The Gradual Growth of the Seed

S. Mark iv. 26–29

In this parable, of almost unique beauty, which S. Mark alone has recorded, our Lord teaches that there is an analogy to be drawn between the operations of Nature and Grace. He speaks of the latter under the figure of a kingdom. Now “the kingdom of God” is an expression used in Holy Scripture in a threefold sense.

It is that empire which shall be established at the end oi the world, when “all things shall be subdued unto Him,... that God may be all in all.”

Again, it is the Divinely-constituted society of the Church, in which His sovereign powers of admission and exclusion, of government and guidance, were delegated to a human Ministry, when its Founder said, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations;” and again, “As My Father hath sent Me, so send I you:... whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”

Yet once more, it is the reign of grace in the individual heart, whose presence is so productive of good, that, like the “treasure hid in the field,” or the “one pearl of great price,” no sacrifice can be too much to pay for its acquisition.

Our Lord makes no reference here to the first of the above meanings, but in regard to the other two, shows how the spiritual and natural kingdoms are governed and controlled by similar laws.

Now, in every comparison of the higher with the lower — the heavenly and spiritual with the earthly and natural — while there are many points of close similitude, there will of necessity be some also of manifest divergence. The present parable furnishes an apt illustration when it says that the sower of the seed knows nothing of the mysterious laws of growth and development, and implies that the farmer, having sown his barley or wheat, goes about his ordinary avocations with little thought of that, over which he knows that he has no control. But of Him Who plants the seed of Divine grace in the individual heart, or forms the embryo of what is destined to become a visible body of Christians, none can say that He is careless of its condition or is baffled in understanding the progressive stages of its formation.

Upon the main point, however, which the parable was intended to enforce, there is an exact parallel. The normal growth is not fitful or capricious, but in accordance with wellordered laws of slow and gradual progression.

Now look at the kingdom of God in its twofold aspect in the light of this statement. Take first the history of the Church in its collective community. The world was prepared for it by the Incarnation and Redemption. When Christ gave His life for mankind, and broke down the middle wall of partition which sin had built up between man and God, humanly speaking, there would be a rapid diffusion of spiritual knowledge, and no appreciable interval “between the two events of Christ’s dying for the world and the world falling prostrate” at His feet. But He taught men by this parable not to cherish any such expectation; the seed must first lie dormant for a time, then the springing blade would follow in the uprising of small communities struggling through the soil of oppression and persecution; then, when the Empire should be converted, the blade would sprout into the ear, and the Churches grow and Sees be multiplied; and now we still wait, after eighteen centuries of alternation of hope and despair, of success and adversity, of the waxing and waning of missionary enterprise, — we still wait for the full corn and the time of harvest, when “the valleys shall stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing;” and when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Look again at individual souls. The seed of the spiritual life is sown in Holy Baptism, when “by the washing of water and renewing of the Holy Ghost” the baptized person is translated from the kingdom of wrath into the kingdom of grace, and receives from God the requisite powers for continuance therein. The effects of the gift, however, may be invisible for a time, necessarily so if the rite has been received in an unconscious state; it may lie dormant for years, but if the influences are favourable, if the education is carefully tended, if childhood and youth are duly sheltered from the blighting winds of early temptations, and the chilling frosts of unbelief, then it may be expected to grow up from one stage of holiness to another. It may not be always (as neither is it in the field of nature) with uniform progress, but on the whole it develops by the selfsame laws of growth which normally govern the growing corn, from the first burst of germinating life to the ripened grain of full sanctification.

The language of the parable, where it speaks of the spontaneous growth of the corn in the soil, needs careful interpretation in its relation to the Divine life. It is true that it is the Spirit of God Which is the great vivifying Agent in the soul of man, just as in nature, it is from its disposition in the earth that germination is produced; but it is not meant that nothing can hinder or foster the growth. In both cases the soil may be prepared, the weeds and noxious herbs uprooted, the sunlight more freely admitted by the removal of overshadowing trees, and the field may be fenced round for protection from the incursion of destructive influences; but the farmer and the preacher must unite in the confession that when they have done all, in their respective spheres, that lies within their reach, when Paul has planted, and Apollos watered, it is none but God Who can give the increase.

Now the general teaching of the parable 1 suggests a consideration of two important doctrinal questions, viz. the relationship of Sanctification l to Conversion, and the mode of reconciling the absence of any sign of spiritual life, with the truth of Regeneration.

Jacob may have been changed in a single night; he may have realised, under the influence of one preternatural vision, such an overpowering sense of God’s Providence that the current of his life was immediately turned. Or again, in a somewhat similar manner, Saul the persecutor experienced “a wonderful conversion” through that sudden arrest on the road to Damascus; and other saints, in all ages of Christian history — here one and there another — have shared the same experience, differing only in the degree of its force and influence. How then is the doctrine of Christ’s language here affected by such cases? There is no rule without its exceptions. These sudden conversions are as it were miracles of mercy. They resemble the instantaneous multiplication of the loaves in the desert: they are as when the divers stages of production are concentrated by Divine interposition into a single act, for a special object or a rare emergency. But to hint even, that the heart of man must be thus changed, and that the “where” and the “when” of the change should be definable and certain, is a direct contradiction to the analogy which Christ drew. It is God’s law — albeit a law admitting of infinite variation at the hands of Him Who made it — that the soul of man should be sanctified ordinarily, not by sudden crises or abnormal seasons, but by such a slow and gradual development as is witnessed every day in the fields around us.

Again, if no sign of the Holy Spirit’s influence manifests itself during the lapse of years in the life of the baptized, what conclusion must be drawn? Dare any one assert that the gift of Regeneration was either not imparted in Holy Baptism, or has since been taken away? Is it not truer that it is only dormant, not quenched or crushed, but waiting to be quickened in God’s good time, just as we read of grains of wheat laid up with mummies, which, after ages of unproductive existence, have actually germinated and grown to maturity when the circumstances of the situation changed?

What God requires is the patience of the farmer, who “sleeps, and rises night and day” in the full assurance that “though it tarry it will surely come.” If ever then we are discouraged by any apparent failure, either in our own heart or in the hearts of others, let us take courage from what we may see for ourselves in the analogies of Nature, always remembering what closer observation teaches, that “the higher the thing which grows in the scale of being, the slower its growth.”

Note: In this very pregnant parable we have been obliged to pass over much that is well worthy of consideration. The reader may consult with advantage Bruce, Parabolic Teaching, ch. v.

Note: It is very necessary to distinguish carefully theological terms. Regeneration, TraXcyyeveaia (Tit. iii. 5), is an initial act, in which we are “begotten again,” avcL-yeyevvryvoi (1 S. Pet. i. 3), a new relationship of spiritual Paternity being established between us and God. It is a completed act. We can never be “regenerated” again. Holy Scripture never calls upon those who have fallen away from Baptismal grace to “be born again.” Sanctification, ayiaafxbs, is a progressive work by which fallen man is made “meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.” It begins coincidently with Regeneration. The distinction is well marked in the Collect for Christmas Day,” Grant that we being regenerate... may daily be renewed by Thy Holy Spirit.” Conversion, e-rncTpocpTy, is a change from a false religion to the true, or a return, after falling away from grace given, on the part of a convinced penitent. This may therefore take place before or after Baptism.