The Purpose of Parables Matthew 13.10-17 January 19, 2014 Introduction: One thing I enjoy about purchasing a movie on DVD or Blu-ray is not simply watching the movie but learning about how the movie was made. Most movies these days include some kind of behind-the-scenes documentary or two, although certain movies give you far more than that. For example, recently we purchased The Hobbit Extended edition and besides the 3-hour movie itself, it has over 9-hours of behind-the-scenes goodness detailing every aspect of making the film, from casting, to directing, to set construction and special effects. It was a treasure trove of background information which our family greatly enjoyed watching it bit by bit over a number of weeks. Now I know not everyone likes that kind of thing, but I find the whole movie-making process fascinating. I love learning how certain effects were made or why particular lines of dialogue or scenes were included (or excluded!) from the film. It is always interesting to me to go behind-the-scenes and discover the hows and whys of the movie. For those of you like me who are into the behind-the-scenes type of information, then this morning s passage will undoubtedly be interesting to you. You might consider today s passage a behind-the-scenes featurette on Jesus parables. As you know, Jesus frequently taught using parables. Last week we considered a very well-known one the parable of the four soils and over the coming weeks we ll be studying a few more that Jesus taught in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. But this morning Jesus pauses his preaching on parables in order to give us a behind-the-scenes look at why he utilized parables to begin with. Much like a director might explain why he felt such-and-such a scene was necessary for the movie, so Jesus reveals why he taught with parables. So let s dive right in by looking at the passage itself. Please grab your Bibles if you have them with you and turn to Matthew 13. I would invite any of you who didn t bring a Bible with you this morning to please use of one of the hardcover pew Bibles. You should be able to find today s passage on page 818. I will be reading v. 10-17 from the ESV. Then the disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered them, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. 1
This is an important passage of Scripture in terms of how we understand God, ourselves, and salvation. By pulling back the curtains for a moment here, Jesus lets us in on the purposes of God and gives us greater insight into the contribution both we and God have when it comes to our understanding of and ultimately believing in the good news of the kingdom of God. So having read the passage, let s consider together what we can learn from it by studying it in a bit more detail. To that end I have three points this morning that taken together sum up what Jesus is teaching here and the first of which is this 1. God is responsible for granting to us understanding This passage focuses on Jesus answer to a question the disciples asked concerning him teaching in parables. Up to this point in Matthew, Jesus hasn t been using a lot of parables. If you recall the Sermon on the Mount for example, Jesus spoke directly about the kingdom of God without the use of any little stories. But now Jesus is teaching in ways that are obscure to people. For those of you who were here last week, you might recall how apart from Jesus explanation, the parable of the four soils was fairly mundane. It was a story about sowing seeds in various kinds of soil, some of which produced a crop and others of which either never grew or barely began to grow before it was withered by the sun s heat or choked by the surrounding weeds. That wasn t news to anyone living in an agricultural society. Without an explanation, people listening were probably looking at Jesus with blank expressions thinking, And so your point would be what exactly? So the disciples ask, Hey Jesus, why are you doing that? Why are you telling them these obscure stories that don t make any sense to them? This seems more like a step back rather than a step forward. Instead of helping to clear things up you are leaving the people confused and in the dark as to your meaning. So what gives? In answer to their query, Jesus replies in v. 11, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. The first thing we need to notice is the key word that is repeated: the word given. In regard to the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, which is what Jesus parables are ultimately about, knowledge has to be given in order for them to be understood. It s not self-evident. It s not something those who are wise enough or educated enough can with diligent study figure out. The truth of the gospel is not received by means of the logic and reasoning powers of man. Understanding must be granted from outside of ourselves. It is a gift given, not an achievement earned. And from whence comes this gift? From whom is it given? While the text does not say it explicitly, the rest of Scripture makes it clear: it comes from God. The ability to understand spiritual truth, to hear the good news of the kingdom of God and respond to it, comes as a gift from God, not from your own innate cognitive and intellectual abilities. This echoes what the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2. Listen for a moment to how what Paul says there mirrors what Jesus says here. In 1 Corinthians 2:7, Paul says, But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But these things 2
God has revealed to us through the Spirit. Then a few verses later Paul goes on to say, The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. It s the same idea as what Jesus says, just worded differently. The secrets of the kingdom of God are not understood unless God reveals it because the unregenerate cannot understand them. God must give the understanding otherwise it will never be understood. Furthermore, not only does God give understanding but he also grants even greater understanding over time to those have it. Look back at v. 12. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. We might say, The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. To those who have been granted spiritual understanding through spiritual new birth, more is given. This is the promise of sanctification, of growing in our knowledge of Christ as Paul talks about in his letter to the Ephesians. But for those who don t have, even what little they have will be taken away. Again, we find this echoed in the letters of Paul, in this case Romans 1. We re to respond to the revelation given to us in nature by honoring God and giving him thanks. But instead, Paul says we exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped what is created rather than the Creator. And so what does Paul say God does in response to this? Three times it says, God gave them over to their sin. Instead of getting better, it got worse. God gave them over to become even more entrenched in their sin, even more hardened of heart. What little understanding they had was taken away from them. Now I m aware this passage probably makes some of you uncomfortable because it messes with your theology of God. We are, after all, Americans and we value things such as equality and fairness. So when we read a passage like this, we re prone to either ignore it or at least try to reinterpret it but the reality is this: God does not treat all men equally. He is absolutely just, but he is not at all fair in that all men do not receive what they deserve. Grace, by virtue of being grace, is not fair. It is not fair in that first it is given to those who do not deserve it and second it is not given to all. Jesus is very clear here: some are given the secrets of the kingdom of heaven and some are not. To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. The difference between them is not in the receiving, it is in the giving. The decisive factor in whether your spiritual blind eyes are opened so you can understand and respond in faith to the gospel is whether God grants you in his grace to see and to believe. To those God gives understanding, they believe; to those whom God does not chose to give understanding, they remain in darkness and in fact grow progressively more ignorant and hardened of heart. There are times we must allow Scripture to change our understanding of God, even if it challenges some of our deeply held beliefs. I know these verses can strike you as unfair and unjust. I understand that feeling. I know there are a number of you who struggle with this idea that God sovereignly choses whom he will save. We want to believe that everyone has the exact same chance to believe, that though we re sinners we think sin has not so damaged us that we can still choose to trust or reject God 3
according to our own ability, and that God simply watches passively on the sideline. But that is not what Scripture teaches, this passage in particular being case in point. God gives understanding to some, not all. The grace that leads to salvation is given to some people and not others. I m simply repeating for you what Jesus is saying here in this passage. To some God has chosen in accordance with his good pleasure in eternity past to give them spiritual understanding by opening their spiritually blind eyes, causing them to be born again through the Holy Spirit, and granting them the gift of faith solely by grace, and to others he has not. As challenging as they may be to us, it is what Jesus is saying here and what the biblical authors say elsewhere. With that we need to move on now from the sovereign grace of God that s responsible for granting understanding to our responsibility for failing to hear and believe. So our second point for this morning is the flip side of the coin from our first point, and that is 2. We are responsible for our failure to understand Now it case you didn t notice, Jesus didn t actually answer the original question yet. All he s done is laid some ground work by explaining that God gives understanding to some and not others. But that still leaves the disciples question in v. 10 unanswered: Why does Jesus teach using parables? What s the purpose in using what seems to be an ineffective teaching method that leaves people scratching their heads? Well, now we re going to get a more direct answer in v. 13. Look there with me. Jesus now answers them, saying, This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. This is a surprising answer, isn t it? In essence, Jesus is saying, The reason I am teaching with difficult to understand and ambiguous parables is because they don t understand. Well, that s a bit counter-intuitive, isn t it? If people don t understand and are confused about something, isn t the job of a good teacher to make it easier to understand, not purposefully make it more difficult? Instead of helping them, Jesus is in fact making matters worse. Isn t Jesus supposed to be doing everything possible to help these spiritual blind and deaf people respond and believe? Once again, I know this challenges our popular conception of God, but we need to listen carefully to what Jesus is saying here. What he says in v. 13 is the working out of what he said at the end of v. 12: but from the one who has not what he has will be taken away. Parables are meant to obscure the truth. They aren t given so the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are easily understood; they re given so they become even more mysterious! To those who see and hear physically but are blind and deaf spiritually, Jesus is withdrawing clear teaching and replacing it with teaching that is vague and unclear. So ultimately, the parables are a sign of judgment. Because they have not responded to the very clear and direct teaching about the kingdom, because they have refused to see in his many miracles undeniable proof that he s the Messiah, now they lose any further opportunity and are instead left with stories that leave them more in the dark than before. 4
And yet, this is not the first time this has happen. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6, in v. 14-16. Look there with me in your Bibles. Jesus says, Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. Isaiah went to the people of Israel with a message that God told him would not be received. Though they could see, they could not perceive the spiritual truth being presented to them. As it was with the people in Isaiah s day, so it is with those listening to Jesus. They are like people who can on one level appreciate Chinese calligraphy but cannot read a word of it. They can see it, but not understand it. What Jesus is doing here is placing the responsibility for their lack of understanding squarely on their shoulders. Jesus is moving from clear, straightforward teaching to vague parables because they neither see nor hear. It is because their hearts have grown dull and they close their eyes to the truth. They are responsible for failing to understand and Jesus is bringing about judgment as a result. Jesus is not causing their blindness and deafness to his message, but he is responding to it by removing from them what little clear revelation they once had. Instead of teaching to reveal, Jesus is now teaching to conceal, to confirm the blindness of those who listen. Perhaps a little point of application is in order in terms of contemporary preaching and teaching. Not all messages are used by God to convict; some are used to condemn. Isaiah was sent to proclaim a message to people who would not hear it, and they were judged because of it. Jesus came to preach to people who would ultimately reject him, publicly shout out their demands for him to be executed, and mock him as he was crucified. The rejection of the message served to confirm the hardness of their hearts and the rightness of God s judgment. Let me tell you: God s Word does not go forth void. It accomplishes its purpose, even when its purpose is to bring about condemnation. When I preach, I know God is using the proclamation of his Word in one of two ways: either it will result in conviction and repentance, or it will serve as another brick in the wall of your eternal prison. To sit under biblical teaching is to become responsible to obey it. For example if you hear a pastor talk about forgiveness and he exhorts you to forgive others as Christ forgave you, you either have ears to hear it and will continue to strive to forgive those who ve wronged you or you ll ignore it, walk out of the sanctuary and do nothing with it and thereby add one more piece of evidence to demonstrate your unregenerate heart before the throne of God. God s Word has not failed when we do not respond to the God s Word; it may succeed in the most terrible way imaginable: to serve as evidence against you when God examines the fruit of your life to see if you really did love him. So then, Jesus answers the question as to why he is using the parables by saying the reason is due to the spiritual blindness and deafness of those whom he is teaching. They have not responded to the light of revelation given to them and now that light of clear and unambiguous teaching is being taken away as a sign of judgment. Yet 5
while that is indeed the case for the crowds of people in general, and especially in regards to the Pharisees and other religious leaders, some do understand. Some do hear and see and believe. To the disciples God has given the gift of understanding, of spiritual insight, and so it is to those blessed by God that we turn our attention to next. We ve learned first that God is responsible for granting to us understanding of the parables and second that we are responsible for our failure to understand the parables and this brings us to our third point 3. Therefore consider yourself blessed for the grace given you Jesus has come down pretty hard on those who are spiritually deaf and blind, but now he makes a contrast with them and the disciples, saying in v. 16, But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. In order to really get why Jesus calls them blessed we need to be clear on what Jesus has just talked about here. What we find in this passage is the asymmetrical relationship of responsibility when it comes to salvation, meaning this: we are entirely responsible for our sin and God is entirely responsible for our salvation. We need to understand this correctly but I think for many of us we don t because we view salvation as a symmetrical relationship, and what I mean by that is this: instead of recognizing God is responsible for our salvation and we are responsible for our sin, we will either say the responsibility rests all on us or all on God. There is a very good chance most of you make one of those two errors and so let me show you why each one is wrong. First, the majority of you likely walked in here today with a symmetrical understanding of salvation that is centered all upon man. In other words, you believe the reason any individual goes to heaven or goes to hell is based upon his choices. God of course makes it possible for anyone to find salvation in that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, and he occasionally sends the Holy Spirit to nudge people in the right direction, but that s it. You d say the individual must make the choice himself. The ball is in his court. If he chooses to believe, then he is saved; if he rejects the gospel, he goes to hell. God determines nothing; you d say he only sees what you will freely choose to do apart from any interference or coercion on his part. So at the end of the day, the reason one man is in heaven and another in hell is because each made their choice, a choice made apart from any determining influence by God or anything else. We are in a sense master of our own eternal fate. If you think that then this passage, along with many others in Scripture, challenges such a perspective. Read v. 11 again, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. Listen! Understanding the gospel is a gift given by God, not chosen by you. You do not choose it because you cannot choose it. God must give it you and he chooses to give it to some and not to others. That is what Jesus is saying in black and white in the Bible you are holding. On the salvation end of the equation, God sits as solely responsible. He gives or he doesn t. He opens up spiritually blind eyes or he leaves 6
them closed. We do not have the responsibility to save ourselves because we do not have the ability to do so, for we can neither see nor hear. If the ball was indeed solely in our court and it was entirely left up to us, we would all be damned. This is why we sing the line in the song All I Have is Christ that says, And if you had not loved me first, I would refuse you still. Unregenerate man will never choose God; if God doesn t save us by causing us to be born again, we will never be saved. Therefore God is solely and completely responsible for our salvation, from first to last. But the flip side to the symmetrical misunderstanding of salvation is one where God is viewed as responsible for both those who go to heaven and those who go to hell. In light of this passage, some of you might be troubled because you re thinking just that. You might be tempted to say, Well, if God doesn t give understanding to those in the darkness, and even takes away from the what little light of opportunity they have, then he s the one to blame. God can look like quite the bad guy in v. 11-12. We think, if God keeps people in the darkness by withholding clear and truth-revealing teaching from them, then God must be at fault for those who die in their sins and go to hell. That s a caricature that is often used when talking about doctrines like predestination and election: people assume God is equally responsible, that he chooses those whom he will save and also chooses those whom he will damn and there s nothing else to be said about it. So they in turn reject that notion of God as monstrous and flee to the safety of the other symmetrical version that we made the choice and that God simply passively looks on and hopes we come around to him. But again, this symmetrical understanding of salvation, where God is responsible for both, is as wrong as making man responsible for both. What does v. 13 say? This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. God is not responsible for our sin: we are. God is not prescribing their condition; he s describing it. He s responding to our own sinful choices that we and we alone are responsible for. God is not the author of sin: we have chosen it, indulged in it, loved and cherished the darkness of it rather than the light of God. Everywhere in Scripture God holds us accountable for our sin and assigns blame to us for rejecting him and embracing sin. Thus, God is not in any way responsible for the spiritual blindness and eventual damnation of the lost: it is solely the responsibility of man So then salvation is an asymmetrical truth: you are solely responsible for your sin and therefore the damnation that comes as a result and God is solely responsible for your salvation. Thus Jesus says in v. 16, Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. If left to yourself, you d remain forever spiritually deaf and blind and never respond to the gospel. But blessed are your eyes and your ears because God has given to you spiritual sight. God has been gracious and merciful to you, not because you were more spiritually attuned or wiser or made better choices than the other guy: not by a long shot. You contributed nothing to your salvation. It is all by grace. You are blessed beyond measure, not because you chose him, but because he chose you and appointed you to eternal life (John 15:16). 7
Conclusion As I wrap this up, I know how a message like this on a passage like this can be a source of consternation because it challenges the way we understand God and how he saves people. I understand the struggle many of you feel when this topic comes up. We imagine ourselves to be in the driver s seats, that God is merely passive when it comes to salvation, awaiting for us to figure it out and come to faith on our own accord. But the truth is far more glorious, though difficult and humbling for us. Scripture tells us we re unable to save ourselves and will remain dead in our sin unless God choses to grant us understanding. God owes mercy and grace to none of us. We re all responsible for our sin and should God allow us to remain spiritually blind and enslaved to sin, he would be wholly just and right to do so. But blessed are you if God has given you the grace to hear, understand, and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no more glorious news than to learn that God saves sinners. He takes his enemies and seats them at his table, dresses them in the robe of Christ s righteousness, cancels the debt of their sin on the cross, and adopts them as his own. Salvation is all of grace, given by God freely to those whom he chooses to redeem, not because of anything in good or praiseworthy in them but purely because of the gracious goodness of God alone. So for those of you who are in Christ Jesus by faith, rejoice in your God! You are blessed beyond description because God has had mercy on you, a sinner, and given you the gift of eternal life. May the joy of praise adorn the fruits of your lips and the meditations of your heart for it is by grace, through faith - a faith not of yourself but a gift of God that you have been saved. Let s pray. This sermon was addressed originally to the people at Grace Fellowship of Waterloo, IA by Pastor Rob Borkowitz. Copyright 2014. 8