PARABLES IN SERMON on the MOUNT #2 of 3

Parabolic Illustrations in the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 6 and 7 (2 of 3)

Again we take three groupings of illustrations, on three subjects or themes: the first, the birds and the lilies; the second, that of the mote and beam, and dogs and swine; the third, the loaf and stone, the fish and serpent, or scorpion. Our Lord used all these as illustra­tions in His ethical teaching.

The birds and lilies are very familiar. What then was the subject the Master was illustrating? That of the futility of anxiety about necessary things. In the former illustration of true wealth, the foolishness of laying up treasure destroyed by moth, rust, and stolen by thieves He was not looking at necessary things. If His subjects are not to be careful about laying up treasure on earth, there are things that are essential and necessary.

What are the necessary things? They are revealed in His teaching; food, drink, raiment. Here He reduced everything to the last necessity. The word raiment here covers more than the covering of the body. Paul writing to Timothy says, "Having food and covering we shall be therewith content." (1 Tim. 6:8) Covering means not merely the covering of the body, but covering of our personality, shelter, home. That also was surely in the mind of our Lord. Things can be accumulated, without any home. However, keep to the simple ideas, food, drink, and raiment. These are necessities to those in His Kingdom, until the consumma­tion. He insisted upon the futility of being anxious about these necessi­ties in a threefold repetition of a phrase, "Be not anxious." The Authorized Version renders here, "Take no thought" for food and drink and raiment, which is a little misleading. We are to take thought, but we are not to be anxious. That is the important word, the anxiety which is burdensome care, and that is unfruitful, feverish and worrying. How constantly His subjects, submitted to His rule, face these prob­lems of food, clothing and covering, necessary things, until the anxiety reacts upon them, and they become hot and restless, fretful and worried.

There is a threefold movement in the teaching. He shows first that anxiety is unnecessary. The necessity is known to God. "Your Father knoweth that ye have need." Second, it is unworthy. We are fritter­ing away great forces that inspire life, on unworthy objects. Direct that driving energy and urge of personality into its true line of action. By seeking the Kingdom and His righteousness, we shall be taking our powers, and spending them in that way. Finally, with a fine touch of sarcasm, He says it is not only unnecessary and unworthy, it is quite unfruitful. Worry does not get us anywhere, nor bring us anything. By taking thought we cannot add one cubit to our stature.

The marginal reading for the word "stature" is "age" in the Revised Version. Either word carries the meaning. By worrying one cannot add a cubit to his stature, or live longer. See the playful irony of the word. Remember the teaching that has preceded this word; the supremacy of character, revealed in the beatitudes, that character as influence, salt and light, followed by binding laws. We are still in the world, and must have food, drink, and raiment, necessary things. We are not to be anxious about these things.

How shall we avoid anxiety? Jesus looked out upon the common, everyday things, the birds and the lilies, the Hula lily of Palestine, varying from brilliant scarlet to a fine deep purple, one of the most gorgeous of the flowers, blooming there amid the fields where He was talking. Look at the birds as they nestle there in these trees, and as they fly. They have no intelligence that enables them to make pro­vision. They have no gathering power. They do not lay up in barns; but they are fed, and the Father feeds them.

These are illustrations by contrast rather than similarity. If our heavenly Father feeds those whom He has not endowed with a capacity for thinking and planning and arranging and laying by in store, how much more likely He will feed those whom He has created with the capacity to lay up, and arrange, and plan. Man is intelligent, is made for forecasting, to arrange. He is created with the intellectual capacity that enables him to do what the birds cannot do. Our Father feeds the birds, in spite of their lack. He will feed us on the basis of our possessions. Man will use the faculties, but the greatness of his human­ity, and all his cleverness will not feed him, unless God does so. The Lord was driving His listeners back to recognition of the futility of worry and anxiety, teaching that the beings He has thus endowed and endued, using those powers so given, to such God always responds in supplying need.

Then He looked at the flowers. He said, Look at them. God has garbed them, and all the glory of Solomon's fine twined linen and purple and flashing beauty do not compare with the beauty of those flowers. Is anyone inclined to think that here Jesus used rhetoric? No, it is cold, scientific fact. Someday take a piece of the finest material ever employed in the making of garments of kings, the most beautiful and costly, and most delicately woven in the looms of humanity, and place it under the microscope. Then put under that same microscope a rose, a lily, any flower, a daisy plucked from the common sod. The material will be like sackcloth, its edges frayed. The flower will be wonderful with all the efflorescent beauty of accuracy. God clothes the lilies, and Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. To us He has given power both to toil and to spin. How much more may we expect to be clothed by that God Who clothes the lilies in that manner. Today they are in the field. Tomorrow they are for burning, they are gone. We are for the eternities, and He has given us power to toil, and to spin.

In these illustrations our Lord was not telling us not to think, for He did not say, take no thought. We were made to think, to gather, and to put by in barns, to learn how to toil and spin. Use those powers, knowing that they are given by God, and that He will co-operate with us in all our gathering, in our toil, and spinning. It is quite unnecessary therefore that we should have any anxiety about the things of necessity, for the highest thing here, that flames with beauty, is that "your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."

The second group of illustrations concerns one subject again. The mote and the beam, and dogs and swine. It is a curious conjunction, but they are together, and are kept together. The mote and the beam illustrated one realm, and dogs and swine another, but they are in the same possibility of action and activity in life. The subject which our Lord was illustrating was that of the principles that are to actuate us in the exercise of judgment. The word "judge" here has many mean­ings and applications. The Greek word is translated in ten or eleven different ways, everyone having some essential thought, but with varied applications. When our Lord said here, "Judge not that ye be not judged," the sense in which judgment is forbidden is the judgment that condemns. Discrimination however is necessary, and is ordered. His use of the mote and the beam shows us that we may use judgment wrongfully; and He charges us not to do that thing. His use of the dogs and swine shows how judgment must be exercised, and is some­what terrible in application. Judgment is necessary. As John records in another connection, He said once, "Judge not according to appear­ance, but judge righteous judgment." (John 7:24) That was distinct instruction to exercise the power of distinction and discrimination. That is part of our human nature. But there is a censorious attitude of soul, in which judgment deteriorates into the judgment of unfairness and condemna­tion, and that is what He forbids. In that connection He used these startling figures of the mote and the beam. The beam is something big, and the mote a tiny thing. The word used for beam means a great massive piece of timber. The beam in the eye becomes almost grotesque by its bigness; and the mote, the little chip off the beam, cannot be seen, although it causes suffering. A man sees the mote in his brother's eye. Jesus does not deny he may see it. He does see it. It is something wrong, that ought not to be there. But Christ says there is a beam in that man's eye that is looking at his brother's mote. The beam is not a vulgar sin. The man guilty of a great sin is never critical of a man who has committed a little sin.

Then what is the beam? That very spirit of censoriousness which is watching for something in his brother, that blinds him to all the facts of the case. Sins of the spirit are always worse than the sins of the flesh; and there is no sin so blasting, so blighting, so damning, as the spirit of censorious judgment of another man. Cast out that beam, said Jesus, get rid of that; then one will see how to take the mote out of the brother's eye. Censoriousness dwells upon the mote, and criticizes the brother. That censoriousness is a beam that is blinding the man. Re­move it, and approach that same man in love, with the very spirit of Christ, and the brother will be helped to get rid of his mote in his eye. Judge, not in the spirit of censorious condemnation; for we shall be judged in the way we judge; that is the measure of our judgment.

Then sharply, almost suddenly, He insisted upon the necessity for discrimination. "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine." That is a tremendous saying, and a terrible one. If there is to be no hindering beam that prevents us from removing the mote, there is to be no blindness that prevents us from seeing corruption that is hopeless and helpless. We are not to take precious things, and give them to dogs, to cast our pearls before the swine. Peter doubtless heard that word, and at the end of his letter he spoke of people like dogs, returning to their vomit, and sows wallowing in the mire. There are such people, and Christ says we have no right to give such our treasure, our pearls.

A tremendous application can be made of that, the necessity that the Church should guard her most holy things. In past history the Church gave over her sacred deposit to dogs, and cast her pearls before swine when she admitted government within her borders by pagan nations. She does it today whenever she compromises with the sacred things of her faith.

The final illustrations here, the loaf, the stone; the fish, the serpent. The subject illustrated here was that of prayer, the way in which God gives as compared with the way of men, and men at their highest level, as fathers give. He had just uttered the tremendous word about free­dom from censoriousness, and yet the importance of the power of discrimination that prevents handing over of sacred things to dogs and swine. Immediately there He said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." That has a wide and general application, but notice its placing in this ethical Manifesto. As one faces the difficulty of judging, and the fear to form any judgment, He says, the power-house is there, the light is there. "Ask, seek, knock." This is an ethical Manifesto. These are the laws of the Kingdom, and here prayer is commanded as a necessity. Has any other code of laws included prayer as a necessity? I think none; and that is why they all break down. Jesus here introduced prayer, and shows how God gives. He will give. If they ask, they will receive. If they will seek, they shall find. If they knock, the door will be opened.

Having said that, he went on, "Which of you, being evil . . . ?" The immediate application is that God is not evil, and we are. Evil there means more than sinful. It includes everything of narrowness. All we are, God is not. We, being evil, have the high capacity for giving good things to our children. Then our Lord illuminated it all. Will a father for a loaf give a stone; for a fish, a serpent? How much more shall your Father God give good things to them that ask Him. God gives the best, always the best, as they would give. He will never offer us a stone, even if we ask for a stone. He will give us bread. He will never offer us a serpent or a scorpion, if in foolishness we ask for a serpent. He will give good things. "Ask, seek, and knock." That is the dynamic center of all ethics, because God is at the center. Entering into this we can find the infinite machinery, with its wheels turning, revolving; but at the Centre of that wheel there is an axle, that of the heart of our Father. Oh, do not be anxious. Use judgment in accord­ance with the principles of God, and if we find it difficult, go into the power-house, and ask, and seek, and knock.

PARABLES IN SERMON on the MOUNT #1 of 3

Parabolic Illustrations in the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5 and 6 (1 of 3)

The first parabolic illustration is found in the fourth chapter of this Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus spoke of His disciples as "fishers of men." This is postponed now, to be returned to at a later article, where again the figure is more particularly used.

The Manifesto is radiant in its wealth of parabolic illustrations. Salt, light, a city on a hill, lamp, bushel, lampstand, house, Gehenna, adversary, judge, officer, prison, throne, footstool, feet, inner chamber, door, moth, rust, thieves, eye, darkness, birds, lilies, oven, mote, beam, dogs, pearls, swine, loaf, stone, fish, serpent, gate, way, sheep, wolves, fruits, grapes, thorns, figs., thistles, tree, fire, rock, floods, winds, sand. There are forty-nine, and these are not all. They are all common things, and familiar to everybody.

Here we shall look at those illustrations of definite statement, rather than those of incidental reference. These illustrations moreover are all within the moral realm, ethical. The Manifesto is the ultimate code of laws for the Kingdom of God, established upon earth. We shall endeavor in each case to find the subject our Lord was intending to illustrate when He used the particular parabolic illustration, or parable.

In these first two articles we shall look first at the parabolic illustration of salt and light; second, those of moth, rust, and thieves; and, third, the illustration of the eye.

Salt and light. What was the subject with which our Lord was dealing, and which He intended to illustrate? The influence that was to be exerted by the subjects of His Kingdom. He had begun with those wonderful beatitudes; and then had enunciated certain laws, and showed that in His Kingdom character was ultimate. He had pro­ceeded to show that the reason of such character is not so much of personal value, but of the influence such character exerts. Oh, the mar­vel of these illustrations, their choosing, the brilliance of them, the finality of them. Whenever He spoke He did so with authority, the authority not of dogmatism, but of inherent, necessary, and inevitable truth.

The influence then is twofold, salt and light. There is a distinction and a difference, and yet the figures merge into one thought, "salt of the earth," "light of the world."

"Salt of the earth." What is the value of salt? It is not antiseptic, but aseptic. Antiseptic is something which is against poison, and which tends to its cure. Aseptic is something which is devoid of poison in itself. Salt never cures corruption. It prevents the spread of corruption. If meat is tainted and corrupt, salt will not make it untainted and pure. But salt in its neighborhood will prevent the spread of corruption to that which otherwise would become tainted. The figure is that of a moral quality operating on the earth level, amongst men living in the midst of material things, preventing the spread of corruption. The impurity of an evil man cannot be cured by a good man, working at his side in an office; but the things the good man will not do, and the things he will not say will give the boy in the same office a chance, because it will check the evil man. Salt is aseptic.

The function of the subjects of His Kingdom is to live in the midst of humanity in the terrible condition of sin, and by living there accord­ing to the ethic of the Kingdom of God, to prevent the spread of evil. It is the Lord's work to cure it, thank God. However impure and corrupt the heart may be, He can cleanse it, and make it purer than the driven snow. The subjects of His Kingdom are so to live that they give goodness its opportunity, and hold in check the forces of corrup­tion. Our Lord emphasized this with those words of satire, gentle, but clear and sharp as the lightning. "If the salt have lost its savor, where­with shall it be salted?" I like the Scotch rendering of that, "If the salt has lost its tang." That is a great word, tang, the pungent power of salt. Jesus says His people are to exercise that influence in the world that is our responsibility, though men may not be pleased.

But again, not only the salt of the earth, referring to a moral quality of things; but, "Ye are the light of the world." That refers to a spiritual revelation which is to radiate from these subjects of the King­dom. We are the light of the cosmos, of all the order, not merely of the earth, but of the universe. You minister to the heavenly order also in Ephesians. We remember another occasion when the Master said, "I am the Light of the world." Linking this up with that great full word concerning Himself, we understand when we are yielded to Him, subjects of His Kingdom, obeying Him, then we too become the light of the world. The quality of light is not that it desires to be looked at! Light enables other things to be seen by its shining. The sun is in the heaven, not to be looked at, but the sunshine enables us to see other things clearly. "Ye are the light of the world." Let your light so shine that men may glorify your Father. The light of the Chris­tian shining in the world illuminates all the worldly order, so that men see the true way.

In this connection two figures are employed by our Lord, "a city set on a hill," and "a lamp . . . on the stand." The city set on a hill is for the illumination of vast distances. No Christian can fulfill that ideal alone. That demands fellowship, a corporate relationship. That demands the whole Church. Every church should be a city set on a hill, illuminating the far expanses of life.

Then He came from the figure of the city on a hill into a house, and there took the figure of a lampstand, illuminating the home, and the near. Inevitably the mind goes back to a word of the psalmist in the Old Testament, (Psa. 119:105)

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
And light unto my path."

Keep the figures separate. The light shines from some eminence, in­dicating the road, the pathway. The light shines on the way to be trodden, so that the way may be found along the illuminated path by the lamp. Thy word, says the psalmist, is a lamp. Each Christian man

and woman has to fulfill a double function in the world. The whole Church in its corporate relationship, in the bonds of love, friendship, and service, is to illuminate the distances; and then in the home, with the shut door, the lamp is to illuminate everything there. Christ said here the lamp is not put under a bushel but on a stand. Many years ago a prince of expositors, Dr. Maclaren said this illumina­tive thing: "No man lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel. If he did, what would happen? Either the bushel would put out the light, or the light would set the bushel on fire!" We can apply that. That is exactly what our Lord was teaching here.

He then used three illustrations, moth, rust, and thieves. The sub­ject that He was illustrating here was that of the futility of earth-centered life. He was showing the foolishness of living such a life. He showed what the attitude of His subjects should be toward necessary things, and the matchless things. He was talking to them about amassing treasure, and He used finely sarcastic language about the treasures of earth "moth and rust corrupt," and "thieves break through and steal." These are Eastern figures. At the time the wealth of the East consisted in fine fabrics, fine twined linen, and purple; and of metal, in coinage, or in precious things that rust spoiled. Treasure was kept underground, and there was the possibility of thieves digging and so treasure would be lost. The moth, the rust, make things worthless. Thieves steal, and everything is gone. Remember that thieves steal only things that are moth-eatable, and rust-consumable.

There are things of possession, treasures in heaven, "where neither moth nor rust consumes, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." These things moths cannot touch, rust cannot corrode, thieves cannot find. Oh, the foolishness, the stupidity of men and women who think riches consist in treasures on the earth. All the time the swift, silent messengers of destruction are breaking in upon it, and the equally silent corrosive fire of Nature is biting into the metal and destroying it. Presently we hear of burglary—thieves! To repeat the word, mark the fine sarcasm of our Lord on the men who are not rich toward God, and who are proud of their accumulations.

Once again, He took the illustration of the eye. The subject He was illustrating was the necessity for singleness of motive in life, having one aim, purpose, and passion. He ended this section by saying, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." He says the eye is the lamp of the body, not the light of the body. Think of the human eye, and of its value. If there be no light the eye is quite useless. The light is not in the eye, but the eye is the means of interpreting the light and applying the light. The eye is that which regulates the motions of the body. It is wonderful how those denied or lost the great blessing of sight have other senses sharpened. But those blind would be the first to admit that the natural order is that the eye is the lamp, in which the light shines, and through which things are seen because light is shining.

Then with marvelous scientific accuracy, Jesus used two words as to the condition of the eye, the "single" eye, and the "evil" eye. The contrast is the more remarkable, in that it is not an exact contrast, which would have been single and double, or good and evil.

The word "single" is aplous, which means single-folded, without a fold. If thine eye has no complications within itself it is said to be single. Anyone who has visited an ophthalmologist has probably heard him use the word astigmatism. I give the definition of an authority. "Astigmatism is a structural defect of the eye so that rays of light do not converge to a point in the retina." That means there is some fold there, something out of place, something complicated. The eye is not single. The single eye is the opposite of the eye suffering from astigmatism. Jesus said, if the eye is single, not folded over, nothing out of place, what then? Things are seen clearly, in right perspective, and the whole body is illumined, it is full of light. The eye is the lamp, and the light shines through it into the whole body, and there is nothing complicated.

Then He gave the contrast. "If thine eye be evil," and the word is poneros, evil in influence. Now, He did not deal with the structure of the eye. That had been indicated in what had already been said. The single eye is never evil, poneros. The word now indicates not merely an obliquity of vision, but that there is a squint. Everything is seen double. That eye is evil in its influence upon the one possessing it, and upon others. The eye regulates the body, and if the eye is wrong, then all the light of God leaves such a one in darkness.

What is meant by the single eye? "No man can serve two mas­ters. . . . Ye cannot serve God and mammon." The teaching is the necessity for the unification of life at a center, from which every­thing is viewed. So these first parabolic illustrations in the Manifesto all move in the realm of the ethical, and are concerned with the Kingdom, and the Kingship of God; and the responsibility of those who are in that Kingdom for the earth and for the world.

THE PARABLES SERIES

The Parabolic Method

Mark 4:1, 2a, 10-12, 21-25, 33, 34

A consideration of the metaphorical or parabolic method of our Lord is necessary as a preliminary article, for there has been some misinterpretation of our Lord's reason for His use of such a method. There are two self-evident facts: first, that our Lord did use the parabolic method; and second, that at a certain stage in His ministry He employed it in a new way.

The fourth chapter of Mark's Gospel opens with the statement that on that day Jesus went out of the house, and went into a boat, and He spoke "many things in parables." The thirty-third and thirty-fourth verses declare, "With many such parables spake He the word unto them . . . and without a parable spake He not unto them." This means that He used parables constantly in what He said to the multi­tudes. In the course of these thirty-four verses there are two sections dealing with the reason of His parabolic method. The first is found in verses ten to twelve. There He answered a question, and told the disciples the reason of His method. The second section is in verses twenty-one to twenty-five, again an explanation of His method.

In the first paragraph we have not a full explanation from our Lord, and that section demands the second paragraph. In the first explana­tory paragraph we are faced with a difficulty, which we will state and consider, and make certain deductions from those statements.

At this hour in the ministry of Jesus He specially adopted the parabolic method for addressing the crowds. He had used parabolic illustrations before this time, notably to the woman of Samaria, when He spoke of the water of life; to the disciples, when He told them fields were white to harvest; in Nazareth, when He spoke of the physician and his healing work; to the disciples again, of fishers of men; and in His Manifesto, of salt and light and building. But the Sower was the first full parable, uttered at this time.

Tracing the course of our Lord's ministry we shall find that there had come a moment when definite and positive hostility had hardened in a peculiar manner. In the home at Capernaum He had been chal­lenged, because He had claimed to forgive sins. In the house of Levi He had been challenged because He permitted His disciples to omit fasting, and because He consorted with sinners. In the cornfields He had been criticized for allowing His disciples to pluck the ears of corn on the Sabbath. In a synagogue on a later Sabbath, He was challenged, and they counseled to destroy Him. Again, in the house in Capernaum He was charged with being in complicity with the devil. All this had its definite effect upon the minds of the people. In the third chapter we find it said, "He looked round about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart." That was the mental condition of the hour, of the rulers, which affected the crowds. This hardening of heart meant callousness, blindness, determination not to listen, nor to obey; or if to listen, then only critically, and destructively.

At that time Jesus adopted this parabolic method when speaking to the multitudes. When their hardness of heart made Him angry, then in a very definite and enlarged form He began to use parables; His anger being the result of His grace, in the presence of their attitude.

The difficulty here is found in the tenth to twelfth verses. Much has been said about it, and there have been differing interpretations. The apparent meaning of the passage is that Jesus adopted the method of the parable to prevent these people understanding, and to be forgiven. That is the first impression made upon the mind as the verses are read.

There have been two methods of dealing with that difficulty. The first is that this is a truth which must be accepted though not under­stood. Some Bible teachers and expositors take the view that our Lord deliberately adopted the parabolic method here that the people should not see, or understand, or be forgiven. The second method of dealing with this passage is that the statement is not true, that He never said it, and therefore the passage is untrustworthy. That second method is impossible of belief by those who hold that the record is true.

But is the difficulty due to what the passage really says, or to long-continued interpretation, or misinterpretation of it? Was the reason of the parabolic method that men should be prevented from under­standing, and so be excluded from the mercy of God? That would surely be blasphemy, and would contradict the whole purpose of God in Christ, and of Christ in the world. Consequently we must look at this a little more particularly.

There is one important fact to keep in mind, that the narrative of Mark is condensed; and that of Luke is even more so at this point. Matthew's account is much fuller. In the thirteenth chapter of that Gospel, after the parable of the sower, "The disciples came, and said unto Him, Why speakest Thou unto them in parables?" And He answered, "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." Carefully notice the change. "Seeing they see not," not that they may not see. "Hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." They are seeing, but they do not see. They are hearing, but they do not understand. Therefore He spoke to them in parables.

Our Lord then quoted Isaiah, and Matthew writes, "And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive." (Isa. 6:9-10) Why?

"For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes have they closed; lest haply . . ." Matthew and Mark both use the word "lest," but the word needs a context larger than Mark quoted. The "lest" is the "lest" of their attitude, their hardness, of their persistence in unbelief. He was grieved with their hardness of heart, and that was the reason why He adopted the parabolic method. They had hardened their hearts until they had become gross; until they with seeing eyes were nevertheless blind. That was their attitude. They had done this lest they should be drawn back to God, and halted, and be forgiven. They were not aware of that ultimate, but that was their condition.

Carry the thought a little further. According to Matthew, the disciples had asked the reason for speaking in parables. The Lord's answer was that it was given to them to know the mysteries. He told His disciples that the difference in method was due to a difference in relationship. To those of His disciples who were obedient, who sub­mitted to Him, the mysteries could be made known. To those without, those not yielded, and not obedient, those refusing and hardening the heart, the parabolic was the necessary method.

Go on to verses twenty-one to twenty-five in this fourth chapter of Mark. He used the lamp as His illustration. This lamp is not put under the bushel, which would extinguish it. It is put on a stand. The parables therefore constituted a lamp, a lamp shining. It was not in order to hide things, but that the hidden things might be brought to light. These people could not, because of the attitude they had assumed, re­ceive the mysteries, the profound things of the Kingdom of God. His disciples could receive those mysteries; but to those without, the parable was a lamp. There is nothing hidden except that it may be manifested. There is nothing secret but that it may be revealed. He gave them parabolic pictures, so that they might question. The purpose of the account, the picture, was to lure them to think, in order that they might find their way into the higher mystery.

Therefore it is important that the passage in Mark should be interpreted by the fuller passage in Matthew. Take that matchless triptych of accounts constituting one great parable, recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Luke, the lost sheep, the lost silver, and the lost son. That was spoken to men who were blundering, and protesting against Him. There is nothing in that account of the mysteries of the Kingdom; but it is there. Can we suppose Jesus told those men that account of lost things sought, and found, in order to prevent their coming to God, and finding mercy? If they had heard that account, asked concerning it, sought its deep significance, they would have found themselves in the presence of all the height and depth and length and breadth of the mystery of the Kingdom of God.

In other words, the parable is always the open door to the mystery. If men will consider the picture, and investigate, He will always answer. The parables therefore do but illustrate the whole fact of His approach to the human heart.

There is a remarkable statement in Proverbs 25:2:

"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing;

But the glory of kings is to search out a matter."

That is true in Nature. God conceals behind that which is sacramental that which is highest, so that men may take the thing that is manifest, and so following and questioning, may find the deep secret. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it is the glory of kings to search out a matter. The writer did not mean merely kings on the earthly level, but the kingly nature, which is always seeking for the secret thing.

The same philosophy is in the great word of Moses, uttered long ago, "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever." (Deut. 29:29) The secret things are there that we may discover them. Nature is a great parable. Think of the earth, and of research, the things man has been finding out. They were all there from the beginning, but were hidden.

With reverence let it be said that the Lord Himself and the whole fact of the Incarnation is a parable. "No man hath seen God at any time, but the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." (John 1:18) The secret hidden, mysterious, of the Being of Godhead. No man has seen that; but as the old philosopher talking to Job 11:7-8 said,

"Canst thou by searching find out God?

Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?"

That is perfectly true, but God has revealed Himself, and supremely, in His Son. The Son therefore becomes the picture, the parable, which being known and investigated, God Himself is found.

Our Lord did not intend then in the use of the parable to prevent men seeing, but to help them to see. He did not want to prevent them hearing, but to make alive their power of hearing. He did not keep men away from the forgiveness and the mercy of God, but He lured them towards it. As we come to these wonderful illustrations, and the more definite parables, we shall see He is not hiding, but veiling

"The light that were else too bright,
For the feebleness of a sinner's sight."

If the truth can be suggested by the account, in the presence of that account men may soon find the depth and wonder of the mystery.

PERFECT LOVE DESIRED IN US

CONTINUOUS & ABIDING LOVE DESIRED

“As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.” John 15:9

This surely is Christ's superlative word concerning His love for His own as He loved them to the end (John 13:1). It leaves nothing more to be said. What the love of the Father is for the Son, who can tell? The very suggestion fills the soul with the sense of profound depths which cannot be fathomed, of heights that cannot be scaled, of breadths which cannot be encompassed, and of dimensions beyond our knowledge. And that love of God for the Son is the measure and nature of the love of the Son for His own. And yet, how passing wonderful it is, when we remember that, however vast that love of God for His Son may be, that Son is worthy of it while we are unworthy of love at all. Yet here is the glory of His love. He loves us in spite of our unworthiness, knowing that He is able to make us worthy. In very deed such love is,

"A deep where all our thoughts are drowned."

Two thoughts are immediately suggested, the first, by what He had said before: "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again;" (John 10:17) and the second, by what He added now: "I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love." (John 15:10) The perfection in us which He seeks (continuous and abiding love), and which inspires His love is that of the selflessness which suffers to serve. The law of abiding love is that of obedience. This is seen in the note in Isaiah 50 following His calling in Isaiah 49.