Matthew 21:31 Commentary and Bible Study

He asks them to judge which of the two sons did the father’s will. What would the father have said? Which of his sons ended up genuinely pleasing his father. The answer to the question obviously requires them to look past the initial response in both cases, and his hearers rightly answer that the first son did his father’s will. The initial response of the first son was openly rebellious; that of the second was half-hearted, shallow, and perhaps deceitful. It is the final response what matters, and this of course indicates that God too accepts a change of mind in his children. None of us come into the world as believers. If we are ever going to come to know him, there must be a turning away from what we are by nature. We must come to him in great sorrow and shame for sin, and with a heartfelt desire that he would receive us. Christ confirms – and this is what he wanted them to see – that the very worst may enter the kingdom of heaven. The people would never have seen this if they had been asked directly. They would have said that the scribes and Pharisees and the chief priests were surely the ones who were accepted by God. But no, the publicans – that is, the tax-gathers – and harlots go into the kingdom, and the scribes and Pharisees, for the most part, remain shut out. The prostitutes who made a living out of breaking the seventh commandments, and the tax gatherers who sold their faith to work for Rome – these were finding their way into the kingdom of heaven ahead of the Pharisees who posed as the pious ones in Israel’s society. How much God hates self-righteousness! We all need to humble ourselves, to believe in Christ, repent and yield to him.