We are now in some measure able to understand, why Christ now for the first time adopted parabolic teaching. Its reason lay in the altered circumstances of the case. All his former teaching had been plain, although initial. In it He had set forth by Word, and exhibited by fact (in miracles), that Kingdom of God which He had come to open to all believers. The hearers had now ranged themselves into two parties. Those who, whether temporarily or permanently (as the result would show), had admitted these premisses, so far as they understood them, were His professing disciples. On the other hand, the Pharisaic party had now devised a consistent theory, according to which the acts, and hence also the teaching, of Jesus, were of Satanic origin. Christ must still preach the Kingdom; for that purpose had he come into the world. Only, the presentation of that Kingdom must now be for decision. It must separate the two classes, leading the one to clearer understanding of the mysteries of the Kingdom - of what not only seems, but to our limited thinking really is, mysterious; while the other class of hearers would now regard these mysteries as wholly unintelligible, incredible, and to be rejected. And the ground of this lay in the respective positions of these two classes towards the Kingdom. Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.' And the mysterious manner in which they were presented in Parables was alike suited to, and corresponded with, the character of these mysteries of the Kingdom,' now set forth, not for initial instruction, but for final decision. As the light from heaven falls on earthly objects, the shadows are cast. But our perception of them, and its mode, depend on the position which we occupy relatively to that Light.
And so it was not only best, but most merciful, that these mysteries of substance should now, also, be presented as mysteries of form in Parables. Here each would see according to his standpoint towards the Kingdom. And this was in turn determined by previous acceptance or rejection of that truth, which had formerly been set forth in a plain form in the teaching and acting of the Christ. Thus, while to the opened eyes and hearing ears of the one class would be disclosed that, which prophets and righteous men of old had desired but not attained, to them who had voluntarily cast aside what they had, would only come, in their seeing and hearing, the final judgment of hardening. So would it be to each according to his standpoint. To the one would come the grace of final revelation, to the other the final judgment which, in the first place, had been of their own choice, but which, as they voluntarily occupied their position relatively to Christ, had grown into the fulfilment of the terrible prediction of Esaias concerning the final hardening of Israel. [2829]
Thus much in general explanation. The record of the first series of Parables [2830] contains three separate accounts: that of the Parables spoken to the people; that of the reason for the use of parabolic teaching, and the explanation of the first Parables (both addressed to the disciples); and, finally, another series of Parables spoken to the disciples. To each of these we must briefly address ourselves.
On that bright spring morning, when Jesus spoke from the ship' to the multitude that crowded the shore, He addressed to them these four Parables: concerning Him Who sowed, [2831] concerning the Wheat and the Tares, concerning the Mustard-Seed, and concerning the Leaven. The first, or perhaps the two first of these, must be supplemented by what may be designated as a fifth Parable, that of the Seed growing unobservedly. This is the only Parable of which St. Mark alone has preserved the record. [2832] All these Parables refer, as is expressly stated, to the Kingdom of God; that is, not to any special phase or characteristic of it, but to the Kingdom itself, or, in other words, to its history. They are all such as befit an open-air address at that season of the year, in that locality, and to those hearers. And yet there is such gradation and development in them as might well point upwards and onwards.