Parables

Why, in the parable of Luke 16, is the unjust
steward commended?

The unjust steward was commended for the wisdom he displayed in his forethought in preparing for the future. The children of light may learn a lesson in this respect from the children of the world — not as to their eternal security in Christ, as that is settled the moment they are born again, but as to the laying up of treasure in heaven, — rewards for service, etc.

What lesson is to be learned from the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, the eleventh hour laborers receiving the same as those who worked all day (Matthew 20:1-16)?

The 16th verse seems to give the application, which makes the parable one of salvation rather than of rewards for service, showing that he who hears the Master’s call, even at the eleventh hour, has the same access, — the same salvation, as those who hear the call early. That it does not apply to rewards for service we must infer from such passages as 1 Corinthians 3:11-15; Revelation 22:12, etc., where the character of the work is shown to determine the measure of the reward.

In the parable of the Marriage Feast (Matthew
22:1-14) what lesson did Jesus mean to teach?

“Them that were bidden to the wedding and they would not come” were the Jewish nation. The King’s servants, the prophets, had been sent forth to call them, and later the apostles — but in vain. The judgment upon their murderous treatment of the King’s servants fell in A. D. 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed. The Gentiles were then invited to take the places prepared for Israel. Grace provides a wedding garment for every one invited, and the man who presumed to appear in the King’s presence in his own robes, could be naught but “speechless.”

Is there any warrant for saying that the foolish virgins of Matthew 25 are lost?

There is the strongest possible warrant for saying so. The Lord could never say to a justified believer, “I know you not’ (verse 12). He could not say it, because it would be false. And not only so, it would contradict His own gracious promises (John 6:37; 10:27-29). The interpretation to the contrary arises, not out of the passage, but out of the hard necessity of those who set out to prove that not all who are Christ’s are in the first resurrection — a notion which flatly contradicts 1 Corinthians 15:23 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13, 18.

Would not the reference to leaven in Matthew 13:33, comparing it to the kingdom, prove an exception to the rule in which the word usually refers to something evil?

1. If leaven is used in a good sense in Matthew 13:33 it is the only place in the whole Bible where it is so used. Perhaps no word in the whole symbolism of Scripture has so persistently and repeatedly an evil sense. To the ancient, as to the modern Jew, it meant evil and only evil (see Gen. 19:1-3; Ex. 12:15, 18, 20; Lev. 2:4). To this day the strict Jew makes the search for leaven an essential part of the Passover preparation. It is, therefore, all but inconceivable that our Lord would arbitrarily change to a good sense a word upon which inspiration had for two thousand years been persistently attaching a bad sense.

2. If our Lord did thus change the symbolical significance of the word He did it wholly without warning or explanation, and without the use of the accustomed phrase in such cases, “It hath been said unto you by them of old time, — but I say unto you,” etc. An orthodox Jewish rabbi was once asked, “Suppose the Messiah when He comes, speaking to Jews, should compare something concerning His kingdom to leaven, what would they understand Him to mean?” His answer was, “They would understand that evil had crept into the kingdom.”

3. But Christ Himself repeatedly used the word in its usual biblical sense of evil (Matt. 16:6; Luke 12:1, etc.), and not only so, but He gave the true typical meaning of the symbol as being defiled doctrine (Matt. 16:12). And this, be it observed, later in His ministry than Matthew 13:30.

4, Furthermore, the Apostle Paul uses the word in its usual biblical significance, and no other (1 Cor. 5:6, 7; Gal. 5:9).

5. Nothing, therefore, but invincible necessity can warrant the giving of a wholly contradictory and exceptional sense to the word in Matthew 13:33.

Does such a necessity exist? It is sometimes alleged that it does because “the kingdom of heaven’ is likened to leaven. To which the sufficient answer is that the kingdom of heaven in the form described in the parables of Matthew 13 is wholly transitory and exceptional. It is not the form foreseen by the prophets, — the final form when the kingdom shall be set up. It is the form of the kingdom between the first and second advents of the Messiah — between the seed-sowing of the first parable and the net drawing of the last. Thus understood, the word falls into its invariable significance, and teaches that as the kingdom during the interval between the seed sowing and net drawing is defiled by tares (‘children of the wicked one’) and fish which are “bad” and are “thrown away,’ so even the wheat (‘‘children of the kingdom”’) are defiled with evil doctrines. Certainly, that both these forms of defilement exist no one will deny.