Equality in the Kingdom
Matthew 19:30-20:16
I want to invite you now to open your Bible to the twentieth chapter of Matthew's gospel and as we joyfully work our way through this great great gospel we go seemingly from one glorious passage to another. And what we shall see today as we open the twentieth chapter is no less wonderful than the best of what we have learned already.
Just to get us started in our thinking one of the great notable faithful men of God was a prophet Ezekiel. A prophet like Ezekiel was common in the land of Israel, common among the people of God. God always had His spokesman and one of the duties that a prophet discharged was the duty of warning the people, warning them about sin. And it was especially Ezekiel's task to do that. He ministered to the people in exile. When the children of Israel had been taken into Babylonian captivity it was there and then that Ezekiel ministered to them. And he very often reminded them of the sins that had gotten them there so that they wouldn't repeat those same sins. And one of the sins that had gotten them there, one of the many things that had caused God to bring judgment upon them, was the fact that they were accusing God of being unfair, and they were striking against God's nature, against God's person, against His character.
And so in Ezekiel 18, twice Ezekiel says, "Ye say the way of the Lord is not equal?" Here now O house of Israel. Is not My way equal, are not your ways unequal? In other words God defends, rather Ezekiel defends God as being a God of perfect equality and if we think He isn't it's because our ways are unequal. He is the standard, not us.
Well that wasn't the first or the last time God has been accused of being unfair, inequitable, unequal in His treatment of men, and I think the writers of Scripture take on this accusation repeatedly. At least a half a dozen times in the New Testament the statement is made: God is no respecter of persons, and that's another way of saying God treats everybody equally. I think this can be illustrated to us briefly if we just consider what the apostle Paul says in Romans 2:9-11, listen carefully. "Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek. But glory honor and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for there is not respect of persons with God."
In other words judgment equally on those who know not God; blessing equally on those who do. In Colossians Chapter 3, we find repeated the same principle. Verse 24 says, "Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance for you serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong, which he hath done and there is no respect of persons. God rewards those who do right. God judges those who do wrong and He has no regard for their individual personalities.
Now when it comes then to the blessings of salvation God give to all equally. All of us who come to the Lord Jesus Christ receive the same salvation. No matter what the circumstances of our coming, no matter how diligent or faithful our service it is God's pleasure to give us the same glorious salvation. Now with that as a background look at Matthew Chapter 19 and the last verse, and this should really be the first verse of Chapter 20. "But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first. For the kingdom of heaven is like a man that is an householder who when out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarias a day he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace and said unto them, 'go ye also into the vineyard and whatever is right I will give you.' And they went their way.
Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour and did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle and saith unto them, 'Why stand ye here all the day idle?' They say unto him, 'Because no man has hired us.' He saith unto them, 'Go ye also into the vineyard and whatever is right that shall ye receive.' So when evening was come the lord of the vineyard saith unto the steward, 'Call the laborers and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.' And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour they receive every man a denarias. But when the first came they supposed that they should have received more and they likewise received every man a denarias. And when they had received it they murmured against the householder, 'these last have worked but one hour and thou hast made them equal unto us who have born the burden in the heat of the day.' But he answered one of them and said, 'Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didst not thou agree with me for a denarias? Take what is thine and go thy way. I will give unto this last even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?' So the last shall be first and the first last."
Now what a tremendous story this is. You will notice that the parable is bracketed by a repetition of the same statement: the first shall be last and the last shall be first, making it quite apparent that the parable is designed to illustrate that maxim, that statement.
Now in order to understand what our Lord is teaching here we want to look at four elements. We want to look first of all at the proverb, then the parable, then the point of the parable, and then principles. Let's begin with the proverb. It appears in 19:30 and appears in 20:16. It is basically the same. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. That's a proverb or a maxim. A proverb can be defined this way: it is a short statement of wisdom. It is a short statement usually of unknown origin or ancient origin expressing wisdom. And that's a proverb. The first shall be last and the last shall be first.
Now it may be that the Lord borrowed this particular proverb from His own day. We don't have any evidence of it in any other writings. We don't know that it appeared any place else, but it may have been a common statement. On the other hand, he may have coined it himself. We do know that He used it on several different occasions. So it was a part of His teaching to repeat this very simple and straightforward proverb.
Now some proverbs also come sort of in the form of a riddle and this is one of them. You really don't know what it means when you just read it the first shall be last and the last shall be first. What first, what last, and what does it man? And so bound up in this proverb is a riddle that must be solved. I began to read the passage this week and before I studied anything, any commentaries or anybody's opinion about it or before I looked at any books I just began to mull over and over in my mind what does that mean, the first shall be last and the last shall be first? And the only thing that I could figure out that it meant was that everybody will be the same, because if the first become last and the last become first, then the first to become last become first, and the last who are already last become first. So everybody's first. The only thing it could mean, the first are last and the last are first, everybody's the same. I mean you have a race and some people start our first and some people start out last and they all wind up at the end at the same, it's a dead heat. So you can call this the dead heat proverb. Everybody crosses the finish line at the same time. The last are first and the first are last, and that is the intent of the parable as it becomes very obvious in the context and the parable as our Lord opens it up to us. So we see the proverb.
Now let's look at the parable and you'll see how it supports that proverb, and it is a fascinating picture. Verse 1, "For the kingdom of heaven is like a man that is an householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard." Now we're talking about the kingdom of heaven, folks. This is a spiritual lesson. We're not talking about things on the earth; we're talking about things in the sphere where God rules through grace. We're talking about the salvation economy, in the sphere of God's domain, in the kingdom of light where Christ rules and reigns. We're in the spiritual dimension, God's world now, and in order for us to understand that dimension we really have to have some earthly illustrations don't we? Because we're so earthly minded. And so the Lord Jesus when commonly talking about the spiritual kingdom gave us physical earthly illustrations called parables. This is one of them.
And he begins by introducing us to a man and this man is an oikodespotes, oikos means house, despotes means ruler like we have a despot. So he's a ruler of a house. It must have been quite a large estate, in fact. He is the owner, no doubt, because in verse 15 he says, "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? So that the money he paid the laborers was his own indicates that he in fact was the owner. So here is a man who owns a large estate, which incorporates a vineyard and early in the morning, now this would be prior to 6 o'clock because the Jewish day began at 6 in the morning and ended at 6 at night. They work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. basically, a twelve-hour workday.
And so early in the morning he went into the village, or into the town to hire laborers to come and work in his vineyard. Now this is not an imaginary scene to a Jew. This is a very real one, a very real one. They were very familiar with vineyards. The land of Palestine is basically divided into two kinds of land, for the most part, the plains and the mountain slopes. The plains like the valley of the Jordan, the valley of Sharon, Sharon Valley, and valley of Esdraelon, which is known also as the plain of Megiddo, or Armageddon will be centered. Those places are characterized by grain fields. But Palestine is also marked with mountains everywhere and the slopes of those mountains were terraced for the planting of vineyards. It was tremendously difficult work because they had to terrace the mountains and they supported those terraces with stones that they carried by hand and put in place by hand. Any soil that had to be taken from the bottom to the top to replace topsoil had to be carried on the shoulders of the men, so it was a great amount of effort.
In the spring they would plant the crop. In the summer they would prune it as it grew, and they would tie the branches down to produce the greatest amount of fruit, and then about the end of September they would come to the time of harvesting the grapes. And it wasn't long after that that the rainy season came and it was very important that they get the harvest in before the rain began and so harvest time was a hectic time. And it very likely is near the harvest time and the man who owns the vineyard knows that he's got to get his crop in and so beyond the normal servants that he has working for him he goes into the village to hire some day laborers who can come out and help him harvest his crop. He would have a very large number of men doing this and they would be gathered in town perhaps at a very common meeting place for day laborers in the marketplace, the agura, and there they would be waiting for those who might come and hire them. And this man shows up before 6 a.m. so that he can have them for a full day.
Now what kind of laborers are these? Well in the society of Israel there were people who owned the land, there were people who were employed by those who owned the land, there were the people who were employed on a long-term basis like household servants and household slaves and household workers and those who worked the soil and so forth. But the lowest folks on the economic ladder were the day laborers. They really had no guarantee of work beyond the moment. They came every day to the marketplace, stood around a special meeting point, and just hoped that someone would come and hire them. And the wages they received were usually very very low because they were so desperate they had to work for whatever they could get. I mean a Roman soldier was paid a denarius and he had an honorable job. And those who were well thought of and respected and maybe lifetime servants were paid a denarius a day. That was a good wage. That was a respectable wage. But a lay laborer might be hired for a lot less because he really wasn't in a negotiating position. If he didn't work he didn't eat that day because he could barely eek out subsistence for himself, his wife, and his family.
So God is concerned about these particular kinds of workers in the Old Testament. And in Leviticus 19:13, the Bible says, "The wages of the hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning." In other words, God says when you hire a man for a day you pay him at the end of that day. And in Deuteronomy it also says in Chapter 24 and verse 15, "You shall give him his hire on the day he earns it before the sun goes down for he is poor and sets his heart on it least he cry against you to the Lord and it be sin in you." So these people were on the bottom rung of the ladder economically and the Lord put that in the Levitical law in order that they might be cared for properly so that when they worked a day they were paid a day because if they didn't get paid they couldn't eat the next day. They weren't the kind that were stockpiling it up and having sufficiency apart from their daily labor. So it's a very vivid scene in a Jewish village as the day laborers gather in the morning and wait for somebody to come along and hire them to go work in the vineyard to bring in the harvest. That sets the stage.
Now we go to verse 2. "And when he had agreed with the day laborers for a denarius a day he sent them into his vineyard." That's a very fair wage. That's an honorable wage and very likely more than they would normally receive. That was standard pay for a soldier and a respected employee, generally accepted certain for day work as more than a fair wage. In fact, these men agreed it was fair and went to work for that amount, both owner and worker in agreement. And so he sends them off, if says in verse 2, into his vineyard to begin their work.
Now verse 3. "And he went out about the third hour," now if the day begins at 6 a.m. this is 9 o'clock in the morning, "and he saw others standing idle in the marketplace and said unto them, 'Go ye also into the vineyard and whatever is right I will give you,' and they went their way." He comes back at 9 o'clock and now there are some folks there who are idle and by idle it doesn't mean to say that they were indifferent to work. It simply means they were unemployed. It means they weren't working. It isn't that they didn't want to work or they wouldn't have been gathered there waiting for someone to hire them. They wanted to work. They hadn't been hired in the earlier time and now he comes back to hire them. You get the feeling that it isn't so much that he needs the workers as it is that he's compassionate on the fact that they have great need and if they don't work they don't eat.
And so when he finds them he sends them into the field to work and you'll notice that he negotiates no price. All he says to them is I'll pay you what is right and they took him at his word. In a village like that they would have known him to be an honorable man and they respected his word and if he said he'd pay them what is right they went on those terms. You see they weren't in a negotiating position. They had no choice. If they didn't work they didn't eat, they'd have to take whatever they could get. Consequently they were often taken advantage of, but apparently they trusted this man. And so without negotiating any price they went their way.
And verse 5 says, "They went out about the sixth hour," that's noon, "and the ninth hour," that's three o'clock in the afternoon and he did the same thing. He goes back again and again and keeps gathering more of them to go to work. Finally the day is almost gone and you come to verse 6, "It's the eleventh hour," 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Only one hour of work left. He went out and found others standing unemployed. They had been waiting all day. By now they're rather hopeless, depressed, realizing they'll have no sustenance for their family for that day, "And he said to them, 'Why are you standing here all day idle?' And they said to him, 'Because no man's hired us.'" It wasn't that they didn't want to work. It was just that nobody hired them. Oh maybe they were older, maybe they were weaker, maybe they weren't the clever ones; you know the broad-backed ones, the really strong ones. "He said unto them, 'Go ye also into the vineyard and whatever is right that ye shall receive.'" And you can be sure they ran to get all they could even knowing there was no other choice for them and not negotiating any price. "Whatever's right I'll give it to you."
Then verse 8 says, "When evening was come," that's 6 o'clock, the twelve hour work day is over, "The lord of the vineyard said to his steward, 'Call the laborers and give them their hire.'" That's the way it was said in Leviticus, that's the way it was said in Deuteronomy and this was an honorable man and the day was over and he was going to pay them for the day and so he says to his steward or his foreman, "You get them together and you pay them." And then he says this most interesting thing, "Beginning from the last unto the first." And now all of a sudden we've intersected with our proverb, haven't we? This first shall be last and the last shall be first and this in the parable is that. The ones who came to work last were paid, what, first, and the ones that came to work first were paid last. So it's obvious that that's what the proverb is saying and that's what the parable intends to illustrate. And we'll see why as we go through it.
So they all got in line to be paid. The guys in the front had worked one hour; the guys at the end of the line, twelve. "And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour they received every man a denarius." That's a whole day's wage, and a generous one at that, a respectable one at that. Well you can imagine as he went started at that point that the guys at the end of the line are saying, "Did you see that? Twelve times one denarius, he's paying a denarius an hour." And they started to get this silent expectation, that by the time we get there guys we're going to get twelve days wages. Things began to change as he went through the line apparently. It doesn't tell us, but we know from the implications of the parable that as he went through the 3 o'clock group got a denarius, the noon group got a denarius, the 9 o'clock group got a denarius and maybe they're getting a little quizzical about what is going on.
And then verse 10 says, "When the first who were last in line came, they supposed that they should have received more." Well you say, that's right, that's fair. In human terms if you're talking about employment that's the way we do things. Maybe you think that, but they likewise received every man a denarius.
You say that's not fair. Oh? What had he promised to give them? A denarius. Did they think that was a fair promise, a fair wage? Yes. It wasn't a question of fairness. "When they had received it they murmured." It's an interesting word in the Greek, egganguogo. It's atamatapeatic. It's like grumble in English. They grumbled. They murmured. They complained. They griped and they stand there with their little hot denarius in their hand and they don't leave. And they said to the householder, "These last have worked but one hour and thou has made them equal unto us who have borne the burden in the heat of the day." And he wasn't unfair with them. He was just generous with the rest, but some people really have a hard time with other people's prosperity.
The issue here is not whether the householder is fair. The issue is the jealousy of the people who worked the longest, right? Don't impugn God, but they were filled with envy. They got what was right and fair, but they were filled with envy and they griped. And they made this little speech, you made them equal unto us and we borne the burden in the heat of the day, and they get real kind of expressive. The word they used for heat is the word for burner. It's the word that's often used of the scorching east wind that parches the lips and cracks the skin when that hot east wind blows. I mean they were really dramatizing their plight. It is hot in that part of the world and it might have been hot at the end of September when this was going on if indeed harvest is in view. But they're saying, "Hey we really have been through it all day," and you know there's something in you that if you've been in a labor situation saying they're right, there's no equity in that deal. Those other guys didn't work to get all they got like I did.
But he answered one of them, verse 13, and said, "Fellow," that's tyrus in the Greek, it means fellow, this is sort of a non-descript term. Friend is not a good translation of that. It's sort of a rebuking term. "Fellow I do thee no wrong, I do thee no wrong, dids't thou agree with me for a denarius?" Wasn't that our agreement? You came on those terms. I gave you that. "Take what is thine and go thy way." Don't just stand there go on. "I will give unto this last even as unto thee." And then this: "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" And then this: "Is thine eye evil because I'm good?" You know what an evil eye is? Mark 7:22, jealously. And evil eye, you look and you resent what somebody else has got. I worked so hard to get what I have and this guy's old aunt dies and leaves him all this. Jealousy is a part of our fallenness, isn't it? You see it wasn't that they didn't get a fair wage. They got a very fair wage, a generous wage. It's that they couldn't stand somebody else getting the same thing without working as hard as they did. Instead of saying to them selves, isn't it wonderful that he's so generous to those who have the same need we have, but weren't hired early. Isn't it wonderful that even though they had to wait all day to be hired their need wasn't any less and he gave them according to their need not according to their effort, not according to their work?
Instead of saying that, that's what the magnanimous heart says. I rejoice that you received as much as I did because that's what you needed even though you didn't work as hard as I worked. That's the magnanimous heart. Well that's the parable. And he says, I have the right to give whatever I want. Are you going to be jealous if I give it?
And then he repeats the proverb. So, the last shall be first and the first last. And by the way at the end of that verse it says in some versions, many are called but few are chosen. The better manuscripts don't include that. It seems to have been borrowed from Matthew 22:14, and we'll study that phrase when we get to that text. But he repeats that proverb.
Now let's come to the third thing I want to mention. That's the point. What's the point here? I mean we know the story. We understand that he paid them equally whether they started early or late they all got the same thing and that supports our interpretation of the proverb, doesn't it? The last shall be first and the first shall be last means everybody gets the same. Everybody ends up the same and that's exactly what happens in the parable. Everybody gets the same wage. And the last wound up being first in line to get the wage, the first wound up being last in line to get the same wage. It's the point of equality. The last shall be first.
But what is the spiritual point? I mean what is it saying about the kingdom? Well let's interpret the proverb in that sense. Go back to verse 1. The man is God, the householder. The vineyard is the kingdom, the sphere of God's rule. It is the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of salvation. The laborers are those who come into salvation. They come into the kingdom. They come into the service of the king, the service of God. The day, the day of work is lifetime. The evening is eternity. The denarius is eternal life and maybe you could even say the steward Jesus Christ to whom has been committed all judgment.
So what's it saying? It's saying this: no matter how long you worked in the kingdom, no matter how hard or how easy your circumstances were, no matter how difficult the task, when you get to the end you're all going to receive the same eternal life. Isn't that a great truth? That's really what it's teaching. Some people serve Christ their life long, some short. I mean you can imagine how those guys felt. We've been working all day in the hot sun and these guys show up at 5 o'clock when the breeze has come up and it's twilight and it's lovely and they'll just go around on the hill for an hour and they get the same amount that we get. But in the kingdom that's how it is friends. We all get the same. We all enter into the same eternal life. We all inherit the same glories in heaven. That is the essence of what our Lord is saying. No matter how easy or how hard our lot in life, no matter how long or short our service, to put it another way, the penitent thief will inherit the same glories of eternity that are going to belong to the apostles. Right?
Peter on the one hand crucified upside down for the cause of Christ, the penitent thief crucified for his crimes are both entering into eternal life to receive the same eternal glorious blessings, to be blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. You say that sounds like it's inequitable. No? It's more than any of them deserve. It's more than any of them deserve and it's God's good pleasure to give them the fullness of what they need.
So those who come to Christ early in life will receiv