3.02 The Hidden Treasure and the Pearl of Great Price
II. THE HIDDEN TREASURE AND THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.
Matthew 13:44 - Matthew 13:46. In this twofold parable Jesus sets forth the surpassing value of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the sacrifice which those who desire it above all things are ready to make. He likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a man who found a treasure hidden in a field. He carefully concealed it where he found it; and in his joy he went and sold all that he had and purchased the field in question. According to Jewish
1 The word “ scandal “ in Biblical language has quite a different meaning from what it has in ordinary speech.
It originally signified a trap set for an enemy, a stumblingblock, and it thus came to stand for anything which caused men to stumble or fall in a moral sense, or, in other words, for anything that was the cause or occasion of sin. THE PARABLES OF JESUS 91) law such a transaction would be quite allow able; and the buyer of the field would acquire a title to the treasure which it contained.
Again, He likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a merchant seeking fine pearls. Finding one of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. It has been thought that in this twofold parable Jesus wished to draw a distinction between those who light accidentally upon the Kingdom and those who deliberately and of set purpose seek it. This is scarcely probable; and it seems better to take both parts of the parable as intended to convey under slightly varying forms the same spiritual truth. It may be remarked that the comparison of the Kingdom of Heaven to the man who found the treasure and to the merchant seeking fine pearls rather than to the treasure itself and to the pearl of great price respectively, though an inexactitude when judged by our literary methods, is quite in accordance with the style of the Rabbins. In the early days of Christianity the acceptance of the Kingdom often involved the renunciation of all things, even of life itself.
100 THE PARABLES OF JESUS The sacrifice was demanded not merely of those who aspired to a life higher in its ideals and aims than the life of the ordinary Christian, but also of all those who would either receive the message of the Gospel or remain faithful to it once they had accepted it. House and home, father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters the surrender of all these in the present, and of all earthly hopes for the future such was the sacrifice which men were often called upon to make, and which they did not deem excessive in view of the spiritual treasure which they thus acquired. The parable refutes the material conception of the Kingdom prevalent among the Jewish contemporaries of Christ. The Kingdom.does not appear in pomp and circumstance, nor as something which in the worldly sense enriches those who enter it; on the contrary, its spiritual nature is indicated by the fact that membership in it may involve the loss oi material goods. Its citizens as such enjoy no share in an earthly kingdom; their citizen ship is in heaven 1 where their King reigns, and whence they expect that He will come in
1 Php 3:20. THE PARABLES OF JESUS 101 glory to assert His sovereignty over all man kind, and to sit on His throne as Judge of the living and of the dead. In our days, men as a rule are not called upon to make this absolute renunciation of all they possess for the sake of the Kingdom. It will suffice if we make a mental sacrifice in the sense of being willing to part with all things should God require it of us. Occasions may arise to test the sincerity of our dispositions, when we may feel ourselves confronted with the necessity of making the choice between suffering temporal loss or of parting with our spiritual treasure. Happy shall we then be if our choice demonstrates that we realize the transcendent importance of the spiritual and eternal as compared with what is merely material and temporal.
TAGS: [Parables]