QUESTION: Of what is leaven a type in Matthew 13?
ANSWER: You will find in Scripture that leaven is generally used as typical of evil, whether in doctrine or practice. For instance, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Then understood they how that He bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees" (Matt. 16:11-12). In Luke 12:1 we read, "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
Paul writes to the Corinthians with regard to evil practice, "Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?" (1 Cor. 5:6). And to the Galatians he writes with regard to evil doctrine, subversive of Christianity, "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump" (Gal. 5:9).
In Matthew 13:33 we are taught in one of the six parables, which follow that of the sower, a similitude of the kingdom of heaven in its new mysterious form, which was about to be brought into the world on the rejection of the King. One peculiar and striking characteristic of the kingdom of heaven in mystery is that the King is not here. This was some of the "things new" which a scribe, instructed in the matter, would now bring out of his treasures, added to the "things old" which the prophets had afore-time written about the kingdom of heaven (vs. 52).
It was said that it would he "as the days of heaven upon the earth" (Dent. 11:21). And of the throne of the King it is said, "His throne [should be] as the days of heaven" (Psa. 89:29). And again, the Gentiles should "have known that the heavens do rule" (Dan. 4:26).
Now all this state of things was entirely set aside, for the time, because of the rejection of the King-of Christ. And instead of all the blessings consequent upon His reception, a state of things far different would be introduced. The enemy would come and sow tares among the wheat in the world, or, as it is called, the field (Matt. 13:38). The outward appearance that the kingdom of heaven would then assume would he that of a vast sheltering power, under the figure of a tree, which would shelter the birds of the air, or, as they are interpreted to be, the emissaries of the wicked one (vss. 4,19,32),
And again, as our parable tells us, evil doctrine or profession would spread through the three measures of meal, or the sphere of the nominal profession of Christianity, till the whole should be leavened. You have only to lift up your eyes and see what has come to pass.