Today we continue our study in the Word of God in Matthew chapter 13 and verse 44. Matthew chapter 13 and verse 44. I never cease to be amazed when I study the words of the Lord Jesus, how much riches he can put into a single verse. In fact, if you look at verse 44, the whole parable is in one sentence.
The previous parable we studied was the parable of the leaven. Today we come to the parable of what is often called the treasure in the field and so forth. As we go along, we may find maybe a more comprehensive name for this parable. Matthew 13, verse 44. This is what the Lord Jesus says: "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."
Now that's a very short parable. But how much riches are in there? Let's try to look at the picture. The Lord Jesus says the kingdom of God is like this man who is walking through a field. Maybe he's working in the field. Maybe he's just walking through. All this is not told us. Too many commentators have assumed too many things. They have assumed that this man is working in the field. The Lord doesn't say so. It may be just that he is passing through the field. But either way, it doesn't matter too much.
Let us for a moment just assume that he is walking through the field. As he walks through the field, he's looking around, and he observes something there that might look like a rock, maybe a stone. But it looks a little too smooth. His attention is attracted by this object in the field. He goes over and has a careful look. What does he discover? Surely it's no rock, no stone. In fact, it is a jar — an earthenware vessel. He knows what that means, because in those days, earthenware vessels, earthen jars, maybe a reasonable size depending on how much you want to put inside it, were used to store treasure.
The treasure was usually coins — maybe silver coins, maybe gold coins — or jewels of one kind or another, precious stones, things of value. These things were put inside the jar, because the jar, being of earthenware and often used to hold water, was of course waterproof, and therefore served as very good protection to whatever was inside it. These coins or jewels, whatever they are — just generally called treasures — were stuffed into the jar. The jar would then be closed, plugged, sealed, and then buried in the ground.
As I explained to some of you before in another connection, in those days you didn't have banks where you had a special safe deposit box. There was no such thing. So what are you going to do when you want to store up some riches, when you want to hide some riches? You can't go to the local bank, as I said, because they haven't got a strong room with a safe deposit box where you can put your diamonds and whatever it is you want to put in there. So where are you going to put it? Money is always uncertain, as you know, in this world of inflation. To put things in money is always dangerous. The usual thing in times of inflation is that people switch from currency, from money, to objects of value that will be lasting, such as gold. You have heard that the price of gold is going up all the time. At one time it used to be $35, and it went up to $100, now it's approaching $200 or whatever it is, and some people say it will go up to $300. Why? Because money has a way of devaluing. It keeps going down, and people don't trust money. So they want to put it into valuables. People buy jewels as an investment. They buy diamonds. They find these things do not lose their value. They might go down for a while, but in the long term the value always goes up. What is more, these kinds of things are easier to carry around. If you buy a house, you can't carry a house around. You can live in it, but people don't want to invest in that kind of thing.
In Palestine especially, where there were constant wars — you buy a house and you have a war, and your enemy comes and burns your house down, and you lose everything. So you don't invest in property in wartime. If you have lived in wartime situations, such as we have done in China, you will know that a house can be worth next to nothing in wartime. Nobody wants to buy a house because it's a liability, it's dangerous. The enemy comes and bombs the place, or fighting takes place, and the whole thing is ruined. But you also don't want to invest in money. You don't want to keep paper money. Those of us who used to be in Shanghai used to know: if you get your salary, you best rush off to the money dealers quickly, to change the paper money into silver dollars. Because if you don't change to silver dollars, you're going to be left with a whole pile of paper money which is not going to be enough to buy yourself one big loaf of bread or something of this sort. In fact, you would be paid with a suitcase full of money, and you would rush off with this suitcase to the nearest silver coin dealer, or gold dealer if you could get gold — usually you can't get gold. Immediately you exchange your paper money for that which is of value.
So what do you do? These people did the same thing. They looked for security. They stored their valuables in this earthenware thing, and they went to a field, dug into the field, and hid their money there. Of course, it was important that you could remember where you put your money. As I said in another connection, it's often you have to remember: it is 20 steps from this tree and 13 steps from the oak tree in this direction. But if anybody goes and cuts down the tree, you have an awful big problem, because where are you going to find your treasure if the landmarks are gone?
This is the reason why there were lots of lost treasures — treasures which the owners could not find anymore. They got lost. They hid it, and they couldn't find it again. Or the owners were killed in war. Or they became captives in war and were carried away, deported to another place — which often happened with the Jews. The treasure they could not come back to claim again. Others hid the treasure and never told anybody else about it. They got sick and died, or they got killed, and the treasure was lost. So for whatever reason, these hidden treasures are still coming to light through the archaeologists. Sometimes people are digging in the field, time and again they find treasure, even today. Sometimes the bulldozers are clearing ground in Israel, and they come across hidden treasure in the ground — Roman coins, or gold coins, various valuables hidden in this way.
The Lord Jesus is telling the people about a situation which was very common in those days — not common today, because we don't normally hide treasures in this fashion. But in those days it was very common for people to be working in a field and come across an ancient treasure, maybe hidden hundreds of years ago, or maybe hidden more recently by some person who either couldn't find it, as I say, or he himself got lost, or captured, or killed.
This person is walking through the field. Many times, if the thing was hidden in a place, the rains might wash the earth away, so revealing a little bit of the top part of the jar. A person then might chance upon it, seeing this thing that looks a bit like a stone. Of course, as you know, an earthenware jug in the ground might look like a stone, or it might look just like a broken piece of potsherd sticking out of the ground. If you go to Palestine, you will find lots of broken pieces of pots — they're all over the place. You might not take notice. But this person noticed this thing, and he went to have a closer look. As he took a closer look, he found this is a vessel, a sealed vessel. He knows what that means — that's treasure.
Or if the case is that the person is working in the field, then as he was digging or plowing in the field, he strikes upon an object. Immediately others might think it was just a stone. But he stops to have a look at it, and he finds treasure. What does he do? He goes — of course, he is filled with joy. To find treasure is not something you do every day. Sometimes we walk on the street and we find a ten cents lying on the ground. It's not bad. Sometimes even 25 cents. In fact, since coming to Canada, I seem to find an awful lot of coins. In England, people don't seem to lose coins. I can't ever remember finding a single coin in England. It must be that the English have not too many coins to lose. But coming to Canada, I seem to be finding coins all the time. I'm taking a walk and I find 25 cents, and ten cents, and so on, all the time. But it's not every day that you find a hidden treasure. Oh no. So he is filled with joy.
What does he do? He goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Now immediately there are one or two legal questions we have to ask. The question is: why didn't he just pick up the jar and walk away with it? Or pick up this box or vessel, whatever it is, and just dig it up? Clearly, to dig it up — it was partly concealed, partly revealed — but to dig it up would not be a moment's work. It would take a little while. But you would have a legal problem. To be digging in somebody's field constitutes trespassing. You could be taken to court for that. What is more, if you are caught digging that vessel and you are caught at it, the owner of the field will not only take you to court for trespassing, but you will lose the treasure to him. Because you have no right of claim upon that treasure so long as the field is his and you are trespassing on his field.
Once you understand the legal situation, you will see why he does not dig up the treasure right there and then. Because even if he took it out then and nobody noticed it, if he was questioned where he found the treasure, and he has to say, "In so-and-so's field," the question arises: who gave you the right to dig in his field? You would again be caught on a charge of trespassing. In fact, trespassing in this case would amount to stealing.
But there is another side to the matter. Does not the treasure belong to the owner of the field by right? Under Jewish law, it does not belong to the owner of the field. This is the other side of the legal question you have to understand. Under Jewish law, that treasure does not belong to the owner of the field, because when he bought that field, he bought simply the field. He did not know that there was any treasure in it. He could not have bought what he did not know was there. That is Jewish law. So you cannot claim that treasure as yours because you didn't even know it was there. How can you claim it to be yours? That is the way Jewish law reasons.
Therefore, this treasure does not belong to the owner of the field — unless he himself found it. But since in this case it is somebody else's field, made clear by the fact that the person who finds it actually goes and buys the field, so it is not his field. To summarize this legal point very briefly: it is very clear he does everything correctly. He understands that the treasure does not belong to the field or to the owner of the field under Jewish law. But he also understands that he may not go and dig up that treasure, because to do so constitutes trespassing on someone else's property. Sometimes a path does go through a field, as you will see often in the Gospels. You find a path going through a field. The disciples are walking through a field and they pluck the ears of corn, which is allowed under Jewish law. You may walk through a field. But you may not go and work that field. Digging the field constitutes trespassing. So the only way he can now claim this treasure in a legal fashion, in a correct fashion, would be to go and buy that field. There is no other way. Once we understand the legal position, we see that everything is done correctly. There is nothing immoral or wrong in this matter at all.
Now let us come to the meaning of this parable. What then does the parable mean? What is the Lord Jesus saying to us? When we look at the parable, there are actually only two alternatives to start with. Either this hidden treasure is the Lord Jesus, who is found by us — we find Jesus in the field, that is, in the world — or alternatively, the only other alternative is that Jesus finds us. We are the treasure in the field that Jesus finds as he comes into the world. Which of these two would be correct?
I would like to say at the outset that expounding the Bible is not a matter of personal interpretation. For any of you who are not familiar with Bible exposition — and I have done Bible exposition for a great many years — let me tell you, it is not a matter of opinion. The Word of God is not to be decided by one person liking to take it this way and another person liking to take it that way. There are correct and strict procedures for expounding the Word of God, just as in any legal document. It is not a matter of private interpretation of a legal clause. There are rules for expounding what a statement in the law means. In the same way, it is not a matter of guesswork, or simply that you happen to like it this way and I happen to like it that way.
Let me tell you that the general trend today is the view that this treasure is Jesus, and that we are the people who happen somehow to find this treasure in the field. That is the general view. I would also like to tell you that that was the view that I held for a great deal of the time. I thought that this was the right view for some time. Having studied and analyzed the situation more carefully since then, I find that I have to depart from this view. I am going to tell you the reasons why, and I am going to let you be the judge of the matter. You will see, again like last week, the evidence is so overwhelming that it is not by any means a matter of a fine balance. The evidence is overwhelming. I ask myself, why did I not see it before? The reason why I did not see it before is because of my prejudice. I am going to confess to you my prejudice, so that you may see that it is our prejudices, or what we have been indoctrinated with before, that closes our eyes to the meaning of God's Word.
Let us consider the problems very briefly, because I want to get on to the meaning of this verse. It is so wonderful and so rich once you begin to see what it really means. Let's begin with the view that this treasure is Christ himself. When I was tackling this parable, I worked on both assumptions, honestly and faithfully, exegetically, to work it out to its conclusions. I said, "I don't have any axe to grind. I don't mind who is right or who is wrong. I just want to know what the Word of God says. I am on nobody's side in this matter. Just let the Lord speak to me, and may I be so open that I can hear what he has to say." But I discovered that I had more prejudice than I realized. That's what I like to confess to you.
Let's begin with the view that this treasure is Jesus, and that we are the ones who find this treasure. As I said, that was the view I once held. I tried to work it through exegetically one more time recently, but I couldn't. It would not go through. This is what I find with the Word of God: when an exegesis is wrong, you simply cannot get it through. You have to force the issue through, because it will simply not conform to an accurate exposition of it.
Let me tell you what I mean by this. Look at this parable. Where are the problems? The problems are enormous when we take the view that Jesus is the treasure. First of all, it makes this parable simply a repetition of the next one. The two parables say nothing different. The next one is the parable of the pearl of great price. So you simply have two parables saying the same thing. Now what does the Lord Jesus want to say two parables saying the same thing for? Does he just happen to like to repeat himself? That is the first point. That in itself is not a fatal objection, though it is an exegetical objection, because I do not find that the Lord Jesus ever wastes words to say again what doesn't need saying again.
Secondly, the objection is this: what is the field? The more you realize this, the more is the problem. In Matthew 13, verse 38, only a few verses before that, we find that the field is the world. So we find that Jesus is hidden — remember this, hidden — in the world. The more you think about it, the more meaningless this gets. First of all, last week we saw that God does not hide Jesus in the world. Because who would hide Jesus? Jesus the treasure — somebody hid that treasure, so that somebody must be God. God hides Jesus. Where? In the world. At first sight, that sounds plausible enough, but not when you begin to understand Bible exposition. We saw last week that God does not hide the gospel, and he does not hide his salvation. He wants us to be saved. What's the idea of hiding salvation? Jesus is the Savior. Do you find anywhere in the Bible the teaching that Jesus is hiding in the world? I cannot find it. If you can find it, perhaps you can tell me where.
This is the reason for the prejudice. We saw last week that the commentators took the leaven, which we saw in the Bible always means something evil, yet for some inexplicable reason they decided to say that the leaven is the kingdom of God, and that God hides his kingdom in the world — for no exegetical reason, and nowhere can you prove this. They for some reason decided that God hides the kingdom in the world. We saw that God does nothing of the kind. Nowhere does he hide the kingdom. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, verses 3 and 4, that if our gospel is hidden, it is not because God hides it, but it is hidden from those who perish because the god of this world has blinded their eyes. He says our gospel is not hidden. If it is hidden, it is the god of this world who hides it from you. Let's not attribute to God what Satan does. If there is any concealed aspect of the kingdom of God, it is not because God conceals it. It is because Satan conceals the kingdom from our eyes by seeking to blind our eyes. That is the only teaching in the Bible. Nowhere can I find anywhere that God's kingdom is concealed.
Jesus came into the world to be the light of the world, the sun in the world. In John chapter 8, verse 12, he came to reveal God's light, not to conceal it. The light of the world is not hidden. In fact, that's what he says: "No one lights a lamp to put it under a bushel. I do not light a lamp to hide it, but to give light to those who are in the house." He has said all these things. It is so clear to us. Even if Jesus wanted to hide himself, he couldn't. That's what the Gospel says. In Mark chapter 7, verse 24, he tried for a brief moment to hide himself physically from those people who were looking for him to seek the benefit of his miracles. But what does Mark 7, verse 24 say? "He could not be hidden." He could not be hidden. Such is the nature of Jesus that you couldn't hide him, and he couldn't hide himself if he tried. The Gospel makes it so plain to us that first of all, God doesn't try to hide — he lights a lamp not to put it under a bushel, but to let the light go forth. But even for a brief moment, when Jesus tried to conceal himself from the people who sought him for the wrong reasons, even then he could not be hidden.
How plain is the meaning. Nowhere in the Bible can I find anything about Jesus being hidden. I challenge you to find that. No. He came to be the light of the world. In the great feast, he stood up and cried aloud for everyone to hear: "Come to me, all you that thirst, and I will give you the water of life." He stands up time and again and cries aloud, and he says to the people, "I stood in the public places everywhere. You heard me teaching in the temple" — the most public place you can get. "You can't get more public than that. The temple is where everybody goes. And you didn't arrest me then. You come in the night to arrest me. I do nothing in the dark." We saw all this last week.
So we find this view about Jesus being hidden in the world — there is simply no biblical foundation to stand on. No way can you exegetically demonstrate this.
Now the problem gets even worse as we go on. For we find what happens is this: the person who finds the treasure, discovers the treasure, actually goes and conceals it. Look at the parable again. He finds the treasure, and finding the treasure, he covers it up. Exegetically, you can do absolutely nothing with that at all. It means: I find Jesus, and I hide Jesus from everybody else. Then I go and sell everything I have and claim this treasure for myself. What does that correspond to? What sense can you make of this — that having found the treasure, you conceal it again? When you became a Christian, did you do anything like that? Did you conceal the treasure?
Stier, the German commentator, has great problems with all of this. He tries, most unsuccessfully, to wrestle with this problem. He says, "Well, actually, we conceal him in our heart." So the field — one moment is the world, and the next moment becomes our heart. This shows the kind of twisting and contortion and juggling you have to resort to to try to make some sense of it. He's hidden in the field, in the world — not in your heart. It's in the world that he is hidden. Let's keep our facts straight.
The problem gets even worse as you go on. For having hidden it back in the world, now he goes and sells everything he had. What for? To buy the treasure? No. To buy the world. To buy the field. Now what exactly is that going to correspond to in the Christian experience? You discover Jesus, you hide him back in the world, and you sell everything you have to buy the field, the world. Exegetically, the problem is insurmountable.
Stier, the German commentator, again tries to wrestle with this, and again gets himself into an awful mess. What does he do? He says that the field now is the church. Well, nowhere in the Bible is the field the church. So now you just talk through your hat. You don't produce any more evidence, and you just keep talking. We saw that just a few verses before, the Lord Jesus has already told us that the field is the world. What gives us the right to say that the field is the church? And what does it mean to buy the church — that you give up everything and buy the church? Is that any kind of meaning? He says then you appropriate the church. Well, we don't appropriate the church. The church appropriates us. We become part of the church. The church does not become my church. I become part of that church. No way can you make any sense out of this by this view.
In fact, this is the greatest stumbling block. What is more, the field is never, as I say, the church. Nowhere in the Scriptures. The field is the world. And what is the church? In the previous parable, we saw: the church is the wheat. The wheat is the church, and the tares, the darnel, are sown among the wheat. That is, the church is the wheat. The crop is the church. The kingdom of God — not the field. The field is left behind. It is the crop that is taken away at the harvest, not the field. As you go on in this way, the only other thing the commentators can do, as they often do, is to ignore the matter of the world and say, "Well, let's not press every point. Let's just drop them out." Now that's fine if it suits your purpose to drop the points and not press the point. The fact is, when you look at the rest of the parables, in fact the two foundation parables, we saw that every aspect of the parable contained meaning. What is more, the field is one of those aspects of the parable where a definition is actually given to it. So what gives us the right to drop out an element which has already been defined?
You can see how great are the problems when you try to understand it in this way. The problems are insurmountable. So the parable becomes like this: if you take that Jesus is the treasure, then Jesus is the treasure that you discover in the world. Then having discovered him, you conceal him back in the world again, whatever that's supposed to mean. Then you go away and sell all that you have, and what do you do? You go and buy the field — the world. Now that's an impossible situation. You can make no sense of this except by distorting the various elements and trying to make them mean something which they do not mean in the Lord's own definition.
But now having dealt with that, let us look the other way around. Then the riches comes forth. The meaning pours out in abundance when, in fact, what is happening here is not that Jesus is the treasure, in this particular parable — we may find him to be that in the next parable — but that we, that is, we, the church, are that treasure in the field.
I said to you that I confessed my blindness, or that I was blinded by doctrinal prejudice. Why? Perhaps you are blinded by the same prejudice. We simply are not accustomed to thinking of us, that is, of people, as treasures. Are we? No. The more I pondered it, the more I asked myself: why did I resist this very plain meaning of the Lord Jesus? Why did I close my mind to it? Why did I reject it? Quite simply, because of this: I was brought up as a Christian on the doctrine of original sin, on the total depravity of man. That is, man is utterly rotten, corrupt, sinful, and utterly diseased, sick, vile, rotten. So what value can there be in man who is totally depraved, who has inherited original sin, who is rotten to the core of his being, who is sick beyond remedy as far as he himself is concerned — utterly rotten and corrupt?
Now, I can see the value in a box of apples which are all good and wholesome. I can see the value of that. But could you find any value in a box of rotten apples which are rotten to the core, which are even smelly and full of stench? Well, they are worthless and rubbish. You throw them out into the garbage bin. Brothers and sisters, that is the way I was brought up to think of sinners. Was that not the way you were brought up to think?
I thank God for the words of the Lord Jesus. It is like a sword that pierces into the heart and examines your intentions and your understanding. It revealed my attitude to the unsaved. I felt humbled, ashamed of myself, when I had to confess that when I was brought up on this kind of doctrine, I regarded the unsaved people as basically diseased, rotten people who really have not much value. Not much value at all, unless God put some value into them. They have no value in themselves. How can you love them? You don't love rotten apples. They are fit only for the garbage, as we saw. You can't do anything with sinful man. Nothing you can do with sinful man. He's rotten, corrupt, to be rejected.
This kind of thinking has so penetrated the Christian, brothers and sisters, that it has the most disastrous effect upon the way we look at the non-Christian. This view is taken to its logical consequences by the Brethren, especially the Plymouth Brethren, and some of the more exclusive types of Brethren, who in fact want to be so secluded from this rotten bunch of mankind as to have absolutely nothing to do with them, lest they, as good apples, become polluted by the rotten apples. You must be absolutely segregated from them. You look with pity and condescension upon perishing mankind. Pity, yes, because they are so rotten, so bad, useless.
You combine that with a doctrine of predestination, brothers and sisters, and then you can see what's happened. What will be my attitude to the non-Christian? Nothing but utter abhorrence. They are not only rotten, but condemned by God's predestinarian purpose to the fires of hell. Any Christian who thinks like this — his attitude to the non-Christian will be one of utter contempt, if not contempt, at least one of condescension. And I, an elect of God, walk through this world of corrupt men predestined to destruction. Such a doctrine is most horrifying and disgusting in the light of scriptural teaching.
But this is the kind of doctrine I was brought up on. I thank God for the words of the Lord Jesus that revealed the spiritual arrogance of my heart. It is arrogance. It is nothing but spiritual arrogance under no other name. There's no use saying it's the grace of God and whatever. If God's grace inculcates arrogance into your heart, then God forbid that that can be called grace. I pray that God may so change my heart that I may look at people as Jesus sees them.
How does he see them? He sees them as treasure. The more I study the Lord's teaching, it strikes me amazingly. He never saw them as rotten apples. No, no. He never saw them as worthless metal. He never saw them as just so much garbage. No. He saw them as precious. Only when we can see people with Jesus' eyes, when we go out to them in love with Jesus' love, only when we can put away these corrupting doctrines which have corrupted our minds and instill subtle spiritual arrogance into our hearts — a subtle pride — and we can all say that this is all grace, you see. What kind of grace is it that makes you proud? The Israelites fell into that pit, and we pray that we may not fall in that pit, when the Israelites said, "We are the chosen of God. We are God's chosen people. We stand many cuts above this multitude — this massa damnata, this condemned mass." Strange, the words of Augustine in Latin — the words that he dared to use. Whatever he meant with that, it is a fearful phrase to use: a damned mass of people, a condemned mass. What condemned mass? They are treasure in Jesus' eyes.
When God opened my understanding to this, and I looked at the Lord's teaching again, I was amazed to realize that Jesus never regarded the lost person in this way. He never regarded the unsaved person in this way. Look at his parables in Luke chapter 15. Consider them. The first parable in Luke chapter 15 is the parable of the lost sheep. The second parable is the parable of what? The lost silver coin. The third parable is the parable of the lost son. Are any of these things valueless? The sheep is most valuable, even today, but even more so to the poor Palestinian farmer. The silver coin that the woman lost is of great value to the woman — it's part of her dowry. And what is more, if that point is not clear enough, the Lord Jesus speaks of...
# The Parable of the Lost Treasure (Part 2)
The world — to die for worthless mankind. Why? To say that God loves him is no explanation. Why does he love corrupted, rotten apples in whom there is no goodness whatsoever? It gives us no explanation whatever. "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" What a misinterpretation of Psalm 8:4. Look at Psalm 8:4 again sometime. The point of Psalm 8:4 is that God is mindful of man. That is the whole point of it. The psalmist is amazed that God is mindful of man, great as God is. Why is he mindful of man? But the fact is that he is mindful of man. The next verse, verse 5, gives us a clue: "Thou hast made him a little lower than God." No wonder he is mindful of man. After all, the explanation is given: "Thou hast made him a little lower than God." Not that much lower — he made us in his image. He wants us to be his sons and his daughters. We are precious to him. What is all this about rotten apples?
In Psalm 115, verse 12, it says, "Thou art mindful of us." You can't get more plain than that. He cares for us. He is mindful of us. We are valuable to him. This becomes even plainer in the Old Testament: "He that touches you, touches the apple of my eye." That's what you mean to me. And he says that to a nation that is rebellious, that is disobedient. They are still precious to him. In Hosea, he speaks of this disobedient and rebellious nation as his wife. Now what's more precious to a man than his wife? Of this rebellious, disobedient nation, he says, he speaks of as "my wife, that I have loved." And I will love and do everything I can to redeem them from their sins.
We see in the New Testament, the picture is no different at all. As we saw, when the Lord speaks of those who are lost, he speaks of them as things of value — as sheep, as coins of silver, and as sons. Take that parable in Luke chapter 15, verse 8, of the lost coin. There you see that Luke has individualized that parable. Each sinner individually is one lost silver coin. Now think for a moment: if you take an awful lot of lost silver coins and put them together, what have you got? You've got a treasure. A whole lost treasure. That's exactly what happens in Matthew. Matthew, contrary to Luke, who tends to individualize the point — that is, applying the matter to the individual — in Matthew, he tends to multiply it. He generally speaks of two or more. So you take a lot of lost coins and put all these lost sinners together, and you have a lost treasure.
Now we begin to get the point of the parable in Matthew. What is the hidden treasure? It's a lost treasure. You see what it means? It's a lost treasure. We saw already that the treasure is found by somebody else, because the person who originally owned it was killed, or deported, or died of sickness, or simply could not find the treasure anymore. He simply lost it. So somebody else finds it. In other words, this parable in Matthew is really the parable of the lost treasure, and is Matthew's counterpart to Luke's parable of the lost coin.
Now the meaning of it all begins to emerge. But do you see, once we can get past our prejudice that the lost person is not a valueless piece of garbage fit only for the fires of hell — no, indeed, he is most valuable to God. But you say, what about the darnel? Well, I hope you have understood the parable of the darnel. The darnel is indeed worthless. But the darnel are not unbelievers. We saw that they are false Christians. And what about the chaff? The chaff are also false Christians. Remember that chaff used to be part of the wheat. We saw that wheat in the Bible is always referring to Christians.
The meaning begins to emerge. The only kind of persons who are spiritually valueless in God's eyes are the spiritual hypocrites, for whom there is no remedy. But not the unsaved. The unsaved people, in contrast to these false, phony Christians, are precious in God's eyes. They are lost, but they are a lost treasure that God wants to reclaim, that Jesus came into this world to reclaim. Please remember well that you and I were all part of that lost treasure, whom now in his grace he has found.
The picture is exceedingly beautiful once we begin to realize the correct meaning of this whole matter. First of all, it reveals God's heart to a lost mankind. Remember this — I hope you will remember — that they are precious to him. They are a treasure, though they are lost. He has come with this very purpose to find them. That's why he came into this world: to find you and me. You and I were part of that lost treasure.
Notice further the beauty of the symbolism in this parable once we begin to see it correctly. This treasure is lost and buried in the world — buried, always a sign of death in the Bible. Dead in trespasses and sins. Lost, concealed in this world. And Jesus finds us. This is so beautiful. The more I now understand the parable as the Lord teaches, the whole meaning comes forth with significance and riches. We find, as we go on, how inexhaustible are these riches.
Let's look at this word "treasure" for a moment. We saw that the treasure consists of an earthen jar in which were hidden golden and silver coins, jewels, and so forth. The remarkable thing is that this picture is exactly what the apostle Paul uses, applying it to Christians. In 2nd Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 7, he says, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels." The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is this: the Christian is now a found treasure, whereas as a non-Christian, he was a lost treasure. "We have this treasure" — even more treasure now than before, because now, apart from those other treasures, we have the treasure of the gospel in us. We are of even greater value to God now that we have this treasure of the gospel in us. But because the Christian is of greater value — not because of himself, but because of the treasure that God put in him — does not mean that the non-Christian is not treasure. The non-Christian is exceedingly precious to God.
Notice the next thing. Let's look at the word "find." When we look at the Bible, we find time and again that the Lord Jesus seeks us. God looks for us, and he aims to find us. There is a beautiful verse in Psalm 119, verse 176, which I will read to you now. These are the beautiful words of this psalm, where the psalmist says this: "I have gone astray like a lost sheep." Does that remind you of the Lord's parables? "I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments." He is lost. He has been lost. Yet something of God's commandments is still with him. It makes me think of Paul, in his lostness, when he says, "With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh I serve the law of sin. I am a slave of sin, but I still know what is good."
Have you seen how many non-Christians often have as clear an understanding of what is right and wrong as a Christian has? Has it ever struck you that a non-Christian also has a conscience? That non-Christians also many times do deeds of kindness, and not in order to save themselves or to establish any righteousness? Non-Christians also give to the poor. In fact, without the support of non-Christians, many relief organizations would shut down. Non-Christians can also have a conscience. Let's not forget that. Paul concedes that and states it, in fact, in Romans chapter 2, that the non-Christian also has a conscience. With his mind he often seeks to do what is good, though he lives under bondage to sin. He cannot overcome the power of sin. That is precisely what his lostness is about.
There are some non-Christians, of course, whose thinking is evil continually. No one would want to deny that. But there are others who do seek, who do have a conscience. God seeks for the lost of every sort. Here the psalmist pleads, "Seek for me. I am lost." We notice this again in Ezekiel chapter 34, where God speaks again and again, in verses 11, 12, and 16, that he seeks his lost sheep. "I will seek the sheep that are lost." In verse 22, he says, "I will save my flock." To seek is to save. The purpose of the seeking is to save. All this we have seen already in Luke chapter 15, in the Lord's parables.
In every age, in every generation, God seeks people. In this generation, he is also seeking his people. He is looking for his sheep. I wonder if you are one of those. In every generation, he looks for men who are willing to serve him, to function as light in this world, to bring others to salvation. We see this beautifully stated in Ezekiel chapter 22, verse 30, where God says, "I sought for a man to stand in the breach, and I could not find one." Somebody who would come to the rescue of Israel, who would proclaim the truth to Israel, someone who would be my servant in Israel. But in that generation, he could not find one, so Israel was destroyed. Maybe today he is finding some people here today who might be those who stand in the breach to save the world, to save the church. We are saved in order to save others, not just to save our own skins.
In 1 Samuel chapter 13, verse 14, we find those beautiful words when God found somebody, and that person was David: "I have found a man after my own heart, who will do all my will." Can he find such a person today? In John chapter 4, verse 23, the Lord Jesus says that those who worship God are those who worship him truly in spirit and in truth. And the next sentence: "The Father seeks those who will worship him in this way." He seeks people who know how to worship in spirit and in truth. God is looking for them. Do you not think that when he finds them, he finds treasure? When he finds people who worship him in spirit and truth, who are willing to turn away from their sins, to be cleansed by the blood of Christ, to be made pure, to be set free from the bondage of sin, so as to worship him in spirit and in truth — God is looking for such people today. When he finds them, he finds treasure. That's what the Lord Jesus says: when one sinner repents, all the angels in heaven rejoice. So precious is each sinner to God.
What is this talk again about garbage, about rotten apples, about junk metal? Each sinner is so precious to God that when one turns back to him, all the angels of heaven rejoice. We can't grasp that, can we? Because we've been indoctrinated to believe that a sinner has no value. But he has value to God.
Then notice the word "hide" — hidden in the world. When you make a careful study of the word "hide" in the Bible, you will find that the word "hide" always has to do with sin in the Bible, without exception. It has something to do with sin, or a consequence of sin in some way. I have not been able to find any exception. You go and look at a concordance and see if you can find an exception. It starts right at the beginning: when Adam sinned, what did he do? He hid himself from God. Genesis 3:10. When we sin, God hides his face from us. It is sin that hides God's truth from us. God will hide his truth only from those who harden their heart. Their eyes are closed; they cannot see that truth. It is concealed from them, not because God wants to hide it, but because they have hardened their heart against his truth.
In Amos chapter 9, verse 3, it says, "Though you hide yourself from me, yet my judgment will catch up with you." Adam tried to hide himself. Have you noticed that every time you sin, you hide from God? It is not God hiding from you. When Adam sinned, it wasn't God that didn't come into the garden. It was Adam who was hiding himself from God. Remember: it is not God who hides his salvation; it is we who hide ourselves from God. Therefore he is concealed to us. His truth cannot strike us anymore because we are hidden, not he. We hide from his light, so how can we see his light? Many times in the Bible we read, especially in the Psalms, that God hides his face from us because of our sins. He hides himself, his salvation, his truth, because of our sins. But it's our sins that cause it, not that he wants to do it.
The most beautiful thing about hiding his face — you will see that in Psalm 13, verse 1, Psalm 27, verse 9, and so many other references — is this: when we stop hiding from God, we are on the way to salvation. When we draw near to him, we find that he draws near to us. He is far from us only because we are far from him. We find these beautiful verses in the Old Testament, for example in Psalm 32, verse 5. The psalmist says this wonderful thing: "I did not hide my sins from you." When you can do that — when you stop hiding from God, when he seeks you out and you don't run away from him — then you are on the path to salvation.
Look at these words in Psalm 32, verse 5: "I acknowledged my sin to thee. I did not hide my iniquity." Unlike Adam, who hid himself, the psalmist doesn't hide himself. "I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to Yahweh.' Then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin." Isn't that wonderful? It is when we stop hiding, when he searches us out, when he calls us and we don't hide, when we confess our sin to him — we don't make excuses like Adam: "It was because of the other person" — "I did not conceal my sins from you, Lord. I am a sinner. I beg your forgiveness. I hide nothing from you." Then the Lord forgives your sins. When you stop hiding, that's the first step of salvation. When this treasure comes out of hiding, then it is going to be saved.
In the nature of this parable, you cannot say it in that way, because the treasure cannot walk out of the ground itself. But this hiddenness is always to do with sin. When we stop hiding and confess, then his salvation comes to us.
Now you say, what about the part in which God hides us? Having found the treasure, he hides it. When we applied it to the Lord Jesus, we could make no sense of it at all. But when applied to the church, the meaning is very plain. It all comes out. Why do you hide anything at all? Why was the treasure hidden in the first place? To keep it safe, of course. To protect it, that it would not be lost. This second concealing, after it's found, is exactly that purpose: to keep it safe.
When we look at the Gospels, we find it all the time. Firstly, the Lord Jesus hides his own — that is, he protects them from the judgment of God, from the wrath against sin. Look at Luke chapter 13, verse 34: "How often would I have gathered you, as a hen gathers its chicks." What does a hen gather its chicks for? To hide them. Hide them from what? From the judgment of destruction — from that hawk or that eagle that is going above, looking, seeking to devour those chicks. When we are saved, Jesus hides us in himself. He hides us now in the world, in himself. We are still in the world, but we are concealed, protected, for our protection.
Secondly, we find that he conceals us for protection from evil men. This comes out so beautifully in John chapter 18, verse 8. When the people came to arrest the Lord Jesus, he gave himself up, but he sheltered, he hid his disciples. He says, "You take me, and you let them go." Exactly like the hen hiding its chicks under its wings, sheltering them, protecting them. All this is done in the world. God constantly protects his own.
He hides us from the enemy. We find that in Colossians chapter 3, verse 3: "Your life is hidden with Christ in God." We are hidden in this world. The body of Christ is in this world — let us remember this. We are that body of Christ. The Lord Jesus says to his disciples, "I am going to leave you behind in the world. In the world you will have tribulation. But in me, you will have peace." So we are both in the world and in him. But this time, hidden by him — not just lost anymore, but concealed by him. That is important to notice. Hidden by him, although in the world.
So we find the riches and the beauty of all this coming forth for us. Let us now press on quickly. Notice the word "go away." The meaning becomes very rich. This word "go away" in the Greek is the same word that the Lord Jesus uses of himself leaving and going away from this field, from this world. We find this constantly stated. This very same Greek word is used in John chapter 13, verse 3, verse 33, verse 36, and on and on so many times. Each case speaking about his leaving: he says to his disciples, "I have to go away. I have to leave you behind in the world. Where I go, you cannot follow. You have to stay in the world. I am going to protect you in the world. Don't be afraid. I am not going to leave you as orphans in the world." That is exactly what he does.
He goes away. What does he do in the first place when he goes away? He goes away to buy the field. Notice this word "buy." The same Greek word is used in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 20, and chapter 7, verse 23. In both places it says, "You are not your own. You were bought with a price." Jesus bought you. That is exactly what this parable is saying. Jesus bought you. He redeemed you to himself. In 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 1, we find the same statement: that these are false Christians who denied the Lord who bought them. Remarkable. They were also bought by the Lord, but they denied him who bought them.
This brings us to a very important point. It says, "buy the field" — buy the world. Indeed, that is exactly what Jesus did. I would like you to remember this scriptural teaching very clearly: Jesus did not only die for the Christians. He did not only die for the church. He died for the sins of the whole world. That is biblical teaching. You see that in 1 John chapter 2, verse 2: "He died for our sins, but not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." Jesus bought the whole field. In other words, all the treasures in this world, all the lost sinners in this world, are his by right. He bought them all. No wonder he rejoices when a lost sinner returns. He died for the sins of every person walking out there on the street. Not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.
Now that is something very different from predestination, in which it is said that he only died for the righteous. I don't know where they get this out of the Bible. The Bible tells us plainly that the whole world was bought by him. The Lord Jesus sold all he had to buy the world. He laid down his life to redeem the world to himself. This word "sell" means that he gave up everything for us. That is exactly what the apostle Paul says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 8, verse 9: "Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor." No wonder he sold everything he had — of course he became poor. He gave up everything to redeem us. "Though he was rich, yet for our sake he became poor, that you, through his poverty, might become rich." Through his poverty, the Son of God became poor. That touches my heart.
He died for us when we were yet sinners, Paul tells us. When we were yet his enemies, when we still rejected him — that's when he died for us. He died for the sins of the whole world. He died for my sins before I ever believed in him, when I was still his enemy. That is beautiful, isn't it? The Lord's teaching is so fantastic. The whole gospel is summed up in one nutshell. You couldn't say the whole gospel more clearly than that. How else could you say it more clearly?
This whole field has been redeemed. But that does not mean that the field is now the Lord's possession in practice. For though John says in 1 John chapter 2, verse 2, that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, he also says in 1 John chapter 5, verse 19, that though this field belongs to Jesus by right — by right of creation and by right of redemption — Satan still has the power over this field. He has dominated the field. He has come in and grabbed the field. So it says, "The whole world lies in the evil one," or "is in the power of the evil one." The whole world is in the power of the evil one. That is why Jesus came to redeem us: because the world is in the power of the evil one. It cannot set itself free. Jesus came to set us free.
How wonderful is this teaching. He sold everything to buy us. You are bought with a price. The Lord Jesus says, you don't belong to yourself. Don't go and live as though you belong to yourself. Nothing that you are or that you have belongs to you. This jacket that I have — it belongs to Jesus. This necktie belongs to Jesus. This watch belongs to Jesus. Every cent in my pocket belongs to him. Every chair in my house, the house itself — everything belongs to him. I was bought with a price. Therefore everything I have, every moment I live, every breath I breathe, every minute I have, belongs to him. Because he bought us, we become his treasure now.
No wonder that we find in the Bible that God speaks of his people as his special possession, his precious possession, that he bought to himself. Exodus 19, verse 5, for example. Already in the Old Testament, we read that. Malachi chapter 3, verse 17: that we are his special possession. 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 9: the same thing — a people of God, a special possession of God, precious to him.
I leave you to see: do you think that it is a matter of opinion? Or do you not see that the Word of God is clear and unambiguous, striking in every aspect of the picture? Once you see it correctly, every part of the picture has meaning. Every part of it vibrates with the life of God in it. Get the wrong point of it, and no part of it comes out meaningfully. You just cannot make sense of it anymore. Such is the biblical teaching. Such is the Word of God. It is not a matter of private interpretation. It is simply a matter of the truth. Once you have the key to it, it opens every door in the house, every door in the rooms of the house. But if you don't have the key, it simply doesn't open anything. Now we see the whole parable open up to us.
For me, the most precious point about it all is this: the love of Jesus for us. That he looks for us. What is most revolutionary to my own mind, as I close now in summing up, is the fact that it changes my attitude completely to the non-Christian. As I said at the beginning, I confess my error. I could not love the non-Christian because I could not love rotten apples. I could not love the non-Christian because I could not love junk metal. But when I begin to realize that these people are precious to God — that they are treasure, even though they are lost treasure — then I love them because God loves them.
A doctrine that regards the non-Christian as worthless, fit only for the fire — a doctrine which regards them as a mass of condemned people, a doctrine which regards them as predestinated to destruction — is a doctrine not fit for the gospel, not fit to go under the name of Christianity. It is revolting. It is a perversion of the truth. I pray that you and I may learn, as we go forth today, to see again the world, the lost sinners in the world, as Jesus sees them. "God so loved the world." I could never understand that verse in the light of my spiritual upbringing. Now I can understand. God so loved because the world is precious to him. The lost sinner is precious to him.
Now I will go forth, by God's grace, and look at these people — no more in arrogance: "I am the chosen. You are not chosen." But simply: I am a found treasure, and you are at the moment a lost treasure. But you are a treasure just as much as I am a treasure. The non-Christian is a treasure just as much as the Christian is a treasure. The only difference is: one has, by God's grace, so far been found; the other has not yet been found. But soon to be found, we pray.
We praise God for his wonderful words. His transforming word that changes our attitude, that conforms us to his image, and makes us to think as he thinks, and to see the non-Christian as he sees them. May God help us to go forth, thanking him for this wonderful love that sought us.
Let us now be quiet before God in prayer.