Fourth Sunday after Trinity — Year C — exegesis on the Gospel, Luke 10:25-37

The Fourth Sunday after Trinity is on July 10, 2022.

Readings for Year C can be found here.

The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):

Luke 10:25-37

10:25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

10:26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

10:27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

10:28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

10:29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

10:30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

10:31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

10:32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

10:33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

10:34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

10:35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

10:36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

10:37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan follows on from last week’s reading whereby Jesus sent the 70 disciples out to evangelise and perform miracles in order to save people’s souls. My exegesis, with quotes from our commentators, is a long read but is necessary background for evangelising in a biblical manner.

Before going into today’s reading, it is important to understand that everyone in our Lord’s era believed in eternal life.

John MacArthur looks at the Jewish preoccupation with eternal life. They had it right because they knew the Old Testament:

They knew the reality of the condition of their hearts.  They had painted themselves white on the surface.  But that nagging question was there because they knew they weren’t right with God, because they knew they weren’t in control of their lives.  They knew they couldn’t live righteously on the inside.  There was the fear that they were going to miss that eternal life.  And the fact that they came and asked the question points up how this question existed and it was everywhere.

They believed in eternal life.  They wanted to be there.  And when Jesus started preaching, what did He preach about?  “For God so loves the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life,” everlasting life.  His message was about eternal life all through the preaching of Jesus.  I…I’m amazed how many, many times He talked about eternal life. At least fifty times eternal life is referred to in the New Testament … The Jews looked at the Scripture and they searched.  Why?  They wanted to find the way to eternal life.  That’s what they were looking for.

You know, they were a lot further ahead of many evangelicals today, at least on the surface.  At least they knew that the issue was eternal life, not a better life here … 

Also:

The promise of the Old Testament was that God would send His Anointed who would establish an eternal kingdom. The Jews anticipated that eternal kingdom where God would rule through His anointed Messiah, where righteousness would prevail and peace, where all that was ever promised to Abraham and to David and all that was promised in the New Covenant to Jeremiah and Ezekiel would come to fruition and fulfillment. There would be a realm of perfect righteousness, perfect joy, perfect peace, perfect fulfillment, perfect satisfaction, perfect relationships. They wanted to be there. Their preoccupation was with eternal life. And by that, they were referring to the next world, the next life, God’s eternal kingdom of heaven, not the current world and not the current life.

This question was so much on their minds that it surfaces numerous times in Jesus’ encounters in His ministry. As I pointed out last time, there are several such incidents recorded in the New Testament. Each gospel refers to it; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Different occasions when people came and essentially asked the same question: What do we do to receive eternal life? What do we do to make sure that we do the works that are going to bring us into Your eternal kingdom? They had that forward look. They had that perspective about the life to come and thus they asked the most critical question.

The pagan Gentiles also believed in eternal life.

MacArthur tells us:

All the Greeks were believers in eternal life.  All the Romans were believers in eternal life.

Atheism, he says, is a relatively recent invention:

All that other materialism, humanism and atheism is a modern invention of man and it’s not a rational invention.  It didn’t come out of his understanding of the universe, it is a moral invention, or if you like, an immoral invention. 

Now on to today’s reading.

While Jesus was preaching, a lawyer stood up to test Him, asking what must he do to inherit eternal life (verse 25).

Jewish lawyers were theological, not civil, lawyers. Any lawyer then judged a case through theology. There was no civil Jewish law. It was all religious, based not only on Scripture but also on their own traditions.

Jewish lawyers were the scribes mentioned in the New Testament. The Pharisees liked the scribes to come to hear Jesus teach so that they could come up with legalistic ways of trapping Him. Jesus won the debates every time.

Our commentators differ as to whether this scribe — lawyer — had good intentions. MacArthur says he did, but Matthew Henry says that he did not, even if he asked the right question. That is probably because Luke says that the man tested Jesus:

A question to this purport was proposed to our Saviour by a certain lawyer, or scribe, only with a design to try him, not with a desire to be instructed by him, v. 25 … This was a good question: What shall I do to inherit eternal life? But it lost all its goodness when it was proposed with an ill design, or a very mean one. Note, It is not enough to speak of the things of God, and to enquire about them, but we must do it with a suitable concern. If we speak of eternal life, and the way to it, in a careless manner, merely as matter of discourse, especially as matter of dispute, we do but take the name of God in vain, as the lawyer here did.

MacArthur sets out our Lord’s model for evangelisation, setting it against what many churches mistakenly do today:

I reminded you last week that Jesus doesn’t promise you health, wealth, prosperity, a better career, a perfect marriage, a great family, freedom from problems, not at all. Those are not guarantees in the gospel. Those are not attendant blessings to salvation. The ability to endure difficulty is in salvation. The ability to see God work good out of the bad things that come in life is part of the guarantee but there is no guarantee that you’re going to be free from pain and suffering and trouble, etc. That’s not what salvation is designed to do. Salvation is about the next life, not this life. And so, if you’re going to evangelize somebody, instead of focusing on this life you have to get them to the next life. Instead of saying, “We’re here with our gospel to make your marriage better, or your family better, or your life better,” or whatever, we’re here to talk about the next life, forget this life. It’s eternity that you need to deal with. And we went into detail last time on how the Bible indicates that all people are going to live forever, either in heaven or in hell. And the first task of every evangelist, of every witness, of every Christian who goes out to present the gospel is to show someone that what matters is the next life because it is forever and it is either forever in the bliss of heaven or in the horrors of conscious punishment away from God in hell. The message of the gospel is about eternal life, life in the next world …

The man in the story, the scribe, the lawyer, he comes, he asks the right question. And here we are living in our culture. People aren’t asking the right question. Instead of cultivating their minds in the direction of the right question, we reinvent Christianity as some kind of a message to change your current circumstances. That is not what it is. We’ve got to get back to the fact that our message is a message of deliverance from eternal damnation and punishment in hell into eternal life. And so, we started last time with the recognition of eternal life.

We come to the second point.  After there’s a recognition of eternal life, there needs to be a motivation for eternal life.  If the person will come to the place where they recognize that the gospel is not about here and now, it’s about then and there, it’s about eternity, not time, if we can get them to understand that they’re going to live forever, that there are two places where they will possibly live, either heaven or hell, then we move to the motivation.  And obviously as we come to the text now, this particular man was motivated for eternal life.

How do you get somebody motivated for eternal life?  The only thing you can do is explain the joys of heaven and the horrors of hell.  You explain to them that everybody is immortal. Everybody lives forever in one of those two places.  Take the time to lay that out.  Don’t give the gospel on the basis…do you have trouble in your life, do you have pain, do you feel bad about things?  Let Jesus fix you up.  That is superficial and maybe not even saving.  That isn’t the issue because as soon as you start talking about heaven and hell, you have to inject into the discussion sin because somebody is going to say, “Well, I’m not going to hell, am I?”  And then you’re into the issue aren’t you?  You’re into the issue of sin, why you’re going to hell and why God justly condemned you to hell because of your violation of His Law and what you did and what you said, what you thought and what you are.  That is where you start effective evangelism.  You get their attention off this world onto the next.

And if you present the joys of heaven, the glories of heaven, the horrors of hell, the reality of sin, the desperate need for forgiveness, the provision of God in Christ to provide that forgiveness and to deliver the sinner from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son, you’ve now at least put them in a position to be motivated toward eternal life.

This lawyer that came to Jesus must have known that there was some place that he definitely wanted to be, and that was in the kingdom of God.  He wanted eternal life.  He did not want what Daniel 12:2 said. He did not want a resurrection that would bring him to eternal disgrace and contempt and shame.  He wanted eternal life.  He had the motivation for eternal life.  That is the first necessary attitude in bringing a person to Christ.  You’ve got to get them away from wanting something in this world to desperately wanting eternal life in the world to come.  That raises the stakes very highly …

MacArthur explains why he thinks the man approached Jesus honestly:

And so, this man comes whether or not on behalf of the Pharisees on or his own, we don’t know.  But since it doesn’t say the Pharisees were behind him, let’s just assume that this was an issue for him, for him.  He may have come at the behest of Pharisees to question Jesus.  He may have been in a meeting and arisen to ask the question because he was prompted or even paid to do it.  But we don’t know that.  So let’s just take it at face value and as Jesus was teaching, perhaps about the kingdom of God as that was always His subject — even after His resurrection, for forty days He spoke of things pertaining to the kingdom — this man stood up.  This is not a disrespectful interruption because it says that he stood up and addressed Jesus as teacher, didaskale, very respectful, very appropriate, something that would normally be done in a teaching context.

But that interesting phrase between those two indications is he stood up and put Him to the test.  This doesn’t necessarily ascribe to this man some evil intent, nor does it sort of open the veil a little bit on a plot.  It’s just really a test as any question is a test when you want to know the answer.  You’re testing the person’s knowledge and ability to give you the answer.  This word can be used for a temptation as it is in Luke 4:12 when it says Satan put Jesus to the test, same Greek word.  But it doesn’t necessarily have to be a temptation.  It’s just an effort to find out if Jesus knows the answer.

You say, “Well how would he know if Jesus knew the answer?”  Because he knew the answer.  And he was just going to find out if Jesus knew the right answer to the question.  And maybe he wanted to sort of reinforce the answer that he knew to be the right answer.

The question was fair, the question was important.  The lawyer appears to be genuinely interested.  I don’t think we can read anything else into it.  We know from the fact that this question was asked so often that it was a general question on the minds of Jews under the surface and so there’s a certain level of honesty here for him to jump up and ask this question.

Whatever his motivation was is less important than what he — and we — learned from our Lord’s response.

Jesus asked the lawyer what was written in Mosaic law (verse 26).

The man answered, reciting the Scripture that comprises the daily Jewish prayer, the Shema: loving the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength and with all our mind as well as loving our neighbour as ourselves (verse 27).

MacArthur gives us the words of the Shema:

Twice every day, two times every single day, the Jew said this, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself,” twice every single day … That was part of the recitation of the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5, that most notable portion of Scripture in the book of Deuteronomy, the second law.  “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.  And these words which I’m commanding you today shall be on your heart.”  And then they added from Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” Leviticus 19:18 …

Now you come into the issues of eternal life here.  You want eternal life?  Here’s how: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”  The emphasis is so…is so strong here. “With all your” is repeated four times, four times.  What’s the point of that?  Well, the point of that is to emphasize the extremity, the perfection, the completeness of this kind of love.  “With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind,” so that nobody would think that He meant, “Well, with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength,” and somehow diminish the latter three.  No, this is a call for perfect love of all human faculties.

You want to go to God’s kingdom?  Then love Him with all your kardia, you know, the cardiac area.  That’s… To the Jew, that’s the place of thought and mind, with all the psuchē, all the fleshly part of you, all the soulish part of you, all the human part of you with your…your ischus, your will, your volition. Love Him with all your dianoia, all your intelligence, your intellect, with all your human faculties, love Him completely.  And it’s the word agapaō in the Greek, translating the old Hebrew ahab or aheb in Deuteronomy 6:5 which refers to the love of the mind, the love of the will, the love of the emotion, the love of the affection, the highest kind of love.

Jesus commended the man for giving the correct answer, adding that, if he obeys those commandments he will live (verse 28) in glory.

MacArthur explains why our Lord’s asking a question instead of giving an answer was important:

… by asking the question He does, what is written in the law, Jesus affirms His commitment to the law. And when He said, “The law,” the man knew exactly what He’s referring to and He was referring to the Mosaic Law. The first five books of the Old Testament summarized in the Ten Commandments and further summarized in the answer the man gives. This is wise in response. He shows His affirmation of God’s Word, forces the lawyer to answer his own question, and he could answer it. “What is written in the law?” Jesus said. You’re the expert. And here Jesus also affirms that what God has written is the authority. Jesus is affirming the Scripture.

Luke says that the man wanted to justify himself, to proclaim his own righteousness, by asking Jesus to identify his neighbour (verse 29) in a scriptural way.

Henry says the man didn’t want to discuss his own frailties in loving God completely, so he went on to ask who his neighbour was in order that he might gain leverage on that point:

His care to avoid the conviction which was now ready to fasten upon him. When Christ said, This do, and thou shalt live, he began to be aware that Christ intended to draw from him an acknowledgment that he had not done this, and therefore an enquiry what he should do, which way he should look, to get his sins pardoned; an acknowledgment also that he could not do this perfectly for the future by any strength of his own, and therefore an enquiry which way he might fetch in strength to enable him to do it: but he was willing to justify himself, and therefore cared not for carrying on that discourse, but saith, in effect, as another did (Matt 19 20), All these things have I kept from my youth up. Note, Many ask good questions with a design rather to justify themselves than to inform themselves, rather proudly to show what is good in them than humbly to see what is bad in them.

… This [asking about his neighbour] is another of this lawyer’s queries, which he started only that he might drop the former, lest Christ should have forced him, in the prosecution of it, to condemn himself, when he was resolved to justify himself. As to loving God, he was willing to say no more of it; but, as to his neighbour, he was sure that there he had come up to the rule, for he had always been very kind and respectful to all about him.

The Jews believed that only they were each other’s neighbours. Gentiles and half-Jews, e.g. Samaritans, were not included:

They would not put an Israelite to death for killing a Gentile, for he was not his neighbour: they indeed say that they ought not to kill a Gentile whom they were not at war with; but, if they saw a Gentile in danger of death, they thought themselves under no obligation to help to save his life. Such wicked inferences did they draw from that holy covenant of peculiarity by which God had distinguished them, and by abusing it thus they had forfeited it; God justly took the forfeiture, and transferred covenant-favours to the Gentile world, to whom they brutishly denied common favours.

MacArthur says of our Lord’s answer in the Parable of the Good Samaritan:

Immediately Jesus has turned the question on its head.  He asked, “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus turned it around and said, “Let’s talk about who is neighborly.”  Instead of talking about who qualifies to be your neighbor, let’s talk about the quality with which you love.  If you’re even asking the question, “Who qualifies for me to love?” you can’t fulfill that commandment.  It’s not about who qualifies, it’s about the character of your love.  So, Jesus has already turned this upside down and now He’s talking about the love of the individual toward someone in need, not whether the person in need qualifies to be loved.

Did this incident actually happen or is it a true parable?

Henry says it did happen:

The mentioning of those places intimates that it was matter of fact, and not a parable; probably it happened lately, just as it is here related.

MacArthur disagrees with that assessment as we will see.

Jesus said that a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was set upon by highwaymen — bandits — who robbed him and beat him until he was half dead, at which point they left him (verse 30).

A priest happened to be walking along the same road but when he saw the man, he went to the other side (verse 31).

A Levite also saw him and passed to the other side of the road (verse 32).

However, a Samaritan who was travelling saw the poor man and was moved with pity for him (verse 33).

MacArthur says:

It’s a story … The point is simple: You expect the priest, who knew the law, knew what was required to go help the man.  You would expect the priest, of all people, who made sure that all the people recited twice every day that you’re to love your neighbor as yourself, would do that which he required the rest of the people to recite, and himself also.  You would expect a priest to go and help.  Was this an indictment of the priesthood in general?

I think it would be safe to say that the priests in Israel lacked compassion wouldn’t you?  In Matthew 23 Jesus says they bind heavy burdens on people and don’t so much as lift a finger to relieve the burden.  Jesus … sort of casts the priests in Israel like wolves who come in and tear up the sheep and put heavy burdens on people. That’s why He said, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me for my yoke is easy, My burden is light.”  I think it would be safe to say that the priests were externally legalistic and hypocritical but lacked compassion.  They certainly lacked compassion toward Jesus and the apostles.  But I don’t think this is an indictment of the priesthood. This is just a story about a man you would expect to help because he knew the Law but he didn’t help. He didn’t help.

And then Jesus goes on in verse 32, “Likewise a Levite also,” a Levite because of the tribe of Levi.  The priests were from the tribe of Levi also, but anybody who was in the twenty-four courses of the priest was not just the son of Levi who was son of Jacob, but anybody who was in the priesthood was a son of Aaron.  Levites came from Levi, but not from Aaron and they were given priestly duties. They were the lowest people on the ladder, the priestly service ladder.  They were assistants to the priests, they were the temple police.  They saw to the issues of the liturgy and they aided the priests.  They had to know something about the law.  They were close.  They were intimately acquainted with the function of Judaism with the studies of the lawyers and the scribes and so forth.  And so, they should have known what the priests knew as well.

And so, at the top of the sort of religious ladder is the priest, at the bottom is the Levite. He comes to the place, he saw him, verse 32, pass by the other side.  Same verb: went the other direction, opposite direction.  And you have again an illustration of a man who had no love.

You could say that these religious … elite were the ones called in verse 21 “the wise and intelligent who didn’t know the things of God.”  But we have to say at least this, neither of these men, if they were real people, would be qualified for eternal life.  They didn’t love God, first of all, because if you love God you keep His what?  His commandments.  So they didn’t love God to start with and also, they didn’t love their neighbor because there’s one right there and they have a perfect opportunity to demonstrate it and they don’t.  So being religious, doing all the ceremonies, being Jewish, being circumcised, being a part of the whole system, being as tightly connected to the religious system as you can get, being a priest and a Levite isn’t going to get you in the kingdom of God.  And when you look at the character of these men, they don’t pass the test.  The test is to love your neighbor as yourself.  They went the other direction, wanted nothing to do with it.  This is the attitude we see in human life, human nature today even with ourselves, “I don’t want to get what? Involved.  I don’t know what they might do to me.”

Verse 34 says that the Samaritan took some of his own travelling supplies — wine and oil — to treat the man’s wounds. The alcohol in the wine was a primitive disinfectant. The oil served as a soothing balm, such as it was in that era. Then he put the man on his beast of burden — leaving the Samaritan to walk alongside — and took him to an inn where he cared for him throughout the night.

Henry says:

See how friendly this good Samaritan was. First, He went to the poor man, whom the priest and Levite kept at a distance from; he enquired, no doubt, how he came into this deplorable condition, and condoled with him. Secondly, He did the surgeon’s part, for want of a better. He bound up his wounds, making use of his own linen, it is likely, for that purpose; and poured in oil and wine, which perhaps he had with him; wine to wash the wound, and oil to mollify it, and close it up. He did all he could to ease the pain, and prevent the peril, of his wounds, as one whose heart bled with him. Thirdly, He set him on his own beast, and went on foot himself, and brought him to an inn. A great mercy it is to have inns upon the road, where we may be furnished for our money with all the conveniences for food and rest. Perhaps the Samaritan, if he had not met with this hindrance, would have got that night to his journey’s end; but, in compassion to that poor man, he takes up short at an inn. Some think that the priest and Levite pretended they could not stay to help the poor man, because they were in haste to go and attend the temple-service at Jerusalem. We suppose the Samaritan went upon business; but he understood that both his own business and God’s sacrifice too must give place to such an act of mercy as this. Fourthly, He took care of him in the inn, got him to bed, had food for him that was proper, and due attendance, and, it may be, prayed with him.

The next day, the Samaritan paid the innkeeper two denarii and asked him to take care of the man, saying that he (the Samaritan) would pay the balance upon his return (verse 35).

MacArthur explains the import of this gesture:

Now he has now exposed himself to serious extortion.  He’s left an open account.  And he’s saying, “I’m going to where I need to go, and you spend whatever you need to spend, give him whatever he needs for a full recovery.  And when I come back, I’ll pay you for that.”

Now what comes across in this?  Generosity, would you say?  More than generosity?  This is sort of over the top, would you say?  You say, “Well, I saw a stranger one time in need and I gave him five bucks.”  Think that deserves applause?  Did you ever see a stranger in need, somebody you didn’t know, better yet somebody who was your arch-enemy and you went over, ministered to all his needs, gave him everything he needed, stayed with him, took him somewhere, put him to bed, fed him, stayed all night to make sure that he was recovering appropriately, then paid for his care for up to two months and said if it’s more than this, when I come back I’ll give you all the rest?  Have you ever done that for anybody?

I’ll tell you, there’s somebody you’ve done that for and it’s you.  That’s how we care for ourselves, isn’t it?  Give me whatever I need.  Whatever I need, get me to the best doctor; get me to the best place. Get me the best care I can get.  Take care of me as long as I need it.  We buy insurance policies, we get in HMOs. We do whatever we need to assure ourselves the best care.  This is over the top for a stranger, over the top for an enemy.  You might somewhere get close to this with a friend or a family member because you love them in the family.  But we’re not talking about family; we’re talking about somebody outside of that.  This is just not done.

Jesus then asked the scribe who was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers (verse 36).

MacArthur interprets the verse as follows:

Forget who is your neighbor and let’s talk about who’s neighborly. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber’s hands?  You’ve been following Me through the story, who was the neighbor?

The lawyer answered that the Samaritan, the one who showed the man mercy, was the true neighbour. Jesus told the lawyer, ‘Go and do likewise’ (verse 37).

Henry concludes:

This lawyer valued himself much upon his learning and his knowledge of the laws, and in that he thought to have puzzled Christ himself; but Christ sends him to school to a Samaritan, to learn his duty: “Go, and do like him.”

MacArthur has more and, no, none of us will ever be able to consistently love a stranger the way the Samaritan did. This is why we require God’s mercy and forgiveness. This is why Jesus died for our sins:

If this is what it requires for me to get in heaven, I’m not getting there.  I not only couldn’t earn my salvation by loving like that, even as a Christian in whom the love of Christ has been shed abroad, who has a capacity to love like an unconverted person doesn’t have, I still don’t love like this.  So we were saved by grace and we are kept by grace, are we not?  The Lord not only forgave me for my lack of love toward God and love toward others when He saved me, He continues to forgive me for my lack of perfect love toward God and others, which is a part of my fallen life.  I’ll never be able to love God perfectly until I’m in His presence and I’ll never be able to love others perfectly until I’m in His presence either and then they won’t have any needs.  So it will be a different kind of expression of love.

See, what Jesus was doing here with this man was driving the same sword right back into his heart to convict him of his total inability to deserve the kingdom of God and eternal life on his own.  If he thought his Jewishness, his circumcision, his law-keeping, his sacrificing, and all of that was enough, Jesus ended that by his own admission that it was: loving God and loving others.  If he thought he qualified there, then he’s going to have to say that I’ve always loved everyone in my path the way the Good Samaritan loved that man with that same kind of limitless, open-ended, lavish, generous, sacrificial care and he knew as we all know we don’t love like that.

By the way, that’s how God loves us.  This is not an allegory about that.  But that is how God loves us.  And there stood Jesus before him, ready to offer him mercy, ready to offer him grace, ready to offer him forgiveness if he only would repent and admit what he knew was true.  But as we move through the life of Christ toward the cross, the hearts get harder and harder and harder.

The end of the story, the end of the encounter is Jesus saying, “Go and do the same.”  Did he?  No.  Could he?  No.  Would he repent?  Apparently not.  Will he inherit the kingdom of God?  Of course not.  Who will?  Those who repent of their lack of love toward God and others, cry out for mercy and forgiveness from the Christ who has paid the penalty for that forgiveness through His death on the cross.

May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.

Anyone wishing to do so may leave a comment on the sermons they heard on this parable.