Mysteries of the Kingdom: Intervening Age, Matthew 13:24-52

We need to begin with some review. These parables really need to be studied as they relate to one another. There is a unity to these parables that is significant and they must be understood within the context of what Matthew has been saying. Matthew has organized his material related to the life of Christ. In each of the Gospel presentations there is a general pattern, and that pattern begins with the arrival of the King. There is specifically the birth of the King in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, not Mark and John, but when Jesus begins His public ministry it is characterized by the offer of the King and the kingdom. This pattern is seen primarily in the three synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. John looks at things from a different perspective.

The beginning part of Jesus' ministry emphasized the offer of the King, and the kingdom. The message of the forerunner, John the Baptist, was "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus came on the scene and said the same thing, and then He sent out His disciples to say the same thing. The point was that they were announcing something that had been predicted in the Old Testament: that God had promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that they would have a future glorious kingdom where the center of worship throughout the world would be in the temple in Jerusalem, and there would be a physical, geopolitical kingdom in Israel and that government would be centered in the person of the King who was a descendant of David, reigning from Jerusalem. So they expected that king of glorious kingdom to come.

So the kingdom was offered, and then it reaches this point where the opposition of the religious leaders increases to where they publicly reject His person and His message. There is a major shift that takes place at that point in Jesus' ministry. He has been offering the kingdom to Israel; He has been performing His miracles publicly; He has been teaching openly about the coming of the kingdom, but that offer never occurs again. He never performs miracles publicly again. He withdraws the offer of the kingdom.

Then Jesus goes out and sits by the Sea of Galilee, and begins to speak to them by parables. A parable was designed to do two things: to obscure truth to some and to reveal truth to others. He was intentionally obscuring truth from those who had already rejected truth. He is not doing this because He is being mean, He is doing this because they have already said they don't want the truth. They had rejected the truth and were not going to believe the truth, and so rather than exacerbate their rejection at this stage He is going to cloak what He is teaching in parables to those who already accept it—those who have ears to hear. They are already positive to the Gospel, positive to His message, and so they are going to hear new truth that they will come to understand because they are already responsive to His person and His message.

So a parable is a way of teaching. It is a figure of speech. It is similar to a simile or metaphor that is comparing something known to something unknown. It goes beyond a simile or metaphor; it is a story. So in that sense it is somewhat like an allegory, but an allegory is going to be even different from a parable. A parable is a story that is told about familiar circumstances, people or actions in order to teach new and unfamiliar truth. It differs in that it is a story or narrative designed to teach one or two principle points through parallelism and unlike an allegory it focuses on real people and the action of real people. Allegories, fables and myths are not really true to life but a parable would be true to life.

Another thing we need to understand about parables is that the purpose of this parable was to teach or reveal previously unknown truth, previously unrevealed truth. This information wasn't available by studying the Old Testament Scripture. He had never announced the rejection of the kingdom. Up to this point the offer has been made; now the offer is withdrawn, and the question would be: Well, if the kingdom doesn't come now, what is going to take place. So He is announcing through these parables something about the intervening age. He began to talk to them in parables, talking about the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

Sometimes this is read as a mystery form of the kingdom or previous unrevealed truth about what happens within the kingdom itself. We know that it is not talking about what happens within the kingdom itself for a number of reasons; the events that take place in these parables do not reflect the conditions within the kingdom itself. For example, Revelation chapter twenty teaches that Satan is going to be bound for the period of the kingdom. For a thousand years he is bound and has no influence on the earth and yet we are told in the second parable that there is an enemy that comes and sows tares among the wheat. That enemy is identified as the Devil. The Devil will not be sowing tares among the wheat in the millennial kingdom. Obviously this isn't talking about what happens within that thousand-year rule and reign of Christ in the kingdom, it is giving us new information about the kingdom because the kingdom is going to be postponed and there is going to be previously unannounced intervening period.

The major part of that intervening period is the church age. This takes place about a year or so before the crucifixion. This intervening period that is being talked about here would begin at this point and would cover the period to the day of Pentecost, which is still part of the age of Israel. It is not part of the church age. Then it would cover the period from the day of Pentecost to the Rapture of the church, so the major part of this period is the church age. But then it would also cover the period that comes after the Rapture of the church, which is the Tribulation. So these principles are true throughout three different dispensations—the age of Israel in this initial period, which would last about a year or so, the church age and then the Tribulation period. So it is not distinctive. The mysteries about the kingdom here are not just focusing on what will transpire in the church age, so you can't take this and equate this time period to simply the church age.

He starts off with the parable of the sower/soils. There are eight parables here; last time I said seven. You will read different enumerations here, and that is based on one of several factors. Dwight Pentecost, in his book The Words and Works of Jesus Christ, says that there are nine, but that is because he includes one that is in Mark that is not included in the eight here. Others have said there are seven and they leave out the last one, which is covered in v. 52 ^NASB "And Jesus said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old." We are going to include that; it is the closing parable.

The first parable and the last one do not begin with the phrase, "The kingdom of heaven is like". They are talking about more universal principles in those two parables, but the ones in the middle are the ones that give information about the intervening age. They are the parable of the soils, Matthew 13:3-9, where it is initially given. The Lord explains it in vv. 19-23. The parable of the wheat and the tares are given in vv. 24-30, and then they are explained in vv.36-43. Then there is the parable of the mustard seed in vv. 31-32, the parable of the leaven in vv. 33-35. Then there is an interlude that comes when Jesus is talking to His disciples. He sends the multitude away and then He explains to them the interpretation of the parable of the tares. Then He gives some more parables and this is directed to the disciples only: the parable of hidden treasure, v. 44; the parable of the pearl of great price in vv. 45, 46; the parable of drag net, vv. 47-50. Then there is an interlude in v. 51 where He says, “Have you understood all these things?” They said to Him, “Yes.” Why are they able to understand all these things? Because once Jesus interpreted the first parable and the second one they could understand what the subsequent ones were. He gave them the key, but He only gave them the key to the disciples; He didn't give it to the multitudes. Then there is the final summary parable, the parable of the householder.

A reminder: Jesus is not talking about a mystery form of the kingdom; we are not living in any form of the kingdom. Amillennialism, which is a compound word from a Greek prefix (a = not) and a Latin word (mille = 1000), was an early church position that came into existence after allegorical interpretation came into Christianity. It was the position that there was no literal 1000-year reign of Christ on the earth, a complete rejection of the literal teaching of Revelation chapter twenty. This also rejected the idea that God had a future plan for Israel, and inherent within amillennialism was the idea that the church replaced Israel. This is called replacement theology. In its most horrible form it has become a rationalization for anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israel. Amillennialism believes that the kingdom is a spiritual kingdom and that Jesus is ruling from the throne of David in heaven right now, that the spiritual form of the kingdom is equivalent to the church, and Jesus will just return at the end of the age, that's it, it is all over with. Amillennialism teaches that Jesus will return after the church brings in the kingdom. We are pre-millennialists; we believe that Jesus will return before the kingdom, that He will return in the future to establish the kingdom, and that the kingdom has not yet been inaugurated and will only come into existence in the future.

One of the problems today is a development in the study of prophecy in the last seventy-five years, the idea that we are in some form of the kingdom. It has been inaugurated, and therefore in some of its extreme forms there is the teaching that because we are in some form of the kingdom we can have miracles, healings, and things of this nature as a foretaste of what will come in the future kingdom. However, it is very clear from Scripture that kingdom has been postponed. When the kingdom comes, the Old Testament teaches, it happens at the same time that Israel is fully restored to the land and that they have a King on the throne of David in Jerusalem who is a descendant of king David in fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. So the kingdom doesn't come until the Abrahamic covenant, the land covenant, the Davidic covenant and the New covenant are all fulfilled, which occurs at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

What we see is that Jesus has announced that the kingdom is going to be taken from Israel and it would be given to a people who would produce the fruit of righteousness (Matthew 21:43), that Jerusalem will come under judgment (Matthew 24:37-39), and that the land of Israel would come under the domination of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24). When the times of the Gentiles runs its course, then that will be the time when Jesus returns to establish His kingdom. So we are not in any form of the kingdom today.

Brief review of the parable of the soils: This parable does not, "the kingdom is like". It is simply expressing the different kinds of responses that there will be, and that there are, to the message of the kingdom. These represent the kinds of responses to the message of John the Baptist, to Jesus' message, to those the disciples had already experienced, and by application it represents the four kinds of responses that would continue through the intervening age and through the Tribulation. Four responses are indicated. The first is the person who rejects the message, v. 19. The sower is the one who proclaims the message of the kingdom, but He is further identified ultimately as the Son of Man when He explains the parable of the wheat and the tares in v. 37. The good seed is the message of the kingdom—the message about the kingdom. The field in this passage is the heart. It is the soul or the mind of the individual hearer. When Jesus explains the parable of the tares He says the field is the world, so we have to watch this. So we have these three elements: the sower, the seed and the field.

The good seed by way of the parable produces what kind of plant? It either produces nothing or it produces wheat. It doesn't produce a tare. The good seed either produces nothing (no response), or it produces something, but even the second seed that falls among the rocky soil, the stony places, there is something that springs up. There is germination; there is life. When this is compared with Luke we see that the rocky soil receives with joy. So the first person rejects; the second person receives and there is life initially but that life gets choked out by tribulation and persecution. This is a person who becomes a believer but they don't learn much; they don't grow any, but they are still saved.

With the person represented by the seed that falls among the thorns there is growth but no fruit. Spiritual growth is not the same as spiritual fruit. You have to have growth before you produce fruit. Responses two, three and four are initially responses to the message. They receive it, but only the fourth produces fruit in varying degrees. This lays the foundation for what we are talking about. The seed is the good seed; it is the gospel, and it only produces wheat.

Now we come to the parable of the wheat and the tares. Matthew 13:24 ^NASB "Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field'." The sower is identified as the Son of Man. Ultimately it is the Son of Man. When we are proclaiming the gospel we are proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. The field, He says, is the world. The product of the good seed is believers.

Matthew 13:25 ^NASB "But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares [another message] among the wheat, and went away." That seed produces a counterfeit, tares/darnel. The idea of the darnel is that of a counterfeit wheat, a fake wheat. When it germinates and there is a seedling it grows until it reaches the point of producing fruit it looks just like the wheat, you can't tell the difference until fruit production begins. This does no relate to any of the other soils in the first parable; that was always related to something that was the wheat plant. That is important because there are a lot of people who teach that the only person saved in that first parable is the seed that produces different levels of fruit. But what we see here is that even when there is germination and growth there is life, but it is still wheat; it doesn't become a counterfeit Christian. A counterfeit Christian is a person who says he is a Christian but they have never understood the gospel. There are a lot of people like that in Christendom. They were born into a Christian family, they went to a Christian school and they go to a church; or they are not Jewish, they are not Muslim, so therefore they believe they are Christians. There are a lot of people who make this claim that they are Christian, but that is a false profession.

A false profession has to be understood. This terminology is used a lot by people: "Look at that person, their lifestyle, they are sinful, they are licentious, all of these things; how can they be a believer? Well sure, believers are sinners, they can fail in many different ways, and God saves us by His grace. He doesn't require us to reform our lives and produce good works in order to be saved or to confirm our salvation. We confirm our salvation by understanding the promise that anyone who accepts the free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ is saved—anyone who believes. Ninety-five times in John's Gospel John says, Believe, believe, believe. He doesn't say, Truly believe, genuinely believe; he says believe—trust in the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for sin. The believer is the person who trusts in Christ as savior, and he can only grow after he trusts Christ as savior and takes in the Word of God. Just as a plant can germinate but you don't water it and you don't nourish it by fertilizer and nutrients it is not going to grow. People start off and grow things but they don't water their garden and the plants wither up and die; but there was life there; there was generation.

It is not until the second parable that we have an introduction to the counterfeit that "looks like". This is the moral person who looks like they might be a Christian but they never trusted in Christ as savior. They look like a Christian but that is a false profession. A false profession is not someone who says, "I believe in Jesus" but then their life doesn't produce the kind of results that you think it should. The false professor is the person who says, "I am a Christian". There is a difference between saying: "I am a Christian" and "I believe in Jesus Christ". A person who says, "I believe in Jesus Christ" is a Christian, but the person who says, "I am a Christian" may or may not have ever trusted in Christ as savior.

These tares are counterfeit. They look like, they hang around with, they are in churches, they are moral, they are good people; but they are not believers. So the picture here is that the enemy has sown these tares, and they way this works in agriculture is that this darnel grows in with the wheat. The roots are intertwined with the roots of the wheat and they grow up together, so you just can't go in there and weed them out without destroying your wheat crop.

Matthew 13:26 ^NASB “But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. [27] The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ [28] “And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ [29] But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them.

Matt 13:30 ‘Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn'.”

Matthew 3:39 ^NASB "and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels." There is going to be this harvest at the end of the age and only then can we separate the tares from the wheat. [40] “So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age." That burning in the fire is related to eternal judgment. Jesus says this will be at the end of the age. This is talking just generally about the end result. He is not talking about one specific judgment because we know that unbelievers are not resurrected, according to Revelation 20, until the end of the millennial kingdom. But there are other judgments that will be applied prior to that.

Matthew 13:41 ^NASB “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, [42] and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." There are some people who try to make this mean something other than the lake of fire, but that is what it means. This is clearly a reference to eternal condemnation to those who have rejected Jesus as Messiah.

Matthew 13:43 ^NASB “Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear." The point is, if you are interested in truth you respond to the truth. If you are listening to the truth then you need to believe in the truth; you need to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the eternal Son of God who died on the cross for your sins.

We come to our next parable, which is the parable of the mustard seed. Matthew 13:31 ^NASB " He presented another parable to them, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; [32] and this is smaller than all {other} seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES'.”

The parable of the mustard seed is an important parable for it teaches some things about the growth of the kingdom message. That is the point. The seed is compared to it. It is a different seed now; it is not wheat. The emphasis on the mustard seed is on its smallness. It is easy to miss and it seems inconsequential. But what happens when the mustard seed is planted is that that seed grows a very large tree. So He is going to make an analogy based on this that the smallness of the seed describes the almost inconsequential, insignificant beginning of the proclamation of the kingdom message during the intervening age. There is this message that starts off with eleven disciples, expands throughout the entire world and begins to have an impact on the world. The second thing that is indicated here is the prosperity, the blessing that comes by association with those who have responded to the message of the kingdom.

There are some you may read who talk about the birds here: "THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES." They say birds are unclean in the Old Testament. That is not true. Some birds are unclean in the Old Testament—those that are carrion eaters: ravens, buzzards, vultures. They were unclean, but doves were not unclean. The text here doesn't distinguish between clean and unclean, it just says that birds come and nest in the tree. This image is used in Daniel 4:12, 21 which talks about the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar and how the other nations that are represented as birds next in the tree; they are blessed by association with the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar. That is the idea here: the positive impact and growth of the message, and how those who associate with those who respond to it are blessed by association, and this is true in the history of this intervening period. As Christianity has grown it has brought unparalleled prosperity to the world. If you look at a map you will see that only the countries that have been impacted by the Christian gospel have any measure of freedom and prosperity.

You can further subdivide those between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. In Roman Catholic countries there was a higher degree of freedom. Those who came out of Roman Catholicism in the Protestant Reformation had a higher degree of freedom and prosperity, and the English-speaking countries were the countries that had the greatest response to the gospel, and it is through those countries that prosperity has come the whole world. Look at the British Empire as it expanded in the 17^th-19^th centuries around the world. It brought tremendous prosperity, and with its expansionism and colonialism they brought the gospel.

But at the same time we see a lesson from the next parable. Matthew 13:33 ^NASB "He spoke another parable to them, 'The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened'.” This is the negative. There will be a growth of the message and many blessed by association but at the same time there is going to be a growth of apostasy that will inevitably destroy the impact of the message of the kingdom. Second only to the first parable is this one in its multiple interpretation—even among dispensationalists. Some will say that in this passage leaven is just used to picture how Christianity will permeate the world and have a tremendous response. However, I think that is a significant problem because leaven always indicates, and is a symbol of, evil in the rest of Scripture.

Three measures of meal was the amount that you would take in order to bake a loaf of bread. So this is an every-day type of occurrence. But Jesus uses and interesting word there when He says the woman took and hid in the three measures of meal the leaven. The word for "hid" is ENKRUPTO, from which we get our English word "encrypt", based on the word KRUPTO, which means secret. There are cryptologists who try to decipher codes and also work in developing codes. It is a word that is also applied to someone who is up to something nefarious; they are trying to hide something. So this is a word in the Greek that would have a negative connotation, not a positive connotation. So this is the introduction of leaven that will eventually spread and influence everything. It is a picture of apostasy. Numerous times in the Scriptures leaven is used to represent sin and evil (Exodus 12; Leviticus 2:11; Matthew 16:6, 11, 12; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 5:9). Leaven therefore pictures something that will happen towards the end of the age and the apostasy in the world. This is foretold in 1 Timothy 4; 2 Timothy 3; Jude; 2 Peter 3; Revelation 6-19, the Tribulation. We see this apostasy that goes into the end of the age. It is not just the church age; this is talking about the period that goes all the way up to the Second Coming of Christ and the establishing of the kingdom. We will see the greatest period of apostasy coming in the Tribulation period.

Then we have two parables that must be understood together. They are short and succinct so we will cover them briefly. Matthew 13:44 ^NASB  “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid {again;} and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

We have a treasure hidden in a field. What is the treasure? The man finds it, then he hides it, and then he goes and sells all that he has to buy the field. In the Old Testament we have a passage in Exodus 19:5 ^NASB "Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession [special treasure] among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine." The treasure hidden in the field is Israel. This parable looks at the kingdom and what happens from the standpoint of Israel. Hiding the treasure in the field is a reference to the fact that due to apostasy the gospel and God's grace is hidden in Israel and by Israel during much of the Old Testament period. This is why they were taken out in 722 and 586 BC—because of idolatry. They weren't fulfilling the mission that God gave them in the Torah to be a light to the world and to teach the world about God and His grace. The hidden state refers to those dark times of Israel's apostasy. The treasure is found and uncovered. This is the coming near of the kingdom during the life of Christ when He is offering the kingdom. He finds it and then hides it. This is what happened with the rejection by Israel. The kingdom is not going to come to Israel. Then he sells all that he has and buys the field.

Whenever we see this depiction of purchase it usually reflects redemption, the payment of the sin penalty. So this is emphasizing that Jesus as the Messiah has paid the sin penalty, even for Israel who rejected Him in apostasy. Matthew 13:44 talks about the kingdom from the perspective of Israel Matthew 13:45 talks about the kingdom from the perspective of the Gentiles. Matthew 13:45 ^NASB “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, [46] and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it." How many times in the Bible does it talk about pearls? Hardly at all. Why? Where does a pearl come from? It comes from an oyster. Where does the oyster come from? From the salt sea. The salt sea is usually negative and it represents the Gentiles. An oyster was an unclean animal under the Levitical system. That is why we don't have pearls as one of the precious stones in the dedication of the temple or the tabernacle or the high priest's plate all. This is talking about the Gentiles; they are unclean. But there is a pearl and it represents those who will be saved from among the Gentiles. "… upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it." Again, redemption, the purchase price from sin for the Gentiles. This is what Jesus announced in Matthew chapter twelve: that He would take the gospel to the Gentiles.

Then we come to the parable of the dragnet. Matthew 13:47 ^NASB “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering {fish} of every kind; [48] and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good {fish} into containers, but the bad they threw away." In other words, before the kingdom comes there must be judgment. This was alluded to also back with the parable of tares; there will be this judgment. Here it is pictured by the separation of the fish. Those that are clean are kept; those that are unclean are thrown away.

Matthew 13:49 ^NASB “So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, [50] and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." There are fiery torments even in Sheol and eventually into the lake of fire. So this simple statement of being cast into the furnace of fire is just a general allusion to fiery punishment, and we know that that comes in two stages from other passages.

Matthew 13:51 ^NASB  “Have you understood all these things?” They said to Him, “Yes.” They understood that the kingdom is going to be postponed. There are going to be new characteristics in the intervening period. Then He compares them to scribes. [52] And Jesus said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old.”

Actually, the text reads "every scribe who becomes a disciple". So now what He is saying is that the old order of scribes under Israel have rejected me and they are out, and they are being replaced with new scribes. This is also an allusion to the fact that some of those eleven will be used to write Scripture that will become part of the New Testament. The disciple of the kingdom is going to teach from things old, i.e. those principles that endure from the Old Testament as well as that which is new revelation related to the new age. They are going to be teaching the old, which is well established, as well as adding new revelation to it.

So all of these parables relate to characteristics of the intervening period, which include both believers and unbelievers.

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