Repentance, in the Weaker Sense, in the Parable of the Two Sons

As the parable of the two sons in Matthew 21:28-32 shows, repentance is merely changing our minds so that we start to do what the Father asks. Repentance does not require remorse, payment of a penalty, or even in all cases a spoken apology, and the forgiveness that it produces cannot be sold.

The verb metamelomai is used twice in Jesus’ parable of the two sons in Matthew 21:28-32, first in verse 29, and then in verse 32. As noted in a previous posting, this verb is weaker than the verb (metanoiō) used by John the Baptist in Matthew 3 and Luke 3, and by Jesus in preaching to the crowds. The KJV and ASV render metamelomai in both of these verses as “repented” or “repented himself,” but most modern translations render the two instances as different words, in much the same way as does the WEB:

But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’ He answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind [metamelētheis], and went. He came to the second, and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he didn’t go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Most certainly I tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into the Kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you didn’t believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. When you saw it, you didn’t even repent [metamelēthēte] afterward, that you might believe him.

Matthew 21:28-32

However, it is noteworthy that, even though Jesus used this weaker verb in this parable, the result of the first son changing his mind in verse 29 was that he actually went into the vineyard and did as his father had asked. Contrary to common religious thinking, his repentance did NOT involve any tearful admission of his guilt or other showing of remorse, nor did it involve absolution or the payment of any penalty. Instead, it was shown only by his actions–he did what his father had asked him to do. This observation is particularly relevant given the context of the parable—Jesus’ answer to a challenge to his own authority.

Earlier in Matthew 21, Jesus had cast the money changers out of the Temple, and had in the process very provocatively quoted Jeremiah 7:11, accusing the Jewish leadership of converting God’s house of prayer into a den of robbers. Matt. 21:12-13. What the priests and their friends were selling, in an often fraudulent and extortionate manner, was precisely the hope of forgiveness of worshippers’ sins and and of a right relationship with God. After he cast out the fraudulent vendors selling “acceptable” offerings at an inflated price, Jesus left the Temple, returning to it the next day. When he returned to the Temple courts and began teaching there, the chief priests and elders came to him demanding to know:

By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority?

Matthew 21:23

They wanted to know who had authorized him to condemn the extortionate profits they gained from the business of selling God’s forgiveness. Jesus’ answer to this question started with a question: who gave John the Baptist his authority to baptize? Did God or men authorize him to do this? Matt. 21:24. Recall that John offered forgiveness, free of charge, to anyone who repented of their way of life and announced it by being baptized–so the leaders’ argument with John was really the same argument that they had with Jesus about whether they should profit from the sale of forgiveness. The Jewish leaders, of course, understood that if they admitted that God sent John, they would also have to admit that God sent Jesus. But they considered it politically unwise to say—in front of a crowd that had believed John’s message, and, in fact, still believed he was a true prophet—that John was only a self-appointed crackpot (which is what the leaders really believed). So they refused to answer Jesus’ question. Matt. 21:25-27.

It is at this point that Jesus told the parable of the two sons, to bring into clear focus the full implications of the leaders’ attitude. Jesus’ invited his hearers—both the leaders who had come to challenge him and the crowd—to compare themselves to the two sons. The first son was a picture of gross sinners, the kind of people the Jewish leaders rejected, who had believed the preaching of John and changed their lives. These people, like the first son, had at first refused to do what the Father asked, but later changed their minds and did it. The second son is a picture of the religious leaders, who publicly professed their willingness to do what God asked, but then failed to do it. Indeed, even when John came, they did not repent (like the tax collectors and prostitutes did) and believe his message. Therefore, Jesus said that the tax collectors and prostitutes, who listened to God when He spoke through John, would enter into the kingdom of God—where God is king—ahead of them. In this parable, Jesus’ answer to the religious leaders’ question regarding the source of his authority was that the leaders themselves had rejected God’s authority. It was the repentant tax collectors and prostitutes, rather than the unrepentant religious leaders, who ultimately did as God asked them to.

Jesus amplifies this point with his next parable, the parable of the wicked tenants (Matt. 21:33-41) who refused to pay the landowner his share of the harvest and then killed his son to keep it from him, implicitly comparing the leaderrs to the wicked tenants–and then making them admit that, in their own words, that when the landowner returned, he would “put those wretched tenants to a wretched end.” Then, and only then, Jesus answers the leaders’ question about his authority directly with a quotation from Psalm 118:22-23 (Matt. 21:42) which, as applied to Jesus, asserted that God had made him the capstone (and, thus, had given him authority to do what he was doing). Jesus then concluded:

Therefore I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and will be given to a nation producing its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it will fall, it will scatter him as dust.

Matthew 21:43-44 (WEB)

Thus, in Matthew 21, even metamelomai, the weaker verb rendered repent (or change one’s mind), is clearly associated with actions—doing what the Father asks—and therefore also with producing fruit.

NEXT: Unrepentance and the Judgment Spoken against Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum in Matthew 11:20-24.