(Matthew 13.) (2.) The Seed-Sowing and its Result.
The Lord then has announced His death and resurrection. He was to be Jonah’s antitype, “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” And there-upon follows the prediction of what would result to that wicked generation which had rejected Him, (12:41-45) while the new relationships of the risen Son of man would be with the doers of His Father’s will, and with these alone (46-50). This manifestly would exclude the nation of Israel in their unbelief, while it would bring in any and every believing Gentile. Judaism with its narrow restrictions was therefore gone.
Another significant action of the Lord introduces these parables of the 13th chapter. He leaves the house to sit by the seaside. Let any one compare the picture of the woman “that sitteth upon many waters,” in Revelation 17:1,1And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: (Revelation 17:1) and he will find the meaning of this the angel interprets it for us in that chapter: “The waters where the whore sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues” (15). So here the Lord is leaving the house, the place of recognized relationships, to take His place, as it were, in the highway of the commerce of the world, which the sea is. And there to the multitude upon the shore, He begins His parable with “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.”
We are all familiar with this parable in a certain way. We all recognize in the Lord Himself this sower. He pictures Himself as One going forth with “the word of the kingdom,” already declared in Israel by both the Baptist and Himself, and rejected by them, to get fruit for Himself with it in the field of the world at large. We are at once then face to face with that which has been going on during the whole time of the history of Christendom. The results, as the Lord gives them here, are before our eyes.
The seed is the “word of the kingdom,” (verse 19), the declaration of the authority and power of the One rejected and crucified as “King of the Jews.” Raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, He sits upon the Father’s throne, all authority in heaven and earth being given unto Him, who is exalted to be, at the same time, a Prince and Saviour. This is the seed He sows, for the sowing is always His, though He may use others as His instruments. The form the kingdom takes, therefore, is of one, not set up yet by Almighty power to which everything must needs yield and give way, but of one still offered for man’s acceptance. Faith is still to prepare the way of the Lord, and, alas, “all, men have not faith.” Hence there is a manifest contrast at once between the present kingdom of Christ and the future millennial one. Then a “rod of iron” will break down all opposition. Here it is allowed to show itself, and is seen at once in its three forms of devil, flesh and world. Three parts of the seed are thus rendered unfruitful. People receive the word, and thus become subjects of the kingdom, yet are self-deceived. Thus in some of its great features the world of profession all around us is portrayed.
The first class represented to us here is figured in the way-side hearer. In him the power of the devil is manifested. It is solemn to read even of such an one that the word was “sown in his heart” (verse 19). That is not conversion. He does not even “understand,” and his picture is of the “way-side:” hard-trodden ground which the seed does not penetrate, but upon which it lies exposed to the fowls of heaven, tempting, as it were, the tempter to “catch it away.” Still was it “sown in the heart.” For wherever the word of God speaks, it carries with it its own divine authority. The “inner man of the heart” is made aware of that which brings with it its own evidence and its own claim, “Light” is there, consciously to the soul that turns away from it even, but turns away because conscious it is light, and loving darkness rather, because its deeds are evil. These moments of conviction, who that hits ever listened to the Word, can be a stranger to? Nor does it follow that that Word is “understood” in any proper sense. It is felt as light, detecting the thoughts and intents of the heart, and the one who feels and turns away from it because he feels it, falls under the devil’s power. The impression made is soon removed. The seed sown is caught away. The poor dupe of Satan learns perhaps even to laugh at the momentary conviction, and to congratulate himself upon the wisdom of his present indifference.
In the next class of hearers, the stony ground illustrates the opposition of the flesh. It is here pictured not at its worst but at its best. This man “heareth the word, and anon (immediately) with joy receiveth yet hath he not root in himself.” Here it is not the natural man’s rejection of the Word, but his reception of it; though there is no more real fruit than in the first case. The seed has rapid growth, the rocky soil forming a sort of natural hot-bed for it, so that it springs up quickly with abundant promise. But the very thing which favors this ready development, prevents its permanence. The seed cannot root itself in the rock, and the sun withers it up.
It is easy to see what is wanting here, and that the picture is of the stony heart of unbelief, unchanged, dying the word admittance, where seeming most to receive it. Many such cases there are where the gospel is apparently at once received, and with joy, but where that immediate joy is just the sign of surface-work and unreality at bottom. With such the ploughshare of conviction has never made way for the seed to penetrate. The work is mental and emotional, not in the conscience. There has been no repentance, no bringing down into the dust, in the consciousness of a lost, helpless, undone condition, which nothing but the blood and grace of Christ can meet. There has been no coming out of self — self-righteousness and self-sufficiency, to Him. Thus there is no root in the man himself, Christ is not his real and grand necessity. So “when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, bye-and-bye he is offended.” This is the religion of the flesh, of sentiment, of unreality, and this is its end: it lacks the seal and sign of a work truly divine — permanence. It “dureth for a while:” “I know that what God doeth, it shall be forever” (Eccles 3:14).
It should admonish every workman who goes forth with this precious seed of the word of God —the lesson that our Lord teaches here, that there is such a hasty springing up of the word he carries, which is not to be caught at and-rejoiced in, but the contrary. An easy passage into joy and peace, without any deep conviction, any real taking the place of a lost sinner before God. It is not that experiences are to be preached, or trusted in by souls for peace. Christ alone is that, most surely. But we should nevertheless be admonished, that if Christ “came to seek and to save the lost,” ― and that is “gospel,” — good news, — if any, is, — men must know that they are lost, before they will “understand,” or savingly “receive” this gospel message. This is the Scripture truth and necessity of repentance; and this is its place “Repent ye and believe the Gospel.”
We come now to the third class of these hearers: “he that received seed among the thorns.” The Lord Himself interprets what is figured here, as the opposition, of the world: “the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.” It is a more solemn warning, perhaps than either of the others. For the word seems to get deeper hold here, and it is not the violent assault of persecution that overthrows this faith, but the quiet influence of things about us all in one form or another; No one but proves, perhaps, more or less, how occupation with needful and lawful things tends to become a “care” which saps the life of all that is of God within us. Soul care is not despised, but just crowded out we all feel the tendency; and who does not remember cases such as this, of those in whom apparently the seed of the word was springing up, and where by no sudden assault or pressure of temptation but just in the ordinary wear and tear of life, perhaps along with the unsuspected influence of prosperity so-called, like seed among thorns, the promise of fruit was choked?
But in all these three cases, we must, mark that, hover fair the appearance, there was never any “fruit.” It was faith which, haying not works, was dead, being alone. It wrought nothing really for God in the souls of those who had it. It brought about no judgment of sin, no brokenness of heart, no turning to God: where these are there is fruit and real faith, and eternal life. Such shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck the out of the hand of Him in whom they have believed.
Of the fourth class alone is it declared that such an one “heareth the word and understandeth it.” This is the character of him who “received seed into the good ground;” and this man also “beareth fruit.” This understanding of the word is thus the great point, here. And what puts us into a condition to understand the gospel is just the understanding of ourselves. Our guilt, our impotence, our full need in all its-reality apprehended by the soul, opens the way to apprehend the fitness and blessedness of the message of the gospel. If I am a sinner, and without power to get out of this place by any effort of my own, how sweet and simple that Jesus died for sinners, and that God through Him “justifieth the ungodly.” If I can do nothing, how that word “to him that worketh not, but believeth,” shines out to my soul! I understand that. It suits me; it is worthy of God. There is no “good ground” prepared to receive the truth of the gospel, save that which has been broken up by the ploughshare of conviction, and that not merely of sin, but of helplessness. “When we were yet without strength” came the “due time,” when “Christ died for the ungodly.”
Sorrows and trials are not only like the sand and grit that polish a stone, But I shall be made to taste, through the trouble, what Christ is to me.