Matthew 8

Chapter 8. The Parables of the KingdomThe disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?“He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables:“Though seeing, they do not see;though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”(Matthew 13:10-13)“I always did like the likes of Jesus” was the simple testimony of a child to the parables of Christ. He is the matchless Teacher and Illustrator. In this chapter we have the beginning of His wonderful parables and the group in the 13th chapter of Matthew is known as the parables of the kingdom. The formula with which each begins is “The kingdom of heaven is like…” The purpose of Christ’s parables was to present spiritual and moral truths under the veil of some incident, not in itself historically true, and yet not contrary to truth. His matchless stories were really works of imagination, but in beautiful harmony with truth, and setting forth the deepest and loftiest moral and spiritual teaching. Why in Parables? His reason for teaching them in parables is given by Himself as connected with their rejection of His previous messages. As we have already seen, all His words and works had been met by them with increasing hostility and malignant misrepresentation. They listened to Him only that they might in some way entangle Him in His talk. And so now He finally withdrew from the multitudes and began to teach His disciples in the veiled form of the parable in order, as He states Himself in this chapter, that the truth might be revealed to the diligent and earnest students and concealed from the indifferent and the prejudiced. The present series of parables, as might be expected from the symbolic number seven, contains a complete unfolding of the future plan of His kingdom during the entire age up to His second coming. His own nation had now rejected the gospel of the kingdom and it was to be taken from them for a time and given to the Gentiles. In these parables He gives us the panorama of the age throughout the Christian dispensation. Kingdom of Heaven The phrase, “The kingdom of heaven,” or “The kingdom of the heavens,” really contains the keynote of the series. It does not mean the kingdom in relation to Israel, nor does it mean the history of the Church, but rather the progress of Christianity up to the coming of the Lord. It describes a mingled condition of good and evil, growing externally and marked by extraordinary prosperity and apparent success and yet full of corruption as well as righteousness, concealing the leaven as well as the treasure and the pearl, and only to be finally separated at the end of the age and the coming of the Lord. This series of parables describes, first, the planting of the truth and then the sowing of the evil. This double work of good and evil is brought out in the first two parables. Then in the third parable of the mustard seed we see the rapid growth of this mingled system of good and evil until it fills the earth. But in the following parable of the oven, we get the inside view of this mingled system and we see that it is full of corruption. The next two parables, however, the treasure and the pearl, turn our attention to the brighter side of the picture, the hidden elements of good even in the heart of this mass of mingled elements. Finally, the parable of the draw net reveals the separation of the two elements in the day of judgment and at the end of the age. The Seven Churches These seven parables bear a strong resemblance to the seven letters of the risen and ascended Lord to the churches of Asia in the opening chapters of the book of Revelation (Revelation 2:1 to Revelation 3:22). The first epistle to the church in Ephesus reminds us of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13; and the second, the dark picture of Smyrna and the power of evil recalls the parable of the enemy and the sowing of the weeds. The church in Pergamum is very much like the mustard tree. It is the picture of the outward prosperity and worldly power. The fourth church in Revelation, Thyatira, is the very counterpart of the leaven. “That woman Jezebel” (Revelation 2:20) immediately recalls the woman that put the leaven in the three measures of meal. Both present to us a picture of inward corruption and impurity. The church in Sardis, which has “a few people… who have not soiled their clothes” (Revelation 3:4), corresponds to the treasure hid in a field, and the glorious church of Philadelphia in Revelation is the very counterpart of the pearl in Matthew. Both describe the true and hidden followers of Christ in the midst of the present evil age. Finally, the church in Laodicea stands for the separation of the two classes when the Lord will spit out of His mouth the “lukewarm” and unfaithful and take the overcomers to sit with Him upon His throne (Revelation 3:16, Revelation 3:21). Both of these series present the plan of the age, substantially, and it does not take us long to see how utterly it is opposed to the popular theological ideas which underlie nearly all the current expositions of the gospel and the teaching of the great mass of the ministries of the Church today. At the risk of seeming to oppose so great a mass of prevalent teaching and belief, let us endeavor fairly and honestly to grasp the thought of the Master in this first unfolding of the mysteries of the kingdom. The Sower

1. The Planting of the Kingdom (Matthew 13:3-8) The parable of the sower represents the preaching of the gospel and its normal effects. The first thing that strikes us is that in three cases out of four it seems to fail. This is not from any defect in the seed, but because of conditions in the soil. In the first three cases there are hindrances either to the reception or the growth and fruition of the seed. In the first case, the soil is hard and the devil is waiting to steal away the seed through the fowls of the air, who are always on hand before it really lodges in the soil. In the second case, the soil itself is shallow and although there is a sudden and apparent result, it soon passes away. The seed springs up for an hour, but withers on the rocky field and all the farmer’s work is in vain. In the third case, there is a good beginning made, but later “thorns… grew up and choked the plants” (Matthew 13:7), “the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth” (Matthew 13:22) and other things tear down the better purposes that had been formed in the heart and the harvest is brought to naught. These three clauses represent the devil, the flesh and the world, that old trinity that has ever been arrayed against the kingdom of God. The devil steals the seed in the first case, the flesh fails in the second, and the world finishes the process in the third. In only one case does the seed germinate and mature, falling into good soil and honest hearts—souls that are sincere, consciences that are awakened, hearts that are hungering for God, wills that decide and settle their great resolves. The seed springs up and grows and “produces a crop, yelding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (Matthew 13:23). This has ever been the story of the progress of the gospel. It was the apostolic story; “Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe” (Acts 28:24), and it will be true to the end. This is no optimistic dream of the world rushing to embrace Christianity, but rather a somber picture of a small minority of the human race responding to the call of heaven and believing and obeying the gospel of Christ. It has ever been the case and it will be to the end. The Weeds
2. The Sowing of the Weeds (Matthew 13:24-30) “But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat” (Matthew 13:25). It is not hard to identify this enemy. A more difficult question is, “Where did he sow the weeds?” Does this parable teach that the Church is to be continually exposed to heresy, fanaticism and the unrestricted power of evil men and that we are to let this continue and make no effort to separate the evil from the good in the Church of God? No, not at all. It is not the Church that is here the field. “The field is the world” (Matthew 13:38). This is the Master’s own standard in interpreting these parables. It is right for us, as far as wise and watchful discipline can accomplish it, to purge out and keep out both error and wickedness from the Church of Christ. That is our business, but, as the apostle puts it so well, “God will judge those outside” (1 Corinthians 5:13). It is in the world that the enemy sows his weeds—in immediate contact with the people of God and the Church of Christ. And these things surround us in our family, social, civil and business life, inexorably and incessantly. And the teaching of the parable is that this mingled condition will exist till the end of the age. We are not going to see any of our modern crusaders clean out these evils—the saloons, the social evil or the political grafters. They will continue till the end. Our business is to plant and cultivate the good seed and let the good overcome the evil. But the separation God alone can make, and He will not make it until the end of the age. Our dreams of ideal social, ecclesiastical and political Utopias are all in the air and will end like dissolving rainbows. Our hope is farther on—Christ and His blessed coming. The Mustard Tree
3. The Rapid and the Universal Growth of the Mingled System of Good and Evil (Matthew 13:31-32) This appears in the mustard tree which suddenly shoots up its branches and spreads abroad its boughs and covers the earth with its shade until “the birds of the air come and perch in its branches” (Matthew 13:32). It has been customary to describe this as the encouraging symbol of the rapid growth of Christianity, and we have been deluged with figures of the millions that today comprise the Christian population of the globe. It is true that Christianity nominally controls the most powerful nations and holds under its influence the great proportion even of the non-Christian nations, but to call this the true kingdom of Jesus Christ would be a sad caricature. This great mass of several hundred millions of nominal Christians includes Roman Catholics, Greeks, Oriental Christians and vast numbers of Protestants, who are Christian only in name and who are worshiping mammon (Matthew 6:24) and following the spirit of the world quite as much as their less civilized fellowmen. It is just what the parable was meant to express—a great mass of mingled good and evil, called Christendom. It is quite enough to condemn it that it is the harboring place of those “birds of the air” which in the first parable “ate” the good seed (Matthew 13:4). It has room not only for God, but for every other god; not only Christ, but for all the “isms” that outnumber today the deities of the ancient Pantheism. It is the church of Laodicea: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing’” (Revelation 3:17), but so swollen with pride and self-complacency that it has no room for Christ, and He is only separating the few true hearts from the mass until He shall spit it out of His mouth. The Yeast
4. The Hidden Corruption of Nominal Christianity (Matthew 13:33) The parable of the yeast now follows in true logical order and gives us the vision of the inward character of the great mass of nominal Christianity. This too has been perverted in most of our modern religious teaching. The yeast, according to these religious optimists, is the spreading of the gospel, permeating and pervading gradually the whole mass of humanity till the whole shall be leavened and the world shall awake some fine morning to find itself at last right side up and all the ills of all the ages ended in the poet’s dream: When the war drum throbs no longer and the battle flag is furled, In the Parliament of man and federation of the world. Unfortunately the analogy of the Scriptures is all against this, quite as much as the facts of human history. Flour, in the Old Testament, is always a type of the good and not of the bad. The grain offering was one of the five great offerings of Moses (Leviticus 2:1-16). It is the good seed we have already seen in the parable, ground into a form fitted for wholesome food. Yeast, on the other hand, is always the symbol of evil. It stands for fermentation, corruption, sin. It was forbidden in the ancient Jewish Passover, and it is forbidden in the New Testament epistles. We are not only to “get rid of the old yeast,” but we are to be “without yeast” (1 Corinthians 5:7). Yeast, therefore, represents in the parable the influence of evil and its silent, pervading and far-reaching power. It is the secret working of the same enemy who sowed the weeds. It represents the unbelief, the worldliness, the selfishness, the license which today are slowly wearing down the barriers of faith, conscience and separation even in the Church itself, and reducing society to one broad level of liberalism, humanitarianism and easy-going selfishness. The process is so apparent that in order to understand the parable, we need only to look round us and see the conditions of the Christian church today. The Treasure
5. The Hidden Elements of Good (Matthew 13:44-46) But is this all, we naturally ask? Is there no brighter vision? Is there no other element? Is it all corruption? We turn to the next two parables and we behold a cheering contrast in the parable of the Treasure and the Pearl (Matthew 13:44-46). These represent the good side of the inner life of Christendom. The first of these two parables, the Treasure hid in the field, appears to stand for Israel during the present age; the second, the Pearl, for the Church of Jesus Christ, containing only His holy and hidden ones. Israel was to disappear from the foreground because of her rejection of the Lord, but Israel was to have a remnant which would continue through the Christian age to represent God’s chosen people and to claim at last their ancient covenant when Christ shall come again, and Israel shall come forth from the obscurity and suffering of all these sad ages to be the queen of nations on the Millennial earth. Israel is always God’s earthly people, the Church, His heavenly people. Therefore, this treasure is “hidden in a field” (Matthew 13:44), which means this world. Israel during the present age is hidden and in retirement from the stage of the prophecy, but it is for Israel’s sake that God is preserving this old earth and is by and by to restore it and make it new. Therefore we read that for the sake of that treasure, the Lord sold all that He had and bought the field in which the treasure was hidden. This is not said about the pearl. The pearl was taken out of the field, but the treasure remained in it. Israel is to remain on earth and at the Lord’s return is to have the dominion of the earth. This is finely brought out in the symbolism of the parable, and as we thus understand it, a beautiful light is shed upon both the parable and the prophecies of Scripture concerning Israel. The use of the word “treasure” is peculiarly appropriate to Israel. It is constantly employed in the Old Testament concerning God’s chosen people. “For the Lord has chosen Jacob to be his own, Israel to be his treasured possession” (Psalms 135:4). “For the Lord’S portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance” (Deuteronomy 32:9). These are but some of the numerous references to Israel as the Lord’s treasure. The Pearl
6. The Place of the Church in the Plan of the Ages (Matthew 13:45-46) This is finely set forth in the parable of the Pearl of Great Price. Unfortunately, this has been so often applied to Christ by inconsiderate teachers and expounders of the Scriptures that it is difficult to accustom Bible students to look at its true meaning. It does not describe Christ at all in this parable, for He is the One that found the pearl and gave all that He had to purchase it. Rather, it represents His people whom He describes as His jewels. More strictly speaking, it stands for the Bride of the Lamb, not Christians individually, but the whole body of His chosen ones as they shall at last be gathered and glorified at His coming, and as John describes them in the Apocalypse, in that vision of glory where the Lamb’s wife is presented in the sublime imagery of all the combined jewels known to man. The description of the sacrifice by which the Lord obtained this pearl is applicable only to Him. How truly He “sold everything he had” (Matthew 13:46) that He might buy His people! How true it is that He has bought them and redeemed them from sin, Satan, death and hell to be a peculiar people unto Himself, and how beautiful the figure of the Pearl under which they are represented as united and glorified to adorn His crown in the New Jerusalem! It will be noticed that just before giving these two parables, the Lord Jesus withdrew from the multitude and “went into the house” (Matthew 13:36), vividly signifying by His act that these parables that He was about to speak had a more personal and intimate relation to His own disciples, while the others related rather to the world and the multitude. His significant action should also be noted in the very beginning of this series of parables, when we are told that He went out of the house and sat down by the seaside (Matthew 13:1). His going out of the house was significant of His leaving Israel and turning to the Gentiles. They had now rejected His overtures of grace and He went forth from them to the world, always represented in the Bible by the sea and its troubled waters. His first act, therefore, was to retire from Israel and give utterance to the parables that related to the Gentile world and the Christian age. His next symbolic act was to withdraw from the multitude and come into the house, again symbolizing His messages to His hidden ones in the parable of the Treasure and the Pearl. The NET
7. The Final Separation (13:47-50) The parable of the Net is the picture of the separation that is to come at last when the Lord Himself shall appear. He and His angelic ministers alone can make this separation. Man has tried long and vainly to eliminate the evil from the world. Wiser and stronger hands are needed for the task and those hands are soon to undertake it. Meanwhile the net is drawing “all kinds” (Matthew 13:47) from the great sea of human life, and slowly the cords are being drawn to the eternal shore, where at last the hands of mighty angels “will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:49-50), and “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). How very solemn is the picture of this mysterious net. How it suggests to us the silent and inevitable progress of time as the age is insensibly and yet inexorably rolling on to this awful crisis. What a touching spectacle those countless fishes, as they suddenly find themselves within the barriers of the enclosing net and vainly struggle to escape its meshes and get out into the freedom of the sea. Closer and closer draw those barriers as they dash from side to side and vainly struggle to escape. For a little they may think that they are free as they pass from one side to the other of prison; but lo, they strike again upon the farther side and are hurled back into the writhing mass in the center, until the cords are tightened and with a sudden jerk the whole mass is hurled upon the strand, struggling, writhing, gasping for breath, and finding themselves helpless and hopeless in a new element in which they have never lived before. Such is the picture of human life as the age rolls on. For a time men think that they are free as they follow their own will in the great unconfined ocean of human life. But every little while there is something to remind them that God’s great net of providence and destiny is thrown around them and that a force unseen is steadily drawing them to the eternal strand. Every little while, something reminds them that they are being drawn to that eternal shore. Sometimes, it is the death of a friend, sometimes it is the solemn voice of reason and conscience reminding them that they are born to die. Then they strike out again and claim their liberty and refuse to listen to their fears. Closer and closer the lines are drawing, and some day they shall find themselves swept into that strange eternal world which will be as foreign to them as the ocean strand to the helpless fishes of the sea. Then mighty hands will make the final separation. Our struggles, our pleas will be in vain and each of us will find himself and herself taking the place for evermore for which we have been preparing here. Well might the Master ask His little class of wondering disciples, after they had listened to these strange, deep teachings, “Have you understood all these things?” (Matthew 13:51). God help us to understand them and live under “the powers of the coming age” (Hebrews 6:5).