The rejection of Jesus as Messiah by the Jews, and their being cast off in consequence, for a season, was the occasion, foreseen by God, of bringing to pass His gracious purpose, that salvation should be offered to all men, whether Jew or Gentile. Jesus takes to Himself a new name, and fills new offices. Servants had been sent to the husbandmen keeping the vineyard, and at last the Son: we know how they were treated. “He came to his own [things], and his own [people] received him not.” The miracles, which He wrought in their sight, were by them attributed to Satanic power; and the unpardonable sin was committed in blaspheming the Holy Ghost. Had they received Him, doubtless the kingdom would have been immediately established, and the Son of David would have sat upon the throne of David. But “the carnal mind is enmity against God,” and they would not have Jesus to reign over them. Does judgment immediately overtake them? No: their sin opened the floodgates for the display of God's most wondrous grace. He is about to gather some of every clime, and, by the operation of His Spirit, to unite them into the Church, in which the names of Jew and Gentile should not be known, where there is neither Greek nor barbarian, bond nor free; where there is only one bond of union, but that the most intimate—Christ the Bridegroom, and the Church the bride; He the Head, she the body; each individual a member of this body, and all members one of another, where the Holy Ghost Himself, by His actual presence, and personal indwelling in each saint, is the bond. There is formed and exhibited a union such as the Lord Himself referred to when He prayed, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Meantime the earthly kingdom is in abeyance—the kingdom, of which Isaiah gives the moral picture in chaps. 11, 12; of which Ezekiel gives the sacred and metropolitan relations in the latter chapters of his prophecy, viz., the service of the temple, &c. the manifestation of the visible presence of God in a higher degree than was effected by the Shechinah of old, insomuch that the name of the city shall be “the LORD is there.” Daniel, also, gives its external relations with other kingdoms—if the term might be used, I would say the political aspect of the kingdom. It breaks up and destroys the Gentile powers. The Stone smiths the image, and the wind carries away the very dust of it, and every vestige is effaced. “He shall be king over all the earth.” This kingdom, we repeat, is postponed that the heirs may be gathered for heavenly glory.
How great the love of our God! He became poor that we might be made rich. He put in abeyance His glory as God, the ever blessed second person of the Trinity. He gave up His power, and dominion, and government, and majesty as the heir of David's throne, as king of Israel, and as He whose name should be honored among the Gentiles, that there might be associated with Him, in His future glory, a Bride who is to pass through the same sufferings (save that of atonement,) to fill up that which remains of the sufferings of Christ, then to be presented perfect to the Bridegroom, free from all taint of sin, spotless, and holy. Oh, if every Christian did but know and act up to his glorious calling! How soon might we not hail His return, and the rapture of the saints!
But to return to our chapter—Christ comes not to the vine, the symbol of the Jewish nation in its religious aspect, seeking fruit, but commences a new work. He is a sower going forth to sow.
The first parable is not said to be a similitude of the kingdom. The seed is called the word of the kingdom, and the effect produced upon different characters is illustrated by the seed falling upon different ground. The opposition which the seed—the word -meets with is shown also: “Some fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and gathered them up.” The Lord explains, “When any one heareth the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he that received seed by the way-side.” The truth of God makes no impression on his mind, which is under the power and dominion of the father of lies—the power of death. It is an exceedingly desperate case. The soul is completely in Satan's hands, and appears to be the farthest removed from the life-giving power of the word of God—of the word of Him who is the resurrection and the life. The second case is equally bad, though apparently not so unpromising. The seed is received into stony ground: such are they who receive the word joyfully, but yet with the mind and feelings merely. The intellect may admire the truth, so far as it is understood; the natural affections of the heart may be acted upon by the exhibition of a crucified Savior; but it is a superficial reception. The truth, though admired, is not permitted to search the soul, and to probe the conscience, and (resting only in the affections and understanding which are but “the flesh”) no wonder that when tribulation and persecution arise because of the word, such are offended. The hindering power in the third case is equally clear. The cares of this age, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things, are all of the world, and opposed to the Father. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him,”
There is exhibited in these three instances the antagonism of the devil, the flesh, and the world, to the word of the Lord. There was the death-stupor of the first, no feeling, no apprehension of the truth, without understanding, like the beasts that perish. There was immediate joyful acting in the second, but the conscience was not reached. The necessity of self-abasement was not felt, and, for the time, opposition was dormant. But when self-denial was called for, when it became necessary to take up the cross, then the fleshly love of ease rose up in opposition; and they are “offended,” notwithstanding the partial light and understanding—so inveterate is the enmity between the flesh and the Spirit. The lust of the eye and the pride of life, developing themselves in the cares of this world and in the deceitfulness of riches, show their antagonism to the life-giving word in the third case. All are opposed to God; and though this opposition is manifested in different ways, yet are they all in the end fatal and destructive. Perhaps we may see, in these three cases, the opposition that is manifested to the Son, as administering the power of the kingdom against the wicked one; to the Spirit, as overcoming or detecting the workings and deceitful power of the flesh; to the Father, in contrast with the love of the world. For the way-side hearer is quite enthralled by the power of death and Satan; the stony ground bearer shows the flesh lusting against the Spirit; and the hearer choked with the cares, &c., of this world exhibits the love of the world as an antagonistic principle to the love of the Father. The devil, the flesh, and the world, combine to oppose the Son, the Spirit, and the Father—the Three-one God.
The good-ground hearer is the exact opposite of the way-side hearer: the latter does not understand, the former does. In the two other cases there is the appearance, but not the fruit. Here we have the manifestation of the power of God, by which the devil, the flesh and the world are overcome; and according to their subjection to the word sown in their hearts, they bring forth fruit, some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold, and some an hundred fold. Has this threefold division of the good-ground hearers any reference to the three powers of opposition? In the progress of the believer from the power of death to the full enjoyment of the life of God, the Son, the Spirit, and the Father all work. We do not mean that the believer progresses from knowing the Son to the Spirit and the Father; but if the believer, although passed from death to life, through the application of the atoning blood of Christ, does not in all things yield to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, is not he so far under the power of the flesh? Is he not carnal? (Compare 1 Cor. 1; 3) And if so, how can be enjoyed, and how manifested that supreme love of the Father, which is seen' only by and in those who are practically crucified to the world, and the world to them? Is it not true that the love of the world exposes us to yield to the flesh, and that the yielding to the flesh tends to bring under the power of Satan?