Just as the Mustard Seed and the Leaven are twin parables, so also are the Hid Treasure and the Pearl of great price. They have the common element of a readiness to sacrifice all else for that which is deemed to be of surpassing value.

Since, in those days, the ordinary individual did not have access to a bank (in the modern sense of the term), the safe keeping of money and valuables was no easy matter. The solution adopted by many was to make a hiding-place under the floor of the house or in a cave or in the ground in some remote spot. The man in the parable who hid his one talent is an example of this.

It could happen that a man died without revealing to others the secret of the hiding place, and accidental discovery of the cache might follow generations later. In more recent times this has been a not infrequent experience of archeologists and even ploughmen. If one may assume the passing of generations, one aspect of the morality problem in this parable is taken care of.

Jesus put this intriguing situation to work, in order to set his disciples thinking on yet different lines about the gospel of the kingdom. But what conclusions did he intend them to draw? There are two very attractive but markedly different interpretations.

Christ and his redeemed?

In one the man is Christ himself. The treasure in the field is the community of the redeemed. In order to gain them for himself, Jesus was prepared to sacrifice everything else, even to forfeit life itself, that he might gain title to the whole world, and this specially in order that he might bring to himself those who are “the called according, to God’s purpose”.

Similarly, the merchant seeking goodly pearls represents Christ, and again the pearl of great price stands for God’s elect for whom Christ was prepared to give his all for the sake of acquiring this special prize.

The particular satisfaction which these interpretations offer is the emphasis on the single-minded devotion of Christ to the very purpose for which the Father brought him into the world.

But there are difficulties.

There is an essential distinction of idea between these parables. The treasure was found by chance (its finder was not looking for it), whereas the merchant was seeking. But can it be said with confidence that the hid treasure was found by accident? To this the answer must be “Yes”, for, had the man known that the treasure was somewhere in the field and meant to have it, he would surely have bought the field first and then set about his explorations. Another difficulty is that the merchant man was “seeking goodly pearls” (plural) until he came across the one which was outstandingly precious. And the implication seems to be that he was willing to get rid of all those already acquired for the sake of the unique one now found. These details are not easy to find room for if this is an allegory of the redemptive work of Christ.

A man finds the Gospel

It is at these very points where the alternative interpretation goes with special smoothness.

The first parable describes the reaction of a man who is not looking for the Truth of Christ, but comes upon it, as it would seem, by chance. A casual remark, the fortuitous reading of an advertisement, a change of neighbours or of employment, a new friendship made on holiday -in a hundred different ways men come upon the Truth when they are not looking for it, and, recognizing at once its surpassing value, they are willing to make any sacrifice of time, effort, professional advantage, social standing, in order to “seek first the kingdom of God”.

But the treasure is hidden in a field which has to be acquired first before the treasure can be appropriated. The field, then, may stand for the Scriptures in which the Truth about salvation in Christ is embedded. Or it may represent the ecclesia which holds the Truth of the gospel. Either way, the parable is meaningful. The eager seeking out of knowledge revealed in the Word is a necessity if a man is to know and cherish the Hope of Israel. But also he cannot regard himself as a solitary unit of Truth. He must set himself to experience the fellowship which salvation in Christ also means if indeed the suddenly-discovered prize is to be his.

Two Scriptures are specially apposite here. “I am found of them that sought me not. I said, Behold me, Behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name” (Is. 65:1). Did Jesus have in mind particularly the finding of Jewish treasure by spiritually poverty-stricken Gentile? – “having nothing, and yet (now) possessing all things”, for “in him (in Christ) are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”.

The finder is a poor man, or he would manage the purchase without such extreme measures. His eager selling-up of all his present possessions so as to buy the field and its treasure is well expressed by Paul: “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:7,8).

The specific mention of the treasure being hidden again until the field is acquired calls for special interpretation. But how? Is there intimation here of a deep personal appreciation of the gospel which is incommunicable to others (Ps. 119:11; 1 Pet. 3:4)?

He does this “for joy thereof”. It is a joy not of present possession but future prospect — “rejoicing in hope” (Rom. 12:12; and also 2 Cor. 6:10; 1 Pet. 1:8; 4:13).

Some have been unnecessarily worried about the dubious morality assumed in this parable. In modern times treasure trove belongs to the state, and any finder appropriating it is a law-breaker. But in the first century things were different. And, after all, if there is treasure in a man’s field and he doesn’t know about it, nor is likely to know, he is no loser if someone else gains it.

A pearl of great price

The parable of the pearl presents a somewhat different picture-of a man who from the start has the set purpose of acquiring the best available. The parable implies systematic enquiry, careful scrutiny, rejection of some and selection of others. There are many philosophies in the world, but only one clear harmonious Truth. When a man finds this he worries little about abandoning all the rest. Indeed the Greek text very neatly implies that the merchant was prepared to sell up not only the stock of pearls he had already acquired but also everything else that he had.

The drag-net

The next parable is drastically different in scope. And since Jesus briefly explained its intention there is tolerable freedom from ambiguity. The gospel net gathers in fish of every kind. This can hardly mean different nationalities (in contrast with former Jewish privilege). It must signify varying personalities- every kind of individual. It is to be noted that they all exist in the drag-net together. The sorting out takes place when the boat has pulled to shore, that is, at the end of the age. But the fishing continues until the net is full, that is, “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom. 11:25). This expression, in its turn, is derived from an Old Testament prophecy using the metaphor of fishes. When blessing the sons of Joseph the aged Jacob deliberately gave priority to the younger, saying: “His seed shall become a multitude of nations”-literally, “a fulness of Gentiles” (Gen. 48:19). So Paul’s words in Romans were interpreting an Old Testament type. But Jacob also said of both sons: “Let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth” (v. 16). More accurately this is: “Let them swarm as fishes”. Thus both Jews and Gentiles find themselves in the gospel net.

The parable says expressly that “they (the fishermen) drew to shore and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away” (13:48). Here is a mode of speech regularly employed in Scripture with regard to the Judgment. “The judgment shall sit” (Dan. 7:26). “There will I sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi…” (Mal. 3:3).

Judgment by angels

But the authoritative interpretation of this, supplied by Jesus himself, presents a problem: “So shall it be at the end of the age: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just”. How is this to be reconciled with the clear and repeated teaching of the rest of Scripture that “the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son”? It is he that is “ready to judge the quick and the dead”.

The resolution of this apparent contradiction calls for more detailed investigation than is appropriate here. It has been attempted in “The Last Days”, chapter 11. To summarise briefly the conclusion reached there: it seems that when the angels are sent to gather those answerable to judgment, there will be no element of compulsion. Response to the call will be, in the first instance, optional: and by the varied responses illustrated in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins men will roughly sort themselves out into categories of worthy and unworthy. But of course the final decision will rest with the Lord himself, for “we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ”. Considering how few passages speak with any detail about the call of the saints and the ensuing judgment, it is rather remarkable that nearly all of them seem to have some hint of this idea.

The fate of the rejected

I n this parable it is the fate of the wicked which is specially dwelt on: “They shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth”. Since the old orthodox idea of the wicked suffering for ever in hell-fire is so clearly contrary to the over-all teaching of the Bible, it has been customary to read these words as interpreting the parable by means of another figure of speech. John the Baptist used the metaphor of fire to describe the fate of the unworthy (Lk. 3:17).

But it is possible that there is an element of the literal also about this “furnace of fire”. If indeed modern civilisation is to face its own special destruction by fire as Noah’s did by water, there would be a certain appropriateness about consigning worldly disciples to the same fate as the Sodom in which they have felt so much at home. “The heavens and the earth which are now, by the same Word have been stored with fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men… the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:7,10).

At this point Jesus paused and asked: “Have ye understood all these things?” There is a subtle irony about Matthew’s preservation of the disciples’ blithe response: “Yea, Lord”. Probably they meant that, thanks to the explanations Jesus had added, they had grasped the salient teaching of his parables. Yet, almost certainly, as the years went by they would be continually discovering fresh truth in these short but eloquent similitudes.

Such cocksureness on the part of the disciples on that occasion has been matched many a time since that day by the similar attitudes adopted by disciples in these days. The gospels are strewn with plenty of examples of the disciples’ marvellous inability to grasp what Jesus was trying to teach them. Then let a man take warning from their experience and avoid the too frequent readiness to measure the scope of the teaching of Jesus (and the rest of Scripture also) by his own limited grasp of its content. The lesson is an important one.

Historical sequence

The complete set of parables in Matthew 13 is worth considering once again, this time as a sequence. Is it just accident that they appear to have special relevance to the changing fortunes of the gospel over the centuries? Their ready conformity to a chronological sequence is certainly impressive.

1. The parable of the Sower is specially appropriate to the early days of the church, when the message was being disseminated far and wide.
2. But almost immediately came another era when to the pure gospel of the kingdom there were added many false unbiblical notions-the Tares.
3. As time went on the church became more and more powerful and materialistic, so that many political forces deemed alliance with the church well worth seeking. This is the mustard tree with the birds of the air in its branches.
4. Ultimately the Dark Ages set in. Truth was completely obscured. “The whole was leavened.”
5. With the sudden availability of printed Bibles in the 16th century a dramatic change took place. Men discovered Truth for themselves like treasure hid in a field, not because they were looking for it, but simply because they now had access to the Bible.
6. However, since the Reformation sectarianism has proliferated. Today there are churches galore. All of them have some truth to offer. But there is one which surpasses all others. This pearl of great price is so manifestly superior that a man is glad to let go all the rest for the sake of this one. This is the position today.
7. Before very long the Lord’s drag-net of judgment will have its fulfilment when the catch will be found to include a mystical number of great fishes (Jn. 21:11).

“Things new and old”

That such an additional interpretation of this group of parables is possible is in itself an impressive illustration of the main point in the additional parable with which the Lord rounded off this sequence: “Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old” (13:52).

Here mention of a “scribe”, that is, one specially tutored in the study of the Law of Moses, suggests that these parables, and indeed all the rest, are best understood by the discerning use of the Old Testament. This has already been illustrated regarding the dragnet. Pr. 2:4; 8:11; 20:15; may have provided the origin of the other two parables (some authorities read “pearls” for “rubies”).

Now this last parable in the sequence furnishes yet another example of the same important idea. The Law made a promise to Israel that “if ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them…ye shall eat old store long kept, and ye shall bring forth the old because of the new”: (Lev. 26:10). It is an assurance of such plenty that, when each harvest comes in, it will be necessary to bring out the still considerable store from the previous year in order to make room for fresh abundance.

This is a marvellously accurate picture of the pleasant embarrassment in which a man finds himself when he has learned well the gospel of the kingdom. In the Old Testament he has vast stores of divine law, history and prophecy. The New Testament brings a further superabundance of even higher quality, so that, be he never so unwilling, due preference must needs be given to the greater blessings of the New Covenant which God has more lately given. This was markedly true in the time of Jesus regarding the scribe whose eyes were opened to the truth that though “the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”. The same is even more true in this age when all the riches of the completed volume of Holy Scripture are poured into the lap of one who is “instructed unto the kingdom of heaven”.

This is privilege unequalled. Let disciples of this day and age recognize it as such with due thankfulness and industry.

It is possible now to see that this eighth parable has its place alongside the other seven in the historical sequence suggested earlier, for the key word is “scribe”. Here, then, is a picture of Jewry in the end of the age recognizing with surprise and delight what a vast store of divine instruction has been lying there in their ancient Scriptures, unperceived, until, offer the day of judgment (the drag-net), there is sudden realisation of divine truth concerning Christ-now even more in the New than in the Old Covenant.

Notes: Mt. 13:44-52

The recent preaching tour made by Jesus (Lk. 8:1) had led to a great influx of people from one town after another (8:4), into Capernaum, all eager to see and hear more of him. Mark’s word (4:1) might imply ‘the biggest crowd yet.’ So the mode of indoor instruction had to be abandoned. Instead, back he went to the old style of preaching on the beach. Once again the fishing boat of Zebedee and Co. (probably moored in a creek to allow the people to be fairly close on both sides) became his pulpit. Separated from the crowd thronging the shore he was able to discourse without the discomfort created by the too-close proximity of the people’s undisciplined eagerness.

Matthew’s phrase: “the same day”, tells an awesome story of what Jesus continued to crowd into one day’s activity:

Now, on the same day (Mt. 13:1) that his brothers would have taken him off home, saying: “He is beside himself” (Mk. 3:21), Jesus settled into systematic instruction by means of parables. Already on not a few occasions he had found this mode of preaching valuable.

His earlier teaching had already included parables about salt, light, the birds, the flowers, two gates, house-building, wineskins and patched garments. But now his parables became more systematic and, as allegories, more complete, this method was now to serve his purpose more than ever as a means of sifting the sincere and thoughtful from the hostile and the idly curious.

Somewhat remarkably, the Sower, the Mustard Seed and the Vineyard are the only parables recorded in all three synoptic gospels.

“Hearken!”

So, sitting as a teacher, he began with an imperative: “Hearken” (Mk. 4:3). Here Was the prophet like unto Moses with a parable very different from the tabernacle in the wilderness. “And (God said through Moses) whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him” (Dt. 18:19).

There was a further imperative of a different sort: “Verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which ye see, and did not see them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and did not hear them” (Mt. 13:17). It was an unselfconscious reminder of the high privilege which his presence gave them, a special blessing which has been without compare since the days of the apostles until these present days of imminent realisation of the divine Purpose. So it behoved the people to follow with undivided attention and to remember every word he spoke.

The story of the sower was one of the simplest and most effective of all that Jesus told. Its meaning should have been tolerably obvious to all who heard. Nevertheless his immediate disciples later insisted on an explanation, so Jesus supplied this point by point.

Seed and Soil

It is as much a parable of soils as of sowing (in Mark the emphasis switches from one to the other) for the outcome depends on where the seed falls. In one respect the story is not true to life. A good husbandman is careful to see that very little of his seed falls on stony places, in bypaths, or among thorns. He is at pains to ensure that all but a tiny fraction of it falls in well-prepared soil where there is good tilth. But Jesus, even when he spoke this parable, was casting his seed broadcast, regardless as to what kind of ground it fell into. And this is how he would have his Word proclaimed in every generation. Certainly today, by whatever means the Word is proclaimed, most of it falls in unfruitful places. But as an illustration of the varying kinds of response to the gospel, this story could not be bettered.

The Lord’s parable inevitably provokes the question: Why is this ground rich, and that barren? The only possible answer to this is: God made it so. The parable seems to take this fact for granted-possibly because, being a parable, it is only possible to present one aspect of truth at a time. Here, appropriately, Alford quotes from the Thirty-nine Articles: “God preventeth us (i.e. works before-hand) that we may have a good will, and worketh with us when we have that will”. Here, throughout, the emphasis is on the response of the individual, and not at all on the power of the seed. Yet how important a factor that is!

It is certainly true that bad soils can be made better before sowing time comes, by careful ploughing, by clearing of stones, and by good manuring. So the preacher is not at liberty to take one look at an opportunity for sowing the seed, and then to shrug his shoulders at the unpromising prospects and go away (cp. Lk. 8:18).

It has been suggested that Jesus framed this parable (and also the tares) as an expression of his growing sense of failure and as warning to the twelve to expect big discouragement. The recent bitter collision with the religious leaders may well have had this effect. And certainly before very long the Lord’s popularity graph was to take a sharp downward turn.

“The sower went forth to sow his seed: and as he sowed…” (Lk.). In the Greek text the key word comes four times in ten words. It is “his seed” which is sown; and on this Burgon comments: “Let ministers of Christ beware how they sow any other seed than His”.

“The seed is the word of God”. This splendid phrase is one of Luke’s favourites. He has it four times in his gospel and twelve times in Acts (thus providing a continuation of the parable of the sower).

But there are four kinds of soil-that which is trodden hard, rock with only the thinnest covering of soil, foul soil with the seeds and roots of many weeds, and the good tilth.

And there are four kinds of result to be looked for-some seed never gets the chance to sprout, some sprouts and withers just as quickly, some is choked by weeds and makes no head of grain, and some is really fruitful.

Gospel Variations

It is interesting, and not unprofitable, to compare the main differences in the reporting of the parable by the three synoptists:

The Wayside

The prospects for the seed falling on a pathway were doubly hopeless. For there germination was hardly possible, and if it did germinate the feet of passers-by would tread it. down (Lk.). But the birds saw to it that the seed had a different earlier fate.

Jesus interprets. This soil represents those who have no real understanding of or appreciation for the gospel (Mt. 13:19). Before ever patient instruction can foster early acquaintance with the gospel, worldly influences ruin the slightest disposition to heed the message.

The enemy is called Satan because he is an adversary to Truth, and the Devil because he is anti-God in his attitude, and “the wicked one” because he is a man of evil influence (as in Mt. 5:39 s.w.).

What can the preacher of the gospel do in such defection? The only answer seems to be: Try again, or try elsewhere.

Rocky Ground

The seed on stony ground has a better chance of escaping the attentions of the birds, and there is some moisture-holding soil to encourage rapid germination. But quick growth is followed by quick withering as the shallow pockets of soil dry out under the fierce heat of the sun. (Jas. 1:11 alludes to this; cp. also Jer. 17:8 where LXX has the same word: “moisture”). There is no eager root to search its sterile environment for sustenance, so the heat which should encourage growth shrivels it up instead.

Three times Jesus used the word “immediately” with reference to this class of believers. They give spontaneous joyful response to the message of the kingdom. But their conversion is superficial and will in no way stand the test of tribulation. Come hostile persuasion, hard circumstance, or persecution of the name of Christ, and just as quickly this disciple is a disciple no longer.

Pliny, administering the emperor Hadrian’s rules requiring loyalty to Caesar, found this sympton among the Christians in Bithynia. Earlier, in Nero’s reign, Paul, to his great discouragement, had the same sorry truth brought home to him: “At my first defence no one took my part” (2 Tim. 4:16). At that very time Demas seems to have taken an easy way out rather than share Paul’s danger with staunch loyalty (2 Tim. 4:10).

Such “have no root in themselves”. It is a puzzling phrase, probably equivalent to “understandeth it not: (Mt.). Before there is a proper grasp of what faith in Christ really means, confident persuasion or else persecution (Mt. Mk.) work their grievous damage and all is lost.

Weeds

There is also the seed which falls into potentially fruitful soil, but already weeds are in possession (Jer.4:3). The soaking rain and warm sunshine which quicken the sower’s seed give even greater vitality and vigour to the unwanted crop. No matter how the good seed struggles to make growth, its nourishment from below and its light from above are alike cut off by greedy flourishing useless neighbours, which seem to conspire (Gk.) to hinder progress. So, whilst this time there is continuing growth, it can never come to anything of value. There is no fruit to reward and gladden the sower.

Here is vivid and indeed poignant representation of disciples who find the world too much for them. Disciples they fain would be, but in the way of life which they choose they will not forego close association with “thorns and briers, which are nigh unto cursing.” In the Lord’s interpretation these overpowering influences are “the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things.” The first of these could, perhaps, be read as “endless worry”, and who would say that this is not a prime evil in choking the spiritual life of many a believer, especially when it is centred round progress in career or business? And since these ambitions invariably are close-knit with moneymaking, the association with “the deceitfulness of riches” is apt enough.

This second phrase will also bear looking at further. The King James version has translated accurately but has not explained. The RSV, reading “delight in riches” has attempted to interpret but has lost accuracy in the process. The NEB has combined translation and interpretation perfectly: “the false glamour of riches”. Jesus never had a good word to say for wealth, yet his warning runs ineffectually off the back of approximately 100% of his disciples-for the simple reason that to each of them “riches” always means “having at least twice as much as / have”.

Hence the next expression used by Jesus, which, more literally, is: “evil desires concerning the rest”, that is, concerning the rest of the material pleasure which the world goes offer.

All of these, “entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful”. The Lord did not speak too strongly. Every generation has had its tragic examples of the truth of his words — men in whom spiritual life has not died out but in whom it has been spindly and frail and often-times imperceptible because of the lush growth of worldliness all around.

Luke’s version of the parable has here one short phrase, badly obscured in the King James Bible, which is the key to all the rest: “having heard, they go on their way, and are choked…” When a man chooses thus to go his own way, spiritual atrophy is almost bound to set in, and the outcome is near to being a foregone conclusion. Luke’s version has also another very telling word with a powerful double meaning. “They bring no fruit to perfection” is a good, fairly literal, translation. But the Greek expression can also mean: “they do not pay”. This seed, although it continues to grow, might just as well not have been sown, for all the return the husbandman has from it.

Good Ground

There are no more spiritual tragedies described in this parable. The seed which fulfils its true function is that which ultimately justifies the telling of the story. The synoptic gospels are .delightfully complementary to each other in the .way they report the Lord’s own interpretation here. In Matthew this is “he that heareth the word, and understandeth it” (contrast 13:19). In Mark he “receives it” (RSV: accepts it). And in Luke he “keeps it” (RV: holds it fast- unto eternal life; Jn. 8:51). There is a “Pilgrim’s Progress” of ideas here eloquently telling the experience of many a saint in Christ. These are the outward tokens of “an honest and good heart” which “brings forth fruit with patience”- “growing up and increasing” (RSV), looking better and better every day. This word “patience” sums up both the slow steady growth of the plant to maturity and fruition, and also the life of steadfast loyalty and striving of the Lord’s faithful followers. The Lord who has gone forth weeping, bearing precious seed, will come again with rejoicing bearing the sheaves of his Passover offering with him (Ps. 126:5,6; Lev. 23:11).

Thus, ultimately, and inevitably (Mt.: de), “fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, an hundredfold”-good, better, best- and all of it seed which has grown more and more like the original seed which, Jesus says, is the WORD, himself! And the parable stops there, as though to emphasize that if a man brings forth fruit to Christ in faith, service, and evangelism he has already sufficiently fulfilled God’s intention with him.

Rather remarkably, Luke mentions only “an hundredfold”, perhaps intending to steer his reader to consideration of another “hundredfold”-the prosperity which God gave to Isaac in his harvest in the land ot the Philistines (Gen. 26:12).

Appropriately in that passage the Hebrew text of the next verse says three times over in the most emphatic way possible that Isaac “grew”. The harvest in that land of Gentiles was the growth also, in the face of strife, of the blessed Seed of Abraham. Here is yet another parable.

There is a kind of progression about the sections of this parable. The seed by the wayside is snatched away immediately. That falling on rocky soil springs up quickly but shrivels up quickly. The seed among thorns persists in a feeble useless fashion and bears no fruit. But that in good soil grows steadily through the season and “with patience” brings forth ample fruit.

Thus both in response and in the time involved there is a graduation. Also, alas, where the first three are concerned there is a steadily increasing degree of tragedy.

Packed into these five verses of parable are lessons enough, if only a man will seek honestly their relevance to himself. And, of course, this is what Jesus meant when he ended with his concise but searching “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear”.

The profound importance of these simple words may be measured by the frequency of their repetition, for the Lord Jesus is found using them on no less than twelve separate occasions (in fifteen different places in the NT text).

A man may be physically equipped with ears and yet have, alas, no hearing at all. But if those ears have any degree of normality, then, when a message is spoken, he cannot help but hear and act on it. And so it is also in the life of the Spirit.

Here is yet another parable.

Notes: Mt 13:1-23

Lk. 8:4-15

There is sad dramatic irony in the circumstance mat just when it was said in the hearing of the crowd (in a packed synagogue? Mt. 12:46): “Blessed is the womb that bare thee”, his mother was being persuaded that Jesus was no blessing at all to his family, but only a liability. For, coming to the conclusion that Jesus had gone out of his mind, they had taken a panic decision to get him home and keep him there, by force if necessary (Mk. 3:21 Gk.). Even his own mother had allowed herself to be persuaded into this. Besides the reason already supplied by Mark (3:21), there were now misgivings because of the rough handling Jesus had given the important people from Jerusalem and the seeming egotism with which he had rebuked their denigration of him.

Actually it was this attitude adopted by his own folk which had sparked off the malevolent accusation of the scribes that Jesus was possessed by an unclean spirit-by Baalzebub, in fact, the worst of the lot.

So his brothers came to the place where Jesus was now teaching. They were accompanied by his mother and, it may probably be inferred (from Mk. 3:35 and the well-supported AV reading in v. 32), by at least two of his sisters, even though (according to Mt. 13:56) some of them were now married and settled in Nazareth.

These brothers and sisters of Jesus were, in all probability, the children of Mary and Joseph, born to them after the birth of Jesus. It is, admittedly, a serious difficulty that these who grew up regarding Jesus as the firstborn among them should not be the first to accept him. “Neither did his brethren believe in him” (Jn. 7:5). This unpleasant fact has become the main argument advanced by those who maintain that they were the children of Joseph by an earlier marriage, but the other evidence (Study 7) making them children of Mary is decidedly more convincing.

Rather remarkably, Luke uses a singular verb to describe the coming of the family to the place where Jesus was — this, perhaps, with the intention of focusing attention on Mary, since if Jesus was likely to take any notice of this unexpected move, it would be for her sake rather than the others.

Perhaps it was providential that she was unable to get at Jesus because of the crowd filling the place where he was, for face to face with a tearful pleading mother would he have had the strength to do other than accede to her request? Instead his brothers, recognized by many in the throng, had to be content with calling out to him (Mk. 3.31). But he took no notice.

The tenseness and drama of the situation is conveyed specially by Matthew with his characteristic “Behold”, and by the intensely effective device of repeating the words: “his mother and his brethren” five times in the space of five verses.

The message” “Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee”, was passed to Jesus (with perhaps a hint of reproach) from the outer edge of the group which sat and stood before him.

How would he react to it? The attitude of the family was, doubtless, well- known in the place. It was easy to understand the strong line taken just lately by Jesus towards his adversaries, but this was a very different situation. What would he do?

Here – and not for the first time, one may be sure – Jesus was faced with a personal conflict of loyalties. It was the kind of problem inevitable in the experience of all conscientious men of God, when the keeping of one commandment involves the infringement or neglect of another. To Jesus, “honour thy Father and thy mother” now presented an acute dilemma. In honouring the one, he must, however reluctantly, dishonour the other. And this-under much emotional stress, for certain – he now proceeded to do.

Addressing himself to the one who had given the message and speaking out loud so that all could hear, including those out of sight who had sent it, he first asked: “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?” Their own unspoken answer to this question would prepare the way for his next word. Did their minds go to the words with which Moses celebrated the loyalty of his own tribe to Jehovah at the time when all the rest of the people delighted in their lascivious apostasy to the golden calf?” “Let thy Urim and thy Thummim be with thy holy one…who said unto his father and his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed thy word and kept thy covenant. They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law” (Dt. 33:8-10).

Whilst they pondered, Jesus “looked round about on them which sat about him” (Mk. 3:34), that is, on those who were closest to him and most intent on his teaching, and stretching out his hand towards them, he said: “Behold, my mother and my brethren”.

Could there have been a worse rebuff of the mother who bore him? Now was fulfilled the prophecy made to her by the aged Simeon in the temple: “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also”. These words are usually read with reference to the bitter sorrow of Mary when she saw her son crucified. But they had a much more poignant application on this day of rebuke, for now she heard her wonderful son make deliberate choice between herself in her doubts and these others, not his kith and kin, who more than anything in life wished to hear and assimilate his teaching.

Jesus went on: “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” – as who should say: ‘I am willing to do their bidding’ (Jn. 14:13,14). But, just a moment earlier, he had claimed as his true family those who were his eager listeners, sitting at the feet of Rabbi Jesus. There follows, then, the inevitable but perhaps surprising equation that one who hears and appreciates the word of Jesus is, by that very fact, doing the will of God. It was another enunciation of the basic doctrine of justification by faith in Christ. Once again it was being made plain that a man stands or falls by his attitude to Jesus Christ.

“What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” a very different crowd was to ask Jesus on a later occasion (Jn. 6:28); and then his answer was essentially the same: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (cp. Lk. 11:28).

It is noteworthy that along with his new “brother and sister and mother”, Jesus did not also include a new father. For any disciple appropriating this principle in his own life there is, of course, a new Father also, but not for Jesus, Son of God (cp. Jn. 20:17). So even in this detail he indirectly taught the truth of his birth of the Virgin.

New Perspectives

More obviously he drew a careful distinction between those who are members of his spiritual family and those who are not. Religious sentimentalists who aver that the Lord loves the whole human race, every member of it, find here a sharp correction of their sloppy thinking.

This brief incident, which sent Mary to her home sick and sad and with self- reproachful tears to shed, can be of first-rate importance and lasting re- assurance to the disciple pulled in different directions by bonds of family affection and loyalties commanded by Christ. In unequivocal terms the lord insists: “first that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual” (1 Cor. 15:46). From the very nature of things, natural ties come first (in point of time) in a man’s life. Later, allegiance to Christ intervenes and must supervene. The practical applications of this principle, followed by Jesus himself – though not without much inner conflict — are very diverse and far-reaching. Where the tragedy of divided families is experienced, the brother, sister, and mother in Christ have greater claims to one’s affections, time, efforts, fellowship and money than those whose kinship is never higher than that of the natural family. It is a truth far from easy to learn, but it should be learned.

Notes Matthew 12:46-50

Mark 3:31-35

Luke 8:19-21

“Another parable put he forth unto them”. The Greek word often means: “he set it before them,” as though it were another meal (eg. 1 Cor. 10:27; Acts. 16:34; Lk. 11:6), to be masticated carefully and thoroughly digested.

But the same verb has other uses, as when “Moses laid before the elders of the people all these words which the Lord commanded him” (Ex. 19:7). So there could be emphasis here yet again on Jesus being a prophet like unto Moses. But Moses never spoke parables like these, not even in the instructive symbolism of the Tabernacle.

The story (an expansion of Pr. 11:18?) is marvellously simple, and absolutely true to life in all its details, except one. A farmer sowed his field. But some time after this, in the middle of the night whilst his men slept (and himself apparently gone away for a time), one who hated him stealthily over-sowed the field with tares.

Is it possible to infer that this enemy had had a great crop of tares in his own field — how else would he be equipped with this seed? — and was moved with envy at the better husbandry of the other?

It was one of the meanest, most despicable tricks human nature is capable of. As the season advanced, the spiteful stratagem still went unnoticed because in early growth this particular weed is practically indistinguishable from wheat. But when the corn began to form in the ear, then the vexing situation became evident enough for among the green ears ripening to the rich golden-brown of harvest, the black head of the tares was unmistakable (Mt. 7:20).

The farm workers, surprised and worried, drew their master’s attention to the sorry situation. Should they get busy and pull out all these tares, so as to give the wheat a better chance? After all, wasn’t that normal farming practice throughout the Holy Land, and right round the world? Imagine, then, their mystification when the Lord of the harvest instructed differently: ‘Leave well alone at present; pulling up tares now will spoil the good crop too.’ It had to be so, for God’s husbandry is not like man’s. So at this point the parable fails to be true to life. Came harvest at last, and the time for action. The entire crop was cut. Then it was comparatively easy for the reapers to single out the tares, lying loose and easily distinguished. These were gathered up in bundles and made into an enormous bonfire, so that there could be no further crop damage. The ripened wheat was then threshed and carried into the barn.

Authoritative Explanation

Evidently this parable specially impressed the disciples. They had already learned from the parable of the sower to mark the resemblance between the preaching work of Jesus and the sowing of the fields in Galilee. But here were other features — an enemy, tares, unconventional farming methods-which puzzled them. So in the house they came to him asking for elucidation; “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field”. Here the manuscripts are about evenly divided between two readings. One group used the word by which Nebuchadnezzar demanded of his magicians an interpretation of his dream (Dan.2:4). The other reading means: Explain thoroughly, in every detail (Dan. 8:26 LXX; cp. Mt. 15:15).

Why was there no query about the other parables (v. 31-33)? Did the disciples recognise that tares, mustard seed, and leaven had the same basic idea in common?

Jesus responded to their request readily enough, setting before them the one-one correspondence between parable and meaning – and not for this parable only (Mk. 4:34).

“He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man”. In this detail also the parable is not true to life. For what farmer wealthy enough to own bond-servants (slaves) would sow the field himself? But this point is needed in the story to give due emphasis on Jesus as the preacher. It was his gospel, even in later days when the apostles came to preach it.

“The field is the world”. There is no lack of examples in the New Testament where this word kosmos is used in the limited sense of “the Jewish world” (Rom. 4:13; Col. 2:8,20; Heb. 11:38; Jn. 12:19; 7:4; 1:10). And indeed the outworking of the parable fairly clearly requires this.

“The good seed are the sons of the kingdom”. In the first instance the seed represents the word of the gospel, but in its germination it clearly stands for people in whom that word is making growth. “Son of the kingdom” is a good phrase, being Hebrew idiom for “those associated with the kingdom”. But there is more to it than this, for sons are they who inherit.

“The enemy that sowed the tares is the devil”. This is now interpretation and not allegory. So it is not difficult to understand why some have deemed this to be one of the clearest proofs of the existence of a personal superhuman Devil.

It almost seems as though the Lord was prepared beforehand for such a misunderstanding, for in the parable itself (v. 28, see RVm), he was careful to phrase it: “A man, an enemy hath done this”, the rather awkward pleonasm emphasizing the need to identify with some evil human influence at work in the early days of the church.

The Jewish Plot

This is hardly the place to develop the theme at length, but throughout the New Testament, and especially in the epistles of Paul, there is traceable the build-up of a deliberate underhand attempt by Jews to wreck the infant church from within. (See “The Jewish Plot”; HAW, Testimony, June ‘74). To a large extent this succeeded. By the time the apostles died, the apostasy was well established.

The sowing of the tares completed, the enemy “went away”. This, too, has its counterpart in history. By the time that the Roman armies were celebrating “Judaea capta”, Jewish influence in the church had done its damage. From now on the ecclesias were almost entirely Gentile, but the Jewish seeds of apostasy continued to flourish

The similarity between the “tares” and the “wheat” hardly needs emphasis. It was this which gave the apostasy such wide-spread influence.

The servants who were eager to root out the tares in the early stages of growth represent the apostles. They would naturally be anxious to deal drastically with growing signs of evil in the early church. Peter’s dealings with Ananias and with Simon the sorcerer show this. But the balanced policy to which the apostles settled down was to censure false teachers and to issue blunt warnings to the flock against them. Paul, whose work among the Gentiles became a special target for slander, was amazingly tolerant of these “sons of the wicked one” (Phil. 1:15-18; 1 Cor. 4:5).

A Lesson not learned

This rooting out of error at the earliest possible time is here explicitly forbidden for the simple reason that permanent damage to the good crop would be inevitable. Not believing tnis obvious principle, exclusive purists have time and again proved its truth by their zealous blundering. No division for the sake of purity has ever yet taken place without serious harm to the good crop. How long before it comes to be recognized that the Lord’s words are both wisdom and authority?

“Let both grow together until the harvest.” There were clean and unclean beasts in the ark. There is wheat and chaff in the threshing. The flock has both sheep and goats. The net gathers good fish and bad. In every house there are vessels to honour and to dishonour.

A Contradiction?

Then, “in the end of this world, the Son of man shall send forth his angels — his angels! What a claim this humble Nazarene was making for himself (1 Pet. 3:22)-and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them

which do iniquity”. They are his angels because he is the Son of man foretold in Dan. 7:13, and to him is committed not only “the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven” but also authority over the “ten thousand times ten thousand” who stand before the Ancient of days.

There is a seeming contradiction here (and in v. 49), for elsewhere the Scriptures are so explicit that the judging of the quick and the dead will be the work of Christ himself. Perhaps it would be sufficient to say that what Christ will do through his angels is in effect his own work. However more detailed and exact reconciliation of these divergent ideas is possible; but it involves longer discussion than is appropriate here. (See “The Last Days”, ch.11, HAW).

The two phrases: “all things that offend”, and “them which do iniquity” should perhaps be read as adding a further detail to the parable. Not only will there be wrath upon those who are “tares” but also on the “enemy” who sowed them. This last point could, in any case, be readily pre-supposed since the farmer immediately divined who was responsible for the evil trick played on him.

“The furnace of fire”which destroys the “tares”is, of course, not to be taken literally. It is the figure used so powerfully by John the Baptist (3:12) for the final destruction of the unworthy. But torment is also clearly implied: “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. The first of these words signifies intense sorrow, the ground for which in the day of rejection needs no explanation. But “gnashing of teeth” means anger, as the usage in Acts 7:54 clearly shows: “they gnashed on him (Stephen) with their teeth”. What anger in the day of rejection? Obviously this is not resentment against the Judge or his angels, but anger with self, as it is now fully realised, too late, what unspeakable blessings have been forfeited through folly, wilfulness, or pathetic lack of faith. This will be the real punishment of the wicked — to be allowed to live long enough in the kingdom of Christ for this bitter realisation to bite deep into the soul.

Seeing the saints in glory will make this experience all the more bitter. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father”. This is Daniel’s picture of saints raised and glorified: “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmanent” (12:3; and cp. Mal. 4:1- 3); for, “the path of the just shall be as the light of dawn, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day”(Pr. 4:18). In his transfiguration the face of Jesus shone as the sun (Mt. 17:2). So, the parable ends with a glorious promise that his faithful ones shall be like him in that day.

They not only “shine as the sun”, but they also “shine forth”, their brightness now no longer obscured by clouds. Instead, they are now more diligent than ever in their diffusion of the light God has committed to them.

On certain details the Lord made no commentary. “I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them.” It is difficult to believe that such features of the parable are meaningless. Can it be that rejection of the unworthy will be pronounced first, before the good “grain”is gathered in? The parable of the dragnet hardly seems to support such a conclusion (v. 48). And why bother to bundle up the tares before burning them? Are these, who have created stumblingblocks for many, to be dealt with each according to their own proud exclusive fellowship?

They are gathered “out of his kingdom”, a detail which seems to indicate that this judgment will take place when Messiah is already King of Israel “sitting on the throne of hisglory”(Mt. 25:31).

It has been suggested that the fire of destruction will be the holocaust of judgment which the godless world is to experience in the last days, a horror from which the faithful will be preserved (Is. 26:20,21).

Notes: Mt. 13:24-30,36-43.

It was the end of a long and tiring day. Darkness was setting in (Mk.), yet still there were great crowds thronging Jesus with unflagging eagerness (Mt. 8:18). So he gave orders to the twelve that they were to embark once again in the fishing boat, and seek peace and quiet at the other side of the lake.

It would seem that the disciples held back, unwilling to set sail, for Jesus was the first to go aboard and then (Matthew adds, rather strangely) “his disciples followed him”. The reason is not difficult to discern. Even the most sudden of storms does not blow up out of a clear sky. The experienced sailor, accustomed to keeping a weather eye open, can usually anticipate by an appreciable amount of time when a change of weather is impending. And several of the apostles were fishermen. So it is readily understandable that they had misgivings about the wisdom of setting sail just then. But evidently Jesus insisted, and when he went aboard there was nothing for it but to follow him. At any rate it got him away from the crowd, and this was his immediate need (Mt. 8:18).

There were no prior preparations of any kind. They took Jesus “just as he was” (Mk; 2 Kgs. 7:7 LXX) without food or any protection against the cold night air.

Other boats also set out “with him” (Mk.). The simple phrase tells plainly that they meant to keep close to Jesus, there were some in the crowd who would not be put off. Complete escape from the popular enthusiasm was difficult.

What sort of storm?

As they set sail Jesus stretched out on the steersman’s leather cushion (Mk.) in the stern, and was asleep almost at once; he went right out (Lk.).

They had not gone far on their short voyage when there blew up a terrific storm of quite unique character. The commentaries make much (too much?) of the suddenness and intensity of the storms to which this lake, no bigger than Windermere, is subject. But it seems often to be overlooked that the Galilean fishermen would know these hazards as well as any, and would design and build their boats adequately for the most testing experiences which could normally be looked for. So a storm which scared them out of their wits was no ordinary meteorological disturbance. Matthew calls it an earthquake. Mark, with fisherman Peter at his elbow, describes it as a great hurricane, using the word for God’s whirlwind when He spoke to Job (Job. 38:1 LXX). Very probably there was an actual earthquake in the vicinity, or even under Galilee itself. And since such phenomena are not infrequently accompanied by violent storms, this would explain the suddenness and violence of the cataclysm. But earthquake is an open sign of God’s displeasure (Ps. 18:7; Job 9:5,6; Mt. 27:51; Ez. 38: 18,20; Hag. 2:6). Then why at this time?

The storm “came down on the lake” (Lk.) – a graphic detail which has been explained by emphasis on the low elevation of Galilee (-700 ft. ) and the fact (?) that it is ringed round by mountains: “surrounded by steep and lofty hills…sudden, fierce winds that sweep down from the heights upon the deep-set lake…shooting out of the gorges…” (Century Bible).

These descriptions seem to argue good imaginations and little personal acquaintance, for the waters of Galilee are not much lower than the surrounding land.

In the circumstances it is permissible to consider whether Luke’s phrase “came down”, like Matthew’s “great earthquake”, is intended to suggest a special divine whirlwind like that experienced by Job and Jonah and Elijah and the army of Sennacherib.

The fury of the waves, worse to endure in darkness then in daylight, was frightening, even to these experienced men of the sea. “The ship was covered by the waves” (Mt.). They “beat into the ship” (Mk.) – the word means they were constantly falling into it-because the boat had broached, and could not be brought round. Already, in the earliest stages of the storm, the boat was filling (Mk.), and there was little they could do about it. They were in dire peril (Lk.).

Appeal for help

Yet through it all Jesus slept on (Mt.). It is the only sleep of Jesus which the gospels mention. Mark’s phrase has a distinct flavour of surprise: “he actually went on sleeping”.

Everyone else on board, including Peter and the others who got their living from the sea, became desperate to the point of panic. Attempts at bailing out were hopeless. Nor could the boat’s head be kept to the wind, so violent and changeable was the hurricane. In their terror some of them fought their way aft (Mt.) to Jesus, and woke him violently (Lk.).

The different appeals made by different apostles, and shouted against the shrieking of the wind, are variously reported, but all convey a clear impression of the terror in their hearts. One thought their end had come: “Captain, captain, we are perishing” (Lk.). “Lord, save us” (Mt.) – there spoke one who had already come to rely heavily on Jesus in all circumstances. And it was surely Peter whose none-too-respectful reproach said: “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we are all perishing?” (Mk.). They were soon to learn that “to be tossed by billows is no proof of desertion, or even of danger” (Burgon).

Rebuke

Still lying there, Jesus addressed himself first to the storm of terror in the hearts of his followers. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” (Ps. 121:1,4). Why, indeed! Were they not knee deep in swirling water? Were there not mighty waves crashing into the boat at that very moment? Was not the roar of the storm enough to make brave men quail? Was it not likely that they would founder at any moment? Reason enough to be fearful!

But the real reason for their panic was something else-their little faith! If they knew Jesus to be the Son of God – and they had surely had time and experience enough to learn this — then ought not the logic of faith to teach them that, when he was on board, that humble fisher-craft was unsinkable even in the direst conditions. ?

Hardly ever did Jesus have any reproach for his disciples other than this “O ye of little faith”. It is a fact his followers in this later generation might well take note of. Weathering the storm in steadfast faith is more pleasing to the Lord than frantic importunity for aid or deliverance.

“Peace! Be still!”

Only when this needful reproach had been spoken did Jesus turn to the source of their terror. “Then”, writes Matthew, “he arose, and rebuked (s. w. Ps. 106:9 LXX) the winds and the sea: and there was a great calm”. He said, very simply, but with all authority: “Peace!” This to quiet the howling of the wind. Then, addressing the mighty turbulence of waters all around: “Be still” (the word he used implied: “and stay calm”).

Immediately a double miracle took place. The wind dropped. Its frightening roar ceased. Instead, only an even more frightening silence. And in the same second the ungoverned rage of violent waters all around, which might well have taken all night to subside, sank suddenly to the untroubled placidity of a pond.

The disciples gasped out in awe at the overpowering peacefulness of the scene before them. In the dim light still available to them they peered out over waters still as glass, and found no words for their amazement.

Faith and faith

But Jesus demanded their attention. “Where is your faith?” he asked them again (Lk.). “Why are ye so fearful? Have ye not yet faith?” But they had shown some faith. Their frantic appeal to him showed this. But it was not faith of the calibre he sought, not faith appropriate to an experience such as this. Is there a single disciple of the present day who would have fared any better in that testing experience? Faith in God’s covenants of promise is all very well. Faith in the outworking of God’s inexorable purpose is very necessary. But in this incident the Lord makes his peremptory demand for faith of a very practical personal kind such as few disciples ever rise to (ls. 54:11,17a; Mt. 28:20).

As it dawned on the minds of those men in the boat just what had happened, and how, the terror of the storm gave way to fear of a different sort. None more expert than they at handling a ship on that lake, yet “they feared a great fear, and said one to another, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mk.). Their proper estimate of Jesus still needed scaling upwards. Very impressively Mark’s gospel traces the disciples’ growing fear of their Lord: 4:41; 6:50; 9:6,32; 10:32; 16:8. The more they got to know him, the more they feared. And this awe settled on the souls of those in the other boats also (so Matthew indicates) when they learned later from the apostles that the uncanny change from storm to stillness was at the word of Jesus of Nazareth.

Storm in the Psalms

The seafarers among them were bound to be familiar with the witness of the Scriptures to the majesty of God in sea and storm:

“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven” (Ps. 107:23-30).

“Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them” (Ps. 89:9).

“Which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people” (Ps. 65:7).

“The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea” (Ps. 93:3,4).

This night they had seen the powers and attributes of Almighty God unpretentiously expressed in their Captain, a humble preacher from an ordinary home, and their marvelling at his miracles of healing in the multitude, which they had now almost got used to, gave place to a new sense of wonder and worship. This is specially preserved by Matthew in his description of the miracle: “he rebuked the winds and the sea”. It is this very expression which the gospels reserve for the Lord’s rebuke of the fever in Peter’s mother-in-law (Lk. 4:39) and for his rebuke of the unclean spirit in the epileptic boy (Mk. 9:25). Also, the command to the sea: “Be still”, was precisely the same as that by which he rebuked the demoniac in the synagogue (Mk. 1:25).

There appears to be a common factor in all of these. The Scriptures teach that all the powers of this world, good and “evil”, are administered through the angels, God’s ministers. The inevitable conclusion, then, from these examples of Christ’s divine power and authority, and ‘especially from this latest instance, should be, that even though he was “made for a little while lower than the angels” in that he became “partaker of flesh and blood”, nevertheless he had even in his mortality a status higher than they. They were sons of God (Job. 38:7), but he was the Son, the only begotten. How long did it take these men who were with him to learn, even through such demonstrations, the truth of this fact?

Notes: Mt. 8:23-27

Lk. 8:22-25

Luke attaches no indication of place or time to the record of the Lord’s visit to the home of a Pharisee called Simon, and how he was anointed there by an unnamed woman. This impressive story seems to have been inserted here as an ironic commentary on the jibe in the preceding verses: “behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and

sinners” (7:34). Here he is after a manner of speaking, both at once-accepting an invitation to a meal of a wealthy home, and there befriending one who was now a despised but much repentant sinner.

Study 74 will set out the evidence, hardly conclusive and yet persuasive, for identifying the woman of this story with Mary the sister of Lazarus and with Mary Magdelene. Also, there are indications — again, not decisive — that this Simon the Pharisee may have been the father of the Bethany family, referred to also as Simon the leper (Mt. 26:6); and also that (possibly) Judas Iscariot was a brother of the same family.

Significant details

These tentative conclusions will not be assumed in the present study, but are perhaps worth bearing in mind because of their possible bearing on some of the details.

For instance, why should the invitation have been given in the first place? There was obvious reluctance to receive Jesus as a welcomed guest – the usual courtesies were studiously omitted, as though to show to the other Pharisee guests (v. 49) that inviting Jesus of Nazareth to the house must not be taken to mean that Simon was an avowed disciple.

The unprotested presence of such a woman in that dining room, as by right, is also now fully explained.

That her conversion from an evil way of life was very recent is indicated not only by the intensity of her repentance — many tears and deep self-humiliation-but also by Simon’s reprobation: “for she is a sinner”.

The meal was about to be served when there came an unexpected interruption, very embarrassing to some who were present. The woman described evidently knew that although Jesus had been invited, he had also been insulted by the careful omission of all the normal friendly attentions, and these she now proceeded to make good in unique and moving fashion.

Penitence and devotion

She came and stood behind him, raining down hot tears of repentance and gratitude on his feet. Then she knelt and, deftly shaking her long hair loose, she wiped them carefully, eagerly, being only too glad of such an opportunity to express her devotion. Never was a woman’s hair more of a glory to her (1 Cor. 11:15) than on this occasion. Stooping over those feet, which showed how many miles they had walked in Galilee and Judaea, she covered them with kisses of welcome to her home.

Then she called a servant to bring her a costly container of perfumed ointment (the word “brought”, v. 37, is translated “received” in all its other ten occurrences).

The contents of this flask she now poured slowly over the feet of Jesus (they are mentioned no less than seven times in these few verses!), and then gently, lovingly, she massaged it into the skin. And still the tears of penitence and thanksgiving flowed.

In the minds of some present there came recollections of purple passages from the Scriptures — the Book of Proverbs’ description of the whore and her stock-in-trade: “I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon” (7:17); and the Law’s prohibition: “Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow” (Dt. 23:18). And as she even lavished kisses on the Lord’s feet, other words came to mind: “She caught him and kissed him, with an impudent face… the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil”(Pr. 7:13;5:3).

From Simon – four times called “the Pharisee” -there was only an embarrassed silence building up into scepticism: “This Jesus may be a remarkable healer, but he is no prophet. The blind Abijah could identify the wife of King Jeroboam even though she acted a part (1 Kgs. 14:6). And Elisha knew the purposes and deceits of his servant Gehazi (2 Kgs. 5:26). Then why doesn’t Jesus recognize who this is — she’s well-known, too well-known — and what sort of individual she is? And thus he suffers defilement! No prophet, for sure!” and thereafter he called him: “Teacher”.

Here one old commentator adds, rather quaintly: “Not so fast, Simon, thou hast not seen through thy Guest, but He hath seen through thee”. Jesus knew what manner of man this was. He did not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness and with equity.

Had it been anyone else except Jesus, Simon would surely have put a much worse construction on the incident. But with Jesus this was impossible-his irreproachability was too evident; he was unimpeachable.

But the man’s Pharisaic attitude was not to be restrained. So he did not say “this woman who weeps”, nor “who anoints him”, but “what manner of woman it is that toucheth him”. To Simon this risk of defilement was the only consideration of any importance.

Answer by parable

That the woman was now repentant of her sordid way of life meant little to him. He was concerned only with the outward appearance. So whilst the common people had just now “glorified God, saying, A great prophet is risen up among us; and, God hath visited his people” (v. 16), the Pharisee was re-assuring himself:

“This man is no prophet”. And in the later echo of this incident, Judas was to react similarly (Jn. 12:4, 5).

By answering his host’s unspoken thoughts, Jesus proceeded to prove that he was a prophet. With studied courtesy, to make deliberate contrast with the Pharisee’s rudeness, he said:

“Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee”.

“Teacher, say on”.

The reply came with a suavity which accorded ill with the discourtesy already shown to Jesus and with the thoughts now running through his mind. It was of one piece with the man’s Pharisaism.

Then Jesus told the simplest of little parables, about two debtors, both of whom confessed their utter inability to pay, and who were both let off. The moneylender blithely made them a present of it (Gk: charizo). But one debt was ten times as big as the other-roughly £5, 000 and £500, in terms of modern (1984) inflation. Who, then, asked Jesus, would feel the greater sense of relief? Which of them would show the more fervent gratitude to one who was no longer a creditor but a good friend?

Even in this two-verse parable every detail was superbly relevant. The woman’s incurable spiritual leprosy was ten times worse than Simon’s incurable physical leprosy (assuming here the identification with Mt.26:6). But both must have been intensely conscious of their tremendous indebtedness to Jesus. There can have been no healing of either until they confessed their need and that he, and he only, could be their Saviour. Both knew, she far more than he, that they could do nothing comparable for Jesus in return. And what sort of a moneylender was this (see 2 Kgs.4:3; Ps.109:11 s.w.) who turned debts into a gift?

The problem put to Simon in this parable was just too easy, and he shrugged it off with careless indifference. Or could it be that he (no fool!) scented the relevance of this enquiry to the present situation, and his nonchalance was an artificial facade to hide his uneasiness? None the less, he spoke his own condemnation, inevitably so, for, in front of the others, he had to answer.

A withering contrast

Jesus turned now directly to the woman, but continued to address himself to Simon, speaking to him over his shoulder. It was obviously with difficulty that he held down his own indignation. Never was there a more withering recital of simple fact. Never was self-satisfaction more effectively punctured (cp. Lk. 1:53):

“Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears (Ps. 56:8), and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.”

The Pharisee kept silence, looking almost visibly smaller. He heard now the simple unequivocal application of the parable he himself had just helped to interpret.

Whereas his love for the Lord was meagre or non-existent, hers was unspeakably great. And, Jesus argued, her boundless gratitude can be for one reason only–she knows that her massive debt of sin is freely forgiven; and her actions show that she sees in me the means of that forgiveness. This is faith, saving faith. It has saved her, and it will save her to the uttermost.

Her lavish use of ointment may also have proclaimed Jesus as her high priest (Ex. 30:25), even whilst to some it declared her own exceeding sinfulness (Pr. 7:17).

Sins forgiven

Turning to the woman, Jesus now said very simply: “Thy sins are forgiven”. This was not spoken to set any of her doubts at rest. Her act of adoration and love made it evident that she knew her sins to be put away. So the words were said for the benefit of the rest who were present at the table, to underscore the staggering truth that this Jesus who spoke the words was the means of the forgiveness of sins!

The reaction of Simon’s friends matched that of their host: “They began to say within (or, among) themselves, Who is this that even forgiveth sins?” So, reading their critical thoughts also, Jesus added a further assurance of forgiveness.

At this time, who in all the wide world, besides this fragile sinner, was capable of believing such a tremendous fact? Even among his close disciples who followed him, hearing his matchless teaching and observing with awe the marvels he wrought amongst men, was there even one whose insight had taken him so far? The witness of John to publicans and harlots that here was the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world had already faded from people’s memories.

But here was a despised woman who realised the truth of it and appropriated it to herself with a gladness which no words could express.

Then no wonder Jesus added yet further comfort to her soul: “Thy faith hath saved thee; go into peace”.

On the other occasions when he used these reassuring words it was with reference to an impressive miracle-the woman with an issue of blood (4:48), the Samaritan leper (17:19), and blind Bartimaeus (18:42). Thus he encouraged this new disciple to see her conversion as another miracle matching the others.

This pronouncement of the Lord: “Thy faith hath saved thee”, was remembered, for when Mark records the later anointing he refers to the use of “pistic nard”, that is, faith ointment.

But Jesus had also a word of another sort for the Pharisee: “To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little”. Simon’s studied disrespect for Jesus expressed no love for him, but, if anything, the opposite. This, of course, because he deemed himself righteous before God, without need of forgiveness. The sad irony of the situation was that, very truly, he had no forgiveness, although needing it every bit as much as the woman he reprobated. Did he, later, learn differently?

Notes: Lk. 7:36-50

Jesus now returned to Capernaum (offer a visit to Jerusalem for one of the feasts?), but he did not return to the family home there. This suggests that among his brothers and sisters there was lack of enthusiasm for his activities. By and by they showed this more openly (Jn. 7:3-8).

The crowds which thronged Jesus whenever he was in Galilee immediately came round him again (Mk. 3:20). They would not leave him alone. They were fascinated by his teaching and by his very personality; and, of course, they hoped for miracles. There was no let-up from the ceaseless pressure. It became impossible even to find time for a meal.

News of all this excitement came to his home. In the common version the phrase is: “his friends heard of it” More literally this would be: “those belonging to him”. The concluding verses of Mk. 3 show that this means his own family. Unable to take the words and works of Jesus seriously (for “no prophet is honoured among his own kin, and in his own house”; Mk.

6:4) they decided that he must have gone out of his mind: “He is beside himself” (s.w. 2 Cor. 5:13; Acts 8:9.11). Clearly, a man who takes preaching so seriously that he is not interested in making time for a meal is not right in his head. So they set out with the intention of bringing him home, by force if necessary (RSV: “seize”).

Thus was being fulfilled the Scripture concerning him: “I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children” (Ps. 69:8). No wonder that soon offer this Jesus forewarned his disciples that loyalty to him would inevitably mean cleavages in their own family circle: “A man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Mt.10:36).

Word about the unsympathetic attitude of Jesus’ family quickly went round. This came to the ears of hostile scribes from Jerusalem, who had been deputed to follow Jesus everywhere (Mk. 2:2; 3:2-6), noting all he said and did. And it came at the right moment, just when they were able to make telling use of it.

At the time the Lord was busy working a remarkable cure. The Greek expression used by Luke (11:14) seems to imply that, like certain other miracles (eg. Mk. 8:22-26) this was not an instantaneous cure. The man being healed was both blind and dumb (Mk. 12:22). Such a highly unusual combination of disabilities is perhaps to be explained as due to brain damage. It is very improbable that he had been like this from birth, unless one is to assume that to the miracle of healing Jesus added the further miracle of imparting instantaneous ability to enunciate readily words which had never been spoken before. The man “both spake and saw”, Mathew records, mentioning speech first because this is what would make the first and biggest impression on the crowd.

These onlookers were “amazed”. Matthew’s word here is hardly given a strong enough translation, for it is the same as Mark’s expression translated: “He is beside himself”. In their extreme astonishment they speculated uncertainly: “Is this the Messiah, the son of David. Surely not.”

At this point the scribes and Pharisees came in with their own commentary. There was no denying the miracle, they blandly admitted. But the popular explanation was quite wrong. ‘Son of David. No, son of the Devil, more likely. Do not his brothers agree that he is crazy. And nobody knows him better than they do. There’s the explanation of these queer happenings-he is able to cast out demons because he is in league with Baalzebub, the chief of all the demons.’

This name Baalzebub was a deliberate contemptuous Jewish perversion of Baalzebul, mentioned in the Ras Shamra tablets as the god of the underworld. The name means “Lord of the dwelling”, ie. of the temple where he was worshipped. But the Jews distorted the name, as was their wont, to mean “Lord of Flies” (the same word as in Eccl. 10:1), implying, of course: “Lord of the dung-heap”. (Had they already, in some vague fashion, arrived at the connection between dirt, flies, and disease?).

This foul misrepresentation of the work of Jesus was rubbed in yet further (Lk. 11;16) by a demand for a sign from heaven. The jibe had a double sting: ‘Enough of your works from the underworld. Give us a sign which is plainly from heaven. Ahaziah, king of Israel, sent to consult the oracle of Baalzebub in Ekron, and died almost immediately. No doubt these whom you pretend to heal with the powers of hell will die just as suddenly. Why do you not give us a clear sign from heaven as Elijah did that very day, when he called down fire from heaven?”

It was a clever challenge, for they knew perfectly well that even if he could he wouldn’t call down fire from heaven and consume them and their fifty (2 Kgs. 1:2, 10). They were taking just the same line as the cocky aggressive rationalist who says: “If there’s a God, let him strike me dead this minute!”. Shrewdly they had well appraised the character of Jesus, and knew that they were safe. It was the second temptation over again (Mt.4:6), and it had the same response.

The irony of the situation was this–that it was by “the Lord of the Dwelling” that Jesus did his mighty works. At the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, “the Lord said he would dwell in the thick darkness”. Using the same word zabal Solomon continued:”! have surely built thee an house to dwell in for ever” (1 Kgs. 8:12, 13; cp. 2 Chr. 6:2; ls. 63:15).

But these critics were oblivious of the great truth they had spoken. Instead, all at once, it dawned on them that they had here the most powerful disparagement possible of this Jesus and his miracles, and they proceeded to make as much of it as they could in progaganda against him. Time after time (there are at least six separate instances in the gospels) they threw this jeering accusation at him: ‘He can command the devils because his is in league with the chief of all the devils.’

On this occasion the smear was carefully put round with Jesus out of earshot. But it made no difference. He knew their thoughts (Mt. 12.25; Ps. 139:2) and called them to him (Mk. 3:23). Then he carefully took their slander to pieces.

No kingdom is ever benefitted by civil war. Its only gain is devastation. And for this to happen in time of invasion by an external foe is sheer lunacy. Did not the history of Israel and Judah prove this in the time of Assyrian and Babylonian expansion?

No city can enjoy the toll taken by surging riotous mobs fighting one another in its streets. When there is also an outside enemy, such behaviour as this is sheer lunacy. It happened in the siege of Jerusalem in A.D.70.

Neither, Jesus added, can a family afford the luxury of a. long-sustained quarrel by its members living under the same roof. The force of this simple logic of experience in its application to bickering in a home, to dissension in an ecclesia, and to schism in a brotherhood seems to have been meagrely appreciated by many of the Lord’s followers. Here is the simple

explanation of the dereliction which has overtaken some candlesticks of Truth. Here is the undeniable reason why, in some regions, instead of vigorous progress, the Truth of Christ has long been struggling to survive. It is a lasting reproach against the Lord’s people in this age that they have tolerated and still tolerate such flagrant flouting of his spiritual ABC.

But Jesus was intent on a devastating application of these simple truths to the fatuous calumny of the scribes: “If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then shall his kingdom stand…he cannot stand, but hath an end” (Mt. 12:26). It was the Lord’s way of saying: “Dog doesn’t eat dog”.

He followed this up with a further argument: “And if I by Baalzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons (ie. your disciples) cast them out?” This, Mark is careful to add, was said unto them in parables–an expression which precludes any assumption of the Lord’s personal belief in the existence of Baalzebub, Satan or evil spirits. It was a classic case of demonstrating the falsity of a conclusion by accepting the assumptions made and then showing that the argument based on them was hopelessly illogical. Lk. 11:18 requires the ellipsis: “(I argue this way) because ye say that I cast out devils through Baalzebub;” otherwise, there is drastic discontinuity in the argument.

The claim to be able to exercise power over unclean spirits was not uncommon in those days. Josephus (Antiquities 8.2.5) has a vivid story of one Eleazer who “cured” a demoniac in the presence of Vespasian and his leading officers. The method adopted was to put to the nose of the poor wretch a ring to which was fastened some herbal root. The demoniac fell to the ground as incantations in the name of Solomon were pronouced over him. And in “proof” of the cure a cup of water some distance away spilled over without being touched! All very impressive-and rather silly!

Some of the Pharisees taught their disciples this kind of hocus-pocus. So Jesus reminded them that their explanation of his being in league with the devil was two-edged. If it condemned him, it also damned the exorcists and their Pharisee teachers as being agents of the powers of evil. They could only evade this argument by confessing that they did not cast out demons, thus admitting publicly that all their pretensions in that direction had always been bogus.

Why, he went on, could they not apply a little commonsense to their assessment of himself? Evil is only cast out by its opposite. So: “if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God then the kingdom of God is come unto you”. It was a straight appeal for honesty in assessing his claims backed by such amazing miracles.

The unusual word here translated “is come” means either “the gospel is come first”, before being offered to the Gentiles (cp. Acts 13:46); or it has the idea of first installment — the miracles of Jesus were not Satanic but a foretaste of the Messianic Age.

In this passage, Mathew is, to some extent, interpreting what Jesus actually said, as reported by Luke: “If I with the finger of God cast out devils…” It was an apt allusion to the experience of Moses in Egypt. At the command of God all the dust of the land became alive with lice. As with the earlier signs, the Egyptian wonder workers sought to do the same kind of thing, but this time had to confess themselves defeated: “This is the finger of God”, they said.

And now, similarly, it was palpably obvious that by its miracles the finger of God, the Holy Spirit (cp. Job. 26:13 with Ps. 8:3), pointed to Jesus as the Son of God, and at the same time the exorcists trained by the Pharisees were discredited.

Again, there may have been the added implication that since the Ten Commandments were “written with the finger of God” there was here the true explanation of all that Jesus did -not through powers of evil but by his perfect obedience to the La w of God.

“Thus”, Jesus added, “the kingdom of God is come unto you”. He may have meant that the kingdom, in the person of its King-designate, was now in their midst. But the small handful of occasions where this expression occurs in Matthew’s gospel (21:31, 43; 19:(23)24; 6:33 only) suggests a somewhat different idea-that they were now experiencing their finest opportunity of being associated with the kingdom by yielding the loyalty which its rightful king required of them.

It is evident that Jesus took very seriously this current campaign of denigration by the Pharisees, for, not content with the withering exposure he had already made of its utter falsity, he now proceeded by means of another neat little parable to show more positively the only possible interpretation of his own miracles: “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils” (Lk. 11:21, 22).

This parable was quarried out of one of Isaiah’s finest prophecies of the promised divine salvation: “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or shall the captives of the terrible be delivered? (Eph. 4:8). But thus saith the Lord. Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children” (ls. 49:24, 25).

This expresses the certainty of ultimate success in the redeeming work of Christ. More than this, the context foretells the drastic retribution which must come on those who, like the Pharisee critics of Jesus, set themselves in opposition: “I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh…and all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

The figure of “the strong man’s house” is appropriate in a contention concerning Baalzebub, the lord of the dwelling. And Jesus had already shown himself to be “stronger than he”. The overthrow of the bazaars of the sons of Annas in the temple area had already demonstrated openly that here was a Son of man whom God had made strong for Himself. In due time this victory over the Goliath of evil would be complete. The constant succession of triumphant healings of every kind of sickness and affliction was an evident token of greater conquests to come (Rev. 20:2).

Jesus’ personal victory over sin in his own life proved him to be the “stronger” who, having “bound the strong man” was already taking his “armour” (as David did from Goliath; 1 Sam. 17.54) and dedicating it to God’s service. Ultimately he would also “divide the spoils of the strong” (ls. 53:12 LXX). The corresponding phrase in Matthew is: “then will he spoil his house”. If there is to be specific interpretation of this detail it must be sought in the miraculous healing of all manner of sickness and disease, in the curtailing of the powers of the angels of evil (Study 30), and in the redemption of men from the thraldom of sin. “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it (his cross)”(Col. 2:15).

The solemn warning of Jesus to these contumacious contemporaries became more weighty than ever: “He that is not with me (when I have a right to expect him to be with me) is against me. He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad”. It is the figure of shepherd and wolf. These Pharisee antagonists were not interested in the well being of the flock, but only in maintaining their own status as shepherds-false shepherds. Thus they did as much damage as if they were wolves.

In sharp contrast with this Jesus was also to say (in drastically different circumstances: Mk. 9:40): “He that is not against us (when there is reason to expect that he might be) is on our part”. But, either way, the distinction is clear-cut. There are only sheep and goats, good figs and bad figs, wise and foolish, those with the garment of righteousness and those without it.

It is difficult to know whether what followed was spoken in earnest appeal or as bitter denunciation. The climax of this discourse points more probably to the latter view.

“Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men (1 Tim. 1:13): but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven”. They were “in danger of” (enochos = en+echo, held in the grip of) an eternal sin. Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, they resisted the Holy Spirit (Acts. 7:51), knowing full well that it was the Holy Spirit which they resisted. Perversely they tried to interpret the gracious works of Christ as fruits of an alliance with the powers of evil. “They said, He hath an unclean spirit” (Mk. 3:30). It was unforgivable because it betrayed an attitude of mind which was now incurable. When a man can descend to such wickedness, he is past hope. Repentance, the always necessary condition for the forgiveness of sins, has become a thing impossible of achievement.

A man may speak against Christ himself (as they had done- “Behold, a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners” — and as his own family were doing in all sincerity at that very time-”He is beside himself” — and as Saul of Tarsus was to do), and still change of heart may be possible, and the forgiveness of heaven. But the calculating black villainy of these men had warped them past redemption.

“Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age (the Mosaic dispensation) nor in the age to come (the gospel to the Gentiles)”. Thus Jesus extended the same principle to cover the miracles which would be wrought in the days of the early church by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The question inevitably arises. Is it possible for a man to commit this unforgivable sin in the present age when the marvellous works of the Holy Spirit are no longer experienced? What is the sin against the Holy Spirit to-day?

This is no easy question to answer. Some have concluded that no blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is possible to-day. This may well be the simple answer. If not, one must conclude that only when the clear unequivocal witness of the Holy Spirit in inspired Scripture, recognized as such, is deliberately and unashamedly flouted, has this unforgivable sin been committed.

With caustic bluntness Jesus bade his enemies use simple common-sense: “Either make the tree good and its fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt.” The effect must be of one piece with the cause. Character and actions match. “So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh” (Jas. 3:12).”A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” (Mt. 7:18).

In their perversity these men deserved censure. And they got it: “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?” Here was the obverse side of the coin. Just as the true character of Jesus could be assessed without any kind of doubt from the gracious acts of compassion which he lavished on the multitudes, so also the warped and vicious nature of these scribes, dedicated if you please to the study of the Law of God, was to be read in their bitter and nasty-minded criticism of the Son of God. The overflow of their hearts spoke eloquently what kind of men they really we re.

The Lord’s warning and denunciation climbed to a climax which has bewildered and dismayed many of his followers: “And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Mt. 12:36, 37).

If these words mean what they say, many a servant of Christ has reasoned, then all is lost. For what man is there who has never spoken amiss? Even the mighty Moses “spake inadvisedly with his lips”, and suffered a terrible penalty. Then what hope for ordinary mortals?

There is a further, and greater, difficulty. Everywhere the New Testament’s insistence is on justification by faith in Christ. How is this to be reconciled with the frightening austerity of: “By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned”?

As so often happens, those who are in difficulty here have made perplexity for themselves by ignoring the context. Let these words be read again against the back-cloth of the blasphemous interpretation just put on the miracles of Jesus by these cynical scribes, and the problem evaporates.

Jesus was speaking of attitudes towards himself. Every idle word that men shall speak about Christ they shall give account of in the last day. It is by words spoken about him that a man will be justified or condemned.

And Jesus solemnly pressed home the full force of this inescapable principle, as it concerned these Pharisee adversaries, by switching from rhema, the spoken word, to logos, involving the reasoning and motive behind what they said about him. And so it is, to this day!

It needs little reflection to see that this is not only right but fundamental. Before God a man stands or falls by his attitude to Jesus Christ. It was not for nothing that the apostle John propounded as the most simple and yet the most searching test of a man’s value as a teacher: What does he say about Christ and the nature of Christ: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (that is, fully and truly sharing human nature with all its inherited weaknesses and propensities) is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist…” (1 Jn. 4:2.3). And alas, the sorry truth appears to be that by this test all Christendom is found wanting. Anti-Christ! The sin is not as blatant as that of the scribes blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, but it is bad enough.

Notes: Mt. 12:22-37

Mk. 3:19b-30

Lk. 11:14-23

In Luke’s gospel the best texts carefully link the parable of the mustard seed with what goes before: “He said therefore…” (RV). This context is completely different from that in Matthew. So the reader is left to conclude either that Jesus spoke these two parables together on two different occasions (a thing not unlikely in itself), or that Matthew, according to his usual method, has brought together in chapter 13 a number of parables that were spoken on different occasions.

What Mustard Plant?

There has been no little difficulty in identifying the mustard Jesus referred to. But whichever it might be, there is no mustard seed which makes a tree. A bush, perhaps, in specially favourable circumstances.

The facts supplied by the gospels are these:

The commentators, failing to recognize that in nearly all the parables of Jesus there is an element of the unreal, have juggled marvelously with this simple assemblage of facts in attempts to make them fit one “mustard” or the other, according to taste.

The big probability is that for his own purpose he deliberately varied some of the natural facts in order to make them conform to the spiritual world which is the main concern of his parable. It is very commonly said that Jesus took his parables straight from nature and from everyday life, but the fact is that there is hardly one of his parables which is true to life in every detail.

Mistaken Interpretations

The almost universal interpretation of the parable is that as the seed is tiny, so also the preaching of the gospel had unpretentious beginnings, but as the plant grew to impressive size, so also will be the outcome of the gospel when Christ’s kingdom is in being. Orthodoxy finds this a specially favourite parable because it can be made to teach the gradual but certain growth of the beneficent influence of the church. Yet today this in an interpretation which doesn’t even make first base.

The other view, popular with many who believe in the coming of the Messianic kingdom and see in this parable a dramatic contrast between unimpressive beginnings and glorious ultimate achievement, labours under two difficulties:

A Prophecy of Apostasy

Here, then, is the clue as to what Jesus was aiming at. His parable, like the parable of the tares, is a prophecy of the perversion of his gospel in later times. The seed, tiny and unimpressive, represents the Lord’s teaching. The growth into a tree with “great branches” represents an abnormal monstrous development not according to the original nature of the seed. This is the apostasy which came by gradual imperceptible growth from the modest simplicity of the early church. The marvelous designed similarity to the tree of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream now has great point: “upon whose branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation” (Dan. 4:21). Just as the godless nations of the world were gathered in to the empire of Babylon, so also (Jesus foresaw) the corrupt system developing from the seed of his gospel would hold sway as another Babylon over many peoples.

There is now seen to be further significance in the way the parable is introduced: “Unto what is the kingdom like? and whereunto shall I resemble it?” No other parable is begun in this way. But how similar to the expostulation of Isaiah: “To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?” (40:18), where immediately there is caustic exposure of the way in which the truth about God Himself was corrupted into a graven image fashioned by human hands. So also, declares Jesus, will the truth of his gospel be corrupted into a system of falsehood.

Supporting Details

Another small detail which chimes in with the view just put forward is the form of the repeated Greek expression in Mark 4:31,32: “whenever it may be (or, should happen to be) sown”, as though implying a contingency with some element of uncertainty about it. This is appropriate if spoken with reference to the indeterminate period of the growth of false Christianity. But if with reference to the preaching of the gospel, this was already achieved, to a considerable extent by Jesus himself.

Further, in Luke 13:19 the Greek text has the emphatic reading: “…which a man took, and cast into his own garden”. This suggests not only (what is easy for all to see) that the gospel was first preached to God’s own nation, but also that it was there where the first serious growth of perverted truth took place. The first and greatest errors in Christian teaching — the Judaistic spirit, justification by works-came from the Jewish element in the ecclesias.

The point about the context of the parable in Luke, mentioned earlier, can now be examined afresh. There, immediately preceding this parable is the incident of the healing of the crooked woman in the synagogue. Jesus was angry at the perversion of the true spirit of Moses’ law manifested in the Pharisaic attitude of the ruler of the synagogue. Was he led on to consider how his own teaching would similarly come to be distorted and misrepresented? Or is the reader of Luke’s gospel intended to go a little further back to another parable (13:6-9) about a fruitless fig tree, which was to be cut down if a last careful attempt at improvement brought no result. Perhaps here Jesus was prophesying that the tree would be cut down, and the mustard seed sown in its place, only to come to a different but equally undesirable result.

Difficulty

It may be argued against this approach to the parable that to interpret as a prophecy of apostasy is to ignore the introductory words: “Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I liken it? It is like unto…” The repetition and rhetorical questions give an impression of Jesus thinking aloud about Isaiah 40:18 and at the same time seeking a parable to meet the situation. How is the interpretation just suggested to be seen as a picture of the kingdom of God?

Quite simply, it is not.

Such a question overlooks the fact that this is the Lord’s usual way of introducing a parable which has reference to some aspect of the kingdom. For example, “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins”. But five of these were foolish and shut out. Again, “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son”. But in the parable the king is God. It is the marriage which represents a certain aspect of the kingdom. (see also Mt. 18:23; 20:1; 13:45). Failure to recognize the idiom as meaning: “Here is another parable which has to do with the kingdom”, has led many interpreters of the parables into a wrong emphasis.

The point needs to be borne in mind in examination of the parable of the leaven. “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven” does not necessarily mean that the leaven here represents either the gospel or the kingdom which the gospel proclaims.

Leaven in Scripture

Indeed either of these conclusions is ruled out in extraordinarily emphatic fashion by a simple consideration of the Bible usage of the word “leaven”. Always this expression has bad associations.

“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hyprocrisy” (Lk. 12:1).

“Purge out therefore the old leaven…Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness…” (1 Cor. 5:7,8).

“A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (Gal. 5:9). Paul meant the leaven of Judaism. He may even have been making direct allusion to the Lord’s parable.

In the O.T. the same Hebrew root means ‘cruel’ (Ps. 71:4). ‘grieved’ (73:21), ‘oppressed’ (ls. 1:17)

The exclusion of leaven from the meal-offering and other forms of sacrifice reinforces this interpretation. The wave-sheaf offered at Passover was, of course, in no way associated with leaven; it represented Christ. But the two wave-loaves offered at Pentecost represented the saints, who are redeemed sinners, and appropriately they were “baken with leaven”.

Examples such as these make it evident that Jesus would no more have dreamed of making a direct comparison of his kingdom to leaven than he would of comparing it to a garbage bin.

Spreading Corruption

The obvious alternative, then, is that the Lord intended his similitude to foretell the inevitable spread of corruption through the church “until the whole was leavened”. Far from seeing the gospel conquer the world, he expected the world to conquer the gospel.

In this the parable is marvellously true to experience. Apostasy, serious and widespread, came into the church whilst the apostles were still alive. This brought about a rapid decay of truth and good Christian living, “until the whole was leavened”. ‘The mystery of iniquity doth already work’ is probably another Pauline allusion to this parable (2 Th. 2:11).

Rather strangely, it has become almost a dogma in some quarters to believe that in every century the Truth has somehow survived in obscure communities in different parts of the world. Acceptance of this idea has been more through inclination than evidence, for certainly there is no indication in the Bible that this would be the case, nor is there historical evidence which by the most easy-going standards would establish a case for continuous survival of ecclesias of faithful believers. Historically everything points the other way. And so also does the parable of the leaven.

T

he close similarity to the parable of the mustard seed, in general idea, is hinted at in the opening words: “Another parable spake he unto them”. The word means “another of similar character’, not “another of a different sort”.

Those who would interpret with reference to the gradual spread of the gospel or of the kingdom need to bring evidence (a) that the gospel has conquered or will by slow degrees conquer the world; (b) that when it comes the kingdom will be established in slow gradual fashion; do not many Scriptures (e.g. Mal. 4:1-3; Ez. 38:18-23: Rev. 14:7; 15:4 etc., etc.) point to an exactly opposite conclusion?

One Strange Detail

Just as the mustard seed had its noticeable feature which is not true to experience, so also with the leaven. The woman put the leaven into “three measures of meal”. More than seventy pounds of flour means well over a hundredweight of bread. Some family baking!

Then why was Jesus at pains to specify “three measures of meal”? It may be that this was intended to signify the three branches of the human race descended from the sons of Noah. An explanation of a different kind is this: The rabbis laid down that the wave sheaf of barley cut on the day after the Passover sabbath for presentation to the Lord (Lev. 23:10) was to be “three measures” in quantity. The parable would thus appear to represent the truth about the risen Christ becoming completely corrupted.

Another possibility is that Jesus was making deliberate reference to the “three measures of fine meal” prepared by Sarah for her three angelic guests when they came to announce the birth of the promised Seed (Gen. 18:10). In that case the idea is much the same, but there remains the difficulty of quantity. Sarah surely used a different size of “measure”.

Again, why should the woman be said to hide the leaven in the meal? This is hardly the most natural word to use. It seems to suggest an attempt at deliberate quiet corruption of the Truth.

Notes: Mt. 13:31-33

The birds of the air. Other Scriptures support the interpretation of this detail: Gen. 15:11 (human hostility to God’s covenant with Abraham); Ez. 31:6 (the expansion of imperial Assyria); ls. 34:14,15 (unclean birds of judgment).

Leaven was used in the Talmud as a symbol of evil desire.

Three measures comes also in ls. 5:10 LXX, but there it is the yield of a vineyard and not a baking.

The whole was leavened. In the Lk. context this parable is followed appropriately by the enquiry: “Lord, are there few that be saved?” (13:23).

The instruction given by Jesus was now being built more systematically on parables. So the twelve, and others who also had left all in order to be with him continuously, came asking not only for explanation but also: “Why speakest thou into them in parables?”

Revealing truth

In reply Jesus gave two reasons. The first: “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (cp. 1 Cor. 1:21-28). As means of revealing truth about the kingdom, the parables were a matchless medium. Jesus knew better than any man that all do not have the same spiritual capacity or insight. But parables enable a man to grasp what he is ready for. Before reaching his teens a child can learn some essential truth from a parable, led to it by his love of the story. Later the fundamental character of the essential lesson begins to dawn on him. Yet all his days, if he is of a mind to do this, he may keep on returning to the story, meditating on its details, its context, its relevance to modern situations, and always finding further instruction, deeper wisdom.

It was not with direct reference to the power of his parables-though it might well have been-that Jesus was to say: “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Lk. 10:21).

Hiding truth

The Lord’s other reason for this reliance on parables is hardly what one would expect. It is, according to Mark and Luke, “in order that seeing they may see and not perceive; and hearing they may hear and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven” (Mk. 4:12).

The meaning of this saying appears to be so stringent that some have sought an alternative, less drastic, interpretation. It is a fact that the prophets of the Lord were often described as taking dramatic action against their contemporaries when actually they were merely pronouncing with divine authority the fate that God was to bring on them. “I have hewed them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of my mouth” (Hos. 6:5). “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant” (Jer.l:10). In a literal sense Hosea and Jeremiah did none of these things; they declared that these judgments would come to pass.

In similar fashion, it has been suggested, Jesus foretold the outcome of his use of parables -that the religious leaders who should have been the first to accept him would be blinded and confused by them, and left without the new life which they as much as any were in need of.

However, careful attention to the words seems to require the harder meaning, that by his parables Jesus aimed at their confusion. After all, if he knew that the consequence of using these parables would be their blindness, then in his systematic reliance on this medium he was ensuring their downfall. Is that any difference worth mentioning?

Various details reinforce this general conclusion. “Unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables” (Mk. 4:11), that is, they remain just parables, unelucidated whether by personal insight or the Lord’s private exposition. “Them that are without”! Luke’s phrase is: “the rest”. Here is as clear a declaration as could be wished that the gospel of Jesus is esoteric. He neither sought nor expected the conversion of the mass of the nation. Parables help to draw the line of demarcation the more clearly.

As Matthew Henry concisely put it: “A parable is a shell that keeps good fruit for the diligent, but keeps it from the slothful”.

Determinism?

The fateful passage from Isaiah 6, made yet more powerful by its repetitions, is as determinist in character as it could well be: “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed” (v. 10). Here, in the Hebrew text, the verbs are causative, and the meaning of the word “lest” inescapable.

Even if, in some way, it were possible to evade the inevitability in these words of Jesus, what is essentially the same teaching is to be found in a parallel passage in Romans 11:7,8. Here, quoting similar words from Isaiah 29:10 about the rejection of Israel, Paul says: “The election hath obtained it (i.e. God’s righteousness), and the rest were blinded: according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber: eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, unto this day”. Whatever the method, here the intention and outcome are clearly the same. So even if the difficulty were evaded in Matthew 13, it still remains in these words of Paul.

The apostle John’s use of the same grim Isaiah passage is accompanied by the comment: “Therefore they could not believe…” At the Exodus the Glory of the Lord was brightness to Israel, and darkness to the Egyptians (Ex. 14:20).

It is important, then, to go back to Isaiah 6 and see it (as Jesus himself evidently did) as an actual prophecy of his own work, and therefore a directive as to the principles and methods he should follow. The word “fulfilled” (Mt. 13:14)-literally, “filled up” — seems to imply that there had been one fulfilment already, in Isaiah’s day, but that it was to have a yet more important fulfilment.

The prophecy describes one who found himself in the presence of the Glory of God and aware that an outpouring of heaven’s wrath on Israel would be well-deserved. He felt himself contaminated by his nation’s sin and also involved in their impending judgment (v. 5). But heaven’s approval imparted to him a power of witness he could not otherwise have achieved (v. 6,7). It was a sorry task that lay before him-to tell the nation it had forfeited divine favour (v. 9,10). Israel’s judgment meant that soon they would be scattered from their fair land (v. 11,12). Henceforth God’s blessing was to be reserved for the faithful remnant among them, the holy seed (v. 13).

It was not merely Isaiah’s experience, not merely a prophecy of retribution to come in his day. It was also a prophecy of the work of Christ, as one who, though sharing the defilement of those to whom he ministered, was nevertheless blessed and guided by heaven as no other prophet of Jehovah ever was. The obstinacy of spirit and animosity against his person which he encountered meant that the nation was writing its own condemnation. Now his teaching by parables would finally shut up all their faculties against appreciating the truth of God which he taught. More than this, in due time there must come a scattering of the people and “a great forsaking in the midst of the land”. Only the faithful minority, the Lord’s tenth, would ultimately find salvation.

This Scripture spoke its message of warning to Israel with such brutal clarity that it came to be quoted by all four gospels and also at the end of Acts as a bitter summary of the nation’s tragedy -they rejected the best gift their God could offer, and He rejected them.

Blinding clever men

The effectiveness of Christ’s parables in blinding the hostile rulers of Israel to the teaching they embodied is adequately demonstrated by the fact that it was not until the last parable spoken by Jesus in public that there is any indication that these adversaries saw what he was getting at: “they perceived that he had spoken this parable (of the vineyard) against them” (Lk. 20:19).

There is something rather amazing about this fact, for, whatever their profounder significance, so many of these didactic stories told by Jesus seem to have their essential meaning written on the surface. It is easy to overlook that the modern reader of the gospel inherits not only the gospel record of the parables but also the authoritative interpretation of them given by Jesus himself. There is also the special emphasis which the gospels give to certain aspects of the Lord’s teaching which makes the interpretation of the parables a much easier task. It would be an interesting experiment to put the parable of the sower before some “intelligent” atheist vaguely aware of Christ and his teaching but who has never read the gospels for himself, to see just what he might make of it.

Blessing the humble

By contrast, Jesus assured his loyal disciples of incomparable blessing: “Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear” (Mt.l3:16). He was not speaking of miracles seen and teaching heard, but of spiritual insight imparted to them through the medium of these parables which at present bewildered them. The phrases correspond to those about eyes being blinded and ears heavy. But why, one wonders, did Jesus not also promise receptive hearts, to contrast with those which were to “wax gross”?

To emphasize the degree of blessing which the disciples now enjoyed, he added: “Verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men (and kings-such as David and Hezekiah) have desired to see those things which ye see, and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them” (13:17). Their privileges, and those of the disciple today, far surpass the blessings of ancient patriarchs and prophets who “received not the promises, but saw them afar off” (Heb. 11:13). Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ (Jn. 8:56), but what could he know compared with the richness of detail about Jesus which the four gospels supply?

Peter has a wonderfully eloquent passage describing how the Old Testament prophets “enquired and searched diligently” the things which the Holy Spirit revealed through themselves concerning “the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow”. They “searched who, and what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify” (1 Pet. 1:10,12). Nor was this inspired curiosity restricted only to holy men of an early dispensation. “Which things angels desire to

look into”! Yet by contrast with this heavenly excitement many a “saint” of modern times can hardly bring himself to a cursory reading of the gospels twice a year. Blessed indeed are their eyes and ears, for they find time for futile and soul-destroying television programes instead.

“That it might be fulfilled”

In characteristic fashion Matthew adds his own Biblical commentary to the answer Jesus supplied to the question: “Why parables?-”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.” The context of this quotation from Psalms 78:2 is illuminating.

First, there is the repeated emphasis on the instruction of children:

From this point on, the psalm is entirely about those “fathers”, a long and detailed recital of their stubbornness and rebellion. The purpose of the psalm, then, is to warn the growing generation against the evils perpetrated by their fathers. All this is simple enough. Nothing could be more obvious. Yet the psalmist describes it as “a parable” and as “dark sayings of old” (v. 2). This is as plain a directive as could be wished that the reader is to look into the psalm again and see yet further meaning in the experiences of Israel catalogued there.

Paul supplies a fascinating commentary (1 Cor. 10:1-11). There he lists ten distinct allusions to the experience of Israel in the wilderness, describing them as “types of us” (v. 6); “all these things happened unto them typically”! (v. 11)

So a further purpose behind the history in Psalm 78 is to encourage the reader to see it all as a parable. Behind the history of the chosen people is an allegory of the experience of others chosen to know God’s redemption-and providential leading.

Thus, by his quotation of Psalm 78 Matthew bids the student of his gospel see the same two-_; fold character in historical psalm and in gospel parable. There is the attractive simplicity of a story children may delight in. There is profound spiritual allegory, ever revealing hidden facts of truth.

Varying appreciation

The corresponding comment in Mark is this: “And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it”. The words imply that the truth which the parables revealed was according to the spiritual insight of the individual. Yet none were able to grasp all that the Lord intended: “When they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples” (Mk. 4:33,34).

There are those who maintain that a parable is merely intended to teach one main idea (the rest being just trimming). Here in a phrase is demonstration that such are being too easily satisfied. If, for example, the lesson of the Good Samaritan is only that I must love my neighbour, and my neighbour is any man whom I find in need, then this is something a child can grasp at first hearing of the story. Further acquaintance with the parable reveals greater depth than this. The Lord’s own explanation of his parables (Sower and Tares are outstanding examples) teaches very plainly that whilst the main idea is supremely important, and never to be lost sight of, the details also are to be seen as having special designed significance. There are times, doubtless, when the reader finds himself in difficulties with the interpretation of details in the parables. The wise student will attribute these difficulties more to his own lack of insight than to the inadequacy of the method, much less to flaw in the design of the parable.

The varying degree of appreciation that is possible with the parables of Jesus, and indeed with all the rest of his teaching also, seems to have been in the Lord’s mind when he proceeded to warn and exhort those who had the benefit of the fuller explanations given to them privately: “No man when he has lighted a candle (a lamp), covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter may see the light”.

The lamp and its light

There is some doubt as to whether this is a homely domestic allusion or whether the Lord spoke about the candlestick in the Holy Place of the temple (Study 52). The key words here are used in the Law with reference to the latter. In

(particular the word for vessel describes the snuffers of the lamps (Ex. 30:27; 25:37,39 ,LXX). And the strange phrase: “those who enter in” (not “those who are already there”) is precisely the description of priests going into the “Holy Place.

Also, in the next saying: “For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest”, the words seem to refer to the sanctuary of the Lord (Ps. 27:5; 31:20; 81:7) and the manifestation of divine glory.

The only function of a lamp is to give light. Those who have a special endowment of knowledge have a moral responsibility to make it known. Manifestly this was spoken with reference to the community of the Lord’s own disciples (his word concerning the Pharisees and critics was: “Let them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind”). So today the application of this principle in the ecclesia is: “There is nothing hid (in the more obscure parts of Scripture) which is not to be made manifest (by those who know it); neither has anything been kept secret, but in order that it should come abroad” (v. 22). He who learns Christ must also teach what he learns.

“Christ’s rule was: show your light when it will glorify God and benefit men; the world’s rule: when safe and beneficial to self” (A.B. Bruce; Expos. Gk. Test.)

Responsibility

Jesus was not content with one reminder of this personal responsibility. Again and again, positively and negatively, he re-stated it: “Take heed what ye hear (literally: look well at what you are hearing”). These disciples were to be assiduous in their attention to every word that fell from his lips, so that they would be well-equipped to pass it on to others not so immediately blessed as themselves. “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given”. The words have little force, except as a promise that the teacher diligently sharing his knowledge of Christ shall himself receive a greater blessing than he imparts.

All experience goes to shew the truth of this. Countless times it has been proved that, except a man be a hyprocrite of extraordinary quality, the mere recital of what Christ was and taught, brings it all home to the soul of the teacher with renewed vigour and influence. He learns more than he teaches. Hence, of course, Paul’s exhortation to “covet earnestly the best gifts” (1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1,39) — and since no man may be an. apostle today, his highest possible aspiration is that of prophet and teacher (1 Cor. 12:28). It is specially true of those who fill this role that “he that hath, to him shall be given” (v. 25).

Conversely also: “Whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have”-the Greek phrase means: “that which he is confident that he has”. In Matthew the context suggests reference to the scribes and the rest in the nation who deemed themselves “rich and increased in goods and having need of nothing”. But in Mark it would seem that the Lord was laying it on his disciples as a solemn duty to others and to themselves to be ever talking about that which they have learned in Christ and have come specially to appreciate. Indeed, those who have come under the fascination of the gospels have no need of this warning. For them “the words of a man’s mouth (the Son of man’s) are as deep waters, a full-overflowing brook, a well-spring of wisdom” (Pr. 18:4).

How appropriate it is, then, that Jesus should twice weave into this discourse the simple words with their ever-needful exhortation: “if any man have ears to hear, let him hear” (Mk. 4:9,23). In this particular context there is here, almost certainly, a further reminder that the reader of the parables should never be content with the first superficial meaning.

Another sowing parable

Another parable of sowing, by its emphasis on different details, forces home the same lesson: “So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how” (Mk. 4:26,27; cp. Ecc. 11:1-6).

Here is the picture of the humble farm-hand whose job it is to sow the seed. This done, he has other tasks to keep him busy-”night and day” is a phrase always associated in Scripture with diligence or unremitting activity. (Mk. 5:5; Lk. 2:37; Acts 9:24; 20:31; 26:7; 1 Th. 2:9). Day after day passes, and the sower is ever occupied with new tasks. But his sowing shows results. Germination, growth, coming to a head, ripening-the natural sequence follows in its course although the humble worker who began it all does not really understand any one of these marvellous processes. Then comes the day of harvest when the owner sends forth a reaper to gather in the crop, to the satisfaction of ail who have been concerned in the operation.

It is a picture of the teacher’s work. He must sow his seed, or there is no hope of a crop of any sort. But once it is sown, the ultimate blessing of growth and harvest is something outside his control. Rain and sunshine and soil fertility all play their part; and from field to field, and from season to season, these elements vary, so that harvests vary also. But the essential factor-the biggest marvel of all-is the astonishing life-vigour in the seed. All that is needed is that it be given the opportunity to germinate.

Could Jesus have put into more telling words, or into fewer words, the responsibility of the man who has learned the teaching of Christ? Always there must be readiness to sow broadcast the seed of the kingdom. It is not for him to judge beforehand the ultimate outcome of such efforts. Success and worthwhile harvest depend on many other factors outside his control. Only let him remember the inherent vitality of the seed. The entire process of growth, familiar though it may be, is too mysterious and wonderful for him to fathom-”he knoweth not how” (ls. 55:8-11; 61:11; 1 Cor. 3:6,7; Jn. 3:8,10; Ecc. 11:1-6). His part is simply to have faith in the working of God and to give the seed an opportunity to make new life.

This reading of the parable is not free from difficulty. In particular, its conclusion seems to shout for reference to the Lord Jesus himself: “When the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle because the harvest is come”. There is here a quotation from Joel 3:13, which is undoubtedly about the crisis of the Last Days (see also Rev. 14:14-16). And in the parable of the tares, the harvest is interpreted as the Day of Judgment (Mt. 13:39-42).

But then, on this view, what meaning for the phrase: “he knoweth not how”? Erasmus long ago suggested the valid alternative: “it (the growing seed, representing the disciple maturing to a life in Christ) knoweth not how”.

From this point of view, the sower is Christ himself (as in Mt. 13:37). The ground is the human race, very earthy. He sleeps and rises a night and a day-the Lord’s death and resurrection-and in due time, after what seems to be a long slow natural process, when God’s purpose ripens there will come harvest and judgment.

Here is yet another reason why Jesus taught in parables. Such an amazing amount of valuable detail can be compressed into a brief memorable word picture. Men could not help but listen to these vivid illustrations. And, once heard, they were not to be forgotten. The hearer could then ruminate on the story at leisure, and, slowly, thankfully, grope his way to further truth.

Notes: Mt. 13:10-17

Mark 4:10.

Luke 8:9

The hostile scribes had already asked for a sign from heaven (Lk. 11:16). Now they pressed their demand afresh: ‘You have given signs of a certain kind, as though done by your own powers. Why is it that we cannot see your claims validated by some sign done without your exercise of power, some display of heavenly majesty apart from what you have done through your own word or the laying on of your hands? Signs from heaven were given to bear witness to Moses and Joshua and Samuel. Then why not for Jesus of Nazareth?

These astute men had not listened critically hour after hour without realising that the spirit of this Jesus was different from that of Elijah vindicating Jehovah in the teeth of crude Baal worshippers. They knew right well that with the utmost impunity they could go on challenging him in this brash self- confident fashion. They knew that they would emerge from such a situation with no harm at all to themselves-but with definite damage to his standing before the people.

Here, then, was another way of making him look small. First, in league with Baalzebub! And now, why no mighty sign from heaven? Later on they were to press this challenge with renewed and aggressive confidence (Mt. 16:1; Study 102)

For Jesus it was, in effect, the second temptation over again (Mt. 4:6), and there is at last a hint of anger in his reaction:

“An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign!” Were they showing themselves to be any better than Ahaziah, the son of evil and adulterous Jezebel (2 Kgs. 9:22)? How thankful they should be that there did not come on them the kind of sign from heaven that was given to him. But instead they had now the Lord’s ministry of a still small voice (Mt. 12:19). And in the future, “there shall no sign be given” from heaven, but only from hell-”the sign of the prophet Jonah”.

In different circumstances faithless Ahaz had been encouraged by the man of God to “ask a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth (the grave), or in the height above (from heaven)”; and, faithlessly refusing to ask, he was given an Immanuel sign which was both (ls. 7:13,14).

But now Jesus bade his adversaries contemplate the sign of Jonah. With today’s hindsight it is possible to see a good deal of meaning in the experience of that prophet of the Lord.

Beset with anxious enquiry: “Whence earnest thou?” Jonah offered himself as a saviour, one man dying to save all the rest from destruction. And so he died (Jon. 2:3-6 requires this interpretation). Then, entombed in a great sea-creature, the token of a New Creation (Gen. 1:21 – Hebrew bora), he came forth on the third day, to be reunited in a temple of God (1:16; 2:9) with those he died to save. Thereafter the message of repentance was proclaimed to distant Gentiles so that the threatened judgment of God (“yet forty days”) was withheld.

In particular Jesus emphasized the sign of resurrection followed by the repentance of ignorant Gentiles. What remarkable force this prophecy must have had in the minds of the Lord’s adversaries in later days when despised apostles proclaimed a risen Jesus and with sweeping success took this message to far-off Gentiles!

Three Days and Three Nights

In one important detail this type of Jonah has often been badly misunderstood. The Lord’s quotation (Mt.l2:40) of “three days and three nights” has become the unsupported foundation for an untenable theory that the Lord lay in the tomb for a full seventy-two hours — from Wednesday sunset to Saturday sunset.

The three main reasons why this view must be rejected are these:

Nineveh’s Repentance

There was another aspect to this sign of the prophet Jonah: “As Jonas was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation” (Lk. 11:30). If he was a sign to these remote Gentiles as well as a preacher of righteousness, this must have been through the news of his amazing experience inside the whale. Evidently it was this knowledge which brought such speedy repentance in a city which could well have been expected to turn its back on a prophet of Jehovah.

Thus Jonah was to be a sign to that generation in yet another respect. As with him, so also with Jesus, ignorant Gentiles in far-off cities were to believe the message of his resurrection and turn to the God of Israel.

The Men of Nineveh

Jesus paused to emphasize this truth to these scribes who spitefully denigrated his claim: “The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at (literally: into) the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here”.

The warning of Jonah: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown”, was promptly heeded. The comparable warning of Jesus: “Yet forty years, and Jerusalem shall be overthrown”, went ignored.

Are the words of Jesus about Nineveh to be taken in a strictly literal sense, or not? Will these men rise in the Day of Judgment, or is it merely a way of saying that the response of the pagan Ninevites shames the Chosen Race? This idea does occur in the New Testament: “And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law?” (Rom. 2:27). “Noah prepared an ark… by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith”; (Heb. 11:7).

In favour of an actual resurrection of Ninevites in the Last Day there are three points:

The Queen of Sheba

This example of Nineveh was immediately reinforced with another equally familiar to the Lord’s hearers. The queen of Sheba came from “the uttermost parts of the earth” (Ps.2:8) – part of Messiah’s dominion-to see the glory of Solomon and to marvel at his wisdom. Yet, added Jesus with some bitterness, “a greater than Solomon is here”. Then how fitting it would be that in the Day of Judgment, the men of Biblical learning who rejected the Son of God in their midst should be put to shame by this believing Gentile from afar. If the perfectly valid reading of 1 Kings 10:5 RV margin be accepted, there is emphasis on her appreciation of “the burnt-offering which he offered in the house of the Lord”, and then the Lord’s contrast with unbelieving critical scribes is the keener.

Thus, in cool self-appraisal, Jesus bade his unresponsive contempories see him as a greater prophet than Jonah, a wiser king than Solomon (both of them examples of a message believed without the direct impact of a miraculous sign). But what amazing egotism was this — unless the words spoke only stark truth!

But why did Jesus use neuter gender here? -”a greater thing: than Jonah, than Solomon. Was it to emphasize his message as greater than Jonah’s,<and his atonement as greater than Solomon’s?

A Grim Parable

It is easy to imagine the Lord’s critics rounding on him:

‘Why talk to us about repentance, as though we are benighted Ninevites?’ Did not the entire nation hear the preaching of John? Consider the multitudes who came to be baptized by him!

So as a corrective of their delusion, Jesus proceeded to paint a vivid and even terrifying picture of their spiritual dereliction.

He told a grotesque story of a house which had been inhabited by an evil spirit. But now it was empty, having been cleaned up and tidied ready for its next occupant. But the new owner was not allowed to take it over. Meanwhile the evil spirit wandered about in a wilderness, with nowhere to settle. So back he went to his former abode. Finding it untenanted, he went off gleefully and rounded up seven more spirits worse than himself, so that together they might appropriate the house for good as a den of horror. But the house was a man – “and the last state of that man was worse than the first”!

O.T. Origins

There is a two-fold Old Testament origin to this gruesome story. At Proverbs 9:12 the Septuagint version has a dependable addition to the received text. It says about the man who, like these hostile Pharisees, depends on lies: “he walks through a waterless waste, through a land that is desert, and with his hands garners barrenness”. This is not unlike Christ’s picture of the evil spirit in the wilderness.

Add to this the story of king Saul, possessed with “an evil spirit from the Lord”, who had this depression chased away by the inspired music of the young David. Saul, however, jealously refused to recognize the kingly rights of this young man of God’s choice, so as his reign proceeded he was driven to yet more intense vindictive violence (1 Sam. 16:14; 18:10). Driven as by a cohort of evil spirits he ultimately brought about his own destruction.

Prophecy by Parable

Jesus need not have added his own interpretation: “Even so shall it be unto this wicked generation.” With this background to the parable, it would have been easy to interpret the details with reference to his own rejection by the nation’s leaders. The context of the parable makes this doubly certain.

Thus the house “empty, swept, and garnished” represents the nation of Israel after its initial response to the call of John the Baptist: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”, The evil spirit was expurgated by the cathartic influence of the austere prophet. But true repentance is not wholly negative. The logical next step, again following the lead given them by John, was to accept the true “Lord of the dwelling”. But already, at the time Jesus told this vigorous story it was evident that the nation, under the vicious influence of its malevolent leaders, was not willing to receive him. So the rest of the parable became a prophecy. The moral cleansing that had taken place would not last. Instead, before very long, the old evil would return, with much more as well (2 Pet. 2:20-22; Heb. 6:4-6; contrast Mk. 9:25). Thus Jesus foretold a catastrophic moral decline in Israel if their opportunity to accept him as the Lord their righteousness were not speedily grasped.

It was a true prophecy. The record left by Josephus of the turbulence, moral decay and ultimate chaos which set in in Israel during the years before A.D. 70 is terrible in its unrelenting detail.

In A.D. 65 Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai bewailed the increase in murder and adultery and sexual vice, in commercial and judicial corruption, in bitter sectarian strife and other evils.

And Josephus similarly: “I suppose that had the Romans made any longer delay in coming against these villains, the city (Jerusalem) would either have been swallowed up by the ground opening upon them, or being overflowed by water, or else been destroyed by such thunder as the country of Sodom perished by…” (B.J. 5.13.6).

All normal standards of decent living were swept away. The last state of that nation had become far worse than the first.

There is room for application also to the temple (“the House”) cleansed by Jesus, but giving no welcome to him, its rightful Lord. cp. also Rev. 18:2 (and see “Revelation” by H.A.W. p. 209ff).

Evil Spirits

This parable is one of the two places in the New Testament (the other is in Acts 19:13-17) where the more usual expression “unclean spirit” gives way to “evil spirit”. Study 30 emphasized the close similarity of idea between current notions about unclean spirits and what the Bible teaches about angels of evil (not evil angels!).

The double problem as to why Jesus should gratuitously bring demons into his parable and why he should refer to them as evil, and not as unclean spirits is solved by the context. Unlike the demons which were supposed to be responsible for lunacy, dumbness and other maladies, these spirits represented moral corruption, so the term “evil spirits” was absolutely right.

Baalzebub slander answered

The introduction of them into the story was also extremely appropriate because of the vile smear, just made by the scribes, that Jesus was beside himself and possessed by the prince of the devils. The parable set this right in telling fashion, for in it Jesus in effect said: ‘It is you, my traducers, who are possessed with an evil spirit, and as time goes on this will become more apparent. All the world will recognize the fact, and will see it bring you to ruin.’ “They made of Jerusalem before its fall a hell of confusion and misery to which the Gentile world has no parallel” (Portable Comm.).

An acted Parable

The next scene in this drama of conflict between the forces of right and wrong is another parable-an acted parable-included by Luke in his record of the early church.

When Paul was at Ephesus the seven sons of a certain Jew, a chief priest, called Sceva, posed as exorcists and set themselves to rival Paul in the teaching and healing which caused his ministry there to prosper so phenomenally. The exposure of the pretensions of these men came when they attempted to cast out what was deemed to be an evil spirit from an afflicted man. After the usual mumbo-jumbo of that period they began to rebuke the “evil spirit” in the name of Jesus. (One early magical papyrus has these words: “I adjure thee by the God of the Hebrew Jesus”.) The effect was magical, but not in the sense they intended. For all his dementia, the man had the wit to know that these charlatans had nothing to do with Paul. With a frightening roar he turned on them: “Jesus I recognize, and Paul I am familiar with; but who are ye?” Then he leaped at the two who had taken the lead in this theatrical mummery and seriously mauled them about, so that they were glad to escape battered, dishevelled, and with the very clothes torn off their backs.

The incident did its work, and in Ephesus the forces of magic and superstition beat a hasty retreat.

All this was another parable. The name of the Jew Sceva means “a vessel prepared”. This and his priestly office emphasize the special role of Israel before God. The action of the exorcist sons (seven sons – seven evil spirits!) corresponds in the parable to the astute attempt made by hostile Jewry in the first century to wreck or take over the ecclesia of Christ from within. But the outcome was that they were overcome – they fled out of the house, naked and wounded. This was the very fate which befell Jewry, the inevitable consequence of belonging to a house which had been taken over by a seven-fold spirit of evil.

“Blessed is the Womb”

In the crowd, listening to the Lord’s sombre parable, was a pious woman who, it may be surmised, had been forcefully and bitterly reminded of her own wayward son, going from bad to worse, from one demon to eight, and she cried out:

“Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the breasts which thou didst suck!”

It was her way of saying:

“If only God had given me a son like you, Jesus!”

Admirable as her outlook was, it was not idealistic enough to satisfy the Lord:

“Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it”.

Better than taking pride in a good son, better even than having Jesus as a baby at the breast, is the matchless satisfaction of a life of loyalty to him, the Word of God. Let Jesus be the new tenant of “the house”, for there can be nothing to surpass such an experience.

In this brief but emotional incident there was yet more emotion, for all this encounter, beginning with the Baalzebub mud-slinging, had been sparked off by openly-expressed conviction of the Lord’s family (including Mary herself) that “he is beside himself” (Mk. 3:21). The lovely words for “Blessed” earlier used to Mary in her rejoicing (Lk. 1:28,42) are inappropriate here-and understandably, for now the family had come forth not to “keep the Word of God” but to seize him (Mk. 3:21,31), so that the ensuing reproof (3:33-35), however sad it might be, was inevitable.

Notes: Mt. 1 2:38-45

Lk: 11:24-32