"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45,46).
The popular and current interpretation of this parable claims Christianity is like a man who earnestly desires and diligently seeks salvation. Ultimately his efforts are rewarded by his finding Christ, the Pearl of great price. Having found Him, as presented in the Gospel, the sinner sells all that he has; that is to say, he forsakes all that the flesh holds dear, he abandons his worldly companions, he surrenders his will, he dedicates his life to God; and in that way, secures his salvation. The awful thing is that this interpretation is the one that is taught and preached in almost every church today. That is what is taught in the great majority of the denominational Sunday school periodicals.
What is wrong in this interpretation? First, we are told this parable teaches that the sinner earnestly and diligently seeks salvation. But the truth is there has never been a single sinner on this earth who took the initiative in seeking salvation. He ought to seek salvation because he needs more than anything else he desires. He ought to seek salvation because God commands him forsake his wicked way and evil thoughts and return to the Lord. He is to seek the Lord while He may be found. But fallen man in his natural state never does and never will seek the Lord or His salvation.
When Adam sinned, and in the cool of the day he heard the voice of the Lord in the garden what did he do? Did he cast himself at His feet and cry for mercy? He didn’t seek the Lord he tried to flee from the Lord. He didn’t seek the Lord, the Lord sought him. Did Abram seek the Lord? There is nothing in the Scriptures to indicate that Abraham sought God. However it is revealed in the Scriptures he was a heathen, his parents were idolaters worshiping other gods and the Lord suddenly appeared to him in that heathen city Ur. Abraham had not been seeking God; it was God who sought him. And thus it has been all through the ages. When the Savior came here He declared, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). He didn’t come because that which was lost was seeking Him.
This is not a denial there are Christians who say there was a time when they sought the Lord and found Him. What caused them to seek the Lord? It was the wooing of the Holy Spirit. The sheep don’t seek the Shepherd, the Shepherd seek the sheep; and having sought the sheep, He creates in the heart of that sheep a desire for the Shepherd then it begins to seek Him.
The claim this parable teaches the natural man, an unconverted sinner, seeking Christ, "the Pearl of great price," is contrary to what is taught in the Scriptures. In Romans 3:11 we are told “There is none that seeks after God." There are multitudes that seek after pleasure and wealth, but there is none that seeks after "God." He is the great Seeker.
The popular interpretation of this parable claims having sought and found Christ, the Pearl of great price, the sinner sells all that he has and buys it. How can this be true? He has nothing to sell. He has no righteousness, Isaiah 64:6 says that all our righteousness is as "filthy rags." In him there is no goodness. Romans 3:12 tells us "There is none that does good, no, not one." He has no faith. Faith is God’s "gift" (Ephesians 2:8). The sinner has nothing to sell.
According to the popular interpretation of this parable when the sinner sells all that he has and buys the one pearl of great price, he buys salvation. If there is one thing taught more clearly than anything else in the Scriptures it is that salvation cannot be purchased by man: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us" (Titus 3:5). It is a "gift" it is not to be sold or bartered.
The first thing we need to do is identify the merchant. The merchant is the man that sowed the good Seed in the field in the first parable. He is the landowner who had tares sowed among His wheat. He is the man who found the treasure hidden in the field. The "man" referred to in verse 24 at the beginning of the second parable is Christ, and the "man" in this parable, the "merchant" is the Lord Jesus.
The parable begins by telling us a Merchant set His heart upon this pearl. The pearl represents His church in its entirety, and that people, that church, the Lord Jesus desired. This is something the human mind cannot comprehend. What is there in us poor, fallen, depraved, sinful creatures the Lord Jesus would desire? Nothing. It is the love in the heart of the Lord Jesus. His love for us is expressed in the promise He made to the disciples. He would prepare a place for them and He will come again and take them to the place He has prepared so that they may be with Him. Our Lord Jesus will not be satisfied until He has His own blood-bought people around Himself. This parable reveals the desire of Jesus, the pearl.
The second thing we are told in this parable it is considered a pearl of great value. When we consider our natural state it is beyond our comprehension how it is possible our Lord Jesus sees us as having great value in His sight. His suffering and death on the cross reveals the great value He has put on us. The Merchant not only desired this pearl, and considered it to be one of great value He sold all that He had. If it is beyond our comprehension how it is possible our Lord Jesus sees us as having great value how can we ever, in this life, fully understand what it means He sold everything He had to buy this pearl of great value. He who was rich for our sakes He became poor, poorer than any of us have ever been. So poor that He occupied a manger, that one day we might occupy a mansion. So poor that He had not where to lay His head, in order that you and I, who are amongst His favored ones, might rest our heads forever on His sacred bosom. "He who was rich for your sakes became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich."
In the fifth parable the man found a hidden treasure. In this parable the merchant seeks fine pearls. The distinction between the two is one represent God’s chosen people, Israel the other the “taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name” (Acts 15:14). Paul told the Ephesians, "And He came and preached peace to you who were afar away, and peace to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:17). Spiritually Adam’s entire race was "far off" from Him. Through Abraham the Jews were "near" but both the Jews and the Gentiles needed the word of peace preached to them. When Christ became incarnate: the Jews had an outward covenant relationship with God, they had the Word of God in their hands and the temple of God in their midst. In this parable of the pearl it is the Gentiles that not only needed to be found but they needed to be "sought!" They were "far away" from God in every way.
When the Merchant found the pearl of great value He purchased it with His precious blood as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. It was at the Cross that He bought the pearl, and the price that He paid was His own precious blood.
We are told in this parable the Merchant was seeking fine pearls and when He found one of great value He purchased it. This does not mean He hadn’t purchased pearls prior to this one. The Old Testament saints are one the pearls the Merchant had. In this parable the focus is on one pearl, in particular, the unity of God’s saints of this present age. "In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, for we are all one. (Galatians 3:28). Why is this unity represented by a pearl? It is a fact a pearl is the only gem whose unity cannot be broken without destroying it. A diamond can be cut into several pieces. A lump of gold can be divided into several pieces. But if a pearl is divided nothing is left. The pieces are worthless. It is destroyed. A pearl is a good symbol for the unity of the saints of this age.
Unlike diamonds and other gems as well as gold a pearl is the product of a living creature. It is also the result of suffering. Down in the depths of the ocean there lives a little animal encased in a shell; we call it an oyster. One day a foreign substance, a grain of sand, intrudes, and pierces its side. Now, God has endowed that animal with the faculty of self-preservation, like He has all others of His creatures, and it exudes, a slimy substance called nacre and covers the wound, repeating the process again and again. One layer after another of that nacre or mother-of-pearl is cast out by that little animal on the wound in its side, until ultimately there is built up what eventuates in a pearl. How wonderful and accurate is this symbol.
The Church, the saints of this age are the fruitage of the suffering of Christ. The pearl, we may say, is the answer to the injury that was inflicted upon the animal. In other words, it is the offending particle that ultimately becomes the object of beauty: that which injured the oyster becomes the precious gem. The very thing that injured the animal, the little grain of sand that intruded, is ultimately clothed with a beauty that is not its own and covered with the comeliness of the one that it injured. The Author of the Bible and the Savior of our souls the Regulator of everything in nature saw to it when He created the oyster, that it should furnish an appropriate type and figure of His Church.
The pearl is an object that is formed slowly and gradually. It does not come into existence in a single day. There is a tedious process of waiting while the pearl is being slowly but surely formed. And so it has been with the Church. For twenty centuries that which the pearl is the figure and type, has been in process of formation by the power and grace of God. Just as the oyster covered the wound in its side and that which pierced it with one layer after another of the beautiful nacre, constantly repeating the process, so out of each generation of men on earth God has called a few and added them to that Church which He is now building for His Son.
Who would imagine the Lord would use something that had a lowly origin as a pearl to be a symbol of His Church. That beautiful pearl originally had its home in the depths of the sea, amid its mire and filth, for that is where oysters congregate. They are the scavengers of the ocean. Down in the ocean’s depths, amidst the mire, that precious gem was formed. This should remind us of the lowly origin of the Church. It should humble us that we who have by sovereign grace been made members of Christ, had by nature our origin in the filth and mire and ruin of the fall.
The forming of the pearl is not seen by the eyes of man. It is a secret formation; none but God witnesses its building up. In like manner, that Church which Christ is now building, that body of His which is now in process of formation, is unknown and unseen by the world. I am not speaking of the visible churches, I am talking about that Church, which is now being built (Ephesians 2:21; 4:16), and which as it is being formed, like the oyster, is unseen by the eye of man. Our life is hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). Significant, too, is the fact that just as the pearl is not found in the mines of earth, but in the sea so the Church of this age is composed mainly of Gentiles symbolized by the "waters" in Revelation 17:15.
In the eyes of God the Church is an object of value and beauty, an object hidden from the eyes of men. It is being fashioned into a precious gem, which shall reflect the light of heaven and become an object of beauty and admiration in the eyes of all who see it (2nd Thessalonians 1:10). The Lord Jesus will "present to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but it shall be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27). When He returns to the earth itself, He will bring with him His complete and beautified Church and it will be an object of admiration to all who behold it. To a wondering universe Christ will yet display His glorified Church.
The symbol Jesus selected to represents the honorable and exalted future of the Church. That little object in the ocean’s depths, unseen by the eye of men, which is being gradually built up, ultimately has a position and a place in the diadem of the king. That is the destiny of the pearl of great price becomes the jewel of royalty; for this it has been made. And so we are told, "When Christ shall appear, and then shall we also appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:4). In the ages to come He will show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us (Ephesians 2:7). Many of God’s people today may be poor and despised and hated by the prominent and great of this world, but just as surely as the pearl of great price of lowly origin ultimately is put in a position of dignity, honor and glory, so those who now are last shall be first.
This parable shows us once and for all the utter impossibility and the needlessness of attempting to purchase our salvation, of seeking to win God’s approval by some works and doings of our own. The pearl in this parable is not a Savior whom the sinner has to buy but by grace are we saved through faith and that not of ourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works lest we should boast. By the grace of God we have been saved. We are the purchased property of another. We are "bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:20). We belong to Christ. Are we living day by day as though we realize it? Is it true that we have only one aim, only one desire, only one ambition; all our efforts concentrated on the honoring, obeying, magnifying of Christ? May God help all His people to realize in their souls that they are not their own: no longer free, no longer have the right to plan their own life, to say what they will do or what they will not do. Our answer to these ought to be, "For to me to live is Christ."
