“For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into His vineyard. And when He had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, He sent them into His vineyard. And He went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said undo them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again He went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour He went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto Him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.” Matt. 20:1 -7.
How can we know for a certainty in which hour we find ourselves, and if our own call to service has come? We can know only by establishing the time in which the last parabolic hour expires. And to do this we must first establish the time of the first call for servants, then in turn the time of each successive call, culminating with the last. First, though, pursuant to this end, we must bring into focus the parable’s significant points:
(1) The “Householder,” as every Bible student knows, is the Lord Himself. (2) The Laborers are His servants. (3) The penny is their reward. (4) His vineyard is the place where they are to labor. (5) The day is parabolical — representing a period of time which is illuminated by some great light. (6) The period of labor is both preceded
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and succeeded by a night — else there could be no “early” and no “late” part of the day. (7) The Householder hires laborers at five different times. (8) There are four three-hour periods. (9) In each of the first three periods, only one group is hired. (10) In the fourth and last period of three hours, two groups are hired. (11) The agreement for a penny a day is made only with the first group. (12) The other groups are to receive “whatsoever is right.” (13) At the day’s end all are given the same pay — a penny, even through the last worked only an hour. (14) The first were paid last; the last, first.
Now to find out in which hour we are told, “Go ye also,” we must here at the outset of this go-to-work study, determine where in time the parable begins and where it ends. To gain this vital knowledge is simply to reckon with the sequentially amplifying facts that the parabolical night which preceded the parabolical day must necessarily be the period before the spiritual “Light of the world,” the Bible, came up — before the light of the Scriptures, the written Word of God, began to shine forth into the hearts of men. For back there, it must be remembered, the will of God was transmitted, not by the Bible, but orally from father to son, just as the light of the sun at night is transmitted to the earth by the moon, rather than directly by the sun itself. For this reason it has come to be regarded as the time of oral tradition.
But the day of labor obviously represents the period in which “the Light of the world,” the Bible Itself, lightens man’s path. Thus it is that in His parable, the Master, the Lord of the vineyard, regards the Old and New Testament dispensations as the only day period of all probationary time, in which He goes to the market-place at
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five consecutive times to hire servants to work in His vineyard.
Finally, the night following the day can only represent the period after the gospel work is finished, after probation for man’s salvation is closed. Then, as the “Light of the world” (the Word of God) sinks beyond the horizon of the day, darkness covers “the earth, and gross darkness the people.” Isa. 60:2. It is the time which finds the destiny of every being forever fixed. Then follows the Lord’s irrevocable finality:
“He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” Rev. 22:1 1.
It is the time when men “shall run to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord, and shall not find It” (Amos 8:12); the time when the unmindful of the Master’s call, and the impenitent of sin realize and cry out in frenzied and agonized despair: “The harvest is past, and the summer is ended, and we are not saved”! Jer. 8:20.
The truth is now become clear that the parable divides the time of salvation into two equal parts of twelve symbolical hours each — the period before the Bible (the night), and the period during the Bible (the day). Lending additional force to the fact that the parable thus divides time, Jesus declares:
“Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the Light of this world.” John 11:9.
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Proceeding now, we come to another point of special significance: the first four groups were hired at consecutive intervals three parabolical hours apart; whereas the fifth, the last group, the one hired at the eleventh hour, came only two, instead of three, hours later than the fourth group, and thus only one parabolical hour before the day’s end — shortly before probation closes.
This two-hour period, from the ninth hour to the eleventh hour, is a singularity which comes as a climactic exception to the master pattern of sequential and regular three-hour intervals between calls. It obviously reveals that the last call comes unexpectedly and surprisingly within the period of the ninth-hour group. Hence there are only two parabolical hours for the one group, and only one parabolical hour for the other group.
To determine the identity of the laborers participating in each of the five different calls, we necessarily begin our quest with THE SERVANTS OF THE FIRST CALL:
We have already seen that it is the Bible, the spiritual “Light of the world,” that makes the parabolical day. We all know, moreover, that the Bible arrived with the Exodus movement also the since the arrival, the Lord never bargained, as it were with another people, and that they were the only ones to whom He ever committed the ceremonial covenants and all their rewards and promises. Inescapably, therefore, the first group of the parable, those who went to labor “early in the morning,” at the rising of the spiritual light, the Bible, and with whom the bargain was made to receive a penny a day, were ancient Israel as they were going out of Egypt, the time of which
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was early in the parabolical day. In concord the Spirit of Prophecy declares:
“The Jews had been first called into the Lord’s vineyard….” -Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 400.
At that early hour, as God began to indite the Scriptures (as the Light that lightens the hearts of men began to rise), “He…remembered His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations. Which covenant He made with Abraham, and His oath unto Isaac, and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant.” Ps. 105:8-10.
Having thus by the first call for servants solidly established the time in which the parabolical go-to-work calls started, we are now to ascertain the call-time and work-period of THE SERVANTS OF THE SECOND CALL:
The second group, those sent at the third parabolical hour, must necessarily be the ones who were called to the work next. And they were, of course, the early Christians. Significantly enough, too, the Lord was crucified at the third hour of the day (Mark 15:25), and likewise Pentecost came at the third hour of the day (Acts 2:15).
Another point of significance of which we should take note is the fact that the messages borne by these first two groups, by ancient Israel and by the early Christians, were not of a reformatory nature; they were not old, forgotten truths in process of revival and restoration; rather each was a new revelation, “meat in due season” — present Truth especially adapted fully to meet the needs of the people in their respective times. The former group
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were inspired and commissioned to teach and practice the truths of salvation as embodied in the ceremonial system, the latter group were inspired and commissioned to teach and practice the same immutable truths in their advanced light-advanced from typical to antitypical representation, from the ministration in the earthly tabernacle to the ministration in the heavenly one; that is, from the sacrifice of a lamb of the flock to the sacrifice of Christ Himself, the Lamb of God. Thus the latter group taught the old truths in a new and original light, in the light of the gospel — that Christ was crucified for the remission of sin, resurrected in triumph over sin and death, and ascended to make atonement and reconciliation for the penitent sinner, not in an earthly, but in an heavenly, tabernacle.
Since the messages of the first two groups (the one carried by the Exodus Movement, and the other carried by the Christians) were each in their respective times fresh from glory, that fact logically establishes itself as Divine precedent and pattern for all the messages of the parable. Accordingly, each of the three remaining groups must likewise be entrusted with a message of new and distinctive revelation, of “meat in due season” — truth adapted especially and fully to meet the needs of God’s people at the time then present. Therefore we need only to trace down through the annals of church history the unfolding of the scroll, till we come upon a newly and originally revealed and proclaimed truth subsequent to the message of the first advent of Christ It must point out THE SERVANTS OF THE THIRD CALL:
The Protestant Reformation, being purely an endeavor to restore old, down-trodden truths, and not to reveal new, advanced ones, had no new message of its own – nothing
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that had not already been taught in times past. It therefore follows that the third group and message must be sought during the years following the Reformation.
The only revelation of new prophetic truth, subsequent to the Reformation, is the announcement of the year in which was to begin the work of cleansing the sanctuary, primarily in behalf of the dead (based on Daniel 8:14, but not then fully understood). As its announcement was made by the First-day Adventists, it necessarily follows that they were the third group of servants with a new and distinctive message. And as is well known, they started proclaiming it in the year 1833, announcing that the cleansing of the sanctuary was to commence in the year 1844. Thus in 1833 the clock of parabolic time struck the hour of six.”
…to be continued
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