PARABLE, MIRACLE, AND SIGN
46
gospel, although many thus misquote it. It speaks of `discipling', `baptizing', and `teaching to observe' all
things whatsoever the Lord Jesus had commanded them.
They who will be fitted for this wonderful ministry are before us in this parable. Before they can disciple all
nations, they must have been `discipled into the kingdom' themselves; they must be learners. Further, the
parable does not say `every one', but `every scribe'. The scribe was one who had to do with the Word of God,
the grammateus. No ordinary scribe, however, is here in view. The teacher must also be the learner. The scribe
must also be the disciple. He must have the wide range of prophetic view as given in these parables of the
mysteries of the kingdom before he can be likened to a householder.
The Scribes in the day of Christ were as degenerate as their fellows the Pharisees, and against them, equally
with the Pharisees, the Lord uttered His solemn woes. Speaking of the passage, `He taught them as one having
authority, and not as the Scribes' a learned writer (Dean Farrar) says:
`The teaching of their Scribes was narrow, dogmatical, material; it was cold in manner, frivolous in matter,
second-hand, and iterative in its very essence; with no freshness in it, no force, no fire; servile to all
authority, opposed to all independence, at once erudite and foolish, at once contemptuous and mean; never
passing a hair's breadth beyond the carefully watched boundary line of commentary and precedent; full of
balanced inference, and orthodox hesitancy, and impossible literalism, intricate with legal pettiness, and
labyrinthine system, elevating mere memory above genius, and repetition above originality, concerned only
about Priests and Pharisees, in Temple and Synagogue, or School or Sanhedrim, and mostly occupied with
things infinitely little. It was not indeed wholly devoid of moral significance, nor is it impossible to find
here and there among the debris of it a noble thought, but it was occupied a thousandfold more with
Levitical minutiae about mint and anise and cummin, and the length of fringes, and the breadth of
phylacteries and the washing of cups and platters, and the particular quarter of a second when new moons
and Sabbath days begin'.
Such were the Scribes of the days of Christ, and were it not uncharitable one might almost say that they
seem still to have a following today.
The disciples of the Lord who heard His words and noted how different His speech and teaching were, how
utterly opposed to the Scribes His manner and matter, would understand the clause, `every Scribe who is
discipled into the kingdom'. The Word of God was at the finger tips of these Scribes, but it never entered their
hearts. Those contemplated in the parable knew that unless their righteousness exceeded the righteousness of
the Scribes and Pharisees they could not enter into the kingdom of the heavens.
A day is coming when, not merely a few, but a whole nation shall be righteous. This synchronises with the
fourth sowing of the first parable, the ministry under the New Covenant, when the stony heart will be removed,
and a heart of flesh given, when the law shall be written in the heart and not on tables of stone, when the Scribe
will be worthy of the name, and when he too will teach `as one having authority' because he also has `learned of
Him'. Out of his treasure he will then bring things new and old. What these new and old things may be it is not
for us to say with any definiteness. The contrast between the old and the new covenant, the old and new
Jerusalem, the old and new heaven and earth will form mighty themes for the messengers of the Lord.
It would appear in the parable that the extent of this ministry is to be limited by the word `householder',
while in Matthew 28 in the wider sphere the command is to `disciple all nations'.
We trust that some little light has been thrown upon these important parables, and as we pursue the theme of
their fulfilment in the Revelation, and of the times in which their final heading up - the harvest - is set, we shall
have continual reason to see that these parables are what the Lord indeed said they were, `The mysteries of the
kingdom of the heavens'.
(9)
Things which defile a man
Matthew 15:10-20.
We have now concluded our consideration of the parables of Matthew 13. As we have seen, these parables
of the mysteries of the kingdom form a complete line of teaching by themselves. After this series of parables
was concluded, the Lord Jesus revealed the fact that He must not only be rejected, but be crucified, die, and be
raised again the third day. The parables of the second section accordingly take a somewhat different turn. One