At the close of the chapter before, our Lord disowned all the natural ties which bound Him to Israel. I speak now simply of His bringing it out as a matter of teaching; for we know that, historically, the moment for really and finally breaking with them was the cross. But, ministerially, if we may so say, the break occurred and was indicated now. He took advantage of an allusion to his mother and brethren to show who His real kindred were. No longer those who were connected with Him after the flesh. The only family He could own now were such as did the will of His Father in heaven. He recognizes nothing but the tie formed by the word of God received into the heart and obeyed accordingly. The Holy Ghost pursues this subject by recording, in a connected form, a number of parables which were intended to show the source, the character, the conduct, and the issues of this new family, or at least, of those who professed to belong to it. This is the subject of Matt. 13. A striking instance it is, how manifestly the Holy Ghost has formed the materials into the particular shape in which we actually have them: for we know that our Lord spoke more parables than are here given. Comparing it with the Gospel of Mark, we find a parable that differs materially from any which appear in Matthew. In Mark, a person who sows the ground and sleeps and rises night and day, waiting for the germination and the full growth and the ripening of the corn, and then gathers it in himself. This differs very considerably from all the parables of the earlier Gospel: yet we know from Mark that the parable in question was uttered on the same day. “With many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to bear it. But without a parable spake he not unto them. . . .And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.”
Just as the Holy Ghost selects certain parables in Mark which are inserted, while others are left out, and the same in Luke: so also was it the case in Matthew. The Holy Ghost is conveying fully God's mind about the new testimony, commonly called Christianity and even Christendom. Accordingly, the very beginning of this chapter prepares us for the new scene. “The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.” Up to this time the house of God was connected with Israel. There God dwelt as far as this could be said of the earth; He counted it as his habitation. But Jesus went out of the house, and sat by the sea side. We all know that the sea, in the symbolic language of the Old and New Testaments, is used to represent masses of men, roving hither and thither outside, and not under the settled government of God. “And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship and sat.” From thence he teaches them: “And the whole multitude stood on the shore.” The very action of our Lord indicated that there was to be a very wide-spread testimony. The parables themselves are not confined to the sphere of our Lord's previous dealings, but take in a much more extensive range than anything which He had spoken in past times. “He spake many things to them in parables.” It is not intimated that we have all the parables our Lord spoke; but the Holy Ghost here gives us seven connected parables, all brought together and compacted into a consistent system, as I shall endeavor to show. The Holy Ghost is clearly exercising a certain authority as to the parables selected here, for we all know that seven is the Scripture number for that which is complete: whether it speak of good or evil spirits—whether in one form or another—seven is regularly the number used. When the symbol of twelve is used, it expresses completeness, not spiritual, but as to what has to do with man. Where human administration is brought into prominence for carrying out the purposes of God, there the number twelve appears. Hence we have the twelve apostles, who had a peculiar relation to the twelve tribes of Israel; but when the Church is to be presented, we hear again the number seven— “the seven churches.” However that may be, we have seven parables here, a thing ordered of God for the purpose of giving a complete account of the new order of things about to begin—Christendom and Christianity, the true as well as the spurious.
The first question, then, that occurs is, How comes it that we have this series of parables here and nowhere else? Certain of them are in Mark, and certain in Luke; but nowhere, except in Matthew, have we seven, the complete list. The answer is this: Nothing can be more beautiful, or more proper than that they should be given in a gospel presenting Jesus as the Messiah to Israel; then on His rejection, showing what God would next bring out. To the disciples, when their hopes were melting away, what could be of deeper interest than to know the nature and end of this new testimony? If the Lord should send out this word among the Gentiles, what would be the result? Accordingly, Matthew's gospel is the only one that gives us a complete sketch of the kingdom of heaven; as it also gives us the intimation that the Lord was going to found the church. It is only in Matthew that we have it brought out. That, however, I reserve for another day; but I must observe that the kingdom of heaven is not the same thing as the Church, but rather the scene where the authority of Christ is owned, at least, outwardly. It may be real or not, but every professing Christian not a Turk, or a Jew, or a Pagan, of course) is in the kingdom of heaven. Every person who has, even in an external rite, confessed Christ, is not a mere Jew or Gentile, but in the kingdom. It is a very different thing from a man's being born again and being baptized by the Holy Ghost into the body of Christ. Whoso bears the name of Christ belongs to the kingdom of heaven. It may be that he is only a tare there, but still there he is. This is a very solemn thing. Wherever Christ is outwardly confessed, there is a responsibility beyond that which attaches to the rest of the world.
The first parable clearly was true when our Lord was on earth. It is very general, and would apply to the Lord in person or in spirit. Hence it may be said to be always going on; for we find in the second parable the Lord presented again, still sowing good seed: only here it is the “kingdom of heaven” that is said to be like to a man which sowed good seed in his field. The first is, Christ's work in publishing the word among men, while He was here below. The second rather applies to our Lord sowing by means of His servants; that is, the Holy Ghost working in them according to the will of the Lord while He is above, the kingdom of heaven being then set up. This at once furnishes an important key to the whole subject. But inasmuch as the matter of the first parable is very general, there is a great deal in all the moral teaching of it which applies as truly now as when our Lord was upon earth. “A sower went forth to sow” —a weighty truth, indeed. It was not thus that the Jews looked for their Messiah.
The prophets bore witness of a glorious ruler, who would establish His kingdom in their midst. No doubt there were plain predictions of His suffering as well as of His exaltation. Our parable describes neither suffering nor outward glory; but a work carried on by the Lord, of a distinct character from anything the Jew would naturally draw from the bulk of the prophecies. Nevertheless, our Lord, I conceive, was alluding to Isaiah. It is not exactly the gospel of grace and salvation to the poor, wretched, and guilty, but it is One who, instead of coming to claim the fruits of the vineyard set up in Israel, has to begin an entirely new work. A sower going forth to sow, marks evidently the commencement of that which did not exist before. The Lord is beginning a work not previously known in this world. “And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up.” That was clearly the most desperate case of all. It was null and void, not because of any fault of the seed, but from the destructive agency of the fowls which devoured what was sown. Next we have, “Some [that] fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth.” There was a more hopeful appearance in this case. The word was received, but the ground was stony; there was no depth of earth. Appearances were very quick— “forthwith they sprung up.” It is a serious thing to think of souls who seem awakened. Nature always brings to maturity in a very short time whatever it can do in the things of God. There is little or no sense of sin. All is taken in but too readily. The plan of salvation may be thought to be excellent, the enlightenment of the mind undeniable; but such an one has never measured his awful condition in God's sight. The good word of God is tasted, but the ground is stony. Conscience has nothing to do with it. Whereas in a real work of heart, conscience is the soil in which the word of God takes effect. There never can be a real work of God without a sense of sin. This is a thing which souls, drawn and attracted by the Gospel, ought to weigh earnestly: whether, in deed and in truth, they have really faced the blessed God who is speaking to them about their ruin. Where warm feelings are excited but sin is slurred over, it is the case spoken of here—the word received at once, but the ground stony. There is no root because there is no depth of earth; consequently, “when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away.”
But, further, “Some fell among thorns, and the thorns spiting up and choked them.” This is another case; not exactly that wherein the heart received the word at once. And, let me repeat, that I have as little confidence in the heart as in the head. The flesh differs in different individuals. Some may have more mind, and some more feeling. But neither can savingly receive the word of God, unless the Holy Ghost acts on the conscience and produces the sense of being utterly lost. Where this is the case, it is a real work of God, which sorrows and difficulties will only deepen. Those that received the seed among thorns, are a class devoured by the anxieties of this age, and led away by the deceitfulness of riches, which choke the word, so that no fruit comes to perfection.
But now comes the good ground. “Other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” The sower here is the Lord Himself, yet, out of four casts of the seed, three are unsuccessful. It is only the last case where the seed bears ripe fruit; and even there the issue is checkered and hindered— “some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold.” What a tale of man's heart and the world! that even where the heart does not refuse, but receives, the truth, it abandons just as quickly. The same will that makes a man gladly receive the Gospel, makes him drop it in the face of difficulties. But, in some cases, the word does produce blessed effects. It fell upon good ground, and brought forth fruit in different degrees. “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” A solemn admonition to souls to look well to it, whether or not they produce according to the truth they have received.
The Lord explains these things. But, first of all, the disciples come and say unto Him, “Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” The same parable would be just like the cloud of Israel in a former day—full of light to those within; full of obscurity to those without. Thus it is with the sayings of our Lord. So solemn was the crisis now, that it was not His intention to give clearer light. Conscience was gone. They had the Lord in their midst, bringing in full light, and He was refused, specially by the religious leaders of the nation; and He had broken with them. Here was the clue to His conduct: “To you it is given to know,” &c. It was kept from the multitude, and this because they had already rejected the clearest possible proofs that Jesus was the Messiah of God. But, as He says here, “Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance.” Such was the case with the disciples. They had already received His person, and now the Lord would supply them with truth to lead them on. “But whosoever hath not,” the Christ-rejecting Israel, “from him shall be taken away that he hath.” The Lord's bodily presence, already there, and the evidence of miracle, would soon pass away. “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing, see not; and hearing, they hear not; neither do they understand.” That judicial sentence of darkness which Isaiah had pronounced upon them hundreds of years before, was now to be sealed, though the Holy Ghost still gives them a fresh testimony. And this very passage is, afterward quoted to show that it is a finished thing with Israel. They loved darkness rather than light. What is the good of a light to one that shuts his eyes? Therefore would the light be taken away, too. “But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.” (Ver. 16, 17.)
Then follows the explanation of the parable. We have the meaning of “the fowls of the air” given us. It is not left to any conjecture of our own. “When any one heareth the word of the kingdom” (this was being preached then; it is not exactly “the word of the gospel,” but “of the kingdom”) “and understandeth it not,” &c. In Luke it is not called “the word of the kingdom,” nor is it said, “understandeth it not.” It is interesting to observe the difference, because it shows the way in which the Holy Ghost has acted in this gospel. Compare Luke 13 We find some of these parables first given us in chap. viii. 11. “Now the parable is this. The seed is the word of God” —not the word of the kingdom, but “of God.” There is, of course, a great deal in common between the two; but the Spirit had a wise reason for using the different expressions. It would have been rather giving an opportunity to an enemy, unless there had been some good grounds for it. I repeat that it is “the word of the kingdom,” in Matthew, and “of God,” in Luke. In the latter, we have, “that they should believe,” and in the former, “that they should understand.” What is taught by the difference? It is manifest that, in Matthew, the Holy Ghost has the Jewish people particularly in His mind, although the word is going out to the Gentiles in due time; whereas, in Luke, the Lord had particularly the Gentiles before Him. They understood that there was a great kingdom which God was about to establish, and destined to swallow up all their kingdoms. The Jews being already familiar with the word of God, their great point was understanding what God taught. They had His word already, though superstition and self-righteousness never understood it. You might be controverted, had you said to a Jew, You do not believe what Isaiah says; but a serious question came, Do you understand it? But if you looked at the Gentiles—they had not the lively oracles, so that among them the question was believing what God said; and this is what we have in Luke. The point for a Gentile was that, instead of setting up his own wisdom, he should bow to what God said. Hence, you will observe, that, looking at people who had not the word of God, and who were to be tested by the Gospel going out to them in due time, the question was believing something that had not been brought out to them before. In Matthew, speaking to a people who had the word already, the great thing was to understand it. This they did not. The Lord shows that, if they heard with their ears, they did not understand with their hearts. So that this difference, when connected with the different ideas and objects of the two gospels, is alike manifest, interesting, and instructive.
“When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not.” Another solemn truth we learn from this:—the great thing that hinders spiritual understanding is religious prejudice. The Jews were charged with not understanding. They were not idolaters, or open infidels, but had a system of religion in their minds in which they had been trained from infancy, which darkened their intelligence of what the Lord was bringing out. So it is now. But if among the heathen, though you would find an evil state morally, yet at least there would be that kind of barren waste where the word of God might be freely sown, and, by grace, be believed. That is not the case where people have been nurtured in ordinances and superstition: there the difficulty is to understand the word. “Then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.” The answer to the fowls, in the first parable, as we saw, is the wicked one taking away the word of the kingdom as soon as it is sown. “But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it.” There you have the heart, moved in its affections, but without exercise of conscience. Anon with joy the word is received. There is great gladness about it, but there all ends. It is only the Holy Ghost acting upon conscience, that gives what things are in God's sight. “Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.” Then we have the thorny ground: “He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.” There is a case that might have seemed promising for a time; but anxiety about this world, or the flattering case of prosperity here below, rendered him unfruitful, and all is over. “But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it” (all through it is spiritual understanding) “which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Now we come to the first of the similitudes of the kingdom of heaven. The parable of the sower was the preparatory work of our Lord upon earth. “Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way “exactly what is become of the profession of Christ. There are two things necessary for the inroad of evil among Christians. The first is, the unwatchfulness of the Christians themselves. They get into a careless state, they sleep; and the enemy comes and sows tares. This began at a very early epoch in Christendom. We find the germs even in the Acts of the Apostles, and still more in the Epistles. 1 Thessalonians is the first inspired epistle that the apostle Paul wrote; and the second was written shortly after. And yet he tells them that the mystery of iniquity was already at work; that there were other things to follow, such as the apostasy and the man of sin; and that when the lawlessness should be fully manifest (instead of working secretly), then the Lord would appear, and put an end to the lawless one and all concerned. The mystery of iniquity seems akin to the sowing of the tares spoken of here. Some time after, “when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit” —when Christianity began to make rapid strides in the earth, “then appeared the tares also.” But it is evident that the tares were sown almost immediately after the good seed. No matter what the work of God is, Satan is always close upon its heels. When man was made, he listened to the serpent, and fell. When God gave the law, it was broken even before it was committed into the hands of Israel. Such is always the history of human nature.
So the mischief is done in the field, and never repaired. The tares are not for the present taken out of the field: there is no judgment of them. Does this mean that we are to have tares in the church? If the kingdom of heaven meant the church, there ought to be no discipline at all: you ought to allow uncleanness of flesh or spirit there, swearers, drunkards, adulterers, schismatics, heretics, antichrists, as much as the rest. Here is the importance of seeing the distinction between the church and the kingdom. The Lord forbids the tares to be taken out of the kingdom of heaven: “Let them both grow together until the harvest,” that is, till the Lord come in judgment. Were the kingdom of heaven the same as the church, it would, I repeat, amount to no less than this: that no evil, let it be ever so flagrant or plain. is to be put out of the church till the day of judgment. We see, then, the importance of making these distinctions, which too many despise. They are all-important for truth and holiness: nor is there a single word of God that we can do without.
What, then, is the meaning of this parable? It has nothing to do with the question of church communion. It is “the kingdom of heaven” that is spoken of—the scene of the confession of Christ, whether true or false. Thus Greeks, Copts, Nestorians, Roman Catholics, as well as Protestants, are in the kingdom of heaven; not believers only, but also bad people professing the name of Christ. A man, who is not a Jew, nor a Pagan, and who outwardly professed Christ's name, is in the kingdom of heaven. He may be ever so immoral or heretical, but he is not to be put out of the kingdom of heaven. But would it be right to receive him at the table of the Lord? God forbid! The church, i.e., the assembly of God, and the kingdom of heaven are two different things. If a person falling into open sin were in the church, he ought to be put out of it; but you ought not to put him out of the kingdom of heaven. In fact, this could only be done by taking away his life; for that is meant by the rooting up of the tares. And this is what worldly Christianity did fall into, in no very long space of time after the apostles were departed from the earth. Temporal punishments were brought in for discipline; laws were made for the purpose of handing over the refractory to the subservient civil power. If they did not honor the so-called church, they were not to be suffered to live. In this way, the very evil our Lord had been guarding the disciples against, came to pass: and the emperor, Constantine, used the sword to repress ecclesiastical offenders. He and his successors introduced temporal punishments to deal with the tares, to try and root them up. Take the church of Rome, where you have so thoroughly the confusion of the church with the kingdom of heaven: they claim, if a man is a heretic, to hand him over to the courts of the world to be burnt; and they never confess or correct the wrong, because they pretend to be infallible. Supposing that their victims even were tares, this is to put them out of the kingdom. if you root a tare from the field, you kill it. There may be men outside profaning the name of God; but we must leave them for God to deal with.
This does not destroy Christian responsibility towards those who surround the Lord's table. You will find instructions as to all this in what is written about the Church. “The field is the world;” the church. only embraces those believed to be members of Christ's body. Take 1 Corinthians, where we have the Holy Ghost showing the true nature of ecclesiastical discipline. Supposing there are professing Christians guilty of any sin you please; such persons are not to be owned, while they are going on in that sin, as members of Christ's body. A real saint might fall into open sin, but the church, knowing it, is bound to intervene for the purpose of expressing God's judgment about the sin. Were they deliberately to allow such an one to come to the Lord's table, they would in effect make the Lord a party to that sin. The question is not whether the person be converted or not. If unconverted, men have no business in the church; if converted, sin is not to be winked at. The guilty are not to be put out of the kingdom of heaven, they are to be put out of the church. So that the teaching of the word of God is most plain as to both these truths. It is wrong to use worldly punishments to deal with a hypocrite, even when he is detected. I may seek the good of his soul, but that is no reason for punishing him thus. But if a Christian is guilty of sin, the church, though called to be patient in judgment, is never to suffer it; but we are to leave guilty people, who are unconverted, to be judged by the Lord at His appearing. This is the teaching of the parable of the tares; and it gives a very solemn view of Christianity. As sure as the Son of man sowed good seed, His enemy would sow bad, which would spring up along with the rest: and this evil cannot for the present be got rid of. There is a remedy for evil which enters the church, but not yet for evil in the world.
This is the only gospel containing the parable of the tares. Luke gives the leaven. Matthew has the tares also. It particularly teaches patience for the present, in contrast with Jewish judicial dealings, as well as with their just expectation of a cleared field when the millennium arrives under the reign of Messiah. The Jews would say, Why should we allow enemies, ungodly heretics? Even when our Lord was here below-, and some Samaritans received Him not, James and John wished to command fire to come down from heaven to consume them, Theirs was the natural thought of dealing with the tares at once, but the Lord rebuked them for it. They did not know what manner of spirit they were of; “for,” He added, “the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.” This illustrates our Lord's will about the tares. To kill them is contrary to Christianity, all whose real power is of the Holy Ghost, and not mere force.
But we have further instruction. “Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” Thus the heavenly saints are to be gathered into the Lord's barn, to be taken out of the earth to heaven. But “the time of the harvest” implies a certain period occupied with the various processes of ingathering. In that scene of “the harvest,” the Lord “will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them.” It is not said that the wheat is to be bound in bundles in order to be taken to heaven. There is no intimation that there is to be any special preparatory work about the saints before they are taken up. But there is such a dealing of God with the tares. The angels are to arrange them in special ways, before the Lord clears them out of the field. I do not pretend to say how that will be, or whether the systems of associations in the present day may not pave the way for the final action of the Lord as regards the tares. But the principle of worldly association is growing apace. When the time approaches for the judgment of the quick, there will be the preliminary work, entrusted to the angels, of binding the wicked in bundles to burn them. How it will be done I do not pretend to affirm, merely keeping to what is said in the chapter before me.