DIVINE JUSTICE: Work for your salvation

Read­ing Time: 4 minutes

Matthew 20:1–16

¹For the king­dom of heav­en is like a landown­er who went out early in the morn­ing to hire labour­ers for his vine­yard. ²Now when he had agreed with the labour­ers for a den­ari­us a day, he sent them into his vine­yard. ³And he went out about the third hour and saw oth­ers stand­ing idle in the mar­ket­place, ⁴and said to them, you also go into the vine­yard, and whatever is right I will give you. So they went. ⁵Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did like­wise. ⁶And about the elev­enth hour he went out and found oth­ers stand­ing idle, and said to them, why have you been stand­ing here idle all day? ⁷They said to him, because no one hired us. He said to them, you also go into the vine­yard, and whatever is right you will receive.

⁸So when even­ing had come, the own­er of the vine­yard said to his stew­ard, call the labour­ers and give them their wages, begin­ning with the last to the first. ⁹And when those came who were hired about the elev­enth hour, they each received a den­ari­us. ¹⁰But when the first came, they sup­posed that they would receive more, and they like­wise received each a den­ari­us. ¹¹And when they had received it, they com­plained against the landown­er, ¹²say­ing, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the bur­den and the heat of the day.’ ¹³But he answered one of them and said, friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a den­ari­us? ¹⁴Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. ¹⁵Is it not law­ful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good? ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.

Good Eye and Evil Eye

The aim here is not to go into the spe­cif­ics of the con­cepts of “good” and “evil.” In Mat­thew 20:15 Jesus asked the first group of labour­ers who mur­mured because the last group received the same pay with them: “Is it not law­ful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?” Besides the cla­ri­fic­a­tion that the Mas­ter was free to do what he wished with his riches, observe the link between the “eye”, “evil”, and “the good” in the inter­rog­a­tion: “…is your eye evil because I am good?”

In scrip­tur­al and Heb­ra­ic usages, the terms “good eye” (Greek: oph­thal­mos hap­los) and “evil/bad eye” (Greek: oph­thal­mos pon­er­os) are fig­ur­at­ive expres­sions for a per­son’s inner mor­al dis­pos­i­tion toward oth­ers. Any fur­ther clarification?

An “evil eye”, which alludes to greed and envy, sig­ni­fies stingi­ness, selfish­ness, and resent­ment (cf. Prov 23:6; Matt 6:22–23; Matt 20:15). It depicts a per­son who begrudges the suc­cess or for­tune of oth­ers, hoards wealth, or refuses to assist the needy. On the oth­er hand, a “good eye”, which refers to gen­er­ous­ity and kind­ness, denotes a gen­er­ous and open-handed atti­tude. In Pro­verbs 22:9, we read that a per­son who has a gen­er­ous eye will be blessed because such a per­son gives his or her bread to the poor. This is altruism. 

Hence, when Jesus asked the work­ers who com­plained, “…is your eye evil because I am good?” He was actu­ally ask­ing them, “Why are you against his gen­er­ous­ity towards their fel­low work­ers?” Jesus did not wrong them because he paid them the amount they agreed on. 

Cooperation with Divine Grace

“The God who cre­ated you without you will not save/justify you without you” (Qui fecit te sine te, non te sal­vat sine te/non te ius­ti­ficat sine te). This pop­u­lar say­ing is usu­ally attrib­uted to Augustine of Hippo ((Ser­mon 169:11,13). What is the mean­ing? Usu­ally we expect res­ults from people. But what God expects from us is not a res­ult but rather effort and good effort alone.

In the par­able above, the mas­ter inten­tion­ally went out in the morn­ing to search for labour­eres to work in his vine­yard. He found some and employed them after agree­ing with them on the amount to pay them. The mas­ter went out at oth­er times, includ­ing when it remained only one hour before the close of the day’s work. What Jesus con­sidered for pay­ing them the same amount he paid those who had been work­ing since morn­ing was their effort. About the elev­enth hour (5 pm), the mas­ter went out, found some labour­ers stand­ing idle, and said to them, “Why have you been stand­ing here idle all day?” The labour­ers told him they were stand­ing idle “because no one hired us.” Then Jesus asked them to go and work in his vine­yard and prom­ised to give them “whatever is right.”

The mas­ter said to the group he found stand­ing idle by 5 pm, “Go into the vine­yard, and whatever is right you will receive.” When it was time for pay­ment, the mas­ter paid this last group the same amount he paid those who have been work­ing since morn­ing. Those people were will­ing to work. Unfor­tu­nately, no one employed them. The mas­ter gave them whatever is right because of their effort. They did not sit at home pray­ing alone. They prayed and stood where they could be employed. That is the mean­ing of the say­ing that, “The God who cre­ated you without you will not save you without you.” It means you must cooper­ate with God’s grace. The work­ers employed in the morn­ing showed their cooper­a­tion with divine grace by stand­ing where they would be employed. Those employed by five o’c­lock in the even­ing also cooper­ated and strongly believed in God to the extent they remained and hoped even when it was late. Sal­va­tion is neither auto­mat­ic nor free. You must earn your sal­va­tion through your good work. 

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