IV. Gov’s PUNISHMENT OF UNFAITHFULNESS. 1. Shameful treatment of God's ser- vamts. ‘These wicked husbandmen went from bad to worse. They were determined that God should get no fruit from his vineyard; and accordingly they maltreated, in the most scandalous and barbarous manner, the servants sent by the proprietor to demand his due portion of the produce. Their conduct shows a gradation of wicked- ness—they beat,they wound, they kill. The word éxepadalwoay, rendered “ wounded in the head,” is peculiar, and for this, which appears to be its primary sense, there is no classical parallel. Where it occurs, it is generally used in the secondary sense of bring- ing under one head or sum: hence it has been variously rendered in accordance with this signification, some explaining it to reckon with one in a summary manner, paying with blows instead of fruit; others to deal with one summarily; and others, again, to complete and bring toa head their maltreatment; but the ordinary rendering of “ wound- ing in the head” is confirmed by the Syriac and Vulgate, and is commonly accepted. More important for us is the historical evidence which the Scriptures of the Old Testament afford of this shameful treatment of God’s servants. They were threatened with death, thrown into dungeons, actually slain, stoned, sawn asunder, as passages that readily suggest themselves to any careful reader of God’s Word abundantly prove. The special honour reserved for the Son marks his superior rank, and distinguishes him fiom all others, whether designated servants Or dignified with the name of sons of God.
om, xu. 1—44.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 189 eee er ee ee ee eee
He is the one Son—the well-beloved—claiming and entitled to peculiar reverence; the rightful Heir, too, of the inheritance. Thus, as we read in the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews, “God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed Heir of all things.” The Son took upon him “ the form of & servant” while sojourning in our world. 2. A supplementary parable, The parable of the vineyard and the wicked husbandmen, with all its fulness of details, omitted— necessarily omitted—one or rather two points, which are supplemented by a parabolic statement from the hundred and eighteenth psalm. Whereas the son and heir is left dead outside the vineyard, as Christ suffered, “without the gate,” while the lord of the vineyard himself avenges his death, and punishes the husbandmen for their dia- bolical conduct ; it was necessary to complete the picture by his revival and return to the place of dignity and power, as the Foundation and chief Corner-stone, upbearing and binding together the two walls of the sacred edifice, And not only so; it behoved to represent him as revenging in person his wrongs on those who slew him, according to the one parable, or who rejected him according to the other; while this feature is more fully exhibited by the first and third evangelists, who tell us that “‘ whosoever shall fall on this stone”—that is, stumble and fall over this stumbling-stone of his humiliation—“ shall be broken ”—sorely bruised (cur®AasOheers:)—and so receive great hurt and grief: “ but on whomsoever it shall fall”—in wrath, because of their final impenitence—“ it shall grind him to powder ;” literally, winnow (A:cufees) him, just as the stone cut out of the mountains without hands was seen in prophetic vision to smite and shatter the great world-image, and scatter its fragments like chaff before the winds of the winter. 3. Improvement of the subject. The primary reference is to the Jews as a Church and people. Their own conscience made application of it to them- selves; hence their indignation, but not their improvement. ‘The transference of the vineyard was not exactly from the Jews to the Gentiles, but to the faithful who should be collected together out of both, and connected by the chief Corner-stone into one. (1) The first lesson taught us here is of a national character. The Jews had great pisces, but their misuse or abuse of those privileges subjected them at last to fear- retribution. God had shown much forbearance, sending servant after servant to call them to repentance and reformation, and last of alland greatest of all, his own Son ; but in vain. They refused to return and repent, crowning their wickedness by crucifying the Son of God. At length the cup of their iniquity was full and overflowing; and, forty years after this climax of their enormities, Jerusalem was laid in ruins, the beautiful house in which their fathers worshipped reduced to ashes, and themselves scattered throughout the world. (2) We learn God’s mode of dealing with Churches or nations that, like the Jews, are highly privileged, and have long enjoyed instructions and ordinances and spiritual benefits. As he continues blessing after blessing, so he sends call after call, and by his servants summons them to the improvement of those blessings. If they refuse compliance—if they neglect to use those blessings in his service and to his glory—ruin, and that without remedy, shall be, must be, the sad but sure result. The destiny of the Jewish Church was repeated to some extent in that of the Oriental Churches, and in that of the African Churches ; and by all these cases the Churches of our own land and of every Christian people are solemnly warned against the misuse of mercies, and the abuse of privileges, and the just judgments of God with which apostate Churches and sinful nations are visited. 3) Individual units make up the aggregate of a nation or the membership of a Church, ao in our individual capacity we add our quota to the general guilt on the one hand, or to the purity of a Church and the righteousness of a nation on the other. Therefore are we bound individually to serve God “in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life,” and to intercede for the practice and prevalence of that righteousness in all others, which exalts a nation or a people, so that the mercies of God may be improved and his judg- ments averted. 4. A practical and personal question. Are those fruits which God, as we have seen, expects from us, ours? Are we duly meeting his claims upon us? Are we responding to them gratefully and faithfully? Have we, by the constraining mercies of God, and by the constraining love of Christ, and for the love of the Spirit, ted ourselves, body, soul, and spirit, “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is our reasonable service”? Do we appreciate as we ought all God’s care and 13
190 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. [on. xu. 1—44,
a ——————————