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Jesus taught in parables which were "pictorial ponderables" which were designed to expose the thought and behavior of the religionists. You are free to download this article provided it remains intact without alteration. You are also free to transmit this article and quote this article provided that proper citation of authorship is included.
In the midst of His ministry in Galilee Jesus taught the listeners in parables. His primary objective was to reveal Himself as the King of the new spiritual kingdom being inaugurated by His presence, but such was not in accord with the Messianic kingdom expectations of the Jews. In explaining the kingdom of God, Jesus necessarily exposed the prevailing religion of Judaism to be contrary in almost every detail to the reality of God's grace expressed in the life of the Son. The contrast Jesus was making led to inevitable conflict with the Jewish religionists. They thought He was a rebel-rouser, a Messianic pretender, a quack, a weirdo who was out of His mind, empowered by Beelzebub. When He spoke in parables they often could not understand what He was trying to say, but they eventually understood that He was talking about them and exposing their religiosity. The use of parables can be a very effective teaching technique. The Greek word for "parable" is derived from two other Greek words, para meaning "beside" and ballo meaning "to throw." Literally, then, a parable is an illustrative story that is "thrown alongside" or "placed side by side" a similar or comparative concept. A parable brings parallel ideas together by drawing a figurative word-picture to illustrate a particular thought. It is often a thought-provoking analogy that leaves the mind of the listener in sufficient doubt as to its application that it stimulates further consideration thereof. Parables are often problematic and puzzling which leads some to refer to them as "riddles." This enigmatic nature of a parable allows the story to function as a pictorial ponderable which leaves an image on one's mind to be considered again and again. As such, the Biblical parables grate against dogmatism and the fundamentalistic desire to have everything figured out and nailed down in precision of understanding. When attempting to interpret Jesus' parables the issue is not so much whether we "get it" figured out, as whether Jesus "gets to us" by planting a glimmer of His divine perspective of spiritual realities. The parable serves as a dum-dum bullet shot into our brain which then explodes and begins to color our thinking in accord with the "mind of Christ." When Jesus began to teach by using parables, He was using a method of story-telling that coincided with Middle-Eastern thought patterns. The mind-set of the average Palestinian in the first-century was not all systematized in tight patterns of deductive and inductive Aristotelian logic. They were simple people who often used the language of imagery and idioms which employed word-pictures based on known agricultural, vocational, social, political and religious customs. A contemporary example of the same analogical and artistic technique might be the editorial cartoons found in our newspapers which picture a present situation or issue in symbolic imagery. Obviously one must understand the situation which is being illustrated in order to understand the picture, and such is equally true in understanding the parables of Jesus. In theological terminology this is expressed by the German phrase, sitz im leben, meaning the "setting in life" in which the teaching has taken place. German scholar, Joachim Jeremias, has emphasized this necessity of understanding the contextual setting of each parable by considering when and where it was told, the audience who was listening, the objective of the teaching, etc.1 From at least the second century to the nineteenth century Biblical exegesis considered the parables to be allegories wherein every detail of the story could be extracted and given a particular spiritual significance. This allowed for a wide latitude of subjective identification of the features of each parable, leading to far-reaching speculations of meaning that strained common-sense altogether. The interpretations of Origen of Alexandria in the third century were particularly outlandish examples of such allegorical interpretation. This tendency remained though until 1899 when Adolf Julicher2 suggested that every detail of every parable did not have a precise meaning, but that every parable as a whole had one particular point that it was designed to reveal. This interpretive method for understanding the parables can lead to the opposite extreme of vague generalizations of varying emphases which are oversimplified and have limited value for understanding the teachings of Jesus. Avoiding both extremes, we must recognize that some parables, like the parable of the sower and the parable of the weeds, are interpreted allegorically by Jesus Himself. Other parables are not so interpreted, and should not be forced into such, although such seems to be the natural propensity of the Biblical exegete. Each parable must be considered in the sitz im leben context within which it was told, and interpretations must avoid dogmatic assertions of meaning. We must avoid forcing psycho-analytical principles from our own age, as well as our own particular theological and eschatological biases, upon the interpretations of the Biblical parables. When Jesus first told these parables it was in the initial and preliminary period prior to His "finished work" on the cross. Of necessity there was a vague and veiled emphasis, which could only later be progressively revealed in greater detail. Jesus was painting a broad picture of what God was doing by sending His Son to reign as King in a kingdom that was radically different than what was expected and desired by the prevailing Jewish religion. As Jesus continued to teach the Jewish scribes and Pharisees became increasingly aware that what Jesus was proposing and proclaiming was the very antithesis of everything they espoused. The contrast led to open conflict which led to the crucifixion of Jesus at the instigation of the Jewish leaders, which served God's foreordained purposes to bring life out of death and form the eternal kingdom of grace in Jesus Christ. (100) Teaching by parables - Matt. 13:1-53; Mk. 4:1-34; Lk. 8:4-18 As Jesus taught by the Sea of Galilee the crowds of listeners pressed upon Him, so He entered into a boat and seated therein He continued to teach the people. Although He had previously employed comparative and figurative analogies (cf. Mk. 1:17; 2:17,19,22; 3:34 etc.), Jesus now chooses to deliberately teach by parabolic comparisons. (101) Parable of the Sower - Matt. 13:3-23; Mk. 4:3-20; Lk. 8:5-15 This parable sets the tone for all the parables which immediately follow. It does so by setting the cosmic context of God's activity. Failure to understand such has led to many parochial and religious interpretations of this and other parables. God the Father has sown the seed of His intentioned activity into the cosmos of the affairs of mankind. The seed of His divine activity is the incarnate manifestation of the Word of God, Jesus Christ (John 1:1,14). The seed of the Christic Word was planted in the soil of this world. Like the seed, the Word was covered up; He disappeared; He died; and rose again (John 12:24). Such was the activity of God in the "finished work" (John 19:30) of Jesus Christ by the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and continued Pentecostal outpouring. God's intended restorative work has been accomplished in the work of Jesus Christ (John 17:4). God is not sitting on a heavenly throne holding a Biblical seed-catalogue, somewhat dismayed that sufficient numbers of evangelists and missionaries will not volunteer to plant His seed according to the Book. The seed of the Word, Jesus Christ, has been planted in the world once and for all (Rom. 6:10). God has acted in grace in the work and ministry of Jesus Christ (John 1:17); the pervasive power of God continues to work presently (Rom. 8:32); and His "purposes cannot be thwarted" (Job 42:2). Despite any and all apparent interferences and failures, the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ has arrived and cannot be stopped. Everything necessary for Christ to reign as King in the world of mankind has been done by God. The reign of Christ in the lives of receptive mankind will bring forth the fruit of God's character in the behavior of His creatures. Jesus Christ will indeed reign as Lord and King over all creation. The primary point of this parable is to express the assurance of the sufficiency of God's work of grace in Jesus Christ, which will bring forth a harvest of fruitfulness "exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we could ask or think" (Eph. 3:20). The Jewish religionists who heard this parable by the Sea of Galilee, along with their religious counterparts through the centuries, could not understand what Jesus was saying. Religion never understands the "finished work" of God in Jesus Christ. They always think that they must work and perform in order to finish the job. Neither can religion accept the universality of God's work in the world, for such goes counter to their favored exclusivisms. The scribes and Pharisees could not fathom that the field of God's activity was not a Jewish field and that the Messianic kingdom would include Gentiles as well. Even more offensive would have been the idea that Jews might be left out of the privileges of the kingdom because of their hardness of heart and unbelief (Rom. 11:20,25). God has completely enacted the Kingdom in the planting of the seed of His Son, Jesus Christ. Even the diabolic work of that "dirty bird," the devil, cannot hinder or thwart His redemptive and restorative work in any lasting or permanent way. Satan may attempt to eat away at the gospel of Jesus Christ, but just like birds ingesting and excreting seed, he only serves to allow for broader distribution. Jesus had already identified the Jewish religionists with the Evil One (Matt. 12:34,35) and would do so again (John 8:44), so He seems to be indicating that the hostility and antagonism of religion might interfere with what God has done and is doing in His Son, Jesus Christ, but religion will never be able to overcome and thwart His divine work. Religion and its worldly ways might serve as the shallowness of rocky places and the choking thorns of improper desires and deceit, but God is going to accomplish and complete what He has intended to do in His Son, Jesus Christ, and will bring forth the abundant fruitfulness of His character (Gal. 5:22,23). Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:39). The extent to which mankind gets sidetracked into religion does not impinge upon the ultimate victory of God in Jesus Christ. Men will respond to the interferences of religion and such will diminish the fruitfulness of God's character in their lives as they fail to let Jesus Christ reign as Lord and King within them. God's desire and the continuous preserving work of His Spirit is to cause His people to abide by faith in the Seed and in the Vine (John 15:5) so they will bear the fruit of His character unto His glory. Such is not calculable by the statistical percentages and results of religious procedures and endeavors. It is not what we do, but what He does that endures and bears fruit. The religionists were devoid of spiritual understanding and did not "have ears to hear" and understand what Jesus was saying about the Kingdom of God. The disciples of Jesus were themselves somewhat befuddled, so Jesus explained that He taught in parables not to hide the kingdom or its significance, but because the kingdom of Christ had to be revealed by the Spirit of God; it has to be spiritually caught, rather than logically taught. The Christocentric mystery of the kingdom is never appraised and understood by natural logical and theological determinations, for such means are incapable of understanding "spiritual things" (I Cor. 2:14). Religionists are always caught up in the peripherals of religious experience, refusing to allow Christ to be the entirety of Christianity (I Cor. 3:21-23). Christ alone is the mystery of the kingdom (Col. 1:27; 2:2). The kingdom of God is only effectuated when Christ, the King, is reigning as Lord in the lives of His receptive peoples as the mysterious essence of the spiritual kingdom. Those who have received the Spirit of Christ are given spiritual discernment (I John 4:1), and the experience of the abundance of Christ's life (John 10:10). Religionists who do not have the Spirit of Christ, even their common sense will fail them. Jesus reminds them that God foretold through the prophet Isaiah that the Jewish religionists would fail to hear, see, understand and receive Jesus Christ (Isa. 6:9,10). Those who receive the Spirit of Christ as Christians see and hear spiritually what the prophets and righteous men of old desired to see, but they "did not receive the promises" (Heb. 11:13), for the kingdom did not come until Jesus came. (102) Parable of the Lamp - Mk. 4:21-25; Lk. 8:16-18 Amplifying the idea of the inevitable victory of the sovereign activity of God in the kingdom, Jesus likens the reign of the King in the kingdom to a lamp which cannot be put under a basket or under the bed. God has made His stand as the "light of the world" in His Son, Jesus Christ (John 8:12; 12:35,46). Jesus Christ is the Light that cannot be hidden, the Truth (John 14:6) that cannot be denied, the Word (John 1:1,13) that cannot be silenced, the mystery (Col. 2:2) that cannot be concealed, the King (Rev. 19:16) who cannot be defeated. Religion is often surreptitiously engaged in the secret mysteries of Gnostic knowledge seeking enlightenment of reason to disengage from the darkness of understanding, but such is not the pursuit of the Christian kingdom. Jesus Christ Himself is the essence of the mystery of the kingdom, a mystery (Col. 1:26,27) that was once concealed but has now been revealed for all men to know. That Christ is the reigning King of the kingdom will come to light. Full manifestation of the mystery of the kingdom must come to pass. The Light will shine in the darkness. The King will triumph in victory. The reality of Jesus Christ cannot be contained, quenched, hidden or stopped. The measure of your spiritual understanding and discernment will allow you to have even more spiritual understanding, Jesus promised His disciples. Religionists who measure out the Christian message in the packaged epistemology of systematic theologies alone will sacrifice all common sense and understanding, and will fail to see what God has done and is doing as the Light of the Son permeates the darkness of the world. (103) Parable of the Growing Seed - Mk. 4:26-29 The kingdom of God has been sown by God in the person and work of the Son, the King, Jesus Christ. Jesus has been sown into the world of mankind by His death, burial and resurrection (John 12:24), and His divine Life will of necessity take root, grow and bear fruit. God is at work in the soil of mankind which He created and prepared. God is doing what only God can do! The realization and success of the kingdom is not dependent on the efforts of man, though religion constantly tries to manufacture and orchestrate, to program and produce the kingdom, trying to make it happen and bring it into being, just as Jewish religionists were zealously doing in the first century. God's kingdom is the reign of the activity of the "finished work" of Jesus. The active work of God's grace in the dynamic of the life of the risen Lord Jesus will continue to bring to pass what God intends. The King actively reigns, and His grace-activity will be spontaneous, inauspicious and effective. Religion often promotes splashy and spectacular demonstrations of what they allege to be kingdom-activity as they try to establish such activity as being divine, but God just continues to do what He has always intended to do through His Son, Jesus Christ. We "know not how" God does what He does in the completing of His kingdom. This frustrates the religionists no end, for they perpetually seek to figure out the "how-tos" of procedure, technique and formula in order to program the success of the kingdom. It is not necessary that we be cognizant or conscious of what God is doing. Neither are we called upon to calculate the statistical results of ecclesiastical efforts to effect a harvest for the kingdom. Despite what religion does to interfere with God's activity in the kingdom, there will not be a crop failure that forestalls the harvest. God's harvest will come to pass in perfect fruition, the fulfillment of His intent in the restoration of mankind by His Son. The consummation of Christ's "finished work" will come to pass by God's activity of grace. (104) Parable of the Weeds - Matt. 13:24-30; 36-43 In yet another agri-theological parable,
Jesus likens the kingdom to good seed which has been sown into
the field of the world. As both the "Son of Man" and
the "Seed of Abraham" (Gal. 3:16), Jesus could be viewed
as both the sower and the seed, the giver and the gift. Those
identified with and related to Jesus Christ by the presence of
His life and activity within them are Christ-ones, Christians,
"sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26),
"sons of the kingdom" transferred into the kingdom
of the Beloved Son (Col. 1:13). Only by the indwelling dynamic
of His life are we His seed, sons, children, or offspring. Christians
are identified as "good seed" only because the goodness
of God is operative in them and such goodness can only be sown
and grown by God. The kingdom has been planted in the world of mankind by the "finished work" (John 19:30) of Jesus Christ, and God continues to cause His life to grow in His people who are participants in the kingdom. Such growth and fruition is not threatened by birds, rocks, thorns or weeds. God's good is not going to be overcome by evil. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). The kingdom and the seeds of the kingdom are not in danger of being destroyed by the Evil One and the seeds of the weeds, which serve only as interference and inconvenience. The kingdom, the crop, the harvest are not threatened. The danger of uprooting comes only when the activist servants start yanking out plants. While the farmer was getting his much needed sleep at night (no negligent napping is implied), an enemy came under the cover of darkness and sowed counterfeit seeds of weeds, tares, darnel or cheat. The diabolic Evil One, Satan, the devil, is the enemy and adversary of God's work of grace in Jesus Christ. The weed seed that he plants are "sons of the Evil one." Though John indicates that "the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious" (I John 3:10), the obviation is in the fruit that they bear rather than in the external foliage of bodily recognition. The wheat and the counterfeit cheat weed look very similar and are almost indistinguishable; their appearance is not so obviously different. But when the servants saw the plants growing in the field they were able to recognize that both wheat and cheat were growing side by side. They asked the owner of the field why the weeds were sown in the field, and he replied, "An enemy has done this." Religious scholars have often been preoccupied with the problem of evil and why God allows terrible things to happen, the theological question of theodicy, but the Biblical answer is quite straightforward, "An enemy has done this," and that enemy is the adversary, the Evil One, the diabolic devil, the sin-producing Satan. Though defeated by the "finished work" of Jesus Christ, the devil is still active in his hindrances and misrepresentations of God's work. The context of the kingdom of God on earth contains an inevitable admixture of good and evil, genuine and counterfeit, Spirit and flesh (Gal. 5:17). The presence of these antithetical spiritual activities does not imply that God got caught napping, allowing the devil to sneak in and do his evil deeds. God is quite aware of the presence and necessity of these contrasting operations. The servants inquire of the landowner whether he would have them to tear out the weeds in order to leave the wheat to stand alone. Religion has often sought to create a community of the pure, holy and righteous by separating and casting out what they believe and perceive to be aberrations in order to develop an exclusivistic stand of elitists. The meaning of the word "Pharisee" is derived from the root of "separatism." The Messianic expectation of the Jews of the first century was that the reign of God would come with a great separation between Jew and Gentile, expelling the pagan Gentiles and establishing a nationalistic racial and religious kingdom. Religious separatists have attempted to "play God" throughout the centuries of human history by exercising their own judgment in order to purge the community of God's people from alleged unfit and unworthy members. Preoccupied with the problem of misrepresentation, they have engaged in programs and pogroms to extricate evil, sending forth heresy-hunters on witch-hunts of inquisitions demanding excommunication of all nonconformists. Religionists seem to think that God is rather impotent to preserve His own and needs their help, someone to "go to bat" for Him as His "designated hitter" in order to "mop up" opposition. They fail to recognize that "the battle is the Lord's" (I Sam 17:47; II Chron. 20:15), and the war has already been won in the "finished work" of Christ. God does not need zealous activistic soldiers who go out to fight evil, redress the wrongs, and eliminate the dissidents in premature judgmentalism which endangers and expels true followers of Jesus Christ. God knows whose are His (II Tim. 2:19), and He only expects His people to "stand firm" in who they are in Christ (I Cor. 16:13; Eph. 6:11,13,14; Phil. 4:1; Col. 4:12; I Thess. 3:8; II Thess. 2:15), rather that attempting to fight His battles for Him. The divisive and destructive tactics of separatistic religion are the methods of the destroyer, as they engage in activistic attacks to avenge, abolish and annihilate with the militaristic strong-arm methods of political power-plays and violent vendettas. Satan loves to sucker God's people into divisive judgmentalism and fighting, for they are then doing his destructive job for him and doing more harm than good. The landowner told the servants not to attempt to separate the wheat from the weeds, the sons of the kingdom from the sons of the evil one, for in so doing they were liable to uproot and oust genuine Christians. Though the farmworkers may have had the expertise to differentiate between wheat and weeds, religious men do not have sufficient knowledge, perception and perspective in order to differentiate between what is of God and what is of Satan, between absolute good and relative good, etc. Only God in His divine discernment "knows whose are His" (II Tim. 2:19), and what is derived from Him and what is not. So what is to be our response to the interferences and misrepresentations of Satan in the context of the kingdom? We are to forbear, "stand firm," and allow God to bring forth the fruit of His character. "Let both grow together until the harvest," Jesus said. The Greek word aphete means to "let, leave, allow, or permit," and is the root of the word aphiemi which means "to forgive." "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lk. 23:34). Does this imply a passivism or pacifism of non-interference and non-resistance wherein we do nothing to stand up for the way of righteousness? Apparently so, when it comes to engaging in divisive separatistic endeavors that disrupt the participants of the kingdom. The separating will eventually come in the harvest of God's judgment. The ultimate and inexorable victory of God's kingdom will allow the sons of the kingdom to be eternally gathered into the unhindered heavenly presence of God, and the weeds will be bound in bundles and burned in the furnace of hell's fire. Such separating will be absolutely just and in accord with each man's reception or rejection of Jesus Christ. (105) Parable of the Mustard Seed - Matt. 13:31,32; Mk. 4:30-32 Continuing to explain the kingdom by similarities with agricultural and horticultural models, Jesus likens the kingdom of God to a mustard seed which was the tiniest seed that a first-century Palestinian was aware of. Later Jesus used the mustard seed to illustrate the littleness of faith (Matt. 17:20). Here the mustard seed is sown upon the earth, representing that the kingdom of God has been sown into the whole world of mankind by the "finished work" of Jesus Christ. The small and seemingly insignificant little seed is sown, just as one man in Palestine was put into the earth and died (John 12:24). The little mustard seed, hidden and obscure, would grow into a great tree, just like a little acorn becomes a mighty oak tree. The kingdom of God will come to its intended end with abundant growth and fruition. The tiny will become immense; yea, the biggest reality in the universe. Jesus and His disciples were at that time a rather small and seemingly insignificant movement, but they were going to affect the entire world of mankind. Jesus would be the "first-born among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). The Jewish religionists were hassling and harassing Jesus, attempting to quench His activity, but the kingdom He was declaring was destined to triumph. God would certainly act in accord with His sovereign will. The reign of Christ would be unstoppable. Like the mustard seed, the expression of the life of Christ within the kingdom would come through gradual growth and development. The first-century Jews expected the kingdom to commence with great grandeur in a massive and explosive display of divine power. They longed for visible and bombastic action that would expel the Romans and establish their exclusivistic kingdom in Palestine rather than in the whole world among all men. They were engaged in zealous and revolutionary efforts to organize such and to make it happen. This is typical of religion in all ages. They would prefer dynamite explosives to mustard seeds. They want to see immediate action and big results. They organize their activistic causes to achieve such spectacular displays. The kingdom of God is never accelerated through such activism and revolutionism, for the quantitative growth must come through the qualitative growth of the life of Jesus Christ. What can we do to make it happen? We are only to be available and receptive to what God wants to be and do in and through us to manifest the life and character of Jesus Christ. Steadily and inevitably the kingdom of God will grow into a full-grown tree bearing the fruit of God's character as He intended. The birds of diabolic religionists (cf. Mk. 4:15) may even nest in the branches of the kingdom-tree, but they will not affect the inexorable activity of God in His kingdom. (106) Parable of the Leaven - Matt. 13:33-35; Mk. 4:33,34 The Jewish religionists were desirous of seeing the kingdom come in a visible and explosive manner with a bombastic display of divine power that would conquer the Roman oppressors. They were getting impatient and developing revolutionary plans whereby they could "conceive big things and achieve big things for God." Such religious activism never brings God's kingdom into being or furthers the kingdom. Like leaven in the dough, God is working out the kingdom by the risen life of His Son, Jesus Christ. God does the necessary kneading, both in world situations and in our individual lives, and then in the fermentation process the little pockets of carbon dioxide expand when heated to provide the character-texture that God desires. God will bring it all out of the oven, done to perfection (Phil. 1:6), in His due time. In the meantime we are to patiently endure, always receptive to what God is doing by His gracious activity in Jesus Christ. (107) Parable of the Treasure in the Field - Matt. 13:44 Jesus hits right at the heart of religion when he tells a story about valuable "treasure." Christ Himself is the treasure (II Cor. 4:7) which God has hidden in the field of the world of mankind via the redemptive and restorative "finished work" set in motion at the cross. Jesus is the hidden mystery (Col. 1:26,27; 2:2) of the kingdom, and as He spoke these parables this was not completely evident and visible to the understanding of His listeners, most of whom were ensnared in religion. When a man discovers the surpassing value of Jesus Christ there is always great joy (chara) for such is inherent in the appreciation of grace (charis). Jesus explained that His joy would be made full in us (John 17:13) when we were spiritually united with Him. The joy at the discovery of the incomparable and superlative value of Christ and His kingdom causes one to be willing to give up anything and everything else in order to receive Him. Paul said, "Whatever things were gain for me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ...for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3:7,8). It is an all or nothing proposition, the ultimate sacrifice, wherein we are willing to give up everything we have and are, not begrudgingly, but with great joyful anticipation of the invaluable reality of life in Christ Jesus. "Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it" (Matt. 16:25). Such is the "cost of discipleship" as Bonhoeffer refers to it.3 "Seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness" (Matt. 6:33), we are willing to pay whatever price and give up whatever is necessary to buy the field, i.e. whatever context is necessary to participate in the treasure. Religion often projects the idea that God's treasure in Jesus Christ can be bought and possessed. Justification, salvation, eternal life, and spiritual gifts are often regarded as "possessions" to be obtained, assets to be gained, with specific benefits and advantages to be attained. From such a fallacious premise the religionists then engage in hawking and peddling the gospel (II Cor. 2:18) as if it were a product to be sold through high-pressure sales-evangelism. They fail to recognize that the treasure is available to be found by all who genuinely seek the mystery of God in Jesus Christ. The Jewish religionists who were badgering Jesus were not interested in the hidden treasure of the mystery of Christ. They wanted a kingdom that was visible and obvious to all which allowed them to keep all their material, religious and nationalistic treasures intact. They were not about to give up everything, especially their self-centeredness, for this spiritual kingdom that Jesus was speaking about. In fact, their view of the kingdom perpetuated selfishness. The object of ultimate value to them was increased assets, power and control. So in picturing the kingdom as a hidden treasure Jesus was exposing the contrary view of the kingdom expected by the religionists. (108) Parable of the Pearl of Great Price - Matt. 13:45,46 The point that Jesus makes in the next pictorial parable is quite similar to that of the hidden treasure. In His Son Jesus Christ, God has invested the ultimate reality, the object of superlative importance, invaluable worth, incomparable value, and matchless beauty into the world of mankind. Jesus is the "pearl of great price." As the world of mankind seeks reality and value in the "goodly pearls" of wisdom and philosophy or in hard-to-find material objects of value, they may discover that Jesus Christ is "the acquisition of wisdom that is above pearls" (Job 28:18). Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God (I Cor. 1:24,30), the reality of most value in the universe, the essence of the kingdom of God. Jesus is the reality which every man must find in order to participate in the riches of God's grace (Eph. 1:7; 2:7) and eternal inheritance (Eph. 1:18). Whenever a man discovers the spiritually rich pearl of Jesus Christ and His life, he will be willing to give up everything and sacrifice whatever is necessary of material things, relationships or philosophies as the "cost of discipleship." The Pharisaic Jews who were eavesdropping on every word of Jesus were blind to the value of the pearl of God in Jesus Christ. They thought they were the "pearl of God's eye" by exclusive right of race, religion and nation. They thought they had discovered the "pearl of wisdom" in their knowledge of the Torah, legalistic adherence to the Law, and moralistic conformity of behavior. Religion inevitably ascribes value to other things, rather than discovering such in Jesus Christ. (109) Parable of the Net - Matt. 13:47-50 Most of the disciples of Jesus could certainly relate to the next parable, for many of them had been fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus likens the kingdom that He came to bring in Himself to a seine-net that is dragged or drawn through the water to catch fish. The Seine River that flows through France is named after such. As the net is cast into the sea, Jesus has come into the world of mankind "made in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:7). In like manner as the fishing net gathers fish of every kind, Jesus as the Fisher of Men "draws all men to Himself" (John 12:32) in a universality that includes all races, genders, economic strata, as well as nationalistic identifications and cultural backgrounds. Within this "big sweep" of Christ's activity is a "mixed bag" of pluralistic amalgamation, which must not be prematurely sorted or separated (as in the parable of the weeds). The sorting out of the good and the bad comes only at the end of the ages, and is God's business, for He has given "all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22) and His angelic assistants. Unless you are an angel you should stay out of the business of separating and sorting. Only in the end time will the "finished work" of Jesus Christ work out in its obvious objective of perpetuity of union and expression. This was quite an indictment upon the Pharisees who were religious "separatists," constantly engaged in judgmental sorting of what they determined was good and bad. Their conception of God's kingdom was a preferential fraternity wherein goodness was first of all based on the Jewishness of nation and race, and secondly on the moralism of belief and conformity to the Law. In like manner religion through the centuries has not wanted to accept Christ's netting of mankind once and for all by His redemptive and restorative work. Rather than accept the seine-net of Christ's "finished work," religion prefers to sport-fish for a few rainbow-trout type of people on which to feed and boast. Religionists want to pull up the net of Christ's "catch" onto their beach-head and set up shop in the "sorting business." "This one is good; It's a keeper! This one is bad; It's not our preference." Since the Garden of Eden religion has engaged in the "good and evil game," whereby they establish their own rules and criteria for good and bad according to their own self-centered preferences of belief and behavior. The kingdom of God is then identified as their own group of "good ol' guys." They then judgmentally cast out and excommunicate all nonconformists who are regarded as bad and evil. Based upon Christ's "finished work," there will indeed be a divine judgment at the end of the age. The "good" will be those who have identified with God through the "Good Shepherd," Jesus Christ (John 10:11,14), and have been made "righteous" by the spiritual indwelling union of the Righteous One (I John 2:1). The "bad" are those persons who have been corrupted and abused by spiritual identification and union with the Evil One, and have willfully refused God's good in Jesus Christ, settling instead for the deified substitute of religion. The sons of the Evil One will be separated by the angelic agents of God and given the consequences of their choice of unbelief in the perpetuity of discomfort and anguish. (110) Parable of the Householder - Matt. 13:51-53 The final parable in this sequences of parabolic teaching is a "one-liner." Concluding His teaching in the symbolic imagery of parables, Jesus asks, "Have you understood all these things?" "Have you grasped what I have said? Do you have a handle on it? Do you have it all figured out and put together?" His disciples, who were the closest listeners, responded by casually indicating that they had comprehended all He had said. Obviously they were only beginning to understand the spiritual realities of the kingdom Christ came to bring in Himself. Whenever a man thinks he has a complete grasp of spiritual realties, you can be sure he does not! The ways of God are unfathomable and past finding out (Rom. 11:33). Despite such, religion repeatedly affirms that it has figured out all the intricacies of God's kingdom. With intricate detail they will outline their understanding ecclesiologically and eschatologically, thoroughly categorized, systematized and theologized as the "fundamentals of the faith." "Since you think you understand, but obviously do not," Jesus seems to say, "Let me advise you that every wise man, smart one, scholar, academician or diligent student who becomes a genuine disciple, learner and follower of the kingdom of Christ is like a steward, house-manager, which brings out of his treasure things new and old." Within the kingdom there will always be dialectic and antinomy, tension and balance between old and new. As "stewards of the mysteries of God" (I Cor. 4:1), we must ever be aware that the inexhaustible treasure of Jesus Christ (II Cor. 4:7) can never be figured out and stereotyped in logical fundamentals. The treasure of Jesus Christ is a dynamic and living reality which will always serve as an iconoclast of all epistemologically based religion. Religion runs to one extreme or the other, unable to see the full perspective of divine and spiritual reality in Christ. Revering and conserving the traditions of old, some religionists become conservatives holding on to the past, and always pointing backwards to the historical and theological antiquities. Others become progressive and liberal in their emphasis on theological novelties, wanting to be relevant and modern by advocating what is new. They seem to polarize in these positions of antiquity or modernity, old or new, becoming either museums full of relics or novelty shops full of the latest trinkets. Jesus indicates that disciples in the kingdom are stewards entrusted with the treasure of the living presence of Jesus Christ. As such they must be humbly aware of the finite incomprehensibility of God's infinite working in Christ. As long as we remain within the space and time limitations here on earth, we will never have a complete understanding of the divine perspective of things and how the old and the new correlate perfectly in Jesus Christ. Meanwhile we present Him for all to see and know, avoiding dogmatism, legalism, conservatism, liberalism, and all other -isms, pointing only to Christ as the King who reigns as Lord in the kingdom. 1 Jeremias,
Joachim, The Parables of Jesus. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons. 1956.
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