05.20. The Hearing Ear and the Mystery of the Kingdom
20. — The Hearing Ear and the Mystery of the Kingdom
"And he said, Who* hath ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parables. And he said unto them, Unto you is given* the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive* and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest haply* they should turn again,* and it* should be forgiven them" (Mark 4:9-12, R.V.).
{*1 "He that," J.N.D.; W.K.
*2 J.N.D., W.K. add "to know" in brackets as an explanatory phrase.
*3 "beholding they may behold and not see," J.N.D.
*4 "lest it may be," J.N.D.; "lest perhaps," W.K.
*5 "be converted," J.N.D., W.K.
*6 "they," J.N.D.; W.K.} The Lord had by His miracles and signs fully established His title to be heard as the Prophet of Jehovah. But in the result He might adopt the language of Isaiah, and inquire, "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?" For the nation was like "the deaf adder [asp] that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely." Jesus, as the anointed King and Redeemer, had called, but there was no response, save blasphemously to ascribe His works of mercy and might to the power of the evil one. The Servant of the Lord did not, however, in view of His repulse both in Judaea and in Galilee, abandon Himself to despair like the despondent Elijah of old, and flee from the place of testimony to Horeb. If the nation at large refused to listen, He, was mindful of the simple and faithful ones who were "looking for the redemption of Jerusalem." And from this period onward He addressed His ministry not to the mass as such, but to the individuals who were desirous of divine instruction. "And h’ said, Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."
Ears to Hear This phrase was used by our Lord more than once, and in each case His accompanying utterance contained a meaning which did not, so to speak, lie upon the surface, but needed faith and love in the heart, as well as the Spirit’s unction, for its true apprehension. In Matthew an abbreviated form of the words is found, "Who hath ears, let him hear." And in that Gospel it is recorded in one other connection besides in that of the parables. The Lord was speaking to the multitudes concerning John the Baptist and his super-eminence as a prophet, being none other than the messenger of Jehovah and the forerunner of the Messiah, as Malachi had foretold. "And," said He to His audience, "if ye will receive it, this is Elijah which is to come He that hath ears, let him hear" (Matthew 11:14-15). Only faith discerned that the King had come in humiliation, and also that the predicted forerunner had preceded Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, not yet, however, to introduce the day of God’s vengeance, but the day of His salvation. Those who had the ears of faith were called to hear this revelation concerning the extended scope of the prophecy of Malachi, and to know that Elijah was yet to come and restore all things, and also that he had come and that the nation "did unto him whatsoever they listed" (Matthew 17:11-12).
Luke also records the phrase in one other association besides in that of the parables (Luke 8:8). The Lord was speaking to the great crowds that went after Him with reference to the stern and uncompromising self-denial and endurance which would be the lot of such as became His disciples. The follower of the humbled Messiah, He declared, must renounce all things. Yet His disciples were the salt of the earth, the sole preservative against the universal spread of the corrupting influences of evil. And the Lord concluded this saying by the words, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Luke 14:25-35). For all had not faith, and only faith could understand the new teaching that the way of divine service was not yet in the exercise of power but in the endurance of suffering and shame. In Mark this brief but striking call occurs in the seventh chapter as well as in this. There we Barn of the Lord teaching, in contrast with the law of Moses which concerned itself with man’s overt acts, that man is defiled by the evil thoughts and motives which proceed from his heart. "He called to him the multitude again, and said unto them, Hear me all of you, and understand. There is nothing from without the man that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear" (Mark 7:14-16).* The saying was weighty, and only the sons of faith, now as well as then, receive this truth by which men are condemned down to the very core of their being. There must be the "ear to hear"; in other words, the experience ofRomans 6:1-23, Romans 7:1-25as well as of Romans 3:1-31.
{*The Revisers place the phrase in the margin, but there is considerable evidence for its retention in the text.} In this chapter the phrase occurs again (Mark 4:23), but it comes with special emphasis at the close of the parable of the sower. And this force appears the more striking when we connect it with the Lord’s call for attention at the beginning of the parable. "Hearken," He said, and having portrayed Himself as the Sower, He added, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." It was a summons to the individual to free himself from the heedless mass. And as the Lord addressed this appeal to His earthly people, so was His cry reiterated to each of the seven churches in Asia; "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches" (Revelation 2:3). Amid general ecclesiastical declension, the Lord requires individual faithfulness in regarding His word and His warning. Who Hears? Who then were those who heard the Prophet of Jehovah? There need be no doubt regarding the correct answer to this question, since the Lord Himself gave it. Speaking to His disciples, He said, "Blessed are your eyes for they see; and your ears for they hear" (Matthew 13:16). They were His followers, for they had heard Him. As the sheep of the "little flock" they had heard the voice of the good Shepherd (John 10:3; John 10:27). When He was instructing His disciples, He described them as those who heard. "I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you" (Luke 6:27). Again, the Lord said, "My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God and do it" (Luke 8:21). These had hungered and thirsted after the word of righteousness and were blessed indeed, for by the Prophet’s ministry they were filled.
It is instructive to observe that the Lord Himself took the place of subjection. As the Servant of Jehovah He had the opened ear in both His ministry and His suffering, waiting for directions upon Him who sent Him. This spirit of subjection and obedience was according to prophecy: "The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of them that are taught, that I should know how to sustain with words him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught. The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away backward. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair" (Isaiah 50:4-6, R.V.). His ear was open as the true Prophet to hear, and what He heard He communicated to men. Thus He said to His disciples, "All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (John 15:15). The believing followers of Jesus, then, were those that "heard," and what they heard they declared, as the apostle John wrote (1 John 1:1). But the nation would not hear. It is true that Israel boasted in their great "Shema," wherein the prophet Moses recalled them to the privilege and responsibility of the revelations under the law (Deuteronomy 6:4;Mark 12:29). "Hear, O Israel," Moses exhorted, "the LORD our God is one LORD," following this call with a summary of the ten words. But Israel was the "deaf servant" of Jehovah; and now God had raised up another Prophet, of whom it was written, "Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall speak unto you" (Deuteronomy 18:15;Acts 3:22-23;Acts 7:37). And as Moses had solemnly adjured the people, "Hear, O Israel," so now One greater than Moses cried, "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." What if they did not hear? For those who refused to hearken, that ancient prophecy contained a warning equally solemn. "It shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him" (Deuteronomy 18:19). The Prophet’s Privacy The Lord Jesus, amid His multitudinous and multifarious services for Jehovah in the midst of His chosen people, preserved to Himself seasons of retirement from, or cessation from, public activities, wherein there was opportunity either for personal private communion with His Father (Matthew 14:23;Mark 1:35;Luke 9:18;John 6:15), or for intercourse with His friends and followers. On the latter occasions there were peculiarly sweet and choice communications confided by the Heavenly Teacher to His own intimate circle, chosen by Himself "out of the world." After the execution of John the Baptist, and the return of the apostles from their mission journeys, Jesus said to them, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while; for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they went away in a boat to a desert place apart" (Mark 6:31-32;Matthew 14:13;Luke 9:10). So also when the Lord saw fit to grant unto the favoured trio a glimpse of His personal glory He led them up into the privacy of the mountain side. "Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart; and he was transfigured before them" (Matthew 17:1-2;Mark 9:2). The Lord had matters for the eyes and ears of His own which were not for the populace. This accords with what on one occasion He said to His disciples, "privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see; for I say unto you, that many prophets and kings desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not" (Luke 10:23-24). The apostles sometimes utilized moments of His privacy to lay before Him their difficulties. They came to Him "apart" to know why they were unable to cast the demon out of a young man (Matthew 17:19;Mark 9:28). And again, at the close of His ministry, when certain of them desired to know more concerning the destruction of the temple, and what would be the sign of His coming and the end of the age, they came to Him privately with their questions as He sat on the mount of Olives (Matthew 24:3;Mark 13:3). These were not exceptional instances, for they had been accustomed to such private tuition, as we read, "without a parable spake he not unto them [the multitude]; but privately to his own disciples he expounded all things" (Mark 4:34).
Here we find the disciples under similar circumstances seeking instruction in the significance of the parable of the sower and others. "When he was alone* they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parables." It is interesting to see that others besides the twelve apostles were desirous of being taught, and none of them were denied. And while this teaching may be regarded as exclusive, esoteric, and committed in this manner to these chosen witnesses in order that after the Lord’s ascension it might be promulgated throughout the world, the general truth is important that the ways of God are made known in the hush of the sanctuary rather than in the noise of the camp. The impending destruction of the cities of the plain was imparted, not to Lot in the bustling streets of Sodom, but, to Abraham in the quiet of a torrid noontide at his own tent door. David in the wilderness with his sheep, not Eliab in the camp of Saul, learned the mind of God about Goliath. So it was that not to the surging crowds by the Galilaean lake, but to the disciples who came to Him as He was alone in the house, the Prophet of Jehovah revealed the truth concerning the peculiar character of the coming kingdom.
It was not altogether a new thing for divine predictions to be conveyed to men in a form which concealed its import from the many and revealed it to the few. In the Old Testament we read of dreams, of visions, and, though not as frequently, of parables wherein God spoke to man. But we can only refer now to one or two of such instances in which He revealed matters affecting the government of the world. Take, for example, the dreams of Pharaoh. He who gives fruitful seasons, and in His providence fills the hearts of men with food and gladness, foretold events which were of the utmost importance in the administration of the great empire of Egypt. That seven years of phenomenal fruitfulness were at hand, and further that these were to be succeeded by a like period of absolute barrenness, were facts of incalculable value to the statesmen of that land. God who knew and gave these things was pleased to communicate them beforehand to the responsible governing head of Egypt. But the prediction came to Pharaoh in dreams, the significance of which he could not unravel. The heathen monarch and the wisest men of the land were alike constrained to confess their impotence, and compelled to solicit the aid of Joseph, the pious servant of the most high God. He came forth from the dungeon and interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams which to human wisdom were otherwise insoluble.
Again, when Israel was displaced and God had granted universal dominion to the Gentiles, we find Him communicating with Nebuchadnezzar, the first head, but in the form of a dream. This forgotten dream presented an outline-sketch of the four great world-kingdoms (Daniel 2:1-49), but, apart from Daniel the prophet, it was unintelligible to the mighty king. In the writing on the wall of Belshazzar’s banqueting hall we have another instance of a cryptic message, needing special interpretation; while the visions subsequently received by Daniel himself required to be explained to the prophet by an angel from heaven.
These examples are sufficient to illustrate the nature of what is called in Scripture a "mystery." It may consist of a dream, a vision, a parable or a verbal prophecy, the essential feature being that the divine communication cannot be understood without a subsequent divine communication which explains the first. And it will be found that the Greek word, mysterion, mystery, first occurs in the chapter of Daniel to which reference has been made (Daniel 2:1-49). In the Septuagint version the term is applied repeatedly to the forgotten dream of Nebuchadnezzar and its interpretation. Daniel and his friends "sought mercies from the God of heaven concerning this mystery." "Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night." Daniel said, "The mystery which the king asks the explanation of." "There is a God in heaven revealing mysteries." "He that reveals mysteries has made known to thee what must come to pass." Nebuchadnezzar said, "Of a truth your God is a God of gods, and Lord of kings, who reveals mysteries; for thou hast been able to reveal this mystery" (Daniel 2:18-19; Daniel 2:27-30; Daniel 2:47; Daniel 4:6).* It may be seen therefore that a mystery is a secret thing which would remain such apart from divine revelation a matter to the knowledge and understanding of which initiation is necessary.
{*The quotations are from Sir Charles Brenton’s Translation of the Septuagint, It is "secret" in the Authorized Version.}
Now, as there was the mystery concerning the Gentile monarchies, so, the Lord said, there was a mystery concerning that kingdom which, according to Daniel 2:44 the God of heaven would establish, never to be destroyed. This mystery He set out in His teaching by parables, thereby concealing from the multitude for the time being the meaning which He afterwards revealed to His apostles. For He said, "Unto you is given [to know] the mystery of the kingdom of God; but unto them that are without, all things are done in parables; that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear and not understand." He thus added a solemn warning to the people. Upon the nation at large the sentence of judicial blindness would fall, as Isaiah had prophesied (Isaiah 6:9-10). For the Light of the world was among them, yet they refused to see light in His light; hence darkness would come among and upon them, and even as He was speaking, the truth as to God’s provision in view of their rebellion was veiled from their eyes in parables.
Just what was signified by the mystery of the kingdom will appear in the interpretation of the parables that the Lord Himself gave. The altered character of the kingdom consequent upon the rejection of the Anointed One and the absence of the King is delineated most fully and categorically in the series of parables recorded inMatthew 13:1-58. Here we only emphasize the essential element of mystery in the Scriptural sense, viz., not that which in itself is difficult of understanding, but rather that which in both its communication and its reception is dependent upon divine revelation, and, as must necessarily follow, that which is only made known to a selected few who are fitted to receive it. The New Testament, associated as it is with the advent both of the Son and the Spirit, contains the revelation of many mysteries. Many matters kept secret from the foundation of the world, many truths concealed in Old Testament prophecies are therein brought to light and made known. We read of the mystery of God, of Christ, of God’s will, of godliness, of faith, of the gospel, of iniquity, of the seven stars, of the scarlet woman, Babylon the Great. The secret rapture of the church is called a mystery (1 Corinthians 15:51), and so its union with Christ the Head (Ephesians 5:32). The setting aside of Israel and the admission of the Gentiles to equal privileges in the gospel is a mystery (Romans 11:25). Eye had not seen, nor ear heard these things in the ancient oracles. They are now freely given us by God’s Spirit.
Those Without
Those not following Jesus are described as "them that are without," and no explanation of the parables is offered to them. The term* is one peculiar to Mark, not occurring in Matthew or Luke. It is used similarly, however, in the Epistles, where it refers to those outside the assembly of believers. Thus Paul writes, "What have I to do with judging them that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within, whereas them that are without God judgeth?" (1 Corinthians 5:12-13). He exhorts the Colossian saints to "walk in wisdom toward them that are without" (Colossians 4:5), and also the Thessalonians to "walk honestly toward them that are without" (1 Thessalonians 4:12). One instance of its adverbial use is so striking and solemn that it may be quoted here: "Blessed are they that wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city. Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie" (Revelation 22:14-15). This instance is one of its final and irrevocable sense, no passage being possible from one side of the fixed gulf to the other.
{*That is, with the article. The remark does not apply to its more general use without the article as an adverb or preposition.} The Judicial Blindness
Isaiah centuries before had prophesied of the obduracy of the nation and the spiritual darkness that should fall upon it as a people in consequence. The prophet recorded the words of Jehovah to him. He was commanded to "go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not." Such was their condition — in the position, and having the privilege, of hearing and seeing, but utterly oblivious to heavenly sights and sounds. The message went on to warn of what would come upon the nation as a righteous retribution of this gross abuse of their privileges. "Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed" (Isaiah 6:9-10). In the Septuagint version of Isaiah, this insensate condition is declared to be the result of the people’s own neglect rather than of a divine infliction, as in the Hebrew text. The Greek version runs as follows: "Go, and say to this people, Ye shall hear indeed, but ye shall not understand; and ye shall see indeed, but ye shall not perceive. For the heart of this people has become gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them."*
Now, in turning to Matthew’s Gospel it will be seen that the Lord, speaking of the complete fulfilment (anapleroo) of this prophecy, quoted from the Greek version and not from the Hebrew text (Matthew 13:13-15). The people had themselves closed their eyes. Mark and Luke (Luke 8:10) only record the reference to the former part of the prophecy which states the condition of Israel hearing and not understanding; while all three agree in showing that the Lord adopted the parabolic form of teaching in view of their insensate moral state.
John also quotes Isaiah’s prediction, but in a different connection. It is cited at a later stage in the history of Israel’s opposition to their Messiah. Though Jesus did so many signs before them yet they believed not. And since they would not believe, it came to pass that they could not believe. And the Evangelist brings forward the ancient oracle which warned of this blindness which came as a divine judgment upon the nation. "For this cause they could not believe, for that Isaiah said, He hath blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and should turn, and I should heal them" (John 12:37-40). This quotation, it will be observed, is from the Hebrew text, and is introduced historically immediately before the final act of unbelief the crucifixion of Christ. The truth was there hidden from their eyes, even the eyes of the wise and prudent (Matthew 11:25; Luke 19:42).
Through sovereign grace the gospel was offered to the guilty people by the testimony of the Holy Ghost, as is recorded in the Acts. But there was no response from the nation. In the concluding chapter of this book we have the final appeal of Paul at Rome to the Jews as such; but they closed their eyes and ears to this call also. And the apostle applied to them the witness of the Holy Spirit in the same scripture from Isaiah, quoting as in Matthew the Septuagint version, and laying the responsibility upon their own shoulders (Acts 28:25-27). The nation was thereupon abandoned. So far as Holy Writ speaks, no further opportunities of repentance were offered them. And less than ten years later, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the Jews scattered over the face of the earth. By the testimony of the Son of God, and of the Spirit of God, Israel had been summoned to hear the message of God. They refused to hear, and the apostle told them in his final address what was the consequence: "Be it known, therefore, unto you, that this salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles; they will also hear" (Acts 28:28). It was sent to such as would hear.
Thus we see that the prophecy is quoted in the Synoptical Gospels and in the Acts to show that the blindness of Israel was due to their own wilful obstinacy, and in the Gospel of John to show that it was the result of the judgment of God. Both aspects are of course true and necessary to a complete presentation of the truth.