Matthew 13:3-50

Matthew 13:3

The Parables of the Kingdom.

I. Taking these seven parables all together, notice, first, the fact that our Lord, in describing the kingdom of heaven, did deliberately use many parables, and those strikingly different from one another. The kingdom of heaven is a many-sided thing, and there are many ways of looking at it, all of which may be true ways, though differing very greatly.

II. The kingdom of heaven, as Christ expounded it, is the Gospel, the word of salvation, everywhere preached, yet most variously received as in the first parable; it is the Gospel, true and pure and genuine in its beginning, but rapidly intermingled in its upgrowth with spurious and baleful imitations as in the second parable.

III. But if it be evidently the Gospel, it is as evidently the Church, the outward and visible form, which waxes from less to more, which embodies before the eyes of men the principle of life which animates it, which testifies by its rapid growth to the wondrous vigour of that hidden principle as in the third parable, of the mustard seed.

IV. But the kingdom of heaven is also a moral force the force of moral and social principles. It is a leaven ever working outwards as long as there is any human society left to work upon; a leaven working far beyond the visible pale of the Church, though producing everywhere but a partial change as in the fourth parable, of the hidden leaven.

V. But, lastly, the kingdom of Christ is Christ Himself, the real treasure, the great object of desire; for whose sake alone any outward acquisition is valuable; yet for whose sake the loss of all things were indeed gain. It is Christ Himself, the personal Saviour, found and appropriated at any cost as in the fifth and sixth of our parables.

VI. The sevenfold arrangement intimates that we are to look for a certain unity of plan and completeness of execution about these parables. It means that they represent among them all the possible aspects of Christianity; and they also represent in their order and arrangement the historical development of Christianity from first to last. Poets and philosophers have written of the seven ages of man. I believe that we may speak with much more certainty of the seven stages through which the kingdom of heaven passes towards its final state.

R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions,p. 108.

References: Matthew 13:4. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 62; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 149.