Leaven in Heaven (Part 1)
The Kingdom of Heaven parables are NOT an allegory about God building the church. Neither are they a series of moral tales that connote any degree of righteousness in the Body of Christ. While the Parable of the Sower recounts how people will react to the Word of God, the following parables descend into a personification of the church as an aberration—a Church infiltrated by the bad seed of the evil one—puffed up with pride, through sin (yeast) that's been deliberately hidden within the architecture of the institution itself. The parables are a narrative of repeating idioms and theological patterns that gloriously culminate in the victory of Jesus Christ, who gives everything to buy the Pearl (believers) of great price—to sacrifice his life for the treasure (believers) that only He could redeem.
Born from irritation - The Kingdom of Heaven parables provide a prophetic overview of God's redemptive purpose for the Body of Christ (treasure or Pearl). It's also an allegory of Christ’s death and resurrection—a foreshadowing of the New Covenant, and a disclosure of demonic strongholds that attempt to irritate the believer's path to redemption. The harvest of the good seed (Body of Christ), that is born through irritation (pearl of great price), is the final victory.
The Bad Seed - Evil is the dominant theme of the parables–its introduction instils the sin of pride and reduces the Church to the abhorrence alluded to in the Parable of the Mustard Seed, the Weeds, and the Net. The implication of unbelievers coexisting with believers raises many questions, especially when considering the current moral chaos that overwhelms the social landscape, even within the Church. Evil increasingly sows poisonous ideas that seek to challenge sound doctrine. This conundrum is not stated in isolation; it's a repeating theme that's echoed in Rev 3:14-22–the Church of Laodicea is cast as the Apostate Church that lost its way:
Rev 3:15-17 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
Why only Parables? - The entire narrative in Matthew 13 is NOT the New Testament; it's positioned in the Old Testament period. Jesus was alive, and "Grace" had not been extended to all. In part, this accounts for why Jesus explained the parables to the Disciples but withheld all explanation from the crowds, thus echoing Isaiah 6:9-10. Further, the crowds had committed the unpardonable sin of attributing God's miracles to Satan (Matt 12), so from this point on, Parables were his only form of communication with the crowds.
Matt 13:13 14 — This is why I speak to them (the crowds) in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.’”
God's Choosing - The theology surrounding "God's choosing" is consistent in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, God chose specific individuals to carry out his sovereign purpose—but not everyone was called. In the same way, God chose the Disciples to follow Jesus and imparted the knowledge and secrets of the Kingdom, to carry out his sovereign purpose. However, this choice is not to suggest any Calvinist notion of predestination. God's choosing is always predicated on His foreknowledge of the individual concerned and their freewill response to any given call. At this stage, the Disciples were not "born again" because the New Covenant had not been introduced—they were chosen in the same manner as John the Baptist and the Old Testament Prophets.
John 6:39 — “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those God has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
Matt 13:16-17 — “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see [God in the flesh] what you see but did not see it, and to hear [the message of the Kingdom] what you hear but did not hear it.”
The New Covenant - The Word of God is established in Christ. The only distinction between the Old and New Covenants is that grace is now extended to all those who hear the message of Jesus Christ as Saviour. Everyone is called. However, hearing the message and being chosen are not synonymous—hearing can be perfunctory. The Parable of the Sower emphasises this point. For God to respond with the Holy Spirit requires more than hearing; it requires faith, repentance, acknowledgement of sin, and a repentant heart, which God alone sees–this is the foreknowledge of God. He chooses to justify the believer based on his foreknowledge and draws them to Himself. Calling precedes being chosen.
1Pet1:2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
The offer of salvation is extended to all through the redemptive sacrifice of Christ; however, the attitude and motivation of the heart determine whether the general calling is extended to being chosen. This is outlined in the various stages of the Sower Parable. We cannot fool a God who knows the beginning and end of all time. The foreknowledge of God is not synonymous with a Calvinist idea of predestination. It is not that God arbitrarily chooses who to save, but that He knows who will respond, and for those who do respond, God gives Christ the authority to reveal the Word of God. https://headsupchristianity.com/home/are-we-totally-determined).
Matt 13:12 — “Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”
The words explained - The Sower is Jesus (Son of Man or Farmer). The Good Seed are the Sons of the Kingdom (Believers). The Bad Seed (Weeds) are the Sons of Satan. Both are people. The Field is the world. The Enemy who sowed the Bad Seed is Satan. The Harvest is the end of the age. The Harvesters are God’s angels. The Birds of the air (fowls) are evil entities. The Mustard Seed is an idiom for the Church—but also for the abhorrence it becomes. The Yeast is an idiom for sin. The Fish are explained as both good and bad.
To the Crowds - Jesus spoke in parables precisely because He was not given authority to explain their meaning beyond those whom God had called. The Parable of the Sower introduces the six parables that follow, each of which deepens and expands upon the same theme with the same prophetic idiom, gradually revealing the animating spirit behind the language itself.
The Institutional Church - Today, the word of God is beset with structural disunity and theological disagreement. This is not entirely the result of human conflict—it has much to do with the parable of the wheat and weeds, which presumes the two are antithetical in their sentiments concerning the Word of God; thus, the idea of theological consistency can never be reached. The parables are contextualised in the field, which is an idiom for the world, and the Body of Believers exists within that field. This foreshadows a hard truth: the institutional denominational construct we call “the Church” is not synonymous with “the Body of Christ.”
Part 2 - The Sin of Pride that generates an abhorrence—a Pumpkin experience.
