CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 13
FER I do not think the Lord takes a new character here, but He reveals the character in which He had been acting all along.
Ques. What, as a sower?
FER Yes, as a sower, it was not stated before, but He had been a sower all along.
Ques Will you say how far the section goes which begins with chapter 12?
FER My thought is to chapter 13: 52, when we begin again and go on to the end of chapter 18.
Ques Will you say what characterises the section we are on The Lord has broken the link, the covenant with Israel, and now we get the revelation of the real character in which He had been here, and the whole view is enlarged; you get the whole world brought into view, the field is the world, in contrast with Israel. I think we saw pretty well in chapter 11 that new things were coming in, I mean the kingdom and Christianity, that is, the knowledge of the Father and the Son. In chapter 12 the Lord shows that the link is with those who did the will of the Father, they took precedence. He breaks the link that was after the flesh with Israel, and that must be, if He is to make known what the kingdom is, that is in the form it takes now, where there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. The kingdom is not set up in power, but is the fruit of the word; when it is set up in power there will be a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile, but if it is a question of seed sowing a Gentile can receive the seed as well as a Jew.
Rem There will be no mystery about the kingdom when it is set up in the millennium.
FER God will fulfil His promises to Israel and the Gentiles will have a subordinate place to Israel, but then that is all a question of God’s ordering; I [p. 94] cannot see that there can be any distinction between Jew and Gentile when it is a question of seed sowing, the seed produces the same effect in everybody, not one effect in the Jew and another in the Gentile.
Ques Would the blindness of the Jew make any difference as to the reception of the word?
FER The Jews are really merged in the field; in consequence of their blindness they have lost the privileges peculiar to them. The seed sowing goes on in the world.
Rem They are treated as the world in this chapter.
FER Yes, pretty much as in John’s gospel. It is a great thing to see that the Lord had been preaching the word of the kingdom previously to this. What I understand by the word of the kingdom is the light of God’s administration. The Lord had spoken of the Father’s will. He was here to carry out the Father’s will, you get complete light as to the administration of God, that is the word of the kingdom and that forms the kingdom.
Ques How was the Lord a sower outside the Jews?
FER I would not quite say that, still the sower had relation to the world, what He was doing was preaching the word of the kingdom and in that there is great light.
Rem He leaves the land and goes to the sea. Judaism had been tested and now the Lord goes to the Gentiles.
FER We get here a figure of sowing outside of the Jews, it is only a figure of it, I should suppose. It is not telling people something about the kingdom that forms the kingdom. It is important to see what the word of the kingdom is, because the kingdom is formed by the word.
Ques Is it the preaching of grace and truth?
FER No; it is divine administration. You must remember that many things which are familiar to us were quite new to them.
[p. 95] Rem It would be well to say a word about divine administration, as many might not be clear as to what you mean.
FER Well, for instance, in the Old Testament you do not get anything of that kind, anything of divine administration; the giving of promises was not administration, administration points to how God would effect anything.
Rem And when you speak of administration you speak of the Person by whom God would administer.
FER And therefore the kingdom does not properly come in until the Lord is at the right hand of God. The Spirit of God is the power. The Jews would not have the word of the kingdom, for the Lord had been sowing the word of the kingdom, and the sin of the Jew was against the Holy Spirit.
Ques Is sowing going on now?
FER Yes; people are brought into the kingdom by receiving the light of God’s administration. Christ is the administrator now working from the right hand of God. I do not think getting into the kingdom is the same thing as being brought into peace. I think people are brought into the kingdom by getting light in their souls.
Rem Then only those who are really converted are in the kingdom.
FER Matthew 18 makes it plain that only such are really in it. I quite admit there is a great system, but that shows how man has taken it up; it is not the divine thought, and I should not like to lose the divine thought in it. The administration supposes the revelation of God. The Father has revealed His will, the Son is effectuating His will, has become Man to carry it out, and the Holy Spirit is the power by which subjectively it is carried out. If you are in the power of the heavenly administration you are in heavenly light.
Ques Would you say that the kingdom [p. 96] of heaven does not extend so wide as the circle of profession?
FER You get two sides to the parables, one views the kingdom from man’s side, and the other from God’s side. I quite admit what is on man’s side, but I should not like to lose sight of what is on God’s side.
Rem There is the real thing in the midst of the unreal.
Ques Will you distinguish between the church and the kingdom?
FER The kingdom is individual; the church is the house of God, the dwelling place of God by the Spirit, you could not say the kingdom is the dwelling place of God. It has its application to us individually. Man’s side in the kingdom is how man takes up the idea. In the introductory parable only one out of four is good ground, that is that brings forth fruit. Then you see another thing, that the field is the world and the enemy comes and sows tares; the servants want to root them out, they do not properly belong to the kingdom, they are not children of the kingdom, they are children of the wicked one, that is how the servants look at the tares. Then you get the mustard tree and the leaven, what the kingdom becomes in the hand of man.
Rem The seed sowing then is preparatory, and after that we have six similitudes of the kingdom.
FER The first similitude, the wheat and the tares, first belongs to the one side and then to the other, the interpretation shows the divine side; in the parable the thought is of the servants, but in the interpretation the point is the Son of man, He will gather out of His kingdom; and it comes in as a prelude to the last three parables.
Rem Sowing the seed is not a similitude of the kingdom, it produces the kingdom.
Rem And that is not limited to the Lord’s teaching.
FER It began with Him, He had been bringing [p. 97] to light the administration of the kingdom. What is a kingdom but administration? If you bring to light the administration of heaven you bring to light the kingdom of heaven.
Rem In chapter 4 He preaches the “gospel of the kingdom”.
FER You get the divine administration in the millennium, it will connect itself with the presence of Christ and will be public; but even then everything will be effectuated subjectively by the Holy Spirit.
Ques Why do the disciples ask the Lord about His speaking in parables, and then He tells them that the mysteries of the kingdom were only to be known to them?
FER Mystery is that which is concealed from the careless but made known to the initiated; so with regard to the kingdom, it is concealed from the indifferent, it is for those who have ears to hear. I do not believe that Christ as Lord has any connection with this scene, I do not expect to bring the Lord into my things, into my circumstances; the great point is to get outside my things and to be in the Lord’s things, that is the point for the Christian.
Rem As to our things, the Lord is absent and we have to suffer in consequence.
FER Yes; the Father has not been rejected in that sense and He holds His hand over everything and cares for His people; but the Lord has been rejected and has taken the place of administration to give effect to everything of the Father’s will; if you are in the testimony you are with the Lord.
Rem That is to say, if you are in the current of His mind.
Ques Is that the way you would define the testimony — being in the current of the Lord’s mind?
FER You get the word in Timothy, “Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord”,
Rem But that embraces a great [p. 98] deal.
FER The context shows it is the gospel, but the gospel looked at not as meeting man’s need, but as bringing life and incorruptibility to light. The gospel is the instrument to effectuate the will of God, and therefore it is the testimony of our Lord.
Ques Why does James bring in the will of the Lord in everyday matters?
FER Because you are tested by it. If I think to leave G — — and go to live in P — — I am not to go there but in the Lord’s will. Most people when they go from one place to another go for some reason of their own.
Ques But it is buying and selling in the passage?
FER The Lord’s will comes into everything, I do not do my business for my own gain. I believe we should often be diminished if we were here for the Lord’s will, so that we might be less hampered, more free. The Lord breaks with His kindred after the flesh and takes up a new link with those who do the Father’s will.
Ques Is that what is meant by obedience to the faith?
FER What I understand by faith is the revelation of the will of God.
Rem That is what you have to believe in.
FER One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Faith opens up the Lord’s will, baptism cuts me off from what is here which is not the will of God, I mean sin and the world. I think that a man would be so subdued by getting into the will of God, by all the blessed light of God, that he would feel he could only be here for the will of God. It is extraordinary that the most complete and full revelation of God is in connection with a man; the Lord was down here as a man doing the will of the Father, you cannot conceive anything more amazing.
Ques Why is the kingdom compared to so small a seed as the mustard seed and yet it becomes [p. 99] so vast?
FER I suppose men saw that the light of the kingdom was better than anything they had had before, so they took it up and systematised it. They take it up now in a similar way. Judaism is an advance upon what went before, and Christianity is an advance upon Judaism. They approve of it. There is one thing I cannot understand about their reasonings, Christianity goes back to what was anterior to the law and the prophets, it goes back to the promises, so that the theory of progression breaks down.
Rem It goes back before the fall.
Rem Then again the idea of progression is limited to man, but in Christianity you get the will of God.
Ques When do you think these parables became facts?
FER When the kingdom began to take shape in the hands of men. You get the sowing of the tares very early. I think the tares are heresies.
Ques. Not persons?
FER Doctrines would mean nothing at all if they did not characterise persons.
Rem The good seed are persons formed by the word.
Rem I suppose the common idea of imitation has arisen from the difficulty the servants had in discerning always between the wheat and the tares.
FER But the servants could discern.
Rem Yes, they could discern that the tares were there. The danger of attempting to root up the tares was lest they should root up the wheat also; the idea is that persons would be sent out of the world.
FER Yes; so in popery, although there is a good bit of tares in popery, they attempted to pull up the tares, but they put out of the world a good deal of the wheat. I have been struck with this, that man has been successful in imitating everything on man’s side. Take, for instance, the forgiveness of sins. They have their absolution and even the conferring of the Holy [p. 100] Spirit; but on the divine side all imitation ceases, the instant you get life and incorruptibility all imitation is at an end. Take what has happened amongst ourselves during the last sixty years, those who have left have not gone back to the thing they came out of, but have set up an imitation; but all the imitation goes to the outside church system, and I believe in doing it they have lost the divine side.
Rem The moral thing has been given up for the outward thing.
FER What is vital and on the divine side has been largely lost. I think the great thing is to be in the secret of the Lord, so that we may be in the testimony, and if we were in it and prepared for the consequences, we should be able to meet the imitation. Well, then we get the three last parables — the treasure, the pearl, and the fishermen. It is a curious thing that in the interpretation of the wheat and tares the Lord does not say one word about the servants, in the parable itself He says a good deal about them (verses 27 - 29). It is all a dialogue with the servants.
Ques With regard to the expression “kingdom of their Father”, is that the administration again in millennial times?
FER Yes; I think it indicates the heavenly place for the righteous; the point is, they will shine in the kingdom.
Ques Who are these righteous?
FER Christians from this point and onward. Then in the last three parables you have the real thing, you have the divine side, you see the kingdom from that point of view, and you get more light. You have the kingdom as the kingdom of the Son of man. You have not had that before. The present aspect of the house of God ceases when the Lord comes, but the kingdom goes on because it is the kingdom of the Son of man.
Ques The tares go on [p. 101] to the end?
FER Yes, to the end of the age.
Ques Do you connect them with the foolish virgins?
FER No; I think they are more heresies.
Ques Are the righteous here the same as in chapter 25? The righteous go into life eternal?
FER They do, but I do not think you can put the two together. That is when Christ has come, and it is the righteous nations before Him. Here we have the righteous shine in the Father’s kingdom. The same adjective may characterise both, but it does not follow that they are the same persons. There will be those in the kingdom of the Father, and others in the kingdom of the Son of man; but the point is, not being in the kingdom of the Father, but shining, that is, conspicuous. They will be displayed in heavenly glory, in the heavenly places. They will reign, there will be light from heaven in the heavenly city, the nations walk in the light of it. Then we get the purchase of the field for the sake of the treasure in it. The Lord is showing what the kingdom is in the divine thought; after all, the kingdom is entirely subordinate to the church, the administration at the present time is entirely for the latter.
Rem The treasure is the church.
FER I think so, because it refers to the present time, the existence of the kingdom in its present form is in mystery. When you come to the pearl it is one pearl of great price, the treasure does not express the same idea; it is unique.
Ques What is the hiding of it?
FER It is not out in manifestation. Then you get the last parable, the net cast into the sea. It has been going on all along, but the selection has not been going on. The net has been cast, and what is going on now at the end is the selection. The fishermen deal with the good and the angels with the bad, that is a little remarkable.
[p. 102] Rem The application is somewhat diverse from the parable itself.
Rem You get the same thing in the parable of the tares and the wheat.
FER It shows what the spiritual principle of these parables is, the thought of the kingdom in them does not go beyond the present time.
Rem With “angels” there is the thought of providential dealing.
FER Yes; and I think we have to be thankful that we have to do with the good and not with the bad.
Ques When does the kingdom terminate?
FER The kingdom is the kingdom of the Son of man. It never terminates until He gives it up to the Father, when the kingdom has done its work and all the administration has been carried out, then it is that the Son gives up the kingdom and there is no more kingdom; supremacy does not cease, but the kingdom ceases. After all, everything will accomplish the will of God.
Rem I think that is the comfort of this chapter, that you see the Lord as administrator of the will of God, whatever man might do does not affect that at all.
FER Angels are at His disposal, everything is at His disposal. Well, I think it is a most wonderful thing, before the kingdom existed you have got the whole result laid out before you. It characterises the whole of Scripture that the end of a thing is always laid out at the beginning.
Rem So that we never find God taken aback by anything.
Ques What are the things new and old?
Answer. There were things in the parables not to be found in the Old Testament, and there were things in the Old Testament which had to be fulfilled.
Rem And these last are the old things.
FER Yes.