Jesus Exposes the Hypocrisy Of The Religious Leaders By The Parable Of The Two Sons (21:28-32).
Jesus now follows up His challenge concerning the source of John's authority, in order to face the religious leaders more emphatically with their failure to respond to God's message through John. He points out that John had brought them truth, but that they had failed to respond to that truth, and were even now failing to do so. In contrast some of those whom religiously they most despised, the public servants and the prostitutes, had responded to John, and had repented and believed, and had thus gone into the Kingly Rule of Heaven before them.
That being so the religious leaders were like a son who pretended to his father that he would do what he wanted, but in fact failed to do so. While the public servants and prostitutes who had previously been disobedient, had now become obedient sons. They were like a son who at first had been rather rude to his father, but had in the end fallen in line with his wishes. (We can compare with this parable, the parable of the loving father and his two sons in Luke 15:11-32 which illustrated a similar point).
Analysis.
a “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard'.” (Matthew 21:28).
b “And he answered and said, “I will not”, but afterward he changed his mind, and went” (Matthew 21:29).
c “And he came to the second, and said the same. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir', and went not” (Matthew 21:30).
d “Which of the two did the will of his father?”
e They say, “The first.”
d Jesus says to them, “Truly I say to you, that the public servants and the prostitutes go into the Kingly Rule of God before you” (Matthew 21:31).
c “For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him” (Matthew 21:32 a).
b “But the public servants and the prostitutes believed him (Matthew 21:32 b).
a “And you, when you saw it, did not even repent yourselves afterwards, that you might believe him” (Matthew 21:32 c).
Note that in ‘a' the son was told to go and work in his father's vineyard, and in the parallel the religious leaders, who would have claimed to be like the obedient son, refused to go. In ‘b' the disobedient son repented and obeyed his father, and in the parallel the public servants and prostitutes had believed and entered the way of righteousness. In ‘c' the one who said that he would go and did not go is described, and in the parallel the religious leaders had not believed John when he called them into the way of righteousness. In ‘d' Jesus asks which of the two sons did the will of his father, and in the parallel He explains that public servants and prostitutes have done exactly that. Centrally in ‘e' they acknowledge that it was the one who was actually obedient who did the will of his father, not the one who had merely said he would.