Now Presenting: The Son of God

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve examined the first few days of Holy Week in our series “The Road to the Cross.”

We have seen how Jesus presented Himself as the true and rightful King of Israel in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the day that we know as Palm Sunday.

We have seen how He presented Himself as the Righteous Priest, the Prophet greater than Moses, and the Just Judge in his cursing of the fig tree and cleansing of the temple the following days.

And today, we will see the Jewish leaders question the authority by which Jesus did the things to present Himself as the one deserving of those roles or titles. And we’ll see Him make the greatest claim of all: that He is the very Son of God.

We’re going to be looking at a passage from Matthew, chapter 21, so let me encourage you to turn there now.

For context, I’ll remind you that what takes place here follows Matthew’s account of the temple cleansing and Jesus’ curse of the fig tree.

Remember that I said last week that Matthew groups the account of the fig tree thematically in this chapter, rather than chronologically. We looked at what I believe was the chronological account in Mark last week.

I think Matthew places the fig-tree curse where he does, because its lesson against hypocrisy — of not pretending to be what you are not — ties directly to the three parables that follow at the end of chapter 21 and the beginning of chapter 22.

And so, Matthew says, the next time Jesus entered the temple after cursing the fig tree and cleansing the temple that the religious leaders had defiled by converting it into a marketplace, He came under questioning by the chief priests and elders.

“By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?” they ask Him in verse 23.

And Jesus responds the way many Jewish religious teachers did in those days: with a question of His own. We’ll pick up Matthew’s account in verse 24.

Matthew 21:24–27 NASB95

24 Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 “The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?” And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 26 “But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet.” 27 And answering Jesus, they said, “We do not know.” He also said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

What you need to understand is that the religious leaders’ question was a trap. They already knew that Jesus claimed the authority of God in all that He said and did.

But they had already rejected Him and His authority. They were just looking for Him to say something that they could use against Him. They weren’t seeking real answers or a real conversation.

And so, Jesus posed a question of His own that would expose these so-called religious authorities for the hypocrites they were.

If they answered that John the Baptist had been ministering under the authority of God, they would have to admit that Jesus also received His authority from God, since that’s what John had preached.

But if they said John the Baptist lacked divine authority — that it was from men — then they risked a riot from the crowd at the temple that day, because the people believed John to have been a prophet sent by God.

And so, they waffled. They said, “We don’t know.”

Jesus concludes this part of their interaction by saying, essentially, “Then, I’m not going to answer your question.”

Since they had refused the revelation that John the Baptist had given, they had no right to ask for greater revelation from Jesus.

They had proved themselves the be unfair and incompetent judges of the prophets sent to speak for God. Which is EXACTLY what their job was in the Jewish culture: to evaluate those who claimed to speak for God.

So, Jesus refuses to answer their question directly.

But then, in the three parables that follow, He gives an indirect answer, making it abundantly clear that He has come with DIVINE authority.

We’re going to look at just the first two of those parables today. And we’ll see from them that nobody would have left the temple that morning without understanding that Jesus was presenting Himself then and there as the Son of the living God.

Look at verse 28.

Matthew 21:28–32 NASB95

28 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ 29 “And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 “The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I will, sir’; but he did not go. 31 “Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. 32 “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.

Throughout Scripture, the vineyard was a symbol for Israel. And God is pictured as the vine-grower who lovingly plants, cultivates and harvests this vineyard.

And this is a simple parable. The vineyard owner tells his two sons to go out and work in the vineyard. One says he’ll do it and then doesn’t. The other says he won’t do it and then does.

And it would have been as clear to the religious leaders there that day as it is to US which son did his father’s will. It was the son who did what the father said to do.

And this is a good rule for life: What you DO is a lot more important than what you SAY. What you DO is what you’ll be judged on, both here and in heaven.

It’s all well and good to say we need to feed the hungry and house the homeless, but unless we DO those things we haven’t accomplished anything. It’s all well and good to say we believe in Jesus, but our ACTIONS will reveal whether that’s true or not.

And in the case of the people Jesus was talking to, what they’d been told to DO was to put their faith in God and to teach others to do the same. And they SAID that’s what they did, but they REALLY put their faith in their own righteousness.

They put their faith in the keeping of the Mosaic Law. Instead of recognizing that God wanted them to follow the Law out of love for Him and faith that He would provide for all their needs, they believed God should love them BECAUSE they followed the Law in their OWN righteousness.

And so, when Jesus came telling them that their righteousness was insufficient and that HE was the fulfillment of the law, they hated Him for it.

And what made things worse for the religious leaders was that the ones who were following Jesus — the ones who were doing the will of the Father — were largely the outcasts of Jewish society.

The tax collectors and prostitutes whom the Pharisees had banned from the temple were the very ones who were turning to Jesus in faith.

And they, rather than the religious leaders, were the ones who would get into the kingdom of God.

John the Baptist had come in the way of righteousness. He had taught that people had to repent from their sins and follow Jesus in faith that only He could reconcile them to God.

The religious leaders had rejected His God-given message. But the tax collectors and prostitutes had repented, and not even their repentance had caused the Pharisees to see God at work.

And so, with this parable, Jesus condemns the unfair and incompetent religious judges of Israel for their personal rejection of Him.

Now, He will tell a parable that demonstrates God’s judgment for their corporate rejection of Him, for acting together to reject God’s grace through many generations and teaching the people of Israel to do so, as well.

Look at verse 33.

Matthew 21:33–41 NASB95

33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. 34 “When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. 35 “The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. 36 “Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. 37 “But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 “But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ 39 “They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 “Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?” 41 They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.”

God had delivered the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. He had ushered them into the Promised Land. He had gone before them and conquered their enemies for them.

He had set them in a land flowing with milk and honey where they could live in contentment and peace if they would but trust Him.

Just as the landowner had established His vineyard with care and concern, God had showed great love and concern for Israel throughout the Old Testament.

But when God had sent the prophets to His people — they are the slaves in this parable — the nation’s leaders, had abused them and even killed them.

And so, as in the parable, God sent His own Son, Jesus, to harvest a crop of those who would follow Him in faith.

After all, that was the fruit the vineyard of Israel was always meant to bear. A nation of people who flourished under their faith in God.

And despite the nation’s long history of rejecting God by rejecting His prophets, as in this parable, the patient landowner sends his son as the one with the very greatest authority to represent his father.

He was hoping the vine-growers — they represent Israel’s religious leaders in this parable — will finally repent and do what they’ve been put there to do.

That they will bring him the harvest, a nation of people who have turned to God through faith in His Son.

But the vine-growers in the parable decide to kill the son. And the chief priests and elders seem to understand what a terrible thing this would be.

They say the vine-growers should be taken away and replaced with others who will honor and obey the landowner.

And I wonder whether any of them by this time had recognized that the son in the parable represented Jesus.

If they did, they could not help but conclude that He was presenting Himself to them as the very Son of God, since it would have been clear to them that the landowner in this parable was God.

But if they didn’t get it by now, they soon would. Look at verse 42.

Matthew 21:42–46 NASB95

42 Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone; This came about from the Lord, And it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. 44 “And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.” 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. 46 When they sought to seize Him, they feared the people, because they considered Him to be a prophet.

In case they hadn’t already understood it, Jesus explains in verse 43 the point of the parable.

But before He does that, He reminds them of a couple of verses from the 118th psalm, one that was widely understood even then as pointing to the promised Messiah of Israel.

His point in bringing up this psalm is to suggest that the leaders of Israel had rejected Him as the chief cornerstone, the stone upon which God was going to build something marvelous.

By rejecting Jesus, they were rejecting God’s plan of salvation. By rejecting Jesus, they were demanding the kingdom of heaven on their own terms.

Like the vine-growers in the parable, they were attempting to take the inheritance of salvation without producing the fruit of faith in God through Jesus.

And so, Jesus says to them, the kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to a people who will produce the fruit of faith.

God would take the responsibility of preparing the world for the kingdom of heaven from the unbelievers in Israel and give it to a new people — to the believers who constitute the church.

If they followed the logic of Jesus’ parable and its application, they could not help but recognize that He was asserting Himself to be the Son of God.

He had presented Himself as the one who had been rejected, and He had said that their rejection of Him would cost them their salvation.

By failing to produce the fruit of faith in God through Jesus, they forfeited their opportunity to be a part of the kingdom of God. And now that opportunity would be given to the church.

But the only way this parable makes sense in this context is if Jesus is symbolized by the son — and therefore is the Son of God.

Indeed, He portrays Himself here as both Son of God and the promised Messiah, the one who would save Israel, the Suffering Servant who would be “pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.”

And don’t miss the response of the chief priests and Pharisees to this parable.

They understood that Jesus was speaking about them, and they sought to seize Him. They were only stopped from doing so because they were afraid of the people who believed Jesus to have been a prophet sent by God.

In other words, they were acting just like the vine-growers in the parable that had made them so angry. They were confirming that His judgment against them had been just.

Now, we don’t have time this morning to look at the third parable in this set, the Parable of the Marriage Feast.

But it completes this set of parables Jesus gave in answer to the question of His authority. And it’s important in light of its message about who will be part of the kingdom of heaven.

So, let me summarize the point of it for you. In the first parable, Jesus condemned the religious leaders for their individual rejection of Him.

In the second, He condemned them for their responsibility in drawing the nation away from God and, hence, from Himself.

And in the Parable of the Marriage Feast, He condemns the unbelieving nation for its rejection of God’s grace.

And He warns that a new nation, composed of people both evil and good in the sight of men, will enter the kingdom of heaven clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Both Jews — the good in this parable — and Gentiles — the bad in the parable — will take part in the banquet that symbolizes the kingdom, and they will do so only because they come wearing the right clothing.

They will be clothed not in their own righteousness, the inappropriate clothing of the guest who is thrown out of the feast, but in the special, clean clothing that is Jesus’ righteousness.

Remember that the Pharisees’ great mistake was believing they were good enough in their own right to stand before a perfectly righteous and holy God.

But Jesus said that no one comes unto the Father but by Him. He said He was the fulfillment of the Law, and that all who believe in Him have eternal life.

Through faith in Him, we receive HIS perfect righteousness — His perfect obedience, His perfect goodness.

And now, when God looks upon believers, what He sees is His Son’s righteousness, rather than the filthy rags of our own imperfect obedience and mediocre goodness.

This was true for the people of Jesus’ time, and it is still true today.

Some of you have tried all your lives to be good enough. Some of you may even have convinced yourselves that you ARE good enough.

But Jesus came saying I am the only one who is good enough. And then He went to the cross, where His goodness and righteousness were covered up by our sins.

He wore our sins at the cross so that we who put our faith in Him can wear His righteousness before God.

He gave Himself as a sacrifice so that we would not have to face the penalty each of us deserves for our sins, for our rebellion against God.

The Son of God suffered and died and rose again so that we who follow Him in faith can also be raised unto eternal life. To live forever in the Kingdom of God. To dine with Him at the Marriage Feast.

But you won’t be allowed into that feast without the right clothing. You won’t be allowed into that feast wearing the filthy rags of your sins and your own righteousness.

Jesus has a new wardrobe all picked out for those who put away their faith in themselves and put on faith in Him. Will you take it and wear it today?