TREASURE
[p. 493] TREASURE
Matthew 13:36; Matthew 13:44 - 48; Matthew 13:51,52
I am thinking particularly of treasure, and of each one of us possessing treasure, and of how it may be possessed. The divine thought for us is that we should be possessed of wealth; that we should not only have enough to live on, but affluence. What marks the world today economically, is living and making a show on the principle of credit. The idea of living on current income seems to have largely passed. The world has drifted into a position of dependence on the future; many are living on their capital: others, as I have said, living on future earnings on the principle of credit. This nation as a whole may be regarded in that light, as living on its capital and not on its immediate earnings; and of course there can be no accumulation of national wealth thus. God would not have it so with His people; He would have us to pay our debts (according to the type) with the oil as sold, and to live on the rest, 2 Kings 4. That, to say the least, there should be a means of livelihood without borrowing on the possible future. As I said. God would have us to live, spiritually, not only comfortably but in affluence; and to have enough for treasuries. And so I wish to speak of treasure, and that we all should be possessed of it, we may be and we should be. I would also shew, the Lord helping me, the way of the acquirement of wealth; so that there might be over against the principles of the world, the principles of God — the economy of God, the resources of God; and the consequent manifested enrichment of His people.
Now, speaking of the thing from the divine side first, to confirm what I am saying, in the book of Proverbs we have the statement that wisdom walks in the path of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment: so as to cause those who love her to inherit substance, chapter 8:20,21. Then it adds: “and I will fill their treasuries”.
[p. 494] The first source of wealth, I may say, is the inheritance, and the formation of income consequent on the inheritance is our side. In the Authorised Version, wisdom says: “I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment”, and the force of the passage is shewing the way, and that does not mean borrowing. It indicates, beloved brethren, the way wisdom took, with the end in view of those who love her inheriting substance. It cost wisdom something. Coming into this world the Lord had to face what was in it. There was only one way, and that was the way of righteousness, He loved righteousness. He did not institute the idea of borrowing; He restored that which He took not away. He did not evade anything in that sense. What was needful for the end in view He accepted; that is to say, the way of righteousness and the paths of judgment. One could enlarge on that, for it involves the death of Christ. As the apostle says most touchingly, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich”. It is in his second letter to the Corinthians he says that. You see the way and at what a cost, possible riches, an inheritance, has I been secured and brought into evidence for us. It is that we should inherit substance and that our treasuries should become full.
The epistle to the Colossians speaks of “the treasures, of wisdom and knowledge”, chapter 2:3, but these are hidden in the mystery, and that is not far away. The mystery is not merely theoretic; it refers (to be simple) to yourself and the brother next to you, or to myself and the brother next to me. It is in the use, so to speak, that we make thus of our neighbouring or local brethren that we find the way to this class of treasure, “the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”. What the Greeks would have considered exclusive to a few, in their way of looking at it, is available, you see, in the mystery. I only touch on [p. 495] that as indicating how the matter stands, what is available to us in the brethren as in the light of the mystery, according to Colossians. It is not so many brethren, of course, but it is a question of brethren in whom Christ is, “Christ in you”, and the working of the mine of wealth is indicated in that love is in evidence among us, so that we arrive at “the mystery of God; in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge”. They are hidden there. I believe, dear brethren, that if Colossians is thus understood we should begin to work the thing, to work the mine, so to speak, for that is where the treasure is, and we shall soon have some of that class of treasure, “wisdom and knowledge”. The Corinthians were not working that mine; they were working another; they were working as a philosopher would do, on the principle of wisdom of words, what poets work with, and other writers of this world. They make words, I may say, their working capital. But the treasures of wisdom and knowledge imply much more than this.
I only touch on Colossians, dear brethren, but I wanted to dwell on Ephesians, to view the matter from the divine side. Colossians brings the thing very near — “Christ in you”. Ephesians is on a wider basis where we have everything viewed in its fulness; so that there it is “the unsearchable riches of the Christ”, Ephesians 3:8, and these unsearchable riches are announced in the gospel. Ephesians guards this in bringing out the immensity of the things. They are beyond us, in Ephesians. The love of Christ is beyond us; we are to know it, but it “surpasses knowledge”, and the riches of the Christ are “unsearchable”.
Now the Lord is on this line in the chapter we have read in Matthew, and I wanted to confine myself to this chapter. One’s desire is, as I said before, that there should not be poverty with us, but wealth. The Lord intends that we should be possessed of substance, of treasure; “things new and old”. To understand the chapter we must understand these two facts — that the Lord had left one house and had entered into another. There may be some here who have never left the house which the Lord left; but if He has left a house I have to look around and see if it is the house I am in, and if so, I must leave it too. The Lord had left one house according to the beginning of chapter 13, and entered into another according to verse 36. In between He spoke in parables. He went out by the sea and sat by it first, meaning that He was not going back; He was taking up another position. Sitting means permanency in regard to the thing in hand. He is not going back to the house of chapter 12. He is not going back to those who sought to kill Him — a “generation of vipers”. Many, alas, have come out and gone back since; that is apostasy, in the principle of it.
The Lord sat by the sea, and then He entered into a boat in view of the crowd and sat in the boat — that is another thing; and in that position He spoke four, parables — formally called such. Now these four parables lie, so to speak, between the two houses. In them there is a process of disentanglement, in which I learn what that house means and what this house means; that whilst the Lord has left that house. He is still speaking to the public. In these last days the Lord has never given up speaking to christendom in general, but riot as recognising it as a house, for He has left the thing morally and has judged it by leaving it, but He turns back and speaks to certain of those who are in it. It is important to notice that, because it maintains us also in a right attitude towards those from whom we have had to separate. They are regarded as a crowd, and there is no order in a crowd; moreover, the Lord did not attempt to regulate them. He spoke to them and dismissed them, and then He enters into another house, and in this house you do not get Him speaking exactly in parables, verses 44, 45,
47. The word ‘parables’, is not used. I wish you, dear brethren, to come into this house, so to speak. The chapter defines our position at the present time; and it indicates how we reach substance unalloyed. Many have much truth, but they have it in the house, one might say, which the Lord has left; and I do not know of a doctrine they hold which is absolutely pure; there is always a twist or a colour to it which damages the truth, and hence the importance of judging the whole thing, the system indicated in the first house, and of coming into this second house. He entered into it. Before entering into it He dismissed the crowds. The public thing is left. It remains a crowd. There is no order according to God in a crowd, but He can keep the public position in hand, so that a way is made that we may come into the house with Him. It is not like the house of Lot. The Lord did not smite them with blindness as in the case of Lot, but simply dismisses them, and enters into the house.
The disciples come to Him and say: “Expound to us the parable of the darnel of the field”, verse 36. Now you see them in the house with the Lord as the Expositor. In answer to our desire there is nothing which He will not expound to us. “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”, (Luke 24:27). Anything that the Lord has to say to the public is parabolic now. The truth is there and places them under responsibility, but it is hidden. A parable hides the truth, but the truth is there, and is therefore the corresponding responsibility of the crowd. An exposition is not a parable; it is the unfolding in the Lord’s own way, of whatever is to be known. “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them ...”;and later on He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures, saying, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day”, verse 46. That is going on all the [p. 498] time for us who will avail ourselves of it. The apostle says, “Think of what I say” and “the Lord will give thee understanding in all things”. Why, then, should we be in spiritual poverty or ignorance? “The Lord will give thee understanding in all things”, (2 Timothy 2:7).
Now what we see here is that having expounded unto them the parable of the tares, which I do not intend to go into, for I am only speaking about the exposition. He speaks of the righteous shining forth as the sun, and then though the Authorised Version of verse 44 begins with the word ‘again’, it is not really there, shewing therefore that the Lord is not continuing to link up His communications to us within, with the parabolic communications without: it is not the same thing. The kind of thing which we have had the last hundred years, dear brethren, is not what they have had before, it is not a continuation of what they had in a parabolic way. The Lord has been unfolding the truth in recent times inside the house, as it were.
In returning to the features of the kingdom in verse 44, the Lord does not begin with ‘again’ as if it were a resumption of His speaking to the crowds; it is a new thing. There are two ‘agains’ in regard of verses 45 and 47, to convey that there is sequence, but it is another series of instruction belonging to the house, and it is here that we begin to see something about treasure in the chapter; There was a treasure found, and it was valued. The Lord “sold all whatever he had”. That is to say, it is a question of knowing how to value a thing, and whether what I have should be let go so that I may have this. That is the principle. “He sold all that he had” it says, and why? Because he valued this ‘treasure’ more than the other. It is a question, therefore, of valuing things, and the Lord leads in that way.
Then He is seeking something distinctive, and so we have an extension of thought in verse 45. I believe that the pearl is an allusion to the church in the full thought according to Paul’s ministry. The Lord was seeking that, the full thought of the assembly, not a partial thing as at Pentecost; it was there, but not fully in evidence, and His rights asserted in a most striking manner by Peter. The Lord had title to all that was there. Who that loves the Lord would deny Him every bit of treasure that shone out in that day? You take the whole of Acts 2, after Peter finishes his address, and see the three thousand come in, and what marked the whole number. What a treasure that was to the heart of Christ! The Lord added to that. He could commit Himself entirely to it, and the heart yields to Him His rights — all that precious treasure belongs to Him. He had acquired it at great cost; but then that is not all He was seeking. What He was seeking, Matthew 13:45, is definite; we have the figure of a merchant, that is, a man qualified to judge of pearls, who was seeking goodly ones, and he found this one and would have it at all cost. I do not say that it was an afterthought; it was not an afterthought, but I speak of the order in which we find it here. There is the treasure, the character and value of which we are not told, verse 44, but the pearl is a whole thing you see, a thing to be understood in its entirety, and one that is valued by the Lord in the figure, as of great price. He secured it. That is what I would commend as the lead which the Lord gives as to valuing a thing, and of the surrender in order to get it.
Then the third figure of the kingdom which is communicated inside, comes very close to us. It is not a figure exactly of treasure, but to bring out ability to discriminate between what is good — living things — (because fish are peculiarly living creatures) and what is worthless. It is a feature of the kingdom which, I believe, applies very forcibly now, the determination by persons sitting down in deliberation, to make a selection of the good. We want only the good fish, and the others we cast away as worthless.
[p. 500] That is what the Lord finishes with inside; and then He asks the question “Have ye understood all these things?” Now that is the challenge, dear brethren. There are courses of instruction constantly coming up — for no two ministries are alike, and if the Lord is pleased to bring any feature of the truth to our attention He challenges us: “Have ye understood all these things?” It is a searching question. Some say these things are too deep — that they are involved, but then look at the Lord’s parables here! There are four parables. Suppose they are a little obscure, they are intended to be so. As I said, parabolic ministry is intended to hide the truth. The truth is hidden, but it is there, and your state is tested by it. Do you say you do not understand it, and leave it at that? You will never thus get inside the second house here, verse 36. Suppose you do not understand it, why not turn to the Lord about it? It may be a question of your state, if you do not understand, and this is a matter of concern surely. If I do not see what others see, it means that my sight is bad, and I must see to that.
“Have ye understood all these things?” the Lord says, and they say “Yea, Lord!” They had been inside the house, you see. That is the point. And then the Lord says “for this reason” that is to say, for the reason that you understand, there is a possibility of a householder and of many householders! If they understood, why not we? The teaching here is understandable. And if I do understand I am a householder with treasure.
The Lord refers to the scribe, which I think is significant, “Every scribe discipled to the kingdom of the heavens is like a man that is a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old”, verse 52. Now a scribe is a person who is accurate. You may say much more about him than that; but a man who writes, is an accurate man; writing makes one accurate. The effect of conference or taking counsel with people is to make a [p. 501] person ready in his speech; but accuracy marks a scribe. One marvels in noting the accuracy of Scripture. How thousands of years before, a principle which God intended to come out later, is written down with accuracy. Should it not be a matter of concern with us to be accurate? I find it difficult myself, the mind is very treacherous, but the Lord helps us, even in that, so that we get things in their proper setting.
“Every scribe discipled to the kingdom of the heavens is like a man that is a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old”. There are some people who live in the old things, but if I have new things, antiques lose their value. Understanding the new things, I come to value the old things aright and regard them as treasure. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in the mystery, and it represents what is new. The divine thoughts which the Holy Spirit brings into view, are all ‘new’ treasure brought down from heaven; but the same Spirit who brings these down, had, thousands of years before, brought in other things, and you see how beautiful they are. It is on that principle that the Lord is helping us in the Old Testament. In the possession of the new things which the Spirit has brought in, we can go back and look into the old and see it is all beautiful; it is all Christ! You see, the Lord expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself, everything spoke of Him, it was a precious antique, so to say, old but precious — and the householder, the scribe, understands. “Yea, Lord”, the disciples say. The householder brings the old and new things out, but he does not cast his pearls before swine; he does not, like Hezekiah, shew all to the Babylonians; he brings them out for the lovers of Christ, for those who value them.
One principle of the householder is industry. You get it in this chapter, and in chapter 20, and later in this gospel. The use of the word is generally attributable to [p. 502] God in this gospel, shewing What God is in His activities here, in hiring labourers and fencing round his vineyards, etc. It is the carefulness of God which we are to imitate as householders, building up industriously a rich spiritual establishment; and in the measure in which we are thus enriched we enrich the church. That is the idea, and so in these last days the Lord would have us not to be wanting of substance — treasure, so that we should not be dependent on others, but that we should be in affluence, that we should be able to bring out of our treasure “things new and old”!