05.22. Shining in Public: Growing in Secret
22. — Shining in Public: Growing in Secret
"And he said unto them, Is the lamp brought to*1 be put under the bushel, or under the bed,*2 and not to be put on the stand?*3 For there is nothing hid, save that it should*4 be manifested; neither was anything made secret,*5 but that it should come to light. If any man hath*6 ears to hear, let him hear. And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you: and more shall be given unto you.*7 For he that hath,*8 to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath.
"And he said, So*9 is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed*10 upon the earth; and should sleep and rise*11 night and day, and the seed should spring up*12 and grow, he knoweth not how. The earth beareth*13 fruit of herself*14 first the blade, then the*15 ear, then the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe,*16 straightway he putteth forth*17 the sickle, because*18 the harvest is come" (Mark 4:21-29, R.V.).
*1 "Does the lamp come that it should," J.N.D.
*2 "couch," J.N.D. In W.K.’s "Exposition of the Gospel of Mark," 1907, there is a strange misprint — "under the candle," p. 68, line 2. It is correct in the original "Remarks,"
*3 "Set up on the lamp stand," J.N.D., W.K.
*4 "which shall not be," J.N.D., W.K.
*5 "nor does any secret thing take place," J.N.D., W.K.
*6 "one have," J.N.D.; "man have," W.K.
*7 "and there shall be [more] added to you," J.N.D.; "and unto you [that hear] shall more be added," W.K.
*8 "whosoever has," J.N.D.
*9 "Thus," J.N.D., W.K.
*10 "the seed," J.N.D., W.K.
*11 "Rise up," J.N.D., W.K.
*12 "sprout," J.N.D., W.K.
*13 "bringeth forth," W.K.
*14 "of itself," J.N.D., W.K.; ("of its own accord," McClellan).
*15 "an," J.N.D., W.K.
*16 "produced," J.N.D., W.K.; ("alloweth," McClellan).
*17 "sends," J.N.D.; "putteth in," W.K.; ("sendeth," McClellan).
*18 "for," J.N.D., W.K.} This section is one which, upon consideration and comparison, will be found to afford, like many other passages throughout the historical narratives, a striking illustration of the varying purpose of the several Gospels. With the object of gathering what instruction we may on this particular point it is proposed to make a brief reference to the context of the parable of the Sower, comparing the records in Matthew and Mark as to their designs. In the First Gospel (Matthew 13:1-58) the parable of the Sower is followed by six others, each of which is specifically stated to be a similitude of the kingdom of the heavens. The obvious fact that this group of parables numbers seven, a numeral which in scriptural usage signifies completeness and adequacy of representation, coupled with the further fact, easily ascertained by inspection, that the period covered by the series of parables extends from its beginning to the close, that is to say, from the sowing of the seed to the harvest at the end of the world [age] (Matthew 13:39; Matthew 13:49), points unmistakably to the conclusion that the selection and arrangement of these parables was made with the definite object of presenting a synopsis of the various phases which the kingdom of the heavens would assume in consequence of the rejection of the King.
Now, in Mark’s narrative, we have, in connection with the parable of the Sower, what is altogether different, and, as we shall see, distinctive. Here it is followed by, not six, but two parables only, the first of which is found nowhere else in the Gospels, while the second (that of the mustard seed) is one of the six following this parable in Matthew. Moreover, these two parables are separated from that of the Sower by two sayings of the Lord which in the First Gospel are recorded in entirely different associations.*
Having noted these important differences, let us now proceed to inquire what their significance may be. And in the first place it will be evident that the meaning of the variations in the records must, in each case, lie in close relation to the main purpose of the inspired Evangelist. For, be it observed, the "harmony" of the Gospels is not to be sought, as is frequently done, by the construction of a single continuous narrative, composed by combining the accounts of the four writers to the utter destruction of the individuality of each of them. On the contrary, the true "harmony," using the word now in the sense of the consistency of the Gospel with itself, will be discerned by the discovery of the manner in which the various historical episodes are disposed by each of the four biographers in order to set forth his special design. Hence it is that in this particular inquiry the differences in the several narratives are of greater importance than the resemblances. These differences then are the subject of our present study.
It will be admitted that the object of Mark was to compose a biography of the Lord Jesus in His character as the Anointed Servant and Prophet of Jehovah. And we may therefore expect to find that, in order to display Him in this aspect, the nature and characteristics of His service and ministry will be more prominently and fully expressed than in the other Gospels, and that this will be more especially the case with regard to that modified form of teaching as to the kingdom which He adopted because the nation had, in effect, refused Him as the Messiah. The Lord’s Ministry and its Effect
Now, it will at once be observed that in this fourth chapter all the parables relate to the Lord’s ministry and its effects. In each of the three parables the seed is the central object of the picture. In the first the diverse results of sowing the seed are shown; in the second the seed grows spontaneously; and in the third the seed develops from a state of outward insignificance to one of prominence. These parables, then, are correlated delineations of that ministry of the good news of the kingdom of God which was begun to be spoken by the Lord, and was continued by the apostles and their successors; and on this account these parables, as they are here arranged, could appear in no other Gospel with the same propriety as in that which sets forth Jesus as Jehovah’s Servant. In the series ofMatthew 13:1-58we have the new earthly system which was about to arise presented variously,e.g.,by the field, the measures of meal, the great tree, the hidden treasure, the costly pearl, and such figures; but in Mark we have brought forward the power which accomplishes the outward effects rather than the thing itself which is produced. The third parable of the Second Gospel is only an apparent exception to this generalisation, the spreading tree being introduced to show the magnitude of the visible results of the presence and operation of the word of God in the world in contrast with its appearance at the beginning. In brief, the main theme ofMatthew 13:1-58. is the kingdom itself, and that ofMark 4. the gospel or word of the kingdom.
Bearing in mind, then, that this section of Mark is designed to teach what is the nature of the ministry of the new covenant by Jehovah’s Servant (in general terms, of course, not in detail as in the Sermon on the Mount), we proceed to inquire concerning the meaning of the two sayings of the Lord which are interpolated between the first and second parables. And it will be seen that they have a direct bearing upon the truth brought out in the immediately preceding verses. In these we have that part of the Lord’s ministry which was couched in a parabolic form. And this mode of discourse was employed, as we learn from the Lord Himself, in order that the mystery of the kingdom might be hidden from the unbelieving nation at large, although it was revealed by special interpretation to the disciples (Mark 4:10-13; Mark 4:34). Now the sayings which follow guard against a misconception which this form of teaching might cause in the minds of the apostles. They were not to assume that, because the Master had begun to speak publicly in parables, these wonderful communications of the Great Prophet would always be enveloped in obscurity. If there was darkness abroad as to divine knowledge, the darkness was not in or from the Sower, but in the people themselves. He was the true Light, come into the world to lighten every man. Is it not the function of light to shine abroad in radiant testimony — whether this light exists absolutely in the Prophet, as it did, or in the apostles, the sons of light, as deriving it from Him? So that the veiling of the truth in parables by the Lord was but a temporary measure.
These sayings of Jesus therefore are not introduced immediately after the parable of the Sower at haphazard; on the contrary, they have a direct relation to the main theme of the chapter. They assign a responsibility to the hearers of the word to communicate to others what they themselves receive. The truth must not be covered from view. Though the character of the coming kingdom was concealed from those whose will was opposed to its reception in the heart, the ultimate object of the Lord’s ministry was that the gospel might be spread abroad, not hidden under a bushel or a bed. The light was to be placed on a lampstand. And in proportion to the zeal of His servants in imparting the truth to others, further revelations would be made to them. The Lamp and the Stand, the Bushel and the Couch The Lord, in this saying here recorded, made reference to the common objects of a Galilean household to impress upon His disciples their responsibility with regard to what they heard. A lamp was among the essential furniture of the poorest home, and where means forbade the possession of more than one there the necessity was the most apparent that for its greatest usefulness it should be set upon a stand and not be obscured beneath a couch or extinguished under a bushel measure. Let the lamp be placed upon its appropriate stand,* and it would shed its light upon all in the house (Matthew 5:15), as well as upon all who might enter (Luke 8:16).
Here then we find the Lord preparing His followers for the missionary work to which He had called them, and to which He would soon send them forth, first to the cities of Israel and then to the ends of the earth (Mark 6:7-13). Light was given them that it might shine to others. John the Baptist, the forerunner, was a burning and shining lamp (John 5:35); now the testimony of the kingdom was transferred to the apostles. They were His witnesses, and what He told them in the darkness they were to preach in the light, and what they heard in the ear they must proclaim upon the housetops (Matthew 10:27). The essence of Christ’s gospel was its publicity, and also, as was subsequently developed, its universality. Its ultimate scope was to all men and not to a few only. And the Lord declared, referring generally to divine communications, that nothing was concealed except to be manifested eventually, and everything made secret for a time and for a purpose would assuredly be brought to light in due course. The dimness of the typical shadows would disappear in the light emanating from the perfect Priest and Sacrifice. That which was dark and involved in the predictions of the Old Testament would be fully elucidated by application and fulfilment in the New. The Lord Himself was not a lamp, but the LIGHT, shining in a darkness which was not dispelled but was deepened thereby (John 1:5). But to those who would receive it He had come to reveal the unknown. In His teaching was fulfilled the double prophecy of the Psalmist: "I wilt open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world" (Psalms 78:2;Matthew 13:35). And the apostles, in their turn, did not obscure or conceal the light of testimony, but by the Spirit preached God’s wisdom and taught the heavenly calling of the church previously hidden from all ages and generations (Colossians 1:26;Ephesians 3:9). Paul, as a good steward of the manifold grace of God, addressing the Ephesian elders, reminded them that in his ministry he had kept back nothing that was profitable, and that he had not shrunk from declaring to them the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:20; Acts 20:27). This saying of the Lord therefore has reference, not to the eventual discovery of secret sins, but to the character of the period begun by His own ministry, which was an epoch of disclosure and promulgation of divine truth previously concealed. The Prophet of Jehovah was bringing out of His treasure-house "things new and old," and in view of the consequent importance of such an occasion He reiterated His word of warning, first addressed to the multitude at large, now spoken to the disciples: "If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear."* In the first case there was the general responsibility applying to all Israel to hear their Messiah for their individual enlightenment, but in the second case there is the further responsibility of those who have heard in the former sense to hear in such a manner as to be able to communicate faithfully and fully to others what they heard. This agrees with the final message to the church and the individual in the Apocalypse, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come" (Revelation 22:17).
What is the special significance of the reference to the bed and the bushel? If the bed may be considered to point to self-ease and self-indulgence, the bushel, or corn-measure, may indicate those domestic and other duties, legitimate in themselves, but which, equally with selfishness, may seriously interfere with an effective testimony. But, whatever may be the exact meaning, it is certain that both duty and recreation are liable, apart from necessary precautions, to obscure or even to extinguish the witness of discipleship. And by such a lapse from faithfulness, the truth, divinely revealed for diffusion throughout the world, is virtually placed again in a place of concealment. In another context the Lord specifically warned against such secretion of the light, "No man when he hath lighted a lamp putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but upon the stand, that they which enter in may see the light" (Luke 11:33). In contrast with others mentioned in a subsequent parable, the "wicked and slothful servant" having received the talent went away and hid his lord’s money to his own reprobation.
Heedfulness in Hearing
Another saying immediately follows that relating to the lamp, and this is introduced by the phrase of frequent recurrence in this section, "And he said unto them."* For the disciples it was pre-eminently the day for them to sit at the Master’s feet "to hear." Moreover, in their hearing they were to beware of the leavening "influence of the teaching of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees (Matthew 16:12). They were not to be carried about by every wind of human opinion as to who He, the Son of man, was. "Take heed," said He, "what ye hear," supplementing this warning as to the matterof their hearing, by another as to the manner of it: "Take heed how ye hear" (Luke 8:18).
Those to whom "more is given "are those whohear,as it is expressed in the A.V. This "hearing" implies a reception of the new teaching in the truest and deepest sense of the word, receiving the testimony as of God (John 3:34;1 Thessalonians 2:13). Such persons are the good-ground and fruit-bearing hearers. These enter into possession of the word. They make it their own by faith. Theyhaveit. And the Lord added, "He that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath." Was not this so with the wayside hearer? The good seed was immediately snatched away, since it lay upon the surface. In a formal sense this class of hearer had the word; in a vital sense he had it not. The infallible evidence of vitality is fruit-bearing, and we are taught in this section that "ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4) is one of the forms of spiritual fruition. The word enters the heart of the disciple by the ear (Romans 10:17), and is transmitted from thence to the eyes of others by the lamp of testimony for Christ, shining out, as this does, in every good work and word (2 Thessalonians 2:17). The Spontaneity of the Seed’s Growth
Another saying of the Lord is next introduced in the Gospel, and this is of the nature of a parable. And, as has been previously stated, it is noteworthy that this parable is not recorded elsewhere in Scripture. Dealing, as it does, with the inherent vitality of the word of God, its beautiful appropriateness in this section is not difficult to observe when it is remembered that the general subject of this chapter is the ministry of the kingdom.
Such a view, however, is not always held or sought. "What follows [the parable in question] has the special interest of being the only parable peculiar to St. Mark, one therefore which had escaped the manifest eagerness of St. Matthew and St. Luke to gather up all they could find of this form of our Lord’s teaching." This remark, taken from a popular commentary, illustrates the disparaging manner in which the professed friends of the Gospels are apt to speak of them. It is assumed in this comment that the Evangelists compiled their histories after the manner of a schoolboy essay, without any purpose or special design, eager only to record every item they could collect or remember, stringing their paragraphs together with an utter disregard of chronological order. According to this degrading theory we are asked to believe that of Matthew’s seven parables (Matthew 13:1-58) Mark was ignorant of five, though he knew one which had escaped both Matthew and Luke; and that the latter (Luke) was only acquainted with three out of seven, one of which he inserted in one connection and two in another (Luke 8:1-56, Luke 13:1-35). In opposition to this unworthy hypothesis, which regards each of the Gospels as imperfect and fragmentary, we believe that the Spirit of God superintended both the inclusion and the exclusion of the facts of the Sacred Biography, and also the arrangement of the narrative, so that the particular design of each of the Gospels is secured. We believe, in short, that the writers were inspired of God (2 Peter 1:21), and also their writings (2 Timothy 3:16).
Returning from this digression, let us briefly recapitulate the main features observed in our examination of this chapter. We saw, first, the varied and but partially successful results of sowing the word of the kingdom portrayed in the parable of the Sower, the meaning of which the Lord communicated in private to His disciples. This is followed by some of the sayings of the Lord to His followers, assigning to them in metaphorical language the responsibility of duly and diligently publishing abroad for the benefit of all what they had learned in secret. Now, further instruction upon the same theme is added in the form of a parable to show the apostles that the propagation of the gospel depended not so much upon the skill and efficiency of the labourers who do no more than cast the seed upon the ground, as upon the self-contained vitality of the seed itself, it being the word of God. This parable, like the earlier one of the Sower, is founded upon the phenomenon of growth in the vegetable kingdom, the main features in this case being that during the period between the sowing and the reaping manual labour is excluded so far as the parable is concerned. It is thus with the kingdom of God, the Lord said. A man scatters seed upon the land. He then pursues his other occupations, waking and sleeping, night and day; but apart from any intervention on his part, and without his possessing any real knowledge of the mysterious processes which were active within the seed, it sprouts and germinates and develops. Automatically the fruit is produced; first the blade appears, then the ear, and finally the fully ripened corn. Thereupon the time of harvest having come, the husbandman resumes work, using now the sickle to gather the grain. This pastoral picture presents an analogy of the kingdom of God, especially in the form in which it was introduced by the Servant of Jehovah in view of His rejection. The millennial kingdom of the future will be founded upon the righteous judgments of the King; but the present moral kingdom is founded upon the teaching of the Lord the Prophet. And the great lesson taught here is that the word of the Lord carries with itself a power to effect the divine purpose altogether apart from external agencies. The seed is shown to have its foes in the thievish birds, the torrid sun, the luxuriant thorns; while the light of the lamp may be dimmed or destroyed by the bushel or the bed. But the Lord assured the hearts of His followers that, in spite of the activity of its enemies and the feebleness of its friends the word of the kingdom will inevitably make progress and prevail. So it came about, as we read, that in the days of the apostles "the word of God grew and multiplied" (Acts 12:24). And so Paul wrote to the Colossians of "the word of the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world, bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth in you also, since the day ye heard, and knew the grace of God in truth" (Colossians 1:5-6, R.V.). The Seed left to Grow
Thus while the duty of the servants of Christ was to let the truth shine in their actions, and to measure it out generously in their words, they were without power to produce any living result from their work. Let Paul plant and Apollos water, the increase is of God alone (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). The spirit and the life are in His word. It is the word itself, not the ministry of it, that works within those that believe (1 Thessalonians 2:13). This was a comforting assurance for the timorous disciples, seeing that everything in connection with their Messiah was going contrary to their expectations. They herein learned that the word of the Master would ultimately succeed, and however unpromising the day of sowing might seem, the day of harvest would follow at its appointed time. Such a truth as is conveyed in this parable would, on the one hand, encourage them to trust in God to work out His plans by the invisible and invariable agencies of His word and Spirit, and, on the other hand, condemn any feelings of vanity and self-satisfaction, as though the preachers of the gospel by their own power or godliness caused its spread among men.
It has been a matter of debate among students of the Scriptures whether the "man" in this parable was intended to represent the Lord Himself or His servants. Those who contend for the latter view point out that it cannot be imagined of the Lord that "He knoweth not how" the seed grows, nor that He leaves it to take care of itself. On the other hand, others urge that it could not be predicated of the servants of Christ that they will put in the sickle and reap the corn in the day of harvest.*
Such a spirit of meek dependence and patient perseverance in service in view of the long-distant harvest is, by implication, to be acquired by all those whom the Lord sends forth to serve. The apostle Paul had this outlook. Writing to the Thessalonians, he thus expressed himself, "What is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy" (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20). His eye was upon the distant future day of "bringing in the sheaves," like his Master, who, in the pathway of the Faithful Witness, had His eye upon "the joy that was set before Him" (Hebrews 12:2). In this manner the spirit of true service first known in Christ was in measure reproduced in the apostles, and perpetuated in those who believed on Him through their word (John 17:20). In such a sense there is genuine "apostolical succession" in service, though not in ecclesiastical authority. So far as labour "in word and doctrine" is concerned, the words of the well-known epitaph apply, "God buries His workmen, but carries on His work." The servant will continue to sow until the day of harvest, but all the while the germination, the growth, and the ripe grain are incessantly wrought by an invisible and infallible Agent.