And now it is even. The time for working is past, and the Lord of the vineyard bids His Steward [here the Christ] pay His labourers. But here the first surprise awaits them. The order of payment is the inverse of that of labour: beginning from the last unto the first.' This is almost a necessary part of the Parable. For, if the first labourers had been paid first, they would either have gone away without knowing what was done to the last, or, if they had remained, their objection could not have been urged, except on the ground of manifest malevolence towards their neighbours. After having received their wages, they could not have objected that they had not received enough, but only that the others had received too much. But it was not the scope of the Parable to charge with conscious malevolence those who sought a higher reward or deemed themselves entitled to it. Again, we notice, as indicating the disposition of the later labourers, that those of the third hour did not murmur, because they had not got more than they of the eleventh hour. This is in accordance with their not having made any bargain at the first, but trusted entirely to the householder. But they of the first hour had their cupidity excited. Seeing what the others had received, they expected. to have more than their due. When they like wise received every man a denarius, they murmured, as if injustice had been done them. And, as mostly in like circumstances, truth and fairness seemed on their side. For, selecting the extreme case of the eleventh hour labourers, had not the Householder made those who had wrought [5296] only one hour equal to them who had borne the burden of the day and the heat?' Yet, however fair their reasoning might seem, they had no claim in truth or equity, for had they not agreed for one denarius with him? And it had not even been in the general terms of a day's wages, but they had made the express bargain of one denarius. They had gone to work with a stipulated sum as their hire distinctly in view. They now appealed to justice; but from first to last they had had justice. This as regards the so much for so much' principle of claim, law, work, and pay.
But there was yet another aspect than that of mere justice. Those other labourers, who had felt that, owning to the lateness of their appearance, they had no claim - and, alas! which of us must not feel how late we have been in coming, and hence how little we can have wrought - had made no bargain, but trusted to the Master. And as they had believed, so was it unto them. Not because they made or had any claim - I will, however, to give unto this last, even as unto thee' - the word I will' (thlo) being emphatically put first to mark the good pleasure' of His grace as the ground of action. Such a Master could not have given less to those who had come when called, trusting to His goodness, and not in their deserts. The reward was now reckoned, not of work nor of debt, but of grace. [5297] In passing we also mark, as against cavillers, the profound accord between what negative critics would call the true Judaic Gospel' of St. Matthew, and what constitutes the very essence of the anti-Judaic teaching' of St. Paul - and we ask our opponents to reconcile on their theory what can only be explained on the ground that St. Paul, like St. Matthew, was the true disciple of the true Teacher, Jesus Christ.
But if all is to be placed on the new ground of grace, with which, indeed, the whold bearing of the later labourers accords, then (as St. Paul also shows) the laboureres who murmured were guilty either of ignorance in failing to perceive the sovereignty of grace - that it is within His power to do with His own as He willeth [5298] - or else of malevolence, when, instead of with grateful joy, they looked on with an evil eye - and this in proportion as the Householder' was good. But such a state of mind may be equally that of the Jews, [5299] and of the Gentiles. [5300] And so, in this illustrative case of the Parable, the first shall be last, and the last first.' [5301] And in other instances also, though not in all - many shall be last that are first; and first that are last.' [5302] But He is the God, Sovereign in grace, in Whose Vineyard there is work to do for all, however limited their time, power, or opportunity; Whose laboureres we are, if His Children; Who, in His desire for the work, and condescension and patience towards the workers, goeth out into the market-place even to the eleventh hour, and, with only gentlest rebuke for not having earlier come thither and thus lost our day in idleness, still, even to the last, bids us come; Who promises what is right, and gives far more than is due to them who simply trust Him: the God not of the Jews nor of the Gentiles only, but our Father; the God Who not only pays, but freely gives of His own, and in Whose Wisdom and by Whose Grace it may be, that, even as the first shall be last, so the last shall be first.