Matthew 13:33-58

CHAPTER 27

THE LEAVEN

Matthew 13:33. “He spake another parable to them: The kingdom of the heavens is like unto leaven, which a woman having taken, hid in three measures of meal, until all were leavened.” Leaven is zume, which has no meaning but fermentation, corruption....We have no right to depart from the lexical meaning and the uniform Biblical signification of a word. The point of illustration is its progressive and general dissemination throughout the entire lump in which it is deposited. You must not think that the parables all symbolize the kingdom in all its phases. This is not true.

Hence the number of them, some illustrating one phase, and some another. Of course our fallen Mother Eve is the woman here alluded to, in her common maternity of the whole human race. You must remember humanity took on three distinct varieties in the house of Noah-Shem, the red man, who inherited and populated Asia; Ham, the black man, who received Africa in the distribution of Father Noah's universal patrimony; and Japheth, the white man, Europe, which has spread out and taken in America. How do you know that the tri-color distinction there originated?

Shem is a Hebrew word, which means red; Ham, black; and Japheth, white. You see how the leaven i.e., depravity by the mother of humanity, was deposited in these three measures of antediluvian meal, which, in Noah's ark, survived the flood, and O, how it has spread to the ends of the earth! The gospel kingdom is like this leaven in the sense in which God is like the “unjust judge” (Luke 18), where the similitude is simply at the point of independency; this leaven of heavenly grace, being more contagious than small-pox, going to the ends of the earth, beautifying the elect and revealing the non-elect, and thus preparing the world for the coming of the Lord. “Jesus spoke all of these things to the multitudes in parables, and without a parable He was not accustomed to speak to them; in order that the word, having been spoken by the prophet, may be fulfilled, I will open my mouth in parables; I will reveal things which have been hidden from the foundation of the world.” (Psalms 78:2.) The Old Testament is the gospel in symbolism i.e., blackboard exercises, spread out extensively and elucidated minutely, accommodatory to an uncultured, semibarbaric people, such as Israel, degraded by two hundred and fifteen years in Egyptian slavery. The Gospels of our Lord are in parables, occupying a much higher grade than the Mosaic typology, an intermediate between the rudimentary teaching of the Old Testament and the clear, straight, positive, and unequivocal, doctrinal, experimental, and practical deliverances of the Holy Ghost in the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation.

“Then leaving the multitudes, Jesus came into the house.” It is highly probable this was Peter's house in Capernaum, headquarters of the Great Prophet and his apostles. “His disciples came unto Him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. Responding, He said to them, The one sowing the good seed is the Son of man, and the field is the world, and these children of the kingdom are the good seed.” “He is the True Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” (John 1:9.)

The omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Excarnate Christ has been in this world from the beginning, sowing the good seed of the kingdom; His children, the elect, always having been here from the days of Abel. “The tares are the sons of the wicked one; the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned with fire, so it shall be in the end of this age. The Son of man will send forth His angels, and he will gather out from His kingdom all things which offend and cause iniquity, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Here you see that these tares i.e., the hypocrites are the devil's sort of Christians. They are everywhere in the Churches. We are just to let them alone till the end of the age, when the great tribulation will come upon the world, God hackling out of all nations the unsavable material (Daniel 7:9), when the world will be divested of hypocrites, and infidels, and all others who have grieved away the Holy Spirit and sealed their doom in endless woe. On the resurrection morn, O how brightly will the risen and transfigured saints shine in the kingdom of God! When Satan shall be bound and cast into the bottomless pit (Revelation 20), and the reprobates all taken out of the world, thus Satan and his armies retreating before the King of kings and Lord of lords, descending in His glory, accompanied by the mighty host of His bridehood, to girdle the globe with the splendors of the Millennial Theocracy.

THE HIDDEN TREASURE

“Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like unto a treasure which has been hidden in the field, which a man, having found, concealed, and from his joy goes and sells all things, so many as he has, and purchases that field.” The field here is the Church, which God has made the depository of redeeming grace. I was a member of the visible Church before I was converted, and during my regenerated life an enthusiastic amateur of it. It is the province of the Church to get souls converted to God. The man in this parable is a Church member, perhaps born and reared in it, ignorant of experimental salvation. Somehow he gets an inkling that there is something wonderful and glorious in the Church. Then he turns over all of his resources, soul, mind, body, and estate, and buys this field; i.e., he takes the Church for his portion, becoming truly devoted and exceedingly zealous. Very soon he is enabled to appreciate this treasure, which had been hidden in the field until he recently found out that it was there. O how grateful to the Church, and how enthusiastic and enterprising in her behalf!

THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

“Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like unto a mercantile man, seeking goodly pearls, who, having found one pearl of great price, having gone, sold all things which he had, and purchased it.” Here is another selling out and new embarkation in mercantile enterprise. You must remember that these two are mercantile parables, the salient facts consisting in buying and selling. In the former parable the man had no treasure i.e., he was destitute of a heavenly investment of any kind; so he sold out his carnal chattels and bought the field i.e., the Church for the sake of the treasure hidden in it, only discernible by spiritually-illuminated eyes. Hence they could live and die all around it, and walk over it, and not know it was there. Now we see the man is a merchant i.e., a Christian in the phraseology of the parables. By some means he ascertains that there is on hand a pearl of great price i.e., of infinite value its beauty and brilliancy eclipsing all others. Now he goes and sells out all he has; and you must remember that now be has an infinitely better stock in trade than he had before he bought the field, and found in it the first blessing; but he makes a complete invoice of all, not only his earthly possessions, but the Church, the membership, the choir, the big pipe-organ, the Official Board, the pastor, presiding elder, bishop, and all the Conferences; the Creed, rites, and ceremonies, putting all on the altar, without any reservation, for time and eternity:

“Here I give my all to Thee Friends, and time, and earthly store; Soul and body, Thine to be;

Wholly Thine, for evermore.”

The final issue is, that he purchases the pearl of great price, entire sanctification, which a man does not get through the normal administration of the Church, but, forsaking all, must go to God alone, and sink away into Him.

THE DRAG-NET

“Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like unto the net, having been cast into the sea, and gathering from every kind.” This illustrates the kingdom after the similitude of the visible Church. “Which, when it may be filled, drawing it up on the shore, and sitting down, they gathered the good into baskets, but threw the bad away.” We are on the constant outlook for our Lord to appear, and take His saints with Him to glory, and turning over to Satan his due, and leaving them for the great tribulation, exposed to the doom of the ungodly . “So it will be in the end of the age;” i.e., the end of the gospel age, in which we live. “The angels will come forth and separate the wicked from the midst of the righteous; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The gathering of the good into baskets is the rapture. (Matthew 24:31.) Now we see the angels, girdling the globe with the splendor of their pinions.

“A fiery stream issued, and came from before Him; thousands and thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him.” (Daniel 7:10.)

This is the pre-millennial judgment by the Ancient of Days, dethroning all the kings of the earth, preparatory to the glorious coronation of His Son King of kings and Lord of lords. Here you see the Ancient of Days is attended by this innumerable host of angels, who are evidently His subordinates in the administration of the retributive judgments against the wicked, thus hackling them out of the world preparatory to the glorious millennial reign.

DISCIPLESHIP

“Jesus says to them, Do you understand all these things? They say to Him, Yea, Lord. And He said to them, Therefore, every scribe, having been discipled into the kingdom of the heavens, is like unto a man who is a landlord, who bringeth out of his treasure things new and old.”

“Instructed into the kingdom,” E.V., is not a literal translation of matheteutheis, which is the passive aorist participle from nathetes, “a disciple.” Hence it simply means “being discipled;” i.e., being made a disciple. The Commission reads, “Go, disciple all nations.” Hence the only way to become a member of the kingdom of heaven, or kingdom of God, which are precisely synonymous, is to become a disciple of Christ, which requires a genuine regeneration, wrought by the Holy Spirit, leading on to entire sanctification, which is indispensable to the successful perpetuity of that discipleship. This is true of the scribe i.e., the preacher and every other human being. Now what is the characteristic of every one who has become a member of the Lord's kingdom? He has a treasure in his heart which a world of gold can not purchase. “Out of his treasure he bringeth forth things both new and old.” Now what of the new? Do you not know that the work of the Holy Ghost is always new? Instead of getting old, stale, and dingy, a genuine experience “shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.” So his experience, regeneration and sanctification, is always new. What is old? Why the blessed truth of God. While a spiritual experience is always new, kept bright and sweet by the indwelling Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the Bible is always old, every new doctrine being false. Hence Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” “And it came to pass, when Jesus finished these parables, He departed thence;” i.e., He went away out of Capernaum to embark on the sea.