Luke 20
It is the last week. Jesus is teaching daily in the temple and preaching the gospel, and the temple authorities - the chief priests, the scribes, the elders - come at Him in a coordinated series of challenges meant to discredit or entrap Him before the crowds. They open with the question of credentials: Tell us, by what authority doest thou these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority? (v. 2). It is a fair-sounding question with a trap inside it. Jesus answers it with a question of His own about the source of John's baptism - was it from heaven, or of men? - and the leaders, caught between the crowd and their own unbelief, refuse to answer. So He refuses to answer them.3
Then Jesus tells the people a parable that is really a verdict. A man plants a vineyard, lets it out to husbandmen, and goes away. At harvest he sends a servant for his portion of the fruit; the tenants beat him and send him away empty. He sends another, and a third - beaten, shamed, wounded. At last he sends his beloved son, saying, It may be they will reverence him. But the tenants see the heir and say, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours (v. 14), and they cast him out of the vineyard and kill him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them? (v. 15) - He will come, destroy those husbandmen, and give the vineyard to others. And over the wreckage Jesus sets a promise from the Psalms: The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner (v. 17).2
The challenges keep coming. Spies feigning sincerity try to catch Him on the explosive question of Roman tribute, and He turns a coin in His hand: Whose image and superscription hath it? - Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's (vv. 24-25). The Sadducees, who deny the resurrection, float a riddle about a woman married in turn to seven brothers, and He answers that the risen neither marry… neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels, and that God is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him (vv. 35-38). Then Jesus turns and asks His own question from Psalm 110 - David himself calleth him Lord, how is he then his son? - before warning the crowd to beware of the scribes… which devour widows' houses (vv. 46-47).
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Luke 20:1-8By What Authority Doest Thou These Things?
1And it came to pass, that on one of those days, as he taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes came upon him with the elders, 2And spake unto him, saying, Tell us, by what authority doest thou these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority? 3And he answered and said unto them, I will also ask you one thing; and answer me: 4The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? 5And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then believed ye him not? 6But and if we say, Of men; all the people will stone us: for they be persuaded that John was a prophet. 7And they answered, that they could not tell whence it was. 8And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.
Luke sets the scene with deliberate care: as he taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes came upon him with the elders (v. 1). This is the official leadership of Israel - the priestly establishment, the legal experts, and the lay elders - the same three groups that make up the ruling council. They come upon him, confronting Him on their own ground, in the temple courts they regarded as theirs to govern. And the question they bring is the one a court asks a man it intends to charge: Tell us, by what authority doest thou these things? or who is he that gave thee this authority? (v. 2). It is not an honest inquiry. They are not asking because they are open to the answer; they are demanding His credentials so that, whatever He claims, they can move against Him - for blasphemy if He claims heaven, for presumption if He claims nothing. The “these things” reaches back to the day before, when He drove the sellers from the temple and took it over as a teaching ground. They want to know who authorized that. Behind the legal form of the question lies the oldest objection of all to Jesus: who do you think you are?
Jesus does not dodge the question; He answers it with a question that goes straight to the heart of the matter: I will also ask you one thing; and answer me: The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? (vv. 3-4). This is not evasion but exposure. John had borne witness to Jesus, and the source of John's authority and the source of Jesus' authority are finally the same question. If they will face the one, they must face the other. And so they huddle and reason it out with cold political calculation: If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then believed ye him not? But and if we say, Of men; all the people will stone us: for they be persuaded that John was a prophet (vv. 5-6). Notice what is absent from their deliberation - any concern for what is actually true. They weigh only what is safe. They are not asking, was John from heaven? but, which answer costs us least? A heart that will only ask what is safe has already disqualified itself from recognizing what is from heaven.3
Trapped between an answer that would condemn their unbelief and an answer that would enrage the crowd, the leaders take the coward's exit: And they answered, that they could not tell whence it was (v. 7). It is a lie, and everyone present knows it. These men have spent their lives ruling on questions of God and authority; the one thing they cannot plausibly claim is ignorance about whether a famous prophet was sent from God. They are not unable to tell - they are unwilling. They would rather feign ignorance than speak a truth that costs them. And so Jesus answers them in kind: Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things (v. 8). The refusal is just. Those who will not deal honestly with the light they already have forfeit their claim to more. Jesus does not owe an answer to men who have just demonstrated that they will not receive one. The exchange has revealed exactly what He intended it to reveal: it is not that the evidence for His authority is missing; it is that His questioners will not face it.
Luke 20:9-19The Stone Which the Builders Rejected
9Then began he to speak to the people this parable; A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time. 10And at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty. 11And again he sent another servant: and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. 12And again he sent a third: and they wounded him also, and cast him out. 13Then 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. 14But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. 15So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them? 16He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid. 17And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? 18Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. 19And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them.
Jesus turns from the leaders to the people and tells a parable whose imagery every hearer would recognize: A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time (v. 9). Israel had been called the LORD's vineyard for centuries - most famously in Isaiah's song of the vineyard, where God plants, tends, and looks for fruit, and finds only wild grapes. So the picture is set: the owner is God, the vineyard is His covenant people, and the husbandmen are those entrusted to tend it and render its fruit - the very leaders standing before Him.2 The owner's patience is striking. He sends a servant for his portion of the fruit, and the tenants beat him, and sent him away empty (v. 10). He sends another; they beat and shame him too. He sends a third; they wound him and cast him out (vv. 11-12). This is the long history of the prophets, sent again and again to a people who would not render what they owed, and who answered God's messengers with violence. The owner has every right to send soldiers. Instead, astonishingly, he keeps sending more emissaries - mercy stretched past all reason.
Then the parable arrives at its unbearable center: 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 (v. 13). The phrase my beloved son is the exact phrase the voice from heaven spoke over Jesus at His baptism. No hearer steeped in the previous chapters could miss it. The owner's reasoning is the language of a father's hope: surely him they will respect. But the tenants do the opposite. When the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours (v. 14). Their logic is the logic of theft taken to its end. They have treated the vineyard as theirs to keep; the heir is the one obstacle to full possession, so they remove him. So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him (v. 15) - cast out and killed, the very shape of what awaits Jesus outside the city walls within the week. He is standing in the temple, telling the men who will engineer His death precisely what they are about to do. They will not be tricked into it or stumble into it blindly. They will look at the Son, recognize the heir, and kill Him on purpose. The most sobering thing in the parable is that the murder is clear-eyed.
Jesus puts the verdict as a question and lets it answer itself: What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them? He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others (vv. 15-16). The owner who endured beating after beating, who sent his own son in hope, is not therefore indifferent to evil. Patience exhausted does not become permanent tolerance; there is a reckoning. The tenants who seized the vineyard and killed the heir lose the very thing they grasped at, and the stewardship passes to others who will render the fruit. The crowd recoils: And when they heard it, they said, God forbid - literally, may it not be. They sense where the parable is pointing and flinch from it. But Jesus does not soften the verdict; He seals it with Scripture. The story has named two things that sit together uneasily in our minds: a God of astonishing, long-suffering patience, and a God who will not finally let the vineyard be stolen and the Son be murdered without an answer. Both are true. The mercy is real; so is the judgment. To presume on the one while ignoring the other is exactly the husbandmen's mistake.
Jesus fixes His gaze on them - he beheld them - and quotes Psalm 118: What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? (v. 17). The image shifts from vineyard to building site, but the point is the same and the reversal is total. The builders - the experts, the very men whose job is to know which stone goes where - examine the stone and throw it away as useless. And that rejected stone becomes the most important stone in the structure. Then Jesus adds the warning that follows from it: Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder (v. 18). The stone cannot be neutral. One either builds on it or breaks against it; either way, it is decisive. The leaders understand perfectly: the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them (v. 19). They are the builders. They are the husbandmen. They grasp the parable's meaning exactly - and rather than repent, they move to prove it true by seizing the very stone they have rejected.
Luke 20:20-26Render Unto Caesar, and Unto God
20And they watched him, and sent forth spies, which should feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor. 21And they asked him, saying, Master, we know that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly: 22Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no? 23But he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? 24Shew me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's. 25And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's. 26And they could not take hold of his words before the people: and they marvelled at his answer, and held their peace.
Having failed by frontal assault, the leaders try ambush: they watched him, and sent forth spies, which should feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor (v. 20). The aim is now explicit - to catch Him in a sentence that could be reported to the Roman governor as sedition. And so they coat the trap in flattery: Master, we know that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly (v. 21). Every word of it is true, and every word of it is insincere - they say He shows no partiality precisely because they are betting that His fearlessness will make Him say something dangerous. Then comes the question, beautifully engineered: Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no? (v. 22). It looks like a simple yes or no, but both answers are fatal. Say no, and they hand Him to Rome as a rebel. Say yes, and He brands Himself a collaborator before a crowd that despises the foreign tax and longs for deliverance. The question is built to destroy Him whichever way He turns. Flattery is often the wrapping on a knife.
Jesus is not fooled for a moment: he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? (v. 23). Then He does something disarming - He asks for a coin. Shew me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? (v. 24). The “penny” is the Roman denarius, and on it was stamped the head of the emperor with an inscription naming him. The coin itself answers the question of ownership: it bears Caesar's image and Caesar's superscription - his portrait and his title. They answered and said, Caesar's. By making them produce the coin and name whose image it carries, Jesus has already turned the trap. They are the ones holding Caesar's money, circulating in Caesar's economy, under Caesar's protection. The thing stamped with the ruler's image plainly belongs, in some real sense, to the realm of that ruler. But the word image is doing far more work than they realize. It is about to open onto a second question they did not ask - for there is something else in the world that bears an image and a name, and it is not a coin.
Then comes the answer that has echoed ever since: Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's (v. 25). In a single sentence Jesus slips both jaws of the trap. He does not forbid the tax - so He is no rebel; nor does He sanctify Caesar's claim as absolute - so He is no flatterer of empire. The coin bears Caesar's image; let Caesar have what is stamped with his image. There is a real, ordered place for earthly authority, debts, and duties; the believer is not exempt from the legitimate claims of the society he lives in. But Jesus does not stop at the coin. He adds the clause that turns the whole exchange upward: and unto God the things which be God's. The question now hangs in the air - what bears God's image? The answer every hearer schooled in Genesis would supply is unmistakable: God made man in his own image (Gen. 1:27). If the coin stamped with Caesar's likeness owes itself to Caesar, then the human being stamped with God's likeness owes himself to God. Caesar may claim the coin; God claims the person. The leaders asked about a tax; Jesus has answered about the whole of a life. And they could not take hold of his words before the people: and they marvelled at his answer, and held their peace (v. 26).
Luke 20:27-47The God of the Living and David's Lord
27Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection; and they asked him, 28Saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any man's brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 33Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife. 34And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: 35But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: 36Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection. 37Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.
A new party steps up: certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection (v. 27). The Sadducees were the priestly aristocracy, and they held that there is no resurrection of the dead. So their question is not a genuine inquiry but a piece of mockery designed to make resurrection look absurd. They cite the law of levirate marriage - Moses wrote unto us, If any man's brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother (v. 28) - and then build a deliberately ridiculous case on it: a woman married in turn to seven brothers, each dying childless, until last of all the woman died also. Then the trap: Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife (v. 33).3 The whole riddle rests on a hidden assumption - that the life to come must simply be this life extended, with all its arrangements carried over unchanged. They cannot imagine resurrection except as more of the same, and on that assumption it does collapse into contradiction. The flaw is not in the doctrine of resurrection; it is in their cramped picture of it.
Jesus answers the trap on its own ground, and only on its own ground. He distinguishes two orders of existence: The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection (vv. 34-36). The hinge is the phrase neither can they die any more. The whole point of levirate marriage - the very law the Sadducees invoked - was to raise up offspring for a man who had died childless, so that his name and line would not be blotted out by death. But where death itself has been abolished, that entire purpose falls away; there is no longer a line to preserve against extinction, because no one dies. Jesus is answering the precise question they asked: in that world, the situation their riddle depends on simply does not arise. To be equal unto the angels here means chiefly this - deathless, no longer subject to the mortality that levirate marriage existed to remedy. He says exactly what their trap requires Him to say, and not a syllable more; He does not turn their narrow trick-question into a sweeping map of every dimension of the life to come. The text answers what was asked and leaves the rest unspoken.
Then Jesus goes on the offensive, proving the very thing the Sadducees deny - and proving it from the books of Moses, the only Scriptures they fully prized. Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him (vv. 37-38). The argument turns on a verb tense and a relationship. At the burning bush, long after the patriarchs had died, God did not say I was their God but I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. God does not call Himself the God of people who have simply ceased to exist; a covenant bond like that does not lapse at the grave. If He is still, presently, their God, then in the truest sense they still live to Him - for all live unto him. The God who bound Himself to Abraham by promise will not let Abraham fall into nothingness. The resurrection is not a strange add-on to the faith of Israel; it is woven into the very name God took at the bush. Some of the scribes, watching their rivals the Sadducees silenced, cannot help but approve: Master, thou hast well said. And after that they durst not ask him any question at all (v. 40). The interrogation is over. Now Jesus will ask.
41And he said unto them, How say they that Christ is David's son? 42And David himself saith in the book of Psalms, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, 43Till I make thine enemies thy footstool. 44David therefore calleth him Lord, how is he then his son? 45Then in the audience of all the people he said unto his disciples, 46Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts; 47Which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation.
Having silenced every faction, Jesus poses His own question, and it goes to the deepest issue of all - the identity of the Messiah. How say they that Christ is David's son? (v. 41). It was settled teaching, and true as far as it went, that the Messiah would come from David's royal line. But Jesus presses a puzzle the teachers had not reckoned with. He quotes the opening of Psalm 110, written by David himself: The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool (v. 42). The first speaker is the LORD - the divine name itself; the second, my Lord, is the one David addresses with that title of honor and is invited to sit at God's right hand. And here is the knot: David therefore calleth him Lord, how is he then his son? (v. 44). No father in that culture addressed his own descendant as my Lord; sons honored fathers, not the reverse. Yet David, the great king, calls his promised descendant his Lord. So the Messiah cannot be merely David's son, a human heir and nothing more. He is David's son according to the flesh - and at the same time David's Lord, seated at God's own right hand, greater than the father from whom He springs. Jesus does not spell out every implication; He lets the question stand, an open door for any honest hearer to walk through. The One they are looking at is more than they have imagined.
Finally, in the hearing of all the people, Jesus turns to His disciples with a warning about the very men who have spent the day trying to trap Him: Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts (vv. 45-46). The portrait is of religion bent into a tool for status. The flowing robes, the public deference, the best seats, the places of honor at banquets - every item is about being seen and esteemed. The piety has become a costume worn for applause. And then Jesus names the rot beneath the show: Which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers (v. 47). Here is the unbearable contradiction - men who pray long, conspicuous prayers and at the same time prey on the most defenseless people in society, the widows, swallowing up their homes and livelihoods. The long prayer is not just hypocrisy; it is the cover under which the devouring is done. To exploit the helpless while parading devotion to God is not a lesser sin softened by the religion attached to it; it is made graver by it: the same shall receive greater damnation. The deeper the pretense of nearness to God, the heavier the account when the show conceals cruelty.
Further study
- The Greek text of Luke 20 word by word, each term linked to its lexicon entry - useful for exousia (vv. 2, 8, the “authority” in question), for kephale gonias (v. 17, the “head of the corner”), and for apodidomi (v. 25, “render” - give back what is owed).
- Luke 20 ↔ Psalm 118 · Psalm 110 · Isaiah 5 · Acts 4 · 1 Peter 2Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Luke 20 to the rest of Scripture - the vineyard of Isaiah 5 behind the parable (vv. 9-16), the rejected stone of Psalm 118:22 (v. 17) taken up by the apostles in Acts 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:7, and David's Lord of Psalm 110:1 (v. 42) read as a question about the Messiah's identity.
- Luke 20 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Luke 20 - the counter-question about John's baptism (vv. 3-8), the legal and economic background of the vineyard parable (vv. 9-16), the Roman denarius and its imperial image (vv. 24-25), and the levirate-marriage law behind the Sadducees' riddle (vv. 28-33).
Where this echoes in Scripture
By What Authority Doest Thou These Things?
- Luke 4:36What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.The authority questioned in verse 2 - already on display, and already remarked upon, chapters earlier.
- Matthew 28:18All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.The risen Christ stating openly the authority the leaders would not name (vv. 2, 8).
- John 5:26-27hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.The source of the authority in question - given to the Son by the Father.
- Luke 7:29-30the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.Why the leaders could not answer about John (vv. 4-7) - they had already rejected his baptism.
- John 1:25Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?The same authorities, earlier, interrogating John about <em>his</em> authority - the question of verse 4.
The Stone Which the Builders Rejected
- Isaiah 5:1-7My wellbeloved hath a vineyard... he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.The song of the vineyard behind the whole parable (vv. 9-16) - Israel as the LORD’s vineyard, planted and tended.
- Psalm 118:22-23The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the LORD’s doing.The Scripture Jesus quotes in verse 17 - rejection reversed into chief place.
- Acts 4:11-12This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.Peter, before this same council, naming the rejected stone of verse 17 as the risen Christ.
- 1 Peter 2:6-8the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner... a stone of stumbling.The cornerstone of verses 17-18 - foundation to some, stumbling-stone to others.
- Hebrews 13:12Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.The son <em>cast out of the vineyard</em> and killed (v. 15) - Christ led outside the city to die.
Render Unto Caesar, and Unto God
- Genesis 1:27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.The unstated answer to <em>whose image?</em> (v. 24) - the human being bears God’s image and so owes itself to God.
- Romans 13:7Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due... honour to whom honour.The first half of verse 25 worked out - the legitimate claims of earthly authority, paid as owed.
- Romans 12:1present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.The second half of verse 25 made personal - rendering to God the self that bears His image.
- 1 Corinthians 6:19-20ye are not your own... ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.Why we owe God ourselves (v. 25) - we are not our own to keep.
- Colossians 1:15Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.The image of God in person - the One in whom the marred image (Gen. 1:27, behind v. 24) is restored.
The God of the Living and David’s Lord
- Exodus 3:6I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.The word at the bush Jesus reasons from in verses 37-38 - God still, presently, the God of the patriarchs.
- Psalm 110:1The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.The verse Jesus quotes in verses 42-43 - David calling the Messiah his Lord.
- Acts 2:34-35The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool.Peter at Pentecost applying the same psalm (vv. 42-44) to the risen, exalted Christ.
- John 11:25-26I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.The God of the living (v. 38) named in person - the resurrection embodied.
- Hebrews 1:13To which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?The lordship of Psalm 110 (vv. 42-44) belonging to the Son alone, not to any angel.