Mark 12:6 Commentary and Bible Study

But now the owner does something and says something that no one would ever do or say. Normal human behaviour cannot do justice to the grace of God. Luke has additional words in describing the owner’s deliberation: ‘Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him.’ Again, the words ‘may be’ present the owner as a fallible human being, unsure of the result of his intended action. God is not unsure of the result of anything he does, but in giving us so many opportunities to repent, it is as if he behaves towards us like someone who thinks that, surely, we must eventually respond in the right way. But no, we do not. Without the Spirit of God drawing us irresistibly to Christ we go on stubbornly refusing his kindness. The behaviour of the owner in the parable is obviously impossible to imagine in real life. What owner of a vineyard, having murderous tenants who had already mistreated and even killed servants he had sent, would then go ahead and risk sending his son? Why would he put his son in jeopardy for the sake of wickedly behaved enemies? That wholly unlikely element of the parable needs explaining, and the preacher now has an opportunity to show how God the Father has acted exactly like this extraordinary vineyard owner in sending his Son to die for his enemies. Although that is not how God thinks, he portrays himself as if he is a man. He puts it like this to show the great patience of the man. As he reflects on what the tenants might be expected to do – ‘They will reverence my son’ – he shows how utterly unreasonable they were in doing the exact opposite.Of course with hindsight we can see easily that Christ is speaking about himself. This is his last week; it is three days before his execution. Clearly this is going to be the last chance for these husbandmen in this parable. And Christ is the last messenger, as the Puritans used to call him, the last messenger to the human race, the last messenger to our individual souls. The incarnation heralded the last age of this world, the final stage in the history of redemption. There will be no other messengers to this lost world before Christ returns to judge the world.