to show that no loss of meaning is sustained by the application of this
analogy to a new and opposite class of facts; a positive gain thereby
accrues. The circumstance that in all other places of Scripture in which
the symbolical meaning of leaven is specifically applied, it is, in
point of fact, employed to designate the progress of evil, instead of
obscuring, rather reflects additional light on the comparison as it is
used in this parable. The Teacher who speaks here is sovereign. By him
the worlds were made, and by him redemption wrought. In both departments
he executes his own will: when he speaks, he speaks with authority.
Observing that the principle which ordinarily enters and pervades human
hearts is evil, a leaven of hypocrisy, he does not submit to that state
of things as necessary and permanent: this is, indeed, the condition of
the world; but he has come to change it. Such is the direction of the
current, and the proverb which compares moral evil to a leaven correctly
describes its insinuating and persevering course; but here is one who
has power to turn the river of water so that it shall flow backward to
its source. Corruption has, indeed, spread through the world as leaven
spreads through the dough, but here is Truth incarnate, another leaven,
introduced into the mass, having power to saturate all with good, and
thereby ultimately to cast forth evil from the world. The kingdom of
darkness, for example, comes secretly,--the wiles of the devil
constitute his policy and secure his success; the kingdom of God,
although opposite in essence, is similar in the method of its advance,
for it "cometh not with observation." The wheat and the darnel were
opposite in character and consequences as light and darkness, but they
were precisely alike in the manner of their growth. The loyal army
adopts the same tactics which the rebels employ, while it strives to
defend the throne which they are leagued to overthrow.
Thus, it is not enough to say that although the diffusion of evil in
God's intelligent creatures is like the diffusion of leaven in the
dough, Jesus may notwithstanding employ the same analogy to indicate how
grace grows: we may proceed further and affirm, as Stier has ingeniously
suggested, that because evil has often been compared to leaven in the
manner of its advance, Jesus adopts that similitude to illustrate the
aggressive, pervasive power of the truth.
Boldly, as a sovereign may, this Teacher seizes a proverb which was
current as an exponent of the adversaries' successful stratagems, and
stamps the metal with the image and superscription of the rightful King.
The evil spreads like leaven; you tremble before its stealthy advance
and relentless grasp: but be of good cheer, disciples of Jesus, greater
is He that is for you than all that are against you; the word of life
which has been hidden in the world, hidden in believing hearts, is a
leaven too. The unction of the Holy One is more subtle and penetrating
and subduing than sin and Satan. Where sin abounded grace shall much
more abound.
The appropriation by Christ and to his kingdom of a similitude which had
previously been applied in an opposite sense may be illustrated by many
parallel examples in the Scriptures.[20] Of these, as far as I know, the
different and opposite figurative significations of the serpent are the
most striking and appropriate. The conception of secret motion, followed
in due time by a surely planted effectual stroke, which is associated
with the faculties and habits of a serpent, Christ found appropriated as
a type to express the power of evil: but he did not permit it to remain
so appropriated; he spoiled the Egyptian of this jewel, and in as far as
it possessed value, enriched with it his own Israel. The serpent, as a
metaphor, was in practice as completely thirled to the indication of
evil as leaven had been, but Jesus counselled his disciples to "be wise
as serpents." A similar example occurs in the parable of the unjust
steward: it teaches that the skill of the wicked in doing evil should be
imitated by Christians in doing good. Christ acts as king and conqueror.
He strips the slain enemy of his sharpest weapons, and therewith girds
his own faithful followers. Whatever wisdom and power may have been
employed against them, wisdom and power inconceivably greater are
wielded on their side.
[20] "Thus in different passages the lion is used as a figure of
Satan, but also of Christ; the serpent as a figure of the enemy, but
also of the wisdom needful to the apostles; birds as a figure of
believing trustfulness, but also of the devil catching away the
word."--_Lange_ in loc.
We shall be better prepared to appreciate for practical purposes the
peculiar meaning which the symbol bears in this parable if we advert, in
the first place, to its ordinary meaning in other parts of Scripture.
Both in the typical worship of the Old Testament and in the doctrinal
teaching of the New, leaven is ordinarily employed to denote the
insinuating, contagious advance of sin. When the Hebrews were instructed
to cast all leaven out of their houses during the solemnities of the
Passover, their lawgiver meant to teach them by type that in worshipping
God through his ordinances they should cast all malice and wickedness
out of their hearts. In like manner, when the great Teacher warned his
followers to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees,
he meant that they should eschew on the one hand the lie of
self-righteous superstition, and on the other the lie of libertine
unbelief. The Apostle Paul, too, while he does not forbid another use,
employs the conception, in point of fact, to illustrate the presence and
power of sin.
Evil is a mysterious, self-propagating principle, like leaven. In the
fact of the fall a piece of this leaven was hidden in the mass, and all
mankind have consequently become corrupted. The leaven of sin that
touched humanity at the first has infected the whole. The fact of a
universal corruption appears in all history, and its origin is explained
in the beginning of Genesis. The whole lump has been leavened: break off
a bit at any place, at any time, and you will find it tainted. "The
innocence of childhood" is a fond, false phrase, employed to conceal the
terrible reality: there is no innocence, no purity, except that which
comes through the gift of God, the sacrifice of Christ, and the ministry
of the Spirit.
Idolatry, for example, is a leaven that must have been small in its
beginning, but at a very early date it had grown great. The world was
idolatrous when Abraham was called out to become the nucleus of a
religious nation; and even his descendants, though constituted as a
commonwealth expressly for the purpose of maintaining the worship of
the true God while all the world beside had sunk into idolatry, were,
through contact with the contaminating leaven, frequently overrun by the
same sin. It became necessary that they should be poured from vessel to
vessel, and tried as by fire, in order to keep them separate.
Small and apparently harmless Popery began: with the power and
perseverance of a principle in nature it spread and defiled the Church.
How completely that leaven penetrated the lump may be seen everywhere
throughout Europe, in the architecture, sculpture, paintings,--in the
laws, habits, and language that have come down from the middle ages to
our own day. The evil spirit of the Papacy has intruded into every
place; into the councils of kings, into the laws of nations, into the
births, marriages, and deaths of the people. Between ruler and subject,
between husband and wife, between parent and child, comes the priest,
gliding in like water through seamy walls, sapping their foundations.
Into the inmost heart of maid, wife, mother, creeps the confessional,
tainting, souring, defiling society in its springs,--a leaven of malice
and wickedness, a leaven at once of Pharisee and Sadducee, a
superstition that believes everything in alliance with a scepticism that
believes nothing, and all combined to conceal the salvation of God and
enslave the spirits of men. Beware of the leaven of the Papacy.
Other things of grosser and more material mould follow the law of leaven
in their progress from small to great, until they obtain the mastery of
a community or a man. Such, for example, are the use of ardent spirits
in Scotland and the use of opium in China. A hundred years ago how small
was either bit! but being a bit of leaven, when it is once introduced
it creeps stealthily forward, the appetite growing by what it feeds on,
until it dominates, and in some cases utterly destroys. These creeping
leavens stain the beauty and waste the strength of nations. Some tribes
of Indians in North America have been annihilated mainly by this
process; and at this day the Canadian Parliament, through a benevolent
law, sanctioned by the Sovereign, entirely prohibit the sale of spirits
to the Indians, and thus save from extinction the remnants of the tribes
that live under our protection. Those subtile and powerful material
agents which create abnormal appetites and influence the moral habits of
a whole people, afford ample room for gravest thought both to Christians
and patriots.
The fact acknowledged in Scripture, and manifest in all experience, that
evil has transfused itself through humanity like leaven, serves to bring
out in deeper relief the comforting converse truth which Christ has
embodied in this parable. The universal diffusion of corruption in the
world becomes a dark ground whereon the Lord may more vividly portray
the progress and final triumph of holiness. Good introduced among the
good is not much noticed; but when good assails, overcomes, and
transforms evil, its power and beauty are conspicuously displayed.
Employing the sad facts already stated as shadows filled in to make the
lines of light more visible, I shall proceed now to express and enforce
positively some of the practical lessons which the parable contains.
1. Christ, the Son of God, became man and dwelt among us. Behold the
piece of leaven that has been plunged into the dead mass of the world!
"In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John i. 4). The
whole is not leavened yet, but the germ has been introduced. The
meaning of Immanuel is, "God with us:" the incarnation is the link that
binds the fallen to the throne of God. One without sin and with
omnipotence has become our brother,--has taken hold of our nature, and
will keep hold of it to the end. He will not fail nor be discouraged. To
him every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess: the prophecy has
been written, and the history will follow. In the meantime, while we
wait for the accomplishment of the promise, we may obtain from this
parable some glimpses of the method by which the change will be effected
at last.
Leaven consists in, or at least causes, fermentation. The name suggests
the mechanical process of boiling. The most sublime and awful scenes
which nature has ever presented have been produced in this way. When
great masses are affected, a boiling becomes unspeakably grand and
terrible. This earth, now so solid beneath, and so green on the surface,
seems to have been once a boiling mass. Those mountains that cleave the
clouds are the bubbles that rose to the surface and were congealed ere
they had time to subside again: there they stand to-day, monuments of
the fact. The moral government of God is like the natural. The Maker's
method, when he would bring down the high things and exalt the low, is
to throw in an ingredient which will produce fermentation. He can make
the world of spirit fervid as well as this material globe. The earth is
shaken by moral causes. The Gospel sends a sword before it brings peace.
Wars and rumours of wars rend the nations, and make men's hearts melt
within their breasts. In some cases it is obviously Christian truth
plunged into the mass that agitates the nations; and if we were able to
discern the links of cause and effect a few degrees further into the
fringes of the cloud that encircles God's throne, we would perhaps see
the same central fact setting in motion more distant forces. Our life is
so short, and our range of vision so contracted, that we cannot observe
the progress which the kingdom makes. Sometimes, and in some places, it
seems to recede; but when the end comes it will be seen that every step
of apparent retreat was the couching in preparation for another spring.
The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of
his Christ. The captive's chains shall be broken, whether they bind more
directly the body or the soul, although the ancient political
organizations of Europe, and the more recent fabrics of America, should
be torn asunder and tossed away in the process, as foam is tossed from
the crest of a wave upon the shore. "Thou shalt break them with a rod of
iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now
therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the
Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be
angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a
little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him" (Ps. ii. 9-12).
2. Converted men, women, and children are let into openings of corrupt
humanity, and hidden in its heart. There they cannot lie still: they
stir, and effervesce, and inoculate the portions with which they are in
closest contact. In this respect the lesson is the same with that which
is taught in those other short parables of Jesus,--"Ye are the light of
the world. Ye are the salt of the earth."
Nor is the conception essentially different from that of Christ or his
word dropped into the lump of humanity; for Christians have no life and
no expansive power, except in as far as Christ dwells in their hearts
by faith. They are vessels which contain the truth, and when these
vessels are hidden under the folds of families and larger communities,
the word of life, which is within them, touches and tells upon their
neighbours.
The most recent experience of the Church exhibits the kingdom spreading
like leaven, as vividly, perhaps, as any experience since apostolic
times. By contact with one soul, already fervid with new life, other
souls, hitherto dead, become fervid too. One sinner saved, his heart
burning within his breast, as he consciously communes with his Saviour,
touches a meeting and sets it all aglow; the prayer-meeting thus moved
touches the congregation and throws its settled lees into an unwonted
and violent commotion; this assembly, all throbbing with the cry, What
must we do to be saved? infects a city; and the city so infected
communicates its fervour to the land; and a nation thus on fire kindles
another by its far-reaching sympathy beyond intervening seas. Thus some
portions of the world have been thrown into such a state of
effervescence, by the leaven of the Gospel hidden in their heart, that
for a time the sound of praise for sin forgiven has risen in the
highways and market-places, louder than that other old, strong cry, What
shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be
clothed?
The leaven, like gravitation, follows the same law on smaller spheres
that it follows on the larger. Brother infects sister, and sister
brother; parent child, and child parent; shopman shopmate. We often
lament the contagious influence of evil, and it is right that we should;
but it is an unthankful, unhopeful spirit, that thinks and speaks of the
dark side only. Oh, thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
The new life which Christ has brought into the world is a leaven too.
Working on the same method, but backed by a mightier power, good will
yet overcome evil,--life will destroy death. Life from the Lord and in
the Lord, though small at first as to the number of persons whom it
animates, will increase until it fill the world. It will absorb
surrounding death, and in absorbing quicken it. He that sat upon the
throne said, "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. xxi. 5).
3. There is yet another branch of the practical lesson which ought not
to be overlooked: The life of faith, when it is hidden in the heart,
spreads like leaven through the man, occupying and assimilating all the
faculties of his nature and all the course of his life. The whole lump
of the individual must be leavened, as well as the whole lump of the
world. Christ will not be satisfied until he get every man in the world
for his own, and every part of each. Whatever amount of ground there may
be for the judgment of some expositors that the three measures of meal
in the parable represent spirit, soul, and body, the constituents of
human nature, certain it is that if the leaven of the kingdom is
deposited in the heart, it will not cease until it has interpenetrated
the human trinity and conformed all to the likeness of Christ. In the
new creature, as in the new world, "dwelleth righteousness." That which
is now laid on the conscience of Christians as a law will yet emerge
from their life as a fact,--"Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."
* * * * *
From a circumstance not expressly mentioned in the parable, but
obviously contained in the nature of the case, springs a thought of
tender and solemn import. The piece of leaven was hid in the meal, and
the whole quantity, in consequence, was converted into leaven; but the
leaven will not spread through meal that is dry; the meal is not
susceptible, receptive, until it is saturated with water.
Within some persons, some families, some congregations, some
communities, the leaven of truth has been deposited for a long time, and
yet they are not moved, they are not changed. The leaven remains as it
came, a stranger; all around, notwithstanding its presence, is still, is
dead. It is when the Spirit is poured out as floods that the leaven of
the kingdom spreads with quickening, assimilating power. I will pour out
my Spirit upon you, saith the Lord: the promise is sent to generate the
prayer, as a sound calls forth an echo. Behold, I come quickly, says
Christ: Even so, come, Lord Jesus, respond Christians. Catch the promise
as it falls, and send it back like an echo to heaven. I will pour out my
Spirit upon you: Pour out thy Spirit, Lord, on us, as floods on the dry
ground; so shall the word already lying in our Bibles and our memories
run and be glorified in our life and through our land.
V.
THE HIDDEN TREASURE.
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the
which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth
and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field."--MATT. xiii. 44.
These two parables, the hidden treasure and the costly pearl, are even
more closely allied to each other than the two which precede them.
Generically they teach the same truth; but they teach it with distinct
specific differences. It will be most convenient to notice in connection
with the first, the lessons that are common to both; and in connection
with the second, the points of distinction between them.
These twin parables, then, exhibit on the one hand the intrinsic
preciousness of the Gospel, and on the other the high esteem in which
that precious thing is held by a spiritually quickened man. They set
forth first how valuable the kingdom of God is, and next how much it is
valued by those who know its worth.
These two, along with the concluding representation of the general
judgment, were spoken, not to the multitude on the shore of the lake,
but more privately to a smaller audience in a neighbouring dwelling.
Many expositors believe that they can discern a difference in the nature
and treatment of the subjects between the first four and the last three,
corresponding to the different circumstances in which the two portions
of the group were severally delivered. It is thought that those which
were addressed to the multitude in public represent the kingdom in its
more general and external aspects, as was suitable in a miscellaneous
audience; while those which were addressed privately to the circle of
disciples represent the kingdom more especially in its intrinsic nature
and individual, personal application. I would not presume to affirm that
there is no ground for this distinction; but I think it is a mistake to
make it the hinge on which our view of the whole group must turn. I
suspect there are things in the parable of the sower which require, for
their appreciation, the faith and experience of true disciples, as much
as anything that the parable of the hidden treasure contains; and, on
the other hand, that the lessons suggested by the treasure were as
necessary and appropriate to the mixed multitude as those which are
taught by the sowing of the seed on different kinds of ground. The
necessity of personal appreciation and acceptance of the Gospel, which
is the main lesson of this parable spoken privately in the house, is
pre-eminently a word in season to those that are without. That lesson,
accordingly, the Lord and his apostles were wont to teach in promiscuous
assemblies. While, therefore, I notice the fact that the three later
similitudes of this group were given to a smaller circle after the crowd
had dispersed, I am not able to say that the reason of the change is
evident in the nature of the subjects. Had these three also been spoken
from the fishing-boat to the promiscuous assemblage on shore, I would
not have been able to affirm that the themes seemed less appropriate to
the audience, or less in accordance with the Teacher's method at other
times. I look with interest into the distinctions which some have drawn
between the four _exoteric_ parables addressed to a miscellaneous
assembly, and the three _esoteric_ parables spoken to a more select and
more sympathizing few; but to me they do not appear to be of substantial
importance in the interpretation.
The treasure may have been gold or silver or precious stones, or a
combination of all three: it may have been anything of great value that
lies in small bulk, and is not liable to decay,--such a treasure as may
lie buried under the earth for a long period without any diminution of
its worth. In oriental countries and in ancient times treasures were hid
in the ground more frequently than in our land and our day; but it is
probable that even there and then the subterranean wealth was tenfold
greater in the popular belief than it was in reality.
Two distinct causes, or classes of causes, lead to the concealment of
treasure under ground: the feeble bury their wealth when they are
oppressed, and the guilty when they are scared. As a general rule, we
may assume that the treasure which is found buried in the earth has been
placed there either by honest men when the law was feeble, or by
dishonest men when the law was strong. The two classes of persons who
bury gold are the robbed and the robbers.
In both cases, the treasure which is intentionally and intelligently
buried is liable to be lost through the removal or death of those who
were in the secret. Such secreted and lost wealth is afterwards from
time to time found by those who build houses or cultivate the soil. In
all lands and ages some such hoards have been actually discovered, and
many such have been imagined and expected by the credulous. The
conditions of the treasure that may be buried under ground exist in
substances widely different from gold and silver and precious stones.
On the west coast of Scotland, a few years ago, some men, while engaged
in digging fuel from a moss, found at a great depth large quantities of
tallow carefully sewed up in raw ox-hides, and in good preservation. In
troubled, lawless times, a clan had ravaged their neighbour's territory:
not having had time to drive away the cattle, they had buried the only
portion of the spoil that could be preserved, intending to return when
the danger was past and carry it away. The opportunity of realizing the
booty had never occurred, and the clansmen had carried the secret with
themselves to the grave.