We must not lose sight of the fact that in this parable both the persons who were addressed were sons.And this is exactly our position. In a sense in a high and true sense we are all God's children, not by creation only, but by baptism, and we cannot escape. The weight of life lies upon the fact of our being God's children.
I. Three points lie on the surface of this subject. (1) The argument of the Father's appeal lay upon the sonship. (2) A call to grace is a call to work. (3) There is the instantaneousness of obedience; that which at once makes the essence of a duty, the ease of a duty, and the possibility of a duty. "Go work today in my vineyard."
II. Notice the first reception: "He answered and said, I will not; but afterward he repented, and went." He stands out to us, then: a man thoroughly honest, but opposed; strong in character, resolute in will; his nature hostile to God's will; but presently, grace working in his mind, and his mind working with the grace, he is abashed and ashamed; rightly perceiving, he follows quickly on juster views; and he repented, and went. Why had not this man, this son, the will to work in his father's vineyard? (1) He did not really love, or know his father. (2) He liked the imaginary independence which he felt in being his own master outside. (3) The labour which he knew would be inside contrasted unpleasantly in his mind with the play and gaiety of the outer life which he was now leading. (4) The urgency of the demand little suited his desultory and procrastinating mind.
III. Whether in the interval between the "I will not" and the "he repented, and went," there were any particular influences which were brought to bear strongly on his mind, we are not told. (1) No doubt his father's wish was still echoing in his heart. (2) The vineyard would stand to him every day in a happier aspect. A higher ambition began to fill his mind. (3) Above all, his sentiments towards his father changed. He saw him as he was his friend, the best of friends, the one who loved him as no other had loved, or could love, him. Nearness to his father became the one object of his life, and so his changed feelings reversed his steps; the door of the vineyard was open to him yet; and the young man "repented, and went."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,4th series, p. 46.
Reference: Matthew 21:28-31. J. Thain Davidson, ForewarnedForearmed,p. 121.