Matt. 13-The connection between these several parables is asked. It will be observed that they are in all seven, the number of spiritual completeness in good or evil. (See Leviticus and the Revelation passim.) Next, it is manifest that the first differs from the rest, inasmuch as it is not a likeness of the kingdom of heaven, which the following six are. Further, of these six, three were said (beside the " sower") to the multitude outside, as well as the disciples; the last three to the disciples alone, within the house. All this bears upon the true interpretation, not as deciding but confirming it. For the first parable is evidently general, if it do not particularly refer to our Lord's personal ministry on earth, before the kingdom of heaven was introduced by His ascension. It is not here the heir sent to receive the fruit of the vineyard; Jesus is " a sower;" and His sowing is hindered and opposed by the world, the flesh, and the devil, as we find in the explanation (verses 19-22), though a portion of the seed takes root in good ground.
The three public comparisons of the kingdom of heaven follow,-the wheat and tare field, the mustard seed, and the leaven. The sower here is, still the Son of man; but it is His work from heaven (just as in Mark 16:2020And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen. (Mark 16:20); Eph. 2:1717And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. (Ephesians 2:17)). It is the kingdom of Christ when rejected by the Jews; of Christ absent, not present in visible power and glory. It is the kingdom of heaven on earth, entrusted to servants, who, alas! are soon asleep, and the devil sows his wicked children in the midst of the true children of the kingdom. The general teaching then is, that the new dispensation, as far as man's responsibility was concerned, would see ruin introduced by the enemy, which nothing could remedy but the judgment executed at the end of the age. But this is not all. Christendom would grow from a diminutive beginning into a "tree," emblematic of a towering earthly power, which would even shelter the instruments of Satan (compare verses 4 and 19 with 32). Nor this only: for a system of doctrine, nominally at least Christian, should spread over a certain defined mass, till the whole was leavened. Whether this mixture, this worldly aggrandizement, this propagation of (not life or truth, but) profession, such as it was, were of the Lord or His enemy, must be gathered not merely from hints here, but from Scripture generally.
Then; upon the dismission of the multitude, the Lord explains the chief of the first three similitudes of the kingdom, and adds three more, which develope not its external appearances, but its internal aspects to the spiritual man. Treasure hid in the field, the pearl, and the drag-net, comprehend these further instructions. Christ buys the field for the sake of the treasure, His own that He loved in the world. This, nevertheless, did not fully tell out either His love or their beauty in His eyes. Therefore, as it seems to me, the parable of the pearl follows," one pearl of great price," the unity and the peerless charms of that object in the Lord's eyes, for which He gave up " all that He had," as Messiah, here below; yea, life itself. The net evidently presents the closing circumstances of the kingdom, as to which I would briefly call attention to two facts often confounded, that the fishermen gather the good into vessels, casting the bad away, while the angels at the consummation sever the wicked from among the just. Our part is to take forth the precious from the vile; theirs will be to separate the vile from the precious. Grace in man occupies itself_ with "‘the good." It will be the judicial task of the angels to deal with the wicked, and to leave " the just" as the nucleus for the Lord's glory in the millennial earth.