WHAT EXACTLY DID JESUS MEAN WHEN HE SAID, “MANY WHO ARE FIRST WILL BE LAST, AND MANY WHO ARE LAST WILL BE FIRST”?

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Jesus said in Matthew 19:30, “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first”.

Thereafter He immediately gave a parable of the labourers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1-15 and reiterated this statement in Matthew 20:16 at the end of the parable.

Many Scholars have given several interpretations to the meaning of this statement. However, the most accurate interpretation should be from the parable as the parable was designed to explain it.

The story is about some labourers who complain that others, who did not work as long as they, were paid an equal amount. In other words, they saw their own labour as worthy of compensation but considered their companions’ labour to be inferior and less worthy of reward. Jesus ends the parable with the statement, “The last will be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16). 

The most direct interpretation, based on the content of the parable, is that all believers, no matter how long or how hard they work during this lifetime, will receive the same basic reward: eternal life. 

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