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Scripture Reading: Matt. 11:10-12; 13:1-50, 5—7; 24—25
The kingdom of God is the rule, the government, of God from eternity to eternity. This kingdom is comprised of four dispensations (see chart in previous chapter). Romans 5:14 refers to the period of time “from Adam until Moses.” This was the age before the law, the first dispensation. The second dispensation is from Moses to Christ. This is the dispensation of law. The third dispensation is the dispensation of grace, or the dispensation of the church. Outside the church is the external appearance of the kingdom of the heavens, today’s Christendom. Within Christendom is the true church, which is the composition of the real believers, and within the true church are the overcomers who are in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. Outside Christendom is the world, the unbelievers. There is no real separating line between Christendom and the world. The last dispensation is the millennium of a thousand years. In the millennium there are two parts: the heavenly part and the earthly part. The heavenly part is the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens. In this manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens, Christ and the overcoming believers will be the kings (Rev. 20:4, 6). In the earthly part of the millennium the saved Jews will be the priests teaching people how to serve God (Zech. 8:20-23). The overcoming believers as the kings, the saved Jews as the priests, and the nations as the people are the three groups of people in the millennium.
With the kingdom of the heavens there are three main aspects that we must be clear about. The first aspect is the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens. This appearance is today’s Christendom, which includes the Roman Catholic Church and all the false Christians. The second aspect is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. This aspect is comprised of the overcomers, the victorious Christians. All the genuine Christians, whether victorious or defeated, are the church. However, within the real church, among the true believers, there is a distinction between the victorious ones and the defeated ones. With the victorious ones there is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. There are four groups of people on the earth today: the victorious Christians who are in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, the defeated believers who are in the church yet not in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, the false Christians who are merely Christians in name but not members of the true church, and the world comprised of all the unbelievers. The appearance of the kingdom of the heavens, Christendom, and the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, the overcomers, comprise the dispensation of the church.
After the dispensation of the church, the Lord will come back. This will be the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens. Those who live in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens today will be manifested with the Lord to be the kings in the dispensation of the millennium to rule the nations on the earth with the saved Jews as the priests. The kings who are the overcomers in Christ, the saved Jews as the priests, and the people, the nations, comprise the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens.
To be clear about the kingdom truths we must first be clear about the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the heavens. Second, we must be clear about the three aspects of the kingdom of the heavens: the appearance, the reality, and the manifestation. We have already seen the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the heavens. Now we must see in more detail the difference between the appearance, the reality, and the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens. Matthew is a book on the kingdom of the heavens. The only other mention of the kingdom of the heavens is in 2 Timothy 4:18 where the term heavenly kingdom is used. In the Gospel of Matthew there are three main parts. The decree of the kingdom’s constitution in chapters 5 through 7, the parables in chapter 13, and the prophecy of the kingdom in chapters 24 and 25 are the three great parts of the Gospel of Matthew. If we can understand these three parts, we can understand the Gospel of Matthew. In chapter 13 the Lord unveils the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens. In chapters 5 through 7 we can see the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. In chapters 24 and 25 the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens is revealed by the Lord Jesus.
In Matthew 13 the first parable is the parable of the sower: “He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, Behold, the sower went out to sow” (v. 3). This parable does not mention the kingdom of the heavens because at this time the kingdom of the heavens had not come yet. The sower is the Lord Himself who comes to sow Himself into humanity as the seed of life. This was the preparation for the coming of the kingdom of the heavens.
The second parable begins in verse 24: “Another parable He set before them, saying, The kingdom of the heavens has become like a man sowing good seed in his field.” The kingdom of the heavens is mentioned in this second parable. The man sowing good seed in his field is the sower in the first parable, the Lord Jesus. “But while the men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares in the midst of the wheat and went away” (v. 25). This happened just a little while after the day of Pentecost. When the day of Pentecost came, thousands of believers were added to the church. Among those believers there were some false ones, some tares, among the wheat. The second parable is a parable concerning the church as the beginning of the kingdom of the heavens.
The third parable is the parable of the mustard seed: “Another parable He set before them, saying, The kingdom of the heavens is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, and which is smaller than all the seeds; but when it has grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and roost in its branches” (vv. 31-32). The mustard is an herb for food. The real church coming out of the seed of life should be just like the mustard, good for food to others. This herb, however, becomes a great tree, and the birds of heaven roost in its branches. In the first parable the birds (v. 4) signify the evil one, Satan, who came and snatched away the word of the kingdom sown in the hardened heart (v. 19). The bird is the devil, and the birds are the evil persons, spirits, and things out of the devil who lodge in this big tree. This happened when Constantine the Great mixed the church with the world in the first part of the fourth century. He brought thousands of false believers into the church, making it Christendom, no longer the church. Christianity became the national religion of the Roman Empire, and Constantine encouraged all the unbelievers to come into the church. Before this time the Roman Empire persecuted Christianity, but during Constantine’s reign the Roman Empire welcomed it. From that time onward the church’s nature changed. It became deeply rooted and settled in the earth as a great tree, flourishing with its enterprises as the branches to lodge many evil persons and things. Today’s Christendom is a big tree with a lot of branches, and many sinful persons and evil spirits are lodging in its branches.
Matthew 13:33 says, “Another parable He spoke to them: The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened.” This woman is a type of the Roman Catholic Church. In Revelation the Lord likens the Roman Catholic Church to a woman sitting on a scarlet beast (17:3). The beast is the Roman Empire, and the woman on the beast is the Roman Catholic Church. This portrays religion joining with politics. After Constantine welcomed Christianity into the Roman Empire as the national religion, the church transmuted into something large and worldly and even became a worldly power. This worldly power became the Roman Catholic Church typified by this woman in Matthew 13. The leaven that this woman took signifies evil things (1 Cor. 5:6, 8) and evil doctrines (Matt. 16:6, 11-12). Meal, for making the meal offering (Lev. 2:1), signifies Christ as food both to God and man. The Roman Catholic Church has something real, but it puts in something false. Today’s modernism, which is even among the Protestant churches, denies the deity of our Lord Jesus and the fact that He was born of the virgin Mary. The Roman Catholic Church, however, always recognizes that Christ is the Son of God, the very God, born of a virgin. This is the fine flour, the meal, but they added leaven into the fine flour (vv. 4-5, 11). Many pagan practices and heresies were added into the fine flour.
The birth of Christ is a part of the fine flour, but Christmas is the leaven added to the fine flour. History tells us that December 25 was celebrated as the birthday of the sun-god. When Christianity was accepted as the state religion by the Roman Empire in A.D. 313, many people in the church were not regenerated. Some of these unregenerated ones were accustomed to having a festival on December 25 to celebrate the birthday of the sun-god. To accommodate these unbelievers, the apostate church declared December 25 to be the birthday of Christ. This is the source of Christmas. The apostate church has the fine flour, but within the flour there is leaven.
Christ is the fine flour, but the so-called pictures of Jesus are included in the leaven. Any picture of Jesus is false. The book of Isaiah tells us that when the Lord was on the earth, He had “no attracting form nor majesty that we should look upon Him, / Nor beautiful appearance that we should desire Him” (53:2). Isaiah 52:14 tells us that “His visage was marred more than that of any man, / And His form more than that of the sons of men.” Today’s pictures of Jesus always portray Him as a handsome man. This is not the true picture of Jesus but the leaven. In 1937 when I was traveling in northern China, a case of demon possession was brought to my attention. A certain Christian sister had become possessed. When I was asked the reason for this, I said that, in principle, either sin or some idols or images in that sister’s home would give ground for the demon to possess her. This sister was a young Christian and did not know these things. She had bought a picture of the so-called Jesus and had put that picture in her room. Eventually, she was bowing down to it with respect. Later on she was possessed by a demon. I told her to burn the picture. From the moment she burned that picture, the demon departed.
To add leaven to fine flour makes it easier for people to take. Unleavened bread is harder for people to eat. This is the principle operating in the Roman Catholic Church. They maintain that if you do not put the leaven into the things concerning Christ, it will be hard for the people to take. If you simply told people that God is in Christ as the Spirit, they would not be able to take it. To put up an image of Christ or a statue of Christ at the entrance of the cathedral and tell people that this is Christ makes it easier for people to worship and realize Christ, according to the Roman Catholic Church. They maintain that the images, even though they are not really Christ, remind people of Christ. To them, the image of Christ makes it easier for people to contact Christ. This is the leaven within the fine flour.
When I was in Manila, I visited a Catholic cathedral. At the entrance of this cathedral was a statue of Mary. Noticing that one of the hands of the statue was almost completely worn out, I asked the people what had happened. They said that everyone who entered the cathedral first touched the hand of the statue and that, through the years, this had worn out the hand. When I asked them about the need for such a statue, they said, “If people do not have statues, they cannot understand what you are saying when you talk about the Bible. They need something solid to grasp.” This is their justification for having statues of Jesus and Mary. What subtlety! That is not Jesus or Mary — that is an idol. Apparently, they worshipped Jesus; actually, they worshipped an image of stone. This is the subtlety of the enemy.
Now we can see the evil of the apostate church — it absorbs pagan things and adds them to the fine flour. How wicked this is! The Roman Catholic Church preaches Christ with paganism, with heathenism, with idols, with images, and with sinful things and false things. The Lord likens this to the kingdom of the heavens, so this is the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens. This is not the real thing.
The fifth parable says, “The kingdom of the heavens is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid, and in his joy goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field” (Matt. 13:44). In the Scriptures the sea denotes the world corrupted by Satan (Isa. 57:20; Rev. 17:15), and the field represents the earth created by God for His kingdom (Gen. 1:26-28). The treasure hidden in the field signifies the kingdom hidden in God’s created world. The treasure hidden in the field must consist of gold or precious stones, the materials for the building of the church and the New Jerusalem (1 Cor. 3:12; Rev. 21:18-20). The church is the practical kingdom today, and the New Jerusalem will be the kingdom in manifestation in eternity. Before the Lord comes, the kingdom is a hidden matter. When the Lord comes, He finds the kingdom, makes it open, and presents it to the Jewish people. Since the Jewish people rejected it, the Lord hid this matter from them. The Lord then went to the cross to die, to pay the cost to buy this field with its treasure. This means that the Lord died on the cross to redeem the earth with the kingdom.
The sixth parable says, “Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a merchant seeking fine pearls; and finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matt. 13:45-46). The Lord in this parable is the merchant, and the pearl is the church. The pearl comes out of the water, which denotes the corrupted world. The pearl produced in the death waters (the world filled with death) by the living oyster (the living Christ), wounded by a little rock (the sinner), and secreting its life-juice around the wounding rock, is also the material for the building of the New Jerusalem. Since the pearl comes out of the sea, which signifies the world corrupted by Satan, it must refer to the church, which is mainly constituted with regenerated believers from the Gentile world, and which is “of great value.”
The seventh parable says, “Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a net cast into the sea and gathering from every species, which, when it was filled, they brought onto the shore, and sat down and collected the good into vessels; but the foul they cast out” (vv. 47-48). The sea denotes the corrupted world. At the end of the church age, when the Lord comes back, He will send the angels to bring all the living peoples, the unbelievers, unto Him. He will divide them into two classes — a class of good and a class of evil. The evil ones will perish immediately and the good ones will be translated into the millennial kingdom to be the nations (vv. 49-50; 25:32-46).
These seven parables show us the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens with the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. The appearance of the kingdom of the heavens includes the true believers, the false ones, and all the evil things in today’s Christendom.
The reality of the kingdom of the heavens is revealed in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. The parables in Matthew 13 reveal many evil things, leaven, and false believers. In Matthew 5, 6, and 7, though, the kingdom of the heavens is revealed as something very pure. This is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. Matthew 5:3 says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.” Verse 10 says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.” Verse 20 says, “I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens.” These verses show us how strict the kingdom of the heavens is and how pure this kingdom is. Matthew 7:21 says, “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he who does the will of My Father who is in the heavens.” This is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. To be in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens we must be poor in spirit, we must suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, we must do the will of the Father, and we must be pure and meek (5:3-10). The parables in Matthew 13 unveil the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens, whereas the teachings in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 unveil the reality of the kingdom of the heavens.
A real believer in the church is not necessarily an overcomer. We may be in the church and still not be in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. Some people are in Christendom, the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens, but not really in the church. To be in the church a person must be a real believer in Christ, regenerated with the life of God. After regeneration, a Christian has to go on with the Lord to be victorious. He must overcome all the sinful things; then he will be in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. To see whether or not we are in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, we need to compare ourselves with the teaching in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. We may be saved, but are we in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens?
When the Lord comes back, the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens will be realized. This is revealed in Matthew 24 and 25. Only the overcomers who are in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens today will have a share in the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens in the future. The manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens will be a reward, a prize, given to the overcomers.
