
Treasures New & Old
One of my favourite parts of a well-made movie is the ending. And not because it's over. I love the way that a well-made closing scene sews all the loose threads together, gives call-backs to earlier scenes in the film, adds new significance to earlier scenes, and brings a well-told story to a satisfying close.
Today's message is like a closing scene in a movie. We're closing off not just the parables of chapter 13 but this whole major section of the gospel of Matthew—chapters 11-13. And like end of a movie, there's a few stops we need to make.
The first stop is a parable about fish in a net. The second is a parable about parables, involving a master and his treasure. And the third stop actually takes us back to some verses earlier in the chapter that sum up Jesus' use of parables as a whole.
And we'll do our best to tie these loose ends together and bring to a conclusion this series we've been enjoying since September.
1. FISH & NET
a. Parable (vv. 47-48)
Let's begin with the parable in verses 47-48, which tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like when a net is thrown into the sea and gathers fish of every kind.
This is the kind of large-scale fishing that Jesus' first disciples were familiar with. They'd work the night shift throwing nets into the water and hauling in whatever they caught.
And, as verse 48 says, "When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad."
Again, a very common picture they would have been used to seeing as they walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Setting aside the good for the market, but throwing away the bad.
So what's this mean? How is the kingdom like this?
b. Explanation (vv. 49-50)
The explanation in verses 49-50 tells us. "So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
The point of this parable is very, very close, if not identical, to the point of the parable of the seeds and weeds that we considered earlier last month. In that parable, good seed and bad seed are planted together in a field. The weeds and the wheat grow up together until the end of the age, at which point they are separated out.
Jesus explained that parable this way: “So it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear” (Matthew 13:40–43).
You can see it's a very similar idea at the end of this parable, even some of the same words.
Let's reflect on three key truths in this explanation Jesus gives.
1) First there's that phrase "So it will be at the end of the age." A major point here, like we saw in the earlier parable, is that the dawn of the kingdom is not the end of the age. That's what people expected, and Jesus is correcting that expectation. There is a time period, the time we're living in right now, where good seed and bad seed are growing up together, where good fish and bad fish are swimming together.
The kingdom of heaven is already here, but the end of the age is not yet here. That's an important enough point for Jesus' disciples to grasp that He uses two parables to communicate it.
2) Second, let's notice that when the end comes, angels are going to have a key role in sorting out the evil from the wicked. This is something we didn't focus on so much last time around, but it's there in verses 39 and 41. The reapers are angels and they'll do this work of separation. Similarly, verse 49 tells us that "the angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous."
Several other times in the New Testament, Jesus is described as returning with armies of angels. (2 Thess 1:7-8, Rev 19:14). And with our recent discussion about thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities in the past two weeks, we should remember that angels are real and are not cute babies or Calvin Klein models with wings. Angels are celestial powers, many of them great beyond what we can imagine. Jesus will return, not alone, but as a general with a mighty army of these great powers with Him.
And those great powers who do his will will have a role in separating out the wicked from the righteous here on earth at the end of the age. I don't know how they'll do it, and I don't mean this as a joke, but this will be a time that the angels don't say "fear not." The wicked should be very afraid as their judgment draws near.
3) Third, there is a difference here in that this parable doesn't speak about the hope of glory for the righteous. This final major parable ends simply with a promise of judgement. And that's perhaps appropriate because this whole section of Matthew was kicked off by John the Baptist's question about why Jesus wasn't judging the wicked like he expected.
And here at the end we're reassured that Herod, the Pharisees, all who do not repent, all who refuse to come to Jesus—they will be thrown into a place of fiery judgement where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, which is a description of torment and regret and unending sorrow. All regrets, no hope. Endless exposure to the wrath of God, knowing that your chance to accept His mercy is past, and all that is left is judgment which you earned, you deserve, you chose, and from which there will be no escape.
This is real and Jesus does not hide it or apologize for it. Neither should we. The greater our awareness of divine judgement, the greater we marvel at Christ bearing that judgement in our place on the cross.
This is important, because it's been common in the last few decades to hear some pastors and leaders say things like, "We don't want to scare people into the kingdom." Or, "Jesus is more than just a get-out-of-hell-free card." And both of those statements are true, but the effect of them has been that many Christians don't talk about hell at all anymore.
Passages like ours today show us that we can't ignore hell, because Jesus didn't. God's judgement is terrifying, and it's supposed to be, and Jesus deliberately draws our attention to that. He clearly wants us to want to avoid it.
And we shouldn't forget that Jesus is both our treasure and the one who delivers us from the wrath to come, like 1 Thessalonians 1:10 says. One of the things that makes Jesus glorious the fact that He saves from hell all who come to him.
And, particularly in the case of this parable, the assurance of judgement is a call for the suffering saints to be patient. The reign of Jesus has begun, but Judgement Day is still in the future. It is coming. Be patient, John. Be patient, disciples. Preach the gospel to the bad fish while they still have a chance to turn and repent. Come to Jesus, all of you, while you still can.
2. MASTER & TREASURE
a. Question (v. 51)
That's our first stop today. Our second stop, in verse 51, begins with a question from Jesus: "Have you understood all these things?"
This is a loaded question, because, as we saw a few weeks back, the issue of "understanding" is at the heart of the parables. Jesus teaches in parables to hide the truth from those whose hard hearts make them go on seeing without seeing, hearing without understanding
At the same time, the parables do communicate truth to those who have embraced Jesus. But one of the main ways they did that, at least at the beginning, was by Jesus explaining their meaning to them.
But did you notice, out of the seven parables that Jesus had told in this chapter up until now, only two of them were explained? They were the two longest and most detailed of the parables.
And what I put together here is that if the disciples understood Jesus' explanation of those two longer parables, they had the tools to understand all the others. The explanation of the two big ones gives them Jesus' paradigm for unlocking all of the rest.
So, after giving several more parables, and three in a row here without any explanation, Jesus asks: "Have you understood all these things?" Have you understood these parables that you've just heart? Have you understood what all of these parables are about—the secrets of the kingdom? Are you getting it?
And his disciples answer him, "Yes." No doubt, their understanding was far from complete. They didn't understand everything. But they got what they got. They were at least starting to pick up at least some of what Jesus was setting down. They did understand.
b. Parable (v. 52)
And , to reward their understanding, Jesus responds with a parable.
Verse 52: “And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’” (Matthew 13:52).
It's interesting how we might not immediately recognize this as a parable because it doesn't begin with the words, "The kingdom of heaven is like." But remember, those words aren't what make something a parable. The parables of Jesus involve comparing one thing to another in order to draw out a lesson or make a point.
And this is a parable. Instead of saying, "the kingdom of heaven is like," he's said, "Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like," and he goes on from there.
We should pause and think about this word "scribe." Most of the time in the gospels, this word refers to a group of professional scholars whose job it was to study the Torah and come up with interpretations for the people to follow. They worked closely with the Pharisees, so much so that "scribes and Pharisees" is phrase that shows up all over the gospels.
But according to Jesus, that is not the only kind of scribe there is. There is another kind of scribe, a student not just of the Old Testament, but a student also of His words, one who listens to both Moses and Jesus and studies the sayings of the Messiah alongside of the earlier Scriptures (Matthew 23:34).
This kind of scribe "has been trained for the kingdom of heaven." Trained, by Jesus, who has trained them with His words and teaching.
It's important to note that this word for "train" here is the same word from which we get "disciple." We could translate this, "the scribe who has been discipled for the kingdom of heaven" or "who is made a disciple of the kingdom of heaven."
This is a good reminder about the basic meaning of this word "disciple" that you hear all the time in the Bible and hopefully among the people of God. The word "disciple" basically means a "learner." Someone who has been discipled is someone who has been trained, taught.
This training and teaching involves more than just information, but it never involves less than that. After all, look at what Jesus has been doing in this chapter as he's been discipling these budding scribes for the kingdom of heaven: He's been teaching them. With words.
Discipleship involves words, truth, teaching. Discipleship isn't just you by yourself memorizing Bible verses. Discipleship is happening right now and happened this morning in Sunday school and will happen later on this evening at the ladies' Bible study.
And discipleship happens all throughout the week as parents instruct their children and mentors meet with mentees and the body of Christ speaks the truth in love to itself so that it builds itself up in love.
Discipleship is everything we do to learn Christ together. And it's what had been happening as Jesus taught His disciples these parables and their meaning.
They are now becoming scribes, trained to know and love the law and the prophets and the words of their Messiah. And, like we've seen over and over again, not just gaining information but having their heart and allegiance shaped to prize and treasure Jesus above all things and to obey Him with long-term faithfulness.
And according to Jesus, a scribe thus trained is like something: "a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."
Great houses in this day would have had treasure store where they kept things that were valuable. And when the situation called for it, the master of the house would go to the treasure store and bring out treasure—to show, to use, to enjoy.
And here Jesus speaks about a master who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.
The "new" here points us to the "secrets of the kingdom" that Jesus has been teaching them. His words, His teaching. The "old" points us towards the truths that they had known for some time—the law, the prophets, the story of God's dealings with Israel.
This short parable stresses the value of both of these treasures. They are, after all, treasures! Like the treasure—same word—hidden in a field, or the pearl of great price, there is value and worth here.
We see that the truths of Jesus and His kingdom do not replace the old treasure. Just like Jesus said back in chapter 5, He hadn't come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. The master of the house does not have to—in fact must not—get rid of his old treasure when the new comes in.
But don't miss that the new treasure is treasure that gets stored alongside of the old treasure. And don't miss that the new comes first when the master brings it out—"what is new and what is old."
Only Jesus could say this. Only Jesus could claim that, if you understood his words and were trained by Him in the things He was teaching, then you were gaining a treasure that sat alongside of the words of Moses and David and Jeremiah, and actually came out first in priority.
But that's what He's saying here. It's the point repeated by the author of Hebrews who said, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2).
The Son does not replace the previous things God has spoken. The book of Hebrews is dripping with Old Testament scriptures. And we won't be able to really understand Hebrews, or almost any other New Testament book, if we haven't read and understood those Scripture from the Law and Prophets and Psalms that they point to again and again.
But, even saying that, all of those earlier writings find their fulfillment in Jesus, who is the better word, better than the angels, better than Abraham, better than Moses, better than David.
“And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’” (Matthew 13:52).
3. IN SUMMARY
Now, at this point we're almost prepared to be finished. Verse 52 is, after all, the final verse in this whole section. Verse 53—"And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there"—actually kicks off the next section of Matthew which we'll return to in another couple of years or so.
But before we're done, there are two verses back in 34 & 35 that we haven't dealt with yet. We didn't deal with them for a couple of reasons, but one of them is that these two verses are a summary of Jesus' parables teaching. Matthew places them roughly in the middle of the parables, but these are two verses which we could consider at any point—because they sum up the parables as a whole, instead of any one or two single parables.
So, we've saved them for last and turn there now as a way to wrap up this whole section.
a. All Things in Parables (v. 34)
Verse 34 says, “All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable” (Matthew 13:34).
We can miss how dramatic the shift in chapter 13 is. From this point on, while the crowds might overhear some direct statements Jesus makes in answer to questions he was asked (Matt 22:33), Jesus does not teach the crowds without parables until we get to Matthew 23, where he delivers his final blistering diatribe against the Pharisees that no doubt was designed to draw their fire and prompt them to finally kill him.
But from this point on in, there will be no more Sermon-on-the-Mount-style teaching given to the crowds. It's all parables.
b. Psalm 78 (v. 35)
And rather than be thrown off by this, Matthew sees Jesus' use of parables as a fulfillment of the Scripture. "This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet," he writes in verse 35.
The "prophet" here is the Asaph, the Psalmist, who opens Psalm 78 with words recorded here by Matthew like this: "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world’” (Matthew 13:35).
Now, if you go on to read Psalm 78, you'll notice that Asaph does not use the same kind of parables that Jesus does. Instead of stories about farmers and nets and buried treasure, his stories and lessons are drawn from Israel's history.
Jesus no doubt outdoes Asaph. Many of Jesus' parables certainly involve Israel's history, but Jesus' parables are even more dark and obscure and hard to understand than Asaph.
And that actually fits the pattern that we've seen in Matthew when he shows us Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament. Many times, Jesus fulfills the Old Testament in a way that we didn't expect Him to, or even—like here—He fulfills something that we didn't even know needed fulfillment.
Who would have read Psalm 78 and said, "One day this parables idea will be fulfilled by the Messiah who will teach in even more obscure sayings." Nobody.
And that's the point. The point isn't just that the Old Testament looked forward to Jesus. The point is that, from our standpoint, we can look back and see Jesus in all kinds of places that we never would have thought we'd see him.
David was a king? Jesus is a better king. Solomon was the royal son? Jesus is the better son. David lamented in Psalm 22 because it felt like God had abandoned Him? Jesus experienced that for real on the cross. Asaph taught in parables? Jesus taught in better parables. And we could go on and on. It all comes down to Jesus.
c. The Call to Discipleship
And so we come to the end—of this passage, of this section in Matthew, of these parables, of this series.
We called this series "The Kingdom in Contrast," and throughout these passages in the past months we've seen the kingdom in contrast opposing leaders, in contrast to the unbelieving crowds, and perhaps most often in contrast to people's expectations, even the expectations of someone like John the Baptist.
Even the parable of the fish and the net we reviewed today was a major challenge to the expectation that the kingdom of God would arrive at roughly the same time as judgment day. That's not the case. What people expected was not the case.
As we end I want to issue us a challenge again to not allow our expectations to shape our belief, or lack of belief, in Jesus.
It's unlikely you have the same expectations that the Jewish people did. But it's very likely you have expectations of your own. Things you want Jesus to be, to do for you. A path that you expect your life to follow if you keep following Jesus.
I thought of giving us an assignment today, which is to go home and make a list of all of the things we're expecting Jesus to be and do for us, and compare that list to the Bible.
But here's the thing: we are usually blind to our expectations until those expectations are not met.
We don't know that we expect an easy life until life gets hard and we feel disappointed.
We don't know that we expect our family to operate a certain way, or our kids to turn out a certain way, or our marriage to look a certain way, or our career to pan out a certain way, until those things don't work out like we wanted.
We don't know that we expect our relationships to be a certain way, for people to treat us a certain way, for our church to feel a certain way, until it doesn't, and we're left sitting alone in the smoking crater that used to house our hopes and dreams.
And the question is, when our expectations are shattered, what will our path be? Will our path be to hang on to those expectations and reject everything that challenges them? That was the path of the pharisees, the path of the crowds. Jesus wasn't what they thought he was going to be, and he wasn't giving them what they wanted him to give them, and so most of them rejected him.
Or will our path be the path of the disciples—the path of those who have been trained for the kingdom of heaven? Those who know that the kingdom stands in contrast to this world and the things that this world hopes for? And even the things that our hearts hope for?
But we realize that Jesus is better than our expectations, our hopes, our plans, our ambitions. The way he fulfills the Scripture, the way He sovereignly accomplishes His will, the way He defeats evil, even the way He hides things—all of this is unexpected, but way better than what we'd come up with on our own.
And by letting go of our expectations, and entering heaven's kingdom—which means coming under the kingship of Jesus, heaven's king—we gain a treasure that this whole world could never compare with.
So, the assignment still stands—to compare our expectations to Christ's promises. It's just that this is not an assignment you can do in an afternoon. This is an ongoing, life-long assignment to continually lay down our hopes and dreams and expectations at the feet of Jesus in place of His better promises and better plans
And how do we know that? How do we know what His promises and plans are?
We become scribes who immerse ourselves in the New and Old Treasures of the word of God.
We read and love the whole Bible. And we read to understand it. Like you've heard me say before, sometimes that means seasons of reading large portions of the Bible. Sometimes that means seasons of reading just a few verses at a time, with an open journal and a commentary from our library or your study Bible, seeking understanding from every sentence because it's all so beautiful and valuable to you.
We read not to check an item off of a list but because this is our living lifeline, the words of our king.
The words of our king who taught these words, and helps us to understand them by His Spirit today. The words of our king who loved us enough to hang on a cross, taking an eternity's worth of weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth in our place. The words of our king who rose from the dead and reigns at His father's right hand and has promised to return for His people at the end of the age.
The words of our king who we'll remember and proclaim here in the bread and the cup, and one day drink the cup with in person in His fulfilled, consummated kingdom.
Be a scribe, be discipled for the kingdom, and live surrendered to this great king until He comes again.