“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:1, 11). The Father said, “They will respect my Son” (Matthew 21:37). Yet they despised and rejected Him. The Son of God has come in divine authority to claim what is rightly His. Yet His tenants are contemptibly robbing Him. When they challenged His authority, He pointed to their pre-committed unbelief. Now He paints another word picture to illustrate their failure and future judgment. It is a painfully pointblank parable. The main tragedy it stages is almost too awful to contemplate. The story is directly against Israel’s official representatives and boldly prefigures their murder of the Messiah. They will increasingly treat Jesus with scorn, rejecting Him as contemptible and unworthy, because of the evil in their hearts. This passage presents both indictment and prediction. Christ’s words ring with a piercing resonance of poetic justice. Rejection of Jesus is unspeakably fatal.
