<p>21:32&nbsp;<em>For John came to you</em>- His coming to the people was as it were God's coming to them (:28,30). God was manifest in him, as He is in all preachers. We are His voice and appeal to men.</p><p><em>In the way of righteousness</em>- The very phrase used in 2 Pet. 2:21 about the Christian Gospel. John's work had been to prepare the Lord's &quot;way&quot; (3:3; 11:10), over which Messiah could have come in glory to Zion, in fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecies about this. The Lord is referencing the idea that if Israel had responded to John, then the triumphant entry into Zion which He had just parodied earlier in this chapter could really have been achieved.</p><p><em>And you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him-&nbsp;</em>This was clearly intended to address the inner thought of the audience, that &ldquo;If we shall say, from heaven, he will say to us, why then did you not believe him?&rdquo; (21:25). The Lord knew their thoughts- clearly, in this instance at least, not so much as from direct Divine revelation, but from His sensitivity to them and reading of their minds.</p><p>John the Baptist was a popular preacher. All Jerusalem went out to hear him. Even the hardline Orthodox were baptized by him. People liked his hard line austerity, his criticism of them. They lined up to hear it, and to confess their sins to him. But Jesus interpreted it differently. He said John&rsquo;s ministry was like children wanting to play at funerals with some other children- so they started weeping, but the others still wouldn&rsquo;t respond. Jesus came, piping; He wanted them to play weddings. But still they didn&rsquo;t respond in true repentance (Lk. 7:32-35). The Lord judged that Israel didn&rsquo;t respond to John; indeed,&nbsp;<em>if</em>&nbsp;they had truly received him, he would have been the Elijah prophet for them (Mt. 11:14 RVmg.). What this teaches is that believers can respond to a tough line, to the ra-ra of an uncompromising moralizing message; and yet not&nbsp;<em>really</em>&nbsp;repent nor accept the Lordship of Jesus in their hearts. Mt. 21:32 states clearly that the Jews generally didn't believe John the Baptist, nor repent. And yet they flocked to him in apparent repentance and were baptized. As we all know, repentance is one of the hardest things to be thoroughly genuine about.</p><p><em>And afterwards when you saw it</em>- The second son who had said 'Yes' but not gone to work needed to become as the first son; realizing he was no better than the first son, and likewise repenting and going to work whilst there was still time, to achieve at least something in the Father's vineyard. But it was a bridge too far for the Jewish leadership and Israel in general to make this connection- that they had to shift from their self-righteousness into the position of the whores and tax collectors.</p><p>The good example of others contributes to our experience of the upward spiral. And yet if we don't respond to them, we can be held accountable for it and slip into the downward spiral. Thus the Lord held the elders of Israel guilty because when they saw the whores and tax collectors repenting at John's preaching, &quot;you, when you had seen it, repented not&quot;. They should have been influenced by the repentance of those people; they should've allowed repentance to be contagious. But they didn't, and so they were held guilty for that. The Lord is telling the Jews that they were even more culpable for not repenting at the preaching of John the Baptist because the publicans and sinners had done so; and they hadn't. They should've changed their minds 'repented' after they saw the publicans and sinners repent- so the Lord incisively observed and judged. The implication of that seems to me to be that we are intended to be inspired to faith and repentance by that of others. This is why the Christian life is intended to be lived in community.</p><p><em>You still did not repent- </em>Mt. 21:29,32 parallel 'repent and work' with 'repent and believe'. As the Lord said in Jn. 6:29, the work of God is to believe- in the forgiveness of sins. The experience of repentance and forgiveness will result in an ever deeper faith, and the works of gratitude which are inseparable part of faith. The parable speaks of repenting and going to work in the Father's vineyard; as if care for our brethren, seeking their fruitfulness and that of this world after the pattern of the vineyard of Isaiah 5 is the obvious work of repentance. The Lord castigated the audiences of John the Baptist that they did not &ldquo;repent, that ye might believe&rdquo;. Repentance would lead to faith&hellip; and yet it is faith which leads to repentance. The two things work together to form an upward spiral of growth.</p><p><em>And believe him-&nbsp;</em>Their repentance and acceptance of the forgiveness of sins which John spoke of necessitated their belief in Christ as the lamb of God, the sacrifice for sin, of whom John also spoke. The repentance he urged them to make suggests that forgiveness was available- but his message was that that forgiveness was possible ultimately through the work of Jesus as the lamb of God who took away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29). Paul explained this in so many words: &ldquo;John truly baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe in Him Jesus who should come after him&rdquo; (Acts 19:4).</p><p>AV &quot;Repented not so that you might believe him&quot; translates an awkward phrase in the Greek, and the translations which suggest &lsquo;You didn&rsquo;t repent and believe him&rsquo; are being too simplistic. There is definitely a causative sense implied- they did not repent&nbsp;<em>so that</em>&nbsp;they believed him. To repent, to change their minds as required by John, involved believing his message, which was about Jesus as the lamb of God who took away sin and thereby gave meaning and possibility to their repentance. Here, the Lord connects repentance with belief; yet we read that in practice, people believe and are baptized in order to receive forgiveness of sin. So belief and repentance are connected. The belief in John that is spoken of here was effectively a belief in Jesus: &ldquo;John truly baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe in Him Jesus who should come after him&rdquo; (Acts 19:4). If we repent, change our minds and decide to respond, then immediately the issue of forgiveness is thrown up. Have I now been forgiven? Can I be? How? And this is what leads seamlessly into faith in Christ as the lamb of God to take away our sin.</p>