But when the vine-growers saw him, they reasoned with one another, saying, 'This is the heir; let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours.'
Luke 20:14 (NASB95)
I've never taken the death of Christ as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Lawyers, and Scribes, thinking they are removing God from the picture and taking over in His place. I guess that's exactly what it is, though. The power structure of the day in those religious leaders didn't want to answer to anyone else, and when the man who fulfilled prophecy came, and they all knew He fulfilled prophecy, they killed Him. I've always assumed it was simply to preserve their earthly power structure, implying they didn't believe God was real. If they believed God was real, prophecy was real, and Jesus was divinely appointed, they would have repented because it was God. At least, I assume they would have. Maybe not. After all, Jonah knew it was God giving him instructions, and still, he tried to run from God, which just seems stupid to me. How do you run from the creator of the universe?
15 "So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do to them?
Luke 20:15 (NASB95)
What a great question. Jesus already knows what His listener's answer is. It is likely what our answer would be if that happened to us and we were the vineyard owner. We would visit mighty retribution justly delivered upon the heads of those guilty of the infraction.
16 "He will come and destroy these vine-growers and will give the vineyard to others." When they heard it, they said, "May it never be!"
Luke 20:16 (NASB95)
"May it never be!" is the response because the listeners know Jesus is speaking of God, Eden, Adam, Eve, sin, and all of them. Everyone listening knows exactly what Jesus is talking about, even though He put it into a parable. To bring it all home and center it on the immediate future, Jesus ties it into prophecy.
17But Jesus looked at them and said, "What then is this that is written: 'The stone which the builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone'?
18 "Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust."
Luke 20:17–18 (NASB95) Psalm 118:22
Verse eighteen is taken as a threat tied to who the crowd says Jesus is, the Messiah. The religious leaders want a reason to get rid of Jesus because of this. The people are on His side, and they know it.
19The scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on Him that very hour, and they feared the people; for they understood that He spoke this parable against them.
Luke 20:19 (NASB95)
The people are also Jesus' strength. If He didn't have the love of the people around Him in vast numbers, the Scribes and Pharisees would have just collected Him up and been done with Him. They couldn't, and they knew it because the mob would have destroyed them if they did.
20So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, in order that they might catch Him in some statement, so that they could deliver Him to the rule and the authority of the governor.
Luke 20:20 (NASB95)
The religious leaders wanted the Roman authorities to deal with it for them. The people already hated them. This would be one more thing they could be hated for, and the Scribes and Pharisees could go on exercising their authority, living in their prestige and wealth all they wanted.
21They questioned Him, saying, "Teacher, we know that You speak and teach correctly, and You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth.
22 "Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"
Luke 20:21–22 (NASB95)
The Romans looked to Caesar as a kind of god or, if not, deifying him, ordained by the gods to rule. Speaking against something as Caesar's could be skewed as inciting rebellion which would be a death sentence if the religious leaders could get Jesus to step into their trap.
23But He detected their trickery and said to them,
24 "Show Me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?" They said, "Caesar's."
25And He said to them, "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
26And they were unable to catch Him in a saying in the presence of the people; and being amazed at His answer, they became silent.
Luke 20:23–26 (NASB95)
Halley's Bible Handbook declares this a master stroke and the basis for the separation of church and state. We are to follow the laws of the land where we reside, but only so long as those laws pertain to earthly matters. We follow God's laws concerning matters relating to the Kingdom of God.
That presents us with a sticky situation. As we've discussed in previous chapters, Jesus declares the Kingdom of Heaven is one of a spiritual nature tied to our hearts, motivations, and the why of what we do. Doing things to please Man is not scriptural. Doing things to please God is. Therefore, in conflicts between what Man says is right and what God says is right, God wins as far as Christians are concerned. That is at the heart of verse twenty-five. If we get that backward and go against God's wishes, then we are the husbandmen and vinedressers beating and killing the slaves sent by the vineyard owner.
We do not want to be the people disabusing the messengers of God, so how do we tell what God wants? He gave us His declarations of right and wrong in His Word. We are not to live to please Men but God. Jesus lays this out as He debates the next question He gets from the Sadducees. This one is a little long, but it is all related.
27Now there came to Him some of the Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrection),
28and they questioned Him, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife, and he is childless, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to his brother.
29 "Now there were seven brothers; and the first took a wife and died childless;
30and the second
31and the third married her; and in the same way all seven died, leaving no children.
32 "Finally the woman died also.
33 "In the resurrection therefore, which one's wife will she be? For all seven had married her."
34Jesus said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage,
35but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage;
36for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
37 "But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
38 "Now He is not the God of the dead but of the living; for all live to Him."
Luke 20:27–38 (NASB95) Deuteronomy 25:5; Exodus 3:6
Right off the bat, the Sadducees tie into the Word of God, laying out their word trap. It is completely hypothetical. They don't even believe it is real, given the Sadducees deny the resurrection would be real. Jesus ties His answer back into scripture from an earlier section, and the Sadducees realize He has an answer they can't wiggle around.
39Some of the scribes answered and said, "Teacher, You have spoken well."
40For they did not have courage to question Him any longer about anything.
Luke 20:39–40 (NASB95)
This next bit speaks directly to Jesus claiming divinity. He asks a question that the Jehovah's Witnesses try to ask but fail at also. This is a prophetic passage given by King David in the Psalms.
41Then He said to them, "How is it that they say the Christ is David's son?
42 "For David himself says in the book of Psalms, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand,
43Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet." '
44 "Therefore David calls Him 'Lord,' and how is He his son?"
Luke 20:41–44 (NASB95) Psalm 110:1
Jesus is God made flesh. He is at once the Father and the Son. God never left Heaven even while Jesus walked the earth, but God was on Earth with us while Jesus was alive. It is the nature of the divine that He can do something like this.
5Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
6who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
8Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:5–8 (NASB95)
Jesus was God made flesh. God came down to earth to walk amongst His children. That is what Jesus is telling people here. Jesus knew this message would not be received well by many of the religious leaders of the day, and it is still not received well by many of our religious leaders today. He knew this would be the case, so He gave His followers instructions regarding those who lead our churches.
45And while all the people were listening, He said to the disciples,
46 "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love respectful greetings in the market places, and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets,
47who devour widows' houses, and for appearance's sake offer long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation."
Luke 20:45–47 (NASB95)
Jesus implies that we are to know them by their fruits in this last passage of this chapter. He specifically ties the good people and the bad people to their behavior. We are to watch what our leaders do, not what they say, to figure out if they are good ones or not. Additionally, we should apply this last statement to ourselves. The humility of service helps us grow more than the pride of recognition, and it hurts me to type that. We need to ensure we aren't the fig tree that only bears leaves but has no fruit for anyone to enjoy. Before we look outside ourselves, we need to look inside and make sure we have fruit for the vineyard owner, or we will be no better than the vinedressers who beat His slaves. God bless and Godspeed.