The parable of the vineyard that we find in today's passage occurs in the Gospel more than once. Evidently, by repeating it again and again, the evangelists wanted to tell us something very important for us. Of course, Jesus Himself directs this parable first of all against His contemporaries, some of whom...
The parable of the vineyard that we find in today's passage occurs in the Gospel more than once. Evidently, by repeating it again and again, the evangelists wanted to tell us something very important for us. Of course, Jesus Himself directs this parable first of all against His contemporaries, some of whom belonged to the religious brotherhood of the Pharisees, while others held prominent positions as ministers of the Temple or well-known theologians, teachers of the Law. But if the matter concerned only the affairs of a long-vanished past, it would hardly be worth paying so much attention to this parable today. After all, we are not Pharisees, not Old Testament priests, and not teachers of the Law. And if we found ourselves in the place of the tenants in the parable, we, of course, would not reject those who had been sent: we are Christians, and we have made our choice, or so it would appear.
But here is the question: why did those to whom the Savior first addressed Himself not accept Him? They did not need to "convert" anywhere in order to do so: Jesus was not offering anyone any new religion. He offered something else: the Kingdom of God. Christianity is not a religion at all: Jesus left us neither a new religious teaching, nor a religious organization such as, for example, that same Pharisaic brotherhood, nor a rule or moral code that we were to follow. He left in the world only a community of His disciples, to whom He gave one commandment only: to live in the Kingdom. Christianity is this life in the Kingdom. Of course, over the years and centuries it inevitably had to clothe itself in religious forms, which cannot be wholly abandoned before the second coming of Christ and the full transformation of the world. And Christian life clothed itself in many religious garments: Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, diverse as all life is diverse, and all the more the life of the Kingdom.
But if we Christians have acquired our own Christian religiosity over time, sooner or later we will inevitably encounter religious problems, the same kind as those faced in Gospel times by the Pharisees, temple priests, and teachers of the Law. And the main problem, as is clear from the parable, turned out to be the desire to take possession of the vineyard that belongs to God alone, and in which each of us can at best be only a worker. For a believer, such a desire would appear at the very least strange. But such a seizure does not at all have to be malicious from the beginning. As a rule, it happens under all sorts of respectable pretexts, most often under the pretext of protecting the vineyard from outsiders, from thieves and destroyers.
And here religiosity proves extremely convenient: when it is necessary to separate one people from all the rest, or one part of a people from another, to fence off a community from destructive influences, whatever those influences may be and from whomever they may come, religion can prove very useful. Religion is always connected with a certain set of more or less rigid norms, rules, and forms that regulate all or many sides of life, and such regulation in itself protects well against outside influences. And if we remember that every religion is also a set of certain rules of life and religious obligations, it turns out that it not only protects but also disciplines both individual people and whole communities.
And yet any religion, even one based on revelation given by God, remains the work of human hands. For people express and embody in life the revelation given by God, adapting it to their human limitation. Therefore any revelation is always greater than any religion, and the Kingdom does not fit within any religious framework. Then one has to choose between familiar, established, time-tested, honored religiosity and the Kingdom. And having chosen, one must leave familiar religion for Christ. Or, remaining with one's own, kill the One who brings the Kingdom. Kill Him because otherwise those who want to remain with their own will have no peaceful life. For religion always takes hold of the whole person, entirely and completely, defining his life from beginning to end, and for a religious person the very thought is unbearable that there can be something in the world over which his religion has no power.
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1:1 To them that have obtained - Not by their own works, but by the free grace of God. Like precious faith with us - The apostles. The faith of those who have not seen, beingequally precious with that of those who saw our Lord in the flesh. Through the righteousness - Both active and passive.Of our God and Saviour - It is this alone by which the justice of God is satisfied, and for the sake of which he gives this precious faith.
1:2 Through the divine, experimental knowledge of God and of Christ.
1:3 As his divine power has given us all things - There is a wonderful cheerfulness in this exordium, which begins with the exhortation itself. That pertain to life and godliness - To the present, natural life, and to the continuance and increase of spiritual life. Through that divine knowledge of him - Of Christ.Who hath called us by - His own glorious power, to eternal glory, as the end; by Christian virtue or fortitude, as the means.
1:4 Through which - Glory and fortitude. He hath given us exceeding great, and inconceivably precious promises - Both the promises and the things promised, which follow in their due season, that, sustained and encouraged by the promises, we may obtain all that he has promised. That, having escaped the manifold corruption which is in the world - From that fruitful fountain, evil desire. Ye may become partakers of the divine nature - Being renewed in the image of God, and having communion with them, so as to dwell in God and God in you.
1:5 For this very reason - Because God hath given you so great blessings. Giving all diligence - It is a very uncommon word which we render giving. It literally signifies, bringing in by the by, or over and above: implying, that good works the work; yet not unless we are diligent. Our diligence is to follow the gift of God, and is followed by an increase of all his gifts. Add to - And in all the other gifts of God. Superadd the latter, without losing the former. The Greek word properly means lead up, as in dance, one of these after the other, in a beautiful order. Your faith, that "evidence of things not seen," termed before "the knowledge of God and of Christ," the root of all Christian graces. Courage - Whereby ye may conquer all enemies and difficulties, and execute whatever faith dictates. In this most beautiful connexion, each preceding grace leads to the following; each following, tempers and perfects the preceding. They are set down in the order of nature, rather than the order of time. For though every grace bears a relation to every other, yet here they are so nicely ranged, that those which have the closest dependence on each other are placed together. And to your courage knowledge - Wisdom, teaching how to exercise it on all occasions.
1:6 And to your knowledge temperance; and to your temperance patience - Bear and forbear; sustain and abstain; deny yourself and take up your cross daily. The more knowledge you have, the more renounce your own will; indulge yourself the less. "Knowledge puffeth up," and the great boasters of knowledge (the Gnostics) were those that "turned the grace of God into wantonness." But see that your knowledge be attended with temperance. Christian temperance implies the voluntary abstaining from all pleasure which does not lead to God. It extends to all things inward and outward: the due government of every thought, as well as affection. "It is using the world," so to use all outward, and so to restrain all inward things, that they may become a means of what is spiritual; a scaling ladder to ascend to what is above. Intemperance is to abuse the world. He that uses anything below, looking no higher, and getting no farther, is intemperate. He that uses the creature only so as to attain to more of the Creator, is alone temperate, and walks as Christ himself walked. And to patience godliness - Its proper support: a continual sense of God's presence andprovidence, and a filial fear of, and confidence in, him; otherwise your patience may be pride, surliness, stoicism; but not Christianity.
1:7 And to godliness brotherly kindness - No sullenness, sternness, moroseness: "sour godliness," so called, is of the devil. Of Christian godliness it may always be said, "Mild, sweet, serene, and tender is her mood, Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free: Against example resolutely good, Fervent in zeal, and warm in charity."And to brotherly kindness love - The pure and perfect love of God and of all mankind. The apostle here makes an advance upon the preceding article, brotherly kindness, which seems only to relate to the love of Christians toward one another.