There is nothing more certain, than that the Holy Spirit has a distinct and different object in each Gospel. John shows us Jesus the Son of God; Luke, Jesus the Son of man; Mark, Jesus the true and faithful Servant; but in Matthew, we have Jesus the Messiah, King of the Jews, the Son of David; and here alone we have consecutive moral history of the presentation of Jesus as King, and his rejection; here alone have we the principles of the Kingdom grouped together and prominently developed (as in Chapter 5-8) and the characteristics of those—the remnant, who became heirs of the Kingdom, when it had been rejected by the mass. And up to the 13th chapter, the Holy Spirit gives the moral history of that rejection, as it becomes more and more manifest; the hatred of the Jewish leaders waxing more and more intense against Jesus, until He rejects them; and in the 13th, announces the new thing about to take the place of the Kingdom, as originally preached to the Jews in the 2nd and 4th chapters. It is the Kingdom still, but in such a form as was never before revealed, hence called the “mysteries of the Kingdom of the heavens.” This chapter gives us a parabolic history down to the end—the harvest, and this in a two-fold view; the external thing, as viewed from the point of man’s responsibility, and the precious—the hidden thing, as viewed from the point of God’s sovereignty and grace, and which is indeed the fruit of His love. After this we have other pictures of the Kingdom, not as a whole, but in illustration of certain peculiar features, and of its aspect at certain different epochs. But in all these succeeding chapters, every incident and fact serves to set forth some principle relating to the Kingdom and its heirs, and the treatment they meet with from those who are not heirs; in a word, developing the character and manifesting the works of those who, although within the external limits of the Kingdom, are not found in the hid treasure, or the pearl of great price; and, whether they were the Jews of our Lord’s own time, or Gentiles, and were professors at the present time in Christendom, they have ever been the revilers and persecutors of the small but blessed remnant.
The 13th chapter, as regards the Kingdom, is the turning point of the Gospel. The previous chapters prepare the way for it; the succeeding ones develop its principles.
Before meditating upon the parables in the 13 chapter, let us consider a little the course of the rejection which leads to it.
About thirty years after the announcement of the birth of Jesus, and the legal proof that He was the sole heir to the royal house of David, the herald appears preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent ye, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The days were come—the time was fulfilled here was the precursor foretold by Isaiah. The King Himself on the scene. The Kingdom itself near. And this was no strange cry to the Jews; the coming Kingdom was the object of their hopes. Daniel had predicted it as being the last and greatest; it should last forever. “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”
Now, John says, “The kingdom is near.” The four empires had had their season. Nebuchadnezzar’s image was then in full view. The stone cut out without hands was there—what remains How comes it that instead of the universal peace and blessing which follow the establishment of the kingdom, the kingdom itself, and, consequently, all its blessings, are postponed? There was an element in John’s preaching for which the Jews, as a nation, were wholly unprepared. They were called to repent. But they would not. But there would be no admission into the kingdom without repentance; and so it was withdrawn. All this was certainly foreseen by God, and the predictions concerning the kingdom go beyond the circumstances of that time. Nevertheless, He who gave the words of the prophecy had so wisely given them, that if the Jews had then repented, God’s word would have been fulfilled. But the kingdom was to be brought to them—offered to them,—and they were and are, responsible for rejecting it. But at this moment, nothing of this was seen; on the contrary, there is an apparent readiness to obey the summons. “Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the country round the Jordan, and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.” They go to John’s baptism of water as a sign of their repentance, and to this external rite, there was a general submission. To this the flesh can submit, even Pharisees and Sadducees go to be baptized. But John warns them that there is One coming after him who, mightier than he, will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The fan is in His hand, and he will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather the wheat into His garner, but burn the chaff with fire unquenchable. And things were now come to a crisis. “The ax is applied to the root of the trees.” Fruits worthy of repentance must be produced.
But, though nominally the people of God, they were, morally, far from Him— “Lo Ammi.” They would have been glad to have had deliverance from the Gentile oppressor, but they ignored all the moral qualities necessary for the Kingdom, and so all their notions about it, though founded upon truth were only carnal. And when tested by the presence of Jesus they utterly failed. No mere baptism by water—no feigned humiliation here—He baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. To this the flesh (man) cannot, and will not submit; and the kingdom, as appears later on, is taken away.
But not only does John proclaim the kingdom near, Jesus Himself (in chapter 4) announces it, and in the same words as John. The one is a voice from the wilderness, but Jesus dwells among them, goes about the country, teaches in their synagogues, heals every disease and every sickness among the people. We instinctively feel how appropriate it was that John should preach in the wilderness, and Jesus in the towns and villages. Here was the grace and condescension which marked the whole course of Jesus, which He came to secure by His own death; there was the separative spirit of righteousness that could not dwell amid the evil haunts of men, but must summon them out away from all their old associations to the desert where alone John could address them, fit place for the confession of sin.
Only one could go into their midst and be undefiled.
Only one could mingle with them, be present at their feasts, their wedding feasts, and yet be separate from sinners. John authoritatively demands repentance, and threatens that every tree that brings not forth fruit worthy of repentance shall be hewn down and cast into the fire. Jesus also preaches repentance, but He is there to give the repentance He demands. John is separate both as to food and clothing, and even as to habitation (true, we find Him afterward in Herod s palace, but his function as the forerunner bad then ceased): Jesus ate and drank with them, and had no garb to distinguish Him from others. But the result after all was the same. They said John had a devil. They said Jesus was a gluttonous man and a winebibber. So that if one came mourning they did not weep: if another come piping they would not dance. There was no response.
There was a divine necessity that Jesus should come in grace. God had determined to set up the kingdom, and had a perfect right to demand righteousness from the Jews, as a basis upon which to found it. But there was none. Grace comes and prepares a basis, i.e., calls out a remnant. But if grace now founds the kingdom, the King Himself acts in grace; and so even at the very beginning, before the rejection was manifest, and while repeating the very summons with which John came, it was with tenderness and compassion that He went out through all their towns and villages, healing them of whatsoever disease they had.
John did no miracle—stern and austere, he was outside all; Jesus, full of grace as well as of truth, meekly submitted to all their insults and contumely, while working miracles for their healing, and at the end suffered death itself from their hatred and malice.
O wondrous grace of God in Christ, who meekly came and submitted to the dreadful wickedness of man. O what love that bore it all and went down to death, even the death of the cross!
In Hebrews, faith is looked upon as an active principle of endurance and conduct; reliance on God’s word through grace for practice. In Romans, the ground on which we are justified, in virtue of Christ’s work, the ground of peace. In the former it is the active—working faith of the saint—in the latter the no-working faith of the sinner.
The world is not now in a state of probation as some suppose. The Gospel comes to the lost. “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Conscience. —The sense of responsibility united to the knowledge of good and evil. When awakened it has no power of drawing near to God; but drives a man away to hide himself, like Adam, among the trees of the garden.
The profession of Christianity in distinction to the law is, that God has spoken from Heaven by His Son—the Apostle of our profession; and that we now have a High Priest in Heaven who has while on earth accomplished eternal redemption by His own blood-shedding.