The Parable Of The Workers In The Vineyard

Degrees of reward (Matthew 25:14-23) and degrees of punishment (Luke 12:47-48, Revelation 20:12-13) are Biblical doctrines, necessarily following from varying degrees/forms of righteousness and sin.  It follows by logical necessity that if certain things are evil or certain things are good, to embrace the former or disregard the latter with a greater intensity or in weightier ways is objectively worse than more minor infractions.  To murder, kidnap, or sexually abuse a fellow human disregards their value more than secret words of malice, for example.  Similarly, to do as God says with rationalistic motives and correct priorities is better, on the Christian worldview, than halfhearted, selective, emotionalistic concern for God.

The parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16 does not focus on these things.  Jesus tells the story of how a man who owns a vineyard hires workers at different times of day, offering them a denarius for their labor (Matthew 20:2).  The exact value of this pay in the day of Jesus and the equivalent of this pay today are not relevant to the core of the parable.  Ultimately, this parable is about how one aspect of what the Christian God offers is to be experienced and enjoyed by all who commit to him.  Once the landowner has repeatedly gathered more workers (20:1-7), he has his foreman summon the workers to be given their compensation.

The workers who began their labor at an earlier time of the day are shocked or confused at how they are all receiving a denarius (20:10).  Even so, they themselves agreed to work for such a price!  Matthew 20:13-15 provides the landowner's response: "'But he answered one of them, "Friend, I am not being unfair to you.  Didn't you agree to work for a denarius?  Take your pay and go.  I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you.  Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?  Or are you envious because I am generous?"'"

In this case, the denarius of the story is analogous to the eternal life provided by Christ.  All who commit to God in repentance and sincerity are to receive eternal life according to the Bible, no matter when in their life or how close to death they turned to Yahweh or Christ.  A person who commits on their deathbed after a life of irrationalism, egoism, and cruelty and a person who commits in their youth and lives faithfully for God (and to clarify a major point, faithfulness rather than epistemological faith is what is rational and what is sought by God) are all said to be destined for everlasting life.

At the same time, greater righteousness--though it is the mental act (yes, any change of mind or heart or loyalty is something a person must do) of commitment to God that solidifies redemption--deserves greater reward.  A hypocritical, emotionalistic, and otherwise irrationalistic Christian who neither understood Christian theology nor extended philosophy is not worthy of the same glories as someone who shed or avoided such folly.  What people do with their circumstances and talents even apart from discovering and savoring philosophical truths is a matter of reward, as addressed in the parable of the talents only five chapters later in Matthew.

Without eternal life, there cannot be degrees of reward within that eternal life, and so every genuine follower of Yahweh and Christ at least receives the former itself.  This much is offered by divine mercy, for even the suspension of just punishment, which the Bible clearly teaches is cessation of conscious existence in hell (Ezekiel 18:4, Revelation 20:14-15), is a mercy even if it was not followed by anything particularly gracious.  It is a love of mercy that brings Yahweh and Jesus to generously offer eternal life as the landowner of the parable offered a denarius to even the workers who worked the least.  Other parables of Christ and other sections of the Bible altogether are what addresses the variance of rewards and punishments even if eternal life and cosmic death themselves are received by many.