I could not doubt that this preaching of the kingdom of heaven by the twelve, interrupted by the definite and utter rejection of Christ on the part of Israel, will be resumed in days yet to come, and that it is to this resumed testimony that much of Matt. 10 has its most definite application. See particularly verses 18, 22, and 23, compared with Matt. 24:66And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:6), which evidently speaks of the final sins and sorrows of the house of Jacob. The rejection of Christ by Israel has not only made way for the existence of the kingdom of heaven in mystery, but also for a far deeper mystery, viz. the church and its union with its Head in glory. When this is completed by the rapture of the saints, in order to the marriage of the Lamb in heaven, God will resume His dealings with His earthly people Israel, and with the Gentile as such. Witnesses will be raised up to proclaim this gospel of the kingdom to both Jews and Gentiles, and scarcely will they have finished their testimony ere the Son of man shall come. (See Rev. 11; also 14:6, 7.) Any who wish to pursue this subject, I would refer to the papers already published in “The Prospect,” entitled “The Testimony of the End,” and “On the Gospel by Matthew” (particularly the remarks at the close), which throw much light on this deeply interesting inquiry.
In chapter 10:11 John the Baptist is declared by our Lord to be as great as any that had been born of women. The Savior affirms, nevertheless, that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. John had but announced its approach. The least of those who actually enjoy the blessedness of that reign of heaven is in a position more blessed than John's. Our Lord then adds, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence; and the violent take it by force.” Instead of its being an ordered and established system, into which men had been introduced at their birth, and in which all that was required of them was to walk obediently to the laws and ordinances then existing, it was a kingdom preached as at hand, and the question was of entering into it. Such too was the total failure of man under the old system, and the rancorous opposition of his heart to the new kingdom and its accompaniments, that it was only at the risk, or even cost, of everything that any one could enter in. It was only by bursting asunder every tie, doing violence to all the dictates and interests of nature, that any one could enter in. It was grace undoubtedly, that supplied the energy and fortitude thus to hate father, mother, brother, sister, houses, lands, yea, and a man's own life, for Christ's sake; still, this was the way in which grace led a man to act. And those who did not thus value Christ and the kingdom He proclaimed above everything besides, so as to abide the loss of all things for His sake, proved themselves unworthy of it, and failed to enter it.
Matt. 13, having been the subject of distinct consideration in a paper proceeding from the pen of one so much better able to expound it (see “The Prospect,” vol. 1, page 121), it requires the less notice here. It is, however, as any one may see, a chapter of the deepest importance in connection with our present subject. Israel's rejection of Messiah being fully manifested in chapter 7, where we find that His brightest miracles were attributed by the Pharisees to Satanic power, our Lord pronounces on them the solemn sentence which closes His statements respecting the unclean spirit gone out of a man and walking in dry places, who in the end returns with seven others worse than himself, so that the last state of such a man is worse than the first. “Even so,” says our Lord, “shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” He further disowns all His natural links of relationship with the Jewish people, all the ties of kindred which, as the seed of David according to the flesh, united Him to them. “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?” He inquires. “And he stretched forth his hands toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother, and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” It is immediately after this that He speaks the seven parables, which we find in chapter 8; the whole affording to us full instruction in the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens.
The first parable is not a representation of the kingdom, but of the work by which the kingdom is formed. It is the basis on which all the other parables in the chapter are founded. “Behold, the sower went forth to sow.” Israel had been the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. (See Isa. 5) But now that all His care in planting and cultivating it was repaid with nothing but wild grapes, He was about to execute the long-threatened judgment, and give it up to the destroyer. Hence it is not now the care of a vineyard, but an entirely new beginning. “The sower went forth to sow.” The details of the parable are well known. The seed falls on four descriptions of ground; in one only does it bring forth fruit. Striking picture of what the various results of the preaching of the word have been! How futile the hope, that because the gospel testimony was to be everywhere proclaimed, universal blessing would be the result! It is true that the Sower went forth to sow. This was not to be confined within the limits, nor to be occupied with the culture, of the Jewish vineyard. Gentiles as well as Jews were to hear the word of the kingdom. Yea, it was to be preached every where. But with what varying results And how small, when compared with the aggregate, the result in blessing! May we hearken to the admonition: “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
The disciples inquire of our Lord His reason for speaking to the multitudes in parables. His answer is most important. “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” He thus declares the period to have arrived which had been long foretold by the prophet Isaiah. “Sanctify Jehovah of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offense, to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon Jehovah that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him” (Isa. 8:13-1713Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 14And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. 16Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. 17And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. (Isaiah 8:13‑17)).
Surely, Jehovah of hosts was now beginning, in the most definite sense, to hide His face from the house of Jacob, when to the disciples it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, which were hidden from the multitude. “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.” Our Lord quotes another prophecy of Isaiah, which was now receiving its accomplishment. “And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” These words, quoted from Isa. 6:9, 109And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. (Isaiah 6:9‑10), are connected there with what follows. The prophet says, “Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and Jehovah have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.” The Savior's quotation from this passage is significant; it decides that this predicted period of Israel's desolation is the period during which the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven have their existence and development.
To the disciples our blessed Lord explains the parable of the sower, and speaks another—that of the wheat and tares. This He gives as a representation of the kingdom of heaven. “The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.” I need not quote the parable at length. The Savior explains it also (after speaking two others in the presence of the people) to His disciples. The field, He says, is the world. He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. The tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age. The reapers are the angels.
Let us consider these things for a moment. We have seen in the first parable that though the sowing is universal, the fruit—the result in blessing—is partial and limited. Here, in this second parable, Satan himself turns sower. The field is indeed the world; but the scene of Satan's operations is not here so much the world at large where the seed has been sown, but part of it where the seed has got root and is growing up. It is the introduction, by Satan, of positive evil, where the Son of man had wrought blessing. The good seed here is not the word, It is explained to be “the children of the kingdom.” The tares also are not false doctrines (though it may be by these that Satan works), but evil persons. “The tares are the children of the wicked one.” In a word, what we have here is the corruption of Christianity. And we are assured most definitely that when this effect of Satan's enmity and man's supineness (“while men slept the enemy sowed tares”) has once been accomplished, it will not be set aside till the harvest at the end of the age. Then the tares are to be gathered together first in bundles to be burnt, and the wheat gathered into the barn.
Then there is another point. When the Lord speaks of the tares and the wheat as thus growing together, as they are doing at present, we must view this as representing the condition of things, as a whole, between His first and last coming, without taking into account the fact that, during that time, generation after generation, both of the righteous and wicked, die off—that there is constant succession—incessant fluctuation, altogether different from that from whence the image is borrowed; seeing that, in the natural world, the very same seed that is sown in one month springs up and is reaped in another. But, on the other hand, when we actually come to the time of harvest, then we must lose sight of the past generations, rising and dying one after another, in constant succession, and look alone at the generation alive at that time.
(continued from p. 42)(To be continued, D.V.)