Jesus comes to the Mount of Olives. The Jews well knew what was prophesied concerning this mountain; they ought to have entered into the spirit of what the Lord was doing.

The sending for the colt shows the Lord as Jehovah, who has a perfect right to all. “The Lord (Jehovah) hath need of them.”¹⁵ What more thorough than His knowledge of circumstances in the womb of the future? How evident His control over the owner’s mind and feeling! Meek as He was, sitting upon an ass, the King of Zion according to the prophet, He was indeed as surely Jehovah as Messiah coming in His name — the “need of them” as amazing as the glory of His person.

The Lord goes onward to Jerusalem. And the multitude cry, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” They apply Psalm 118 to Messiah, and they were right. They might be very unintelligent, and some perhaps may have joined later in the fearful cry, “His blood be upon us;” but here the Lord guides the scene. He comes to the city; but He is unknown: His own know Him not. They ask, “Who is this?” So little understanding had the multitude, that they answer, “This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.” But though they only see Jesus of Galilee, yet He shows Himself as King, and takes a place of authority and power. He enters into the temple, and overthrows the tables of the money-changers, etc. This may certainly be looked at as a miraculous incident; for it was astonishing that He whom they knew only as the prophet of Nazareth should so boldly enter their temple, and drive out all who were desecrating it. But they turn not upon Him. The power of the God of the temple was there, and they flee; their consciences doubtless echoing the Lord’s words, that they had made His house a den of thieves. But here we see, not only the testimony of the crowd to the kingship of Jesus, but the response to it, as it were, in the act of Jesus. As if He had said, “You hail Me as King, and I will demonstrate that I am.” Accordingly, He reigns, as it were, in righteousness, and cleanses the defiled temple. Into what a state had the Jews not fallen! ‘My house . . . the house of prayer . . . but ye have made it a den of thieves! “

There were two cleansings — one before our Lord’s public ministry, and the other at its close. John records the first; Matthew the last.

In our Gospel it is an act of Messianic power, where He cleanses His own house, or, at least, acts for God, as His King. In John it is rather zeal for the injured honour of His Father’s house — “Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise.” A collateral reason, why John tells us of the first cleansing in the beginning of his Gospel, is that he assumes the rejection of Israel at once. Hence their rejection by Christ, set forth in this act, was the inevitable consequence of their rejection of Him: and this is the point from which John sets out when he begins with the ways of the Lord before His ministry.

But now the blind and the lame come to Him to be healed. “He healed their diseases and forgave their iniquities.” Both these classes were the hated of David’s soul — the effect of the taunt upon David (2 Sam. 5:6-8). How blessed the contrast in the Son of David! He turns out the selfish religionists from the temple, and receives there the poor, blind, and lame, and heals them — perfect righteousness and perfect grace.

On the one hand, there are the voices of the children crying, “Hosanna,” etc. — the ascription of praise to Him as King, the Son of David; on the other, there is the Lord acting as King, and doing that which the Jews well knew had been prophesied of their King. He was there the confessed King; yet not by the chief priests and scribes, who took umbrage, wilfully and knowingly rejecting Him — “We will not have this man to reign over us.” Naturally, therefore, they seek to stop the mouths of the children, and ask Jesus to rebuke them: “Hearest Thou what these say?” But the Lord sanctions their praises: “Have ye never heard, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise” (ver. 16). The power of Jehovah was there, and there was a mouth to own it, though only in babes and sucklings. So “He left them” — a significant and solemn act. They rejected Him, and He abandons them, turning His back upon the beloved city.

Returning to Jerusalem on the next day, the Lord is hungered, and seeks fruit from the fig-tree, but finds none. He then pronounces a curse upon it, and presently it withered away. The sentence on the fig-tree was an emblematic curse upon the people — Israel was the fig-tree. The Lord found nothing but leaves, and the word is that henceforth no fruit shall grow upon it for ever. The nation had failed in fruit to God, when they had every means and opportunity for glorifying and serving Him; and now all their advantages are taken away, and the old stock is given up — a dead tree.

Mark says that the time of figs was not yet. Many have been perplexed at this, as if the Lord sought figs at a time when there could be none. The meaning is, that the time for the gathering of figs was not come — the time of figs was not yet. There ought to have been a show of fruit, but there were only leaves — only outward profession. It was thoroughly barren. The disciples wondered; but the Lord says to them further, “If ye shall say to this mountain (symbolizing Israel’s place among the nations, as exalted among them), Be thou cast into the sea,” etc. This has been done. Not only is there no fruit borne for God, but Israel, as a nation, has been cast into the sea — as lost in the mass of people — trodden down and oppressed under the feet of the Gentiles.

The chief priests and the elders of Israel now come to attack the Lord: they demand of Him, “By what authority doest Thou these things?” — the driving out the traders from the temple precincts — “and who gave Thee this authority?” It was not given by them, indeed; and their eyes were closed as to His glory. Our Lord answers by asking what were their thoughts of John’s baptism. He appeals neither to miracles nor prophecy, but to conscience. How evident had been the accomplishment of the ancient oracles in His person, in His life and in His ministry! How full the testimony of signs and wonders wrought by Him! Yet their question proved how vain all had been, as His question proved either their dishonesty or their blindness. In either case, who were they to judge? Little did they think that as they sought to canvass the Lord of glory, they were in truth but discovering their own distance and alienation from God. So, indeed, it ever is. Our judgment, or refusal to judge, of what concerns Christ is an unfailing gauge of our own condition. In this instance (vers. 23-27) the want of conscience was manifest — nowhere so fatal as in religious guides. “They reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; He will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him? But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people: for all hold John as a prophet.” God was not in their thoughts; and thus all was false and wrong. And if God be not the object, self is the idol. These chief priests were at bottom but slaves of the people over whose faith, or superstition, they had dominion. “We fear the people.” This at least was true. “And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell.” To what a miserable subterfuge they are driven — blind guides by their own acknowledgment! To such the Lord declines to give any account of His authority. Again and again they had seen the works of His gracious power, and their question furnished the proof that an answer was useless. They would not see if they could.

But our Lord does more. In the parable of the two sons He convicts these religious leaders of being farther away from God than the most despised classes in the land. “Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not,” etc. (ver. 32.) Decent lip-homage forms — “I go, sir; and went not” — such was the religion of those who stood highest in the world’s estimate of that day. Hypocrisy was there, to cover self-will and pride with the cloak of religiousness, which made them more obdurate than people who disgraced the decencies of society in riotous or otherwise disreputable ways. They were more accessible to the stirring appeals of John than these Pharisees. Deaf to the call of righteousness, they were hardened as well against the operations of God’s grace, even where it was most conspicuous. “And ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.” Repentance awakens the sense of relationship to God as the one sinned against. The resolutions of nature begin and end in “I go, sir.” The Spirit of God produces the deep conviction of sin against Him, with neither room for nor desire of excuse. But it is lost for worldly religion, which, resisting alike God’s testimony and the evidence of conversion in others, sinks into increasing darkness and hostility to God. The judge of all therefore pronounces these proud, self-complacent men worse than those they scorned. They were no judges now — they were judged.

Again, the Lord bids them hear another parable, setting forth not merely their conduct toward God, but God’s dealing with them, in a twofold form: first, in view of human responsibility as under law; and, secondly, in view of God’s grace under the kingdom of heaven. The former is developed in the parable of the householder (vers. 33-41); the latter, in the king’s marriage-feast for his son (Matt. 22:1-14). Let us look at the first.

“Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a wine-press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it” (vers. 33, 34). It is a picture founded on and filling up the sketch of Isa. 5 — a picture of God’s peculiar favours to Israel. “What could have been done more to My vineyard that I have not done in it?” He had brought them out of Egypt, and settled them in a goodly land, with every advantage afforded by His goodness and power. There was definite arrangement, abundant blessing, ample protection. Then He looked for fruit, reminding them of His rights by the prophets. “And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another” (ver. 35). There was full patience too. “Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.” Was there a single possibility that remained? a hope, however forlorn? “Last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.” Alas, it was but the crowning of their iniquity, and the occasion of bringing out their guilt and hopeless ruin! For “when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him” (vers. 37-39). They recognized the Messiah then, but only so as to provoke their malice and worldly lusts. “Let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.” It was not only lack of fruit, persistent refusal of all the just claims of God and robbing Him of every due return, but the fullest outbreak of rebellious hatred, when tested by the presence of the Son of God in their midst. Probation is over; the question of man’s state and of God’s efforts to get fruit from His vineyard is at an end. The death of the rejected Messiah has closed this book. Man — the Jew — ought to have made a becoming answer to God for the benefits so lavishly showered on him; but his answer was — the cross. It is too late to talk of what men should be. Tried by God under the most favourable circumstances, they betrayed and shed the innocent blood; they killed the Heir to seize on His inheritance. Hence judgment is now the only portion man under law has to expect. “When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?” Seared as the poor Jews were, they could not but confess the sad truth, “He, will miserably destroy those wicked men,” etc. (ver. 41). The wickedness of the husbandmen failed to achieve its own selfish end, as surely as it had never rendered fruits meet for Him whose provident care left men without excuse. But the rights of the householder were intact; and if there was still “the lord of the vineyard,” was He indifferent to the accumulated guilt of wronged servants and of His outraged Son? It could not be. He must, themselves being the witnesses, avenge the more summarily, because of His long patience and incomparable love so shamefully spurned and defied. Others would have the vineyard let, to them, who should render Him the fruits in their seasons.

Thus the death of Christ is viewed in this parable, not as in the counsels of God, but as the climax of man’s sin and the closing scene of his responsibility. Whether law or prophets or Christ sought fruit for God, all was vain, not because God’s claim was not righteous, but because man — aye, favoured man, with every conceivable help — was hopelessly evil. In this aspect the rejection of the Messiah had the most solemn meaning; for it demonstrated, beyond appeal, that man, the Jew, had no love for God, by whom he had been blessed. it was not only that he was evil and unrighteous, but he could not endure perfect love and goodness in the person of Christ. Had there been a single particle of divine light or love in men’s heart, they would have reverenced the Son; but now the full proof stood out, that the natural man is hopelessly bad; and that the presence of a divine Person, who came in love and goodness, a Man among men, gave only the final opportunity to strike the most malicious and insulting blow at God Himself. In a word, man was now shown and pronounced to be LOST. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth Me hateth My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father.” Christ’s death was the grand turning-point in the ways of God; the moral history of man, in the most important sense, terminates there.

“Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The Stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?” (ver. 42). It was the conduct of those who took the lead in Israel, revealed in their own Scriptures. Marvellous doing On the Lord’s part! — in manifest reversal of such as set themselves up, and were accepted, as acting in His name: yet to be marvellous in Israel’s eyes, when the now hidden but exalted Saviour comes forth, the joy of a converted people, who shall then welcome and for ever bless their once-rejected King; for truly His mercy endures for ever. Meanwhile His lips utter the sentence of sure rejection from their high estate: “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom .of God [not of heaven, for this they had not] shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (ver. 43). Nor was this all: for “whosoever shall fall on this stone” (Himself in humiliation) ‘I shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall” (i.e., consequent on His exaltation), “it will grind him to powder” (ver. 44). Thus, He sets forth the ensuing stumbles of unbelief; and further, the positive execution of destructive judgment, whether individual or national, Jewish or Gentile, at His appearing in glory. (Compare Daniel 2.)

It is in all respects a notable scene, and the Lord, now drawing to the conclusion of His testimony, speaks with piercing decision. So that, spiritually impotent and dull as the chief priests and Pharisees might be, and couched as His words were in parables, the drift and aim were distinctly felt. And yet, whatever their murderous will, they could do nothing till His hour was come; for the people in a measure bowed to His word, and took Him for a prophet. He brought God in presence of their conscience, and their awe feebly answered to His words of coming woe.

^[15] Matthew alone mentions “an ass tied, and a colt with her,” according to Zech. 9:9. “They brought the ass and the colt, and put their garments upon them, and He sat upon them” (vers. 2, 7). The three other Gospels mention the colt only. Here, in Matthew, the old Israel and the renewed nation are thus connected. The Lord’s entry in Jerusalem is upon the “colt, the foal of an ass” — the new Israel will bring Him in with Hosannas! The dispensational view in Matthew is thus again set before us. The ass was, according to the law, “unclean”; but its foal might be redeemed. See Job 11:12; Ex. 13:13; Ex. 34:20, etc. Ed.