15. THE KINGDOM PARABLES – THE FOURTH – THE LEAVEN – Part 2
We are doing a series on the Kingdom Parables of Matthew 13 and this message continues the fourth one, the LEAVEN.
In the last study, we looked at the biblical mentions of leaven to see that it always stood for evil without exception, when applied to spiritual matters. We saw also how meticulous the Jews were in cleansing their houses of leaven, and we looked at the Roman Catholic teaching on this parable because, in the main, Protestant churches just followed the Catholic teaching on this.
THE WRONG TEACHING ON THIS PARABLE
Again I do not want to come over as pompous about this but the word of God is so clear about the meaning of leaven – we saw it last time; always evil. How can people get it so wrong?
Here is a quotation from Gill, a recognised Commentator and these words are generally in line with the accepted teaching that considers the leaven as good, though he is more accepting of the bad uses of leaven: (Like much of the writing of his time, writers loved long sentences and one here has 238 words in it!)
[[The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven. The word "leaven" is every where else used in a bad sense; and either designs immorality, as malice and wickedness, or false doctrine, such as that of the Pharisees and Sadducees: but here it seems to be taken in a good sense, and the Gospel to be compared unto it; nor for its disagreeable qualities, but on account of its small quantity; it is a little leaven that leavens the whole lump, and may express, as the grain of mustard seed does, the small beginnings of the Gospel, and its meanness in the eyes of men; and on account of its piercing, penetrating, and spreading nature: so the Gospel reaches the conscience, pierces the heart, enlightens the understanding, informs the judgment, raises and sets the affections on right objects, subdues the will, and brings down all towering thoughts, to the obedience of Christ, in particular persons; and has penetrated and made its way, under divine influence, through towns, cities, kingdoms, and nations: also on account of its heating, swelling, and assimilating nature; so the Gospel, where it takes place, warms the affections, causes the heart to burn within, inspires with zeal for God, and Christ, and the Gospel; it swells and fills churches with such as shall be saved, and assimilates the several persons it operates in, makes them like one another, one bread, one body, having like precious faith, knowledge, and experience, though in a different degree,”]] END OF QUOTE.
Gill makes the statement that in all other places leaven means evil but here it means good. I am sorry for those who believe that but biblical types MUST be consistent. You must maintain uniformity and that is a biblical principle of interpretation.
THE CORRECT TEACHING ON THIS PARABLE
In line with all the applications of leaven it must mean evil. You can not make an exception. Therefore, using that acceptance, what does the parable mean?
{{Matthew 13:33 He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like LEAVEN which a WOMAN took and hid in THREE pecks of meal until it was ALL LEAVENED.”}}
As in the Mustard Seed, this parable is about spread in the kingdom of God. The “kingdom of heaven” is under the control of the Son of God and includes the good and the bad under His watchful control. We know the Almighty God rules in His heaven and earth even though we do not see that in visual actuality, but it is true.
English poet Robert Browning, wrote a long poem called Pippa's Passes and this is a song from it -
[[The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN --
ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD!]]
That poem points out that all things continue as programmed by God because God’s in His heaven and all is right with the world. We see the world in chaos today but the truth is still there - Almighty God is in full control!
When Jesus, the Messiah, returns at the Second Coming, then His visible presence will be very obvious as this verse is fulfilled – {{Zechariah 14:9 “And THE LORD WILL BE KING OVER ALL THE EARTH; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one.”}}
While we are in Zechariah 14 there is a verse that is interesting because of the way things are panning out right now in the Middle East (The setting is in Messiah’s rule in the Millennium) – {{Zechariah 14:21 “And every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the LORD of hosts; and all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them. AND THERE WILL NO LONGER BE A CANAANITE IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD OF HOSTS IN THAT DAY.”}}
The Canaanites were the inhabitants of the land who moved in to Abraham’s land when Israel was in Egypt for 400 years, and the book of Joshua details some of the campaigns that Israel had to accomplish because of what the Lord said, which was to subdue the whole land. What was the whole land? The whole land of Israel has never been claimed but when Jesus returns, it will be. This is the whole land God gave – {{Genesis 15:18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “TO YOUR DESCENDANTS I HAVE GIVEN THIS LAND FROM THE RIVER OF EGYPT AS FAR AS THE GREAT RIVER, THE RIVER EUPHRATES:”}}. That is not obscure, nor figurative to be wiped away; to excise verses from the bible! It is truth!
The Palestinians are broadly equivalent to the Canaanites. Palestinians have never been an ethnic group but a collection of violent people, and have never had a State! The Philistines occupied the Mediterranean coast west of Israel.
In the Millennium the whole land from the Nile to the Euphrates will be Israel over which Messiah rules. The Prime Minister of Australia – Albanese and his Cabinet, unilaterally declared they would recognise a Palestinian State. That is because it is what Iran and Palestine want as that will be the means of destroying Israel. No other nation has been as bold as Albanese has been in support of Palestinians, and without the general support of the Australian citizens. Albanese hates Israel, really hates Israel. That is why he did that.
THE PARTS – THE WOMAN; THE THREE MEASURES; THE MEAL
Before we come to an examination of the parts of the parable we have a reminder again of the key verse –
{{Matthew 13:33 “He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like LEAVEN which a WOMAN took and hid in THREE PECKS of MEAL until it was ALL LEAVENED.”}}
We will break this parable up to consider the words that are capitalised. Then we will see the relationship to the fourth church of Asia Minor, that to Thyatira. Then we will see its application in the unfolding of Church History.
[1]. In the last message we already have done the LEAVEN. Leaven as a type in the bible is always evil. It can not be evil in 9 cases out of 10 but good in the tenth. That flies in the face of biblical consistency. It is like saying the light of God is good in 9 cases, but in the tenth it is evil. We must be careful with conclusions drawn.
A number of commentators avoid trying to allocate the woman, the meal, and the three measures to anything specific, and leave any interpretation open to an individual’s own decision. I find that unsatisfactory. It is possible that any difficulty in arriving at any conclusion comes through trying to force this parable into the leaven being good. When you have the wrong basis to begin with then the meanings get warped. That being the case, then it is confusing to try to give meanings.
For example Bishop Ellicott in Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers, this is stated, [[ “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven - The parable sets forth the working of the Church of Christ on the world, but not in the same way as that of the Mustard Seed,” ]]. Then he proceeds to speak about permeation of the good through the world. That is the exact opposite of what leaven is. I do not have to tell anyone the world is getting more evil and corrupt and more dangerous. If leaven was good and godliness that are spreading as the meaning of the parable, then it has been a gigantic failure.
In his considerable commentary, McLaren takes the same view of the good working of leaven (The capital letters are mine for emphasis - ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven.’
[[ “Now of course, leaven is generally in Scripture taken as a symbol of evil or corruption. For example, the preliminary to the Passover Feast was the purging of the houses of the Israelites of every scrap of evil ferment, and the bread which was eaten on that Feast was prescribed to be unleavened. BUT FERMENTATION WORKS ENNOBLING AS WELL AS CORRUPTION, AND OUR LORD LAYS HOLD UPON THE OTHER POSSIBLE USE OF THE METAPHOR.” ]] He sees leaven’s fermentation as good, but leaven as a scripture type is never good.
Let us state what we do know. [a]. The leaven is evil always. [b]. It does a permeating work in the world, but not for good. By “the world” this must especially mean the church in the world. The primary application of leaven is to the professing church, and the secondary application is to the general world.
Now let us move to the symbols –
[2]. We come to the WOMAN and here we have great deal of speculation.
[[THE WOMAN]]
It being a woman's work to knead, it seems an unthinking refinement to say that "the woman" here represents the Church, as the instrument of depositing the leaven. One problem is the initial basis. If you begin with the premise that leaven does a good work then you have to wrangle the woman and 3 measures into something not correct.
The woman is NOT the Church. A number of Protestant commentators claim the woman to be either the church, or the ministers of the Gospel. They try likening the woman to the woman in Revelation 12. There are even those who associate the woman with the mention of the scarlet woman in Revelation 17. The whore of Babylon is not the woman. Nor does it represent the Roman Catholic Church.
I will not open this up any further but the woman of Revelation 12 is Israel, and the woman of Revelation 17 is the great Babylonian religious system of Antichrist in the Tribulation. There is no relationship whatever to this parable.
I believe the woman in the leaven parable is merely the agent who begins the process of the leavening. She is no special woman.
One commentator, Gill, bounces around the subject but generally is closer to the mark than many others.
Quoting Gill here. I am adding this to show one idea among so many –
[[ “There is a late ingenious interpretation (c) of this parable, which, since the word "leaven" is elsewhere always used in a bad sense, deserves consideration; according to which, this parable expresses not the spread of truth, but of error; by "the woman" is thought to be meant, the Apocalyptic woman, the woman spoken of in the Revelations, the whore of Rome, the mother of harlots; and the "leaven" which she took, the leaven of false doctrine and discipline; by her "hiding" it, the private, secret, artful methods, false doctrines, and bad discipline were introduced, and the gradual progress thereof; and by the "three measures of meal", the bishops and doctors of the church, among whom this leaven was spread, and who were fermented with it; particularly those three bishops of Rome at first, Sosymus, John the faster, and Boniface the third; which by degrees spread itself, until the whole Christian world was affected with it; and for a long time lay hidden and undiscovered, till the Lord raised up Wyclif, John Huss, Jerom of Prague, Luther, and other reformers. The reader may choose which interpretation he likes best.” ]]
The names of Semiramus (wife of Nimrod, and the whole Babylonian system of evil) and Jezebel, sometimes get mentioned but that is a consideration too far.
THREE MEASURES
Three measures - These were small measures but the particular amount is of no consequence to the story; nor is anything to be inferred from the fact that three are mentioned though many fanciful interpretations have been given.
According to Theodore of Mopsuestia, they denote the Jews, Samaritans and Greeks; Augustine and Melanchthon suppose them to signify the heart, the soul, and the spirit.
Nor does it yield much satisfaction to understand the "three measures of meal" of that threefold division of our nature into "spirit, soul, and body," alluded to in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, or of the threefold partition of the world among the three sons of Noah (Genesis 10:32), as some do such as in, [[“This appears to refer to the whole human race, which consists of three measures, having spread over the earth from the three sons of Noah.”]]
Also erroneous is this statement – [[ By the "three measures of meal", are meant the elect of God who, because of their nature and quality, are compared with meal, or fine flour, and that because of that of which it is made, wheat, to a corn of which Christ is compared, John 12:24, and by whose grace the saints are what they are, justified, regenerated, and sanctified; and on account of the manner it becomes so, as by grinding the wheat. ]] That view follows on wrongly when the leaven is made to be good.
Another view is that the three measures are - CORRUPTED HUMANITY THAT THE GOSPEL PERMEATES. Nonsense. Just look at the world. It has not become a whole lump of conversion and purity. Where in the world has a whole town or nation been fully leavened by the gospel?
*** [three measures] Literally, three seahs. In Genesis 18:6, Abraham bids Sarah “make ready three ‘seahs’ of fine meal, knead it and make cakes upon the hearth.”
*** (three measures) As much as was generally carried by a man, or taken for baking, at once; and Jerome on this passage, equivalent to one and a half Roman bushels
??The 3 measures of meal = the entire human family??. This happens because someone said it back 500 years, even earlier under Catholic exposition, and everyone just copies it. Someone’s view 500 years ago should not become the golden rule of interpretation. Wait on the Lord for the division of the word.
Here are a few comments from Arno C Gaebelein:- [[[ It is such a general accepted view that but few can tear themselves loose from it, and see the true teaching our Lord gives in this fourth parable. One hears so continually statements about the gospel leaven and prayers that the “good” leaven may do its work, etc., that another explanation of this parable puts one at odds with the bulk of Christian believers.
If we then approach this parable with a candid mind, laying aside any prejudice and preconceived ideas and are willing to know and follow the truth at any cost, we shall certainly find the truth and with it great joy and peace.
Again if the gospel is leaven and this leaven is to permeate the whole mass of humanity, we have a contradiction. Does the gospel really work like leaven? How does leaven work? It is put into meal and then it works by itself. That is all. Simply put it there, leave it alone, and it leavens the whole lump (converts the whole lump to evil). ]]] End of quote.
The gospel and salvation does not work that way. Jesus did not “just put it there” and it started to spread throughout the world converting it FOR ALL THE MEAL (FLOUR) WAS PERMEATED AND MADE A CONSISTENT PRODUCT.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE TYPES – WOMAN, MEASURES AND MEAL
The wrong meanings have become accepted. The wrong meaning of the leaven is the gospel. The wrong meaning of the woman is the church. The wrong meaning of the meal is humility. Through permeation, the gospel leavens the whole world and all is converted by the assimilating power of the gospel. We know that to be so far from the truth, that it is not funny. Therefore the perceived view is wrong. The wheat and tares of the 2nd parable does not see world conversion for the parable excludes it.
Meal comes from wheat. Meal is the product of the good seed, the pure wheat and can not represent humanity with all its sin. The three measures stand for purity and can have no evil meaning. Christ is the grain of wheat, good, pure and the bread of life. It was what was good that got corrupted by the leaven.
*** What this Parable of the Leaven teaches is that over time evil got into the professing church and did its evil work until all was affected. There was a period in Church History when that happened and we come to that later on. ***
