SECTION XII.

THE UNFOLDING OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN SEVEN PARABLES.

(Matt. xiii. 1-52.)

The bitter experience which our Lord had to make, that the legal representatives of the Old Testament economy blasphemed as a Satanic power the Spirit which filled Him, and in which He wrought, compelled Him henceforward to use the most prudent reserve towards the people, who were on all hands infected by the spirit of His enemies, and became ruled by it; and at the same time to take a step in advance towards detaching His institution from the Old Testament economy, for which step He had laid the foundation by His Sermon on the Mount. In this mind, He proceeded with the delivery of the parables concerning the kingdom of God, which He had begun before His setting out to Gadara (see above, vol. ii. p. 141). As soon as He had broken off intercourse with His enemies, He went the same day to the sea-side, and spoke from a ship to the people assembled on the shore, a series of parables which, with those He had formerly delivered, formed a living unity (see above, vol. ii. p. 284). In this manner arose the collection of the seven great parables which form a definite connected succession of symbolic pictures, in which He laid down the development of the kingdom of heaven, or the New Testament kingdom of God.

As to the contents of these parables, we have in them, first of all, a contrast between the friends and the enemies of the kingdom of heaven, as our Lord found them definitely marked out in Judea. The latter come before us in different shapes, first (in the bad ground), in every kind of irreceptivity, as negative opponents; then as positive antagonists (in the tares among the wheat); and lastly, as lifeless, worthless confessors (in the useless fish). Jesus means to show by these traits, and by the seven parables altogether, that that which He founds, the kingdom of heaven, forms a definite contrast to the Judaism which had hitherto existed.

With respect to form, Jesus now clothes these doctrines in the veil of parables, because this was requisite on account of the alienated mind of most of His hearers. The holy need above all things this protection, in presence of an audience containing blasphemers, whose invectives have filled our Lord with horror, from His pure sense for the holy. He also desires by this manner of propounding His doctrines to spare His profane hearers as far as possible, or to keep them from further outraging the openly manifested truth. But as the parables serve on the one hand to veil the truth from the profane, so they serve on the other hand to unveil it to the weak, sensuous, but yet receptive capacity of the better class among the people. Lastly, these parables form for His disciples and for His Church clear symbolic forms in which eternal views of Christ's truth have been given them (see vol. i. 473, &c.)

In the first parable Christ delineates to us the founding of the kingdom of heaven by the word of God, the negative hindrances which in all kinds of human irreceptivity oppose its success, and the glorious success which it nevertheless finds in the receptive. This is the parable of the sower: 'A sower went forth to sow. Some of his seed fell by the way-side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth; and forthwith they sprung up, just because they had no deepness of earth; and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away: and some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up and choked them: but others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold.' That the practical application of this parable was very easy, was pointed out by Christ in the concluding clause: 'Who hath ears to hear, let him hear,'

Attached to this parable we have the discussion between Christ and His disciples concerning the question why He spoke to the people in parables, — a discussion which may in certain respects be considered as a continuation of the parable itself, as it gives an explanation of the sower's method who scatters the seed of the eternal word, of the grounds which determine Him to choose this parabolic form, and as it concludes with an interpretation of the parable. 'Unto you it is given,' said Christ, 'to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he (perchance still) hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables; because they seeing, see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith (chap, vi.). By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.' Once already, in the days of Isaiah, the people had been deeply indisposed towards the word of God. This word had had the mournful effect rather of rendering the people callous than of enlightening them, and the prophet had recognized therein a judgment of God, and announced this judgment in fulfilment of his commission. But according to Christ's words, this announcement had not received its complete fulfilment until now; for now the people of Israel were hardening themselves against the word of Jehovah bodily manifested. Therefore Jesus spoke to the people in parables. In this connection the word declares a judgment which Christ in His compassion seeks to mitigate. His compassion teaches Him to choose the parable-form that the hardening of the wicked might be hindered, and the better class helped as much as possible. He adds, 'But blessed are your eyes, for they (truly) see; and your ears, for they (truly) hear. For verily I say unto you. That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower (in His exposition). When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the way-side. (He himself is a substance sown by the way-side; for the history of his life is identical with the history of the seed which in his heart fell by the way-side, and so it is with all the rest. The lot of the divine seed in the man is the lot of the man himself. What happens to that seed in the man, happens to the man himself.) But he that received the seed in the stony places, the same is lie that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it: yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended (stumbles and falls). He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; who also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.' Thus sin has in a threefold way spoiled the field of humanity for the seed of the kingdom, the word of God, which Christ constitutes in its perfection: the ground^of life often becomes, through the habitual dominion of the evil, a hard way-side in which nothing divine can germinate; an enthusiastic and easily receptive sense for 'everything good, true, and beautiful 'often covers the stony hardness of the deeper ground of the mind, which hinders the quick enthusiastic fits for the Gospel from striking root; the more receptive mind in the passive respect often lets the care of the world take root in it equally with the word of God; but in the heart of the elect, God reserves a chosen ground, the golden acre, in which His seed thrives richly, and yields a manifold return.

But it is not only negative hindrances which sin sets to the thriving of the divine seed in mankind, it sets positive hindrances also. It begets the principles of destruction which, in the form of false doctrines, false maxims, and false Messianic promises, assume the appearance of the true divine seed, and become so much the more destructive, as the enemy of Christ and of mankind casts them into the green corn-field of the kingdom of heaven itself, in order thereby to destroy God's crop. Our Lord sets forth this fact in the parable of the tares among the wheat. The kingdom of heaven is here likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, 'Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it tares?' The householder at once perceived the cause, and answered, 'An enemy hath done this.'¹ The indignation of the servants now rose higher, and they proposed to him to go immediately and weed out the tares. But the master uttered a decided nay; and added, 'Lest, while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers. Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn,'

A significant meaning may be found in the fact that our Lord gave the disciples a special exposition of this parable also, not immediately indeed, but later, after He had spoken the third and the fourth parable. The same thing takes place in Church history. The fall understanding of this parable seems not to grow clear to Christendom until late.

In the third parable, the hostile power has disappeared from view. We see here the action of the heavenly principle alone, although at first apparently in the most insignificant form. 'The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree.' It appears even to change its species, and transform itself from a herb into the likeness of a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Thus the principle of the kingdom of heaven, Christ's institution, is to appearance exceedingly insignificant in its first shape; but in its development it grows above all expectation into a giant form. The Lord foresaw that His gentle kingdom of heaven would grow up into the similitude of another species of spiritual planting, namely, into the similitude of a great worldly state, and that birds of all kinds would come to lodge in the bush-like giant plant.

This parable already expresses the preponderance of the kingdom of heaven over the world, and in the following this preponderance appears in its absolute form: 'The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid (as if she meant to bury it) in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.' Thus the kingdom of heaven acts towards the essential substance of man's life as leaven to dough, in close relation and with preponderating influence; and the Church is the woman who (intermediating between Christianity and mankind) kneads this leaven into that lump, until it disappears. But we need be under no apprehension regarding this mixture: the higher divine-human force of Christianity lays hold of the whole of the dough, the mass of mere human life, until it becomes leaven itself. The Church, which seems to be lost in the world, swallowed up in it, shall, by her preponderating power, transform the world itself into a great universal Church.

The Evangelist felt that Jesus had, in these four parables, given an outline of the entire development of the kingdom of heaven in its relation to the course of time. All these things, he remarks, spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake He not unto them; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world (what formed this secret, deepest life-ground of the world, see Ps. Ixxviii. 2). That Matthew considered the sacred psalmists as prophets, should, from his lively conception of prophecy, cause no surprise.²

Christ had thus rehearsed to the assembled people in four parables (the number of the world) the history of the kingdom of heaven in general — how it comes into the world, and becomes the kingdom of God over the world. He now sent the multitude away, in order still further to rehearse to His disciples apart, in three parables (the number of the Spirit), the doctrine of the individual man's coming to the kingdom of heaven and his relation to it. But first, at their request, He explained to them, in the confidential circle in which they surrounded Him, the parable of the tares among the wheat. So it was not until they formed a circle separate from the multitude that they got this explanation: 'He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil;³ the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them who do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.'

Thus the outward separation between the children of the kingdom and the children of iniquity is not to be carried into effect now, but latterly, at the end of the world. And it shall then be put into execution, not by the sinful field-labourers of the kingdom, but by the perfected angels of God. And these will be still more able to woid mistakes in distinguishing between the wheat and the tares (the darnel or cockle), as their dissimilarity, regarding which one might be deceived on their first springing up, has now completely manifested itself. But the fire into which the children of the wicked one, who have become identified with things that offend, shall then be cast, shall not be in the worst sense purposeless (like that too hasty and false caricature of the final judgment, the fire of the auto-da-fe), but shall be a fire in the furnace, and serve for an economy of judicial administration, which economy also has its special purpose to serve in the great, eternal household of God.

That exclusion of the bad will set free the kingdom of the light from the primal sympathetic pleasure which has weighed upon it by means of the outward connection between both regions of life, and it shall forthwith become manifest in a glorious shining forth of the righteous: 'Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath cars to hear, let him hear.' Special account should be taken of this, that the Church then first can and shall attain to her proper glory of manifestation. This may be concluded also from the three parables in which our Lord shows us how the individual man comes into the kingdom of heaven: they show how very concealed from the world, and yet outwardly mixed with the world, the kingdom will continue until the end of the world.

We learn here, as has been intimated already, in the first two parables, how a man comes into the kingdom of heaven. The first is this: 'Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field; the which, when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.'

What is common to both parables is, that the kingdom of heaven, in every stage of its public extension in the world, continues, as to its proper nature, a secret which a man must find out from a great concealment, that it is imparted to the receptive man only as an extraordinary discovery, that he must surrender everything in order to appropriate it, and that the right finder of the kingdom of heaven is really ready to do this with great joy. But, at the same time, the two parables form a definite contrast. In the first, the comparison is with a treasure which is found unexpectedly; in the second, with a seeking man. The first displays rather the action of divine grace, and the second, human endeavour in the work of conversion. In the first, the man is bent on seeking his bread by cultivating the field, doubtless with pious behaviour; but deep in the ground of the law he finds the Gospel hid, which makes him rich at once, after he has given up all for it. In the second, the man sets out as a merchant in spontaneous search of fortune, as a seeker, a man of longing; he searches for goodly pearls, the noblest riches of life; and as soon as he descries the precious pearl, his search is at an end, and his choice is decided. Without doubt our Lord has described to us in this last figure the 'few noble 'of the kingdom of heaven.

But the last parable shows us that they are not all genuine members of the kingdom who enter into even the New Testament Church, but that, at the end of the world, judgment must pass upon the Church also, which then embraces the whole world. Here the kingdom of heaven is represented by a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind (fish and sea-monsters); which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. 'So shall it be at the end of the world,' said Christ in explanation. 'The angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.'

'Have ye understood all these things? 'asked He of His disciples at the close of this second discourse. They answered, 'Yea, Lord.' After this explanation He characterized also His discourse itself in a parable-form: 'Therefore every scribe who is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.' By the new, our Lord doubtless understands those parts of His discourse which the hearers do not at first understand, and which need to be explained to them, as for example the first parables here; and by the old, He means those parts of the discourse which the hearers can understand at once, through previous and preparatory instruction, as the disciples here do the last parables.

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