Matthew 13

Chapter 13. The Spirit of the Earthly and Heavenly KingdomsYou know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:25-28)This is a picture of the spirit of the earthly and heavenly kingdoms. The watchword of the former is “look out for yourself,” “get all you can,” “make the best of life,” “take care of yourself” and many phrases of similar import and familiar colloquial meaning. The spirit of the heavenly kingdom is “Love… is not self-seeking” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5), “deny [your]self” (Matthew 16:24), “live for others and for God” (see Philippians 2:4), “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). The various paragraphs from Matthew 19-28 contain a series of illustrations of this contrast: Selfishness

1. Selfishness Is the Essential Principle of Sin This is very finely illustrated in the incident of the one who came to Him asking, “Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16). In answering him, the Lord Jesus paused a moment to show him that the word “good” could be applied to none but God: “If I am good I must be God, for no human being can claim that title.” This must have been a rude shock to this young man’s self-confidence, for he felt quite certain that he at least was good. Then the Master proceeds to show him his own heart and convict him of his utter selfishness. He does this by meeting him first on his own plane and assuming that, according to the law of righteousness, if he is really good he will inherit eternal life as a matter of simple justice and righteousness. Therefore He answers: “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments” (Matthew 19:17). “Which ones?” replies the young man. The Lord then quotes the second table of the law covering our duties to our neighbor, all summed up in one closing command, “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19). This is familiar ground to the young man, and he confidently declares: “All these I have kept… What do I still lack?” (Matthew 19:20). Then the Lord presses the keen edge of the sword of truth into his hypocrisy that had so long deceived him. It was as if He had said, “You think you have obeyed the second table of the law and loved your neighbor as yourself, for that is the real spirit of the law. Well, I am going to apply a simple test. If you love your neighbor as yourself, it will not be difficult for you to share with him your wealth; and if you love the Lord with all your heart, it will be no sacrifice to you to give up all and follow Him. Therefore, as a simple test of your love to your neighbor and your love to God, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” And lo, that young man’s castle of self-righteousness crumbled into dust. In a moment he saw himself in his true selfishness. The very thought of parting with his wealth and becoming a humble, despised follower of the Son of God filled him with sorrow and despair. He could not make such a sacrifice. He did not love his brother or his God. He loved himself and his own wealth and comfort, and he was unwilling to give these up for any higher plane. Alas! the illusion was gone, his dream of righteousness and eternal life melted into air, and he went away sorrowful for the strangest reason in the world—because he had great wealth (Matthew 19:18-22). Most people are sorrowful because they have so little; but he found the cause of his deepest sorrow in the fact that he was unwilling and unable to part with his earthly treasures for the sake of his neighbor and his God. He had committed no act of gross immorality or open sin; he was not in any sense a bad man as the world understands it, and yet he saw himself to be utterly selfish and bound to earth and its pleasures and aims by bonds that he was utterly unable to break. And so, when the light of God comes into the soul, we find that sin does not consist so much of gross crimes against the laws of man, or even the laws of God, as in the subtle spirit of self-love. Therefore it comes to pass that the self-righteous and moral sinners are much harder to reach than the profligate and the drunkard; and the Lord Jesus had to say to the religious Pharisees of His own time, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matthew 21:31). It is said that a celebrated rationalist preacher of France was once invited by an evangelical minister to preach in his pulpit on the text, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart,” and “‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37, Matthew 22:39-40). While standing in the pulpit introducing his sermon, his brother minister, who was an earnest and spiritually minded man, was praying to God for the salvation of his soul. In answer to his prayer, the strangest thing came to pass. The rationalist preacher became suddenly convicted of sin while trying to preach on this subject. The Spirit of God showed him that the one thing that even the Hebrew law demanded of all men was perfect love to man; and there and then he saw that he was destitute of this love, and, filled with alarm and despair by the view he got of his own heart, he stopped in his sermon, and with tears of earnestness besought the congregation to pray for him that he might seek and find through Jesus Christ that grace that alone could enable him to have this love of which his own unnatural heart was utterly destitute. Dear friend, have you become convicted of the spirit of selfishness, the love of your own self, your own reputation, your own ease and pleasure, even your own religious merit and righteousness? This is the essence of human depravity, and in this begins the very first stepping of the work of grace and salvation. The Lord Jesus takes occasion, after the departure of this young man, to say, “it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:23-24). The eye of the needle to which He here referred was a certain gate in Jerusalem which was so low that a loaded camel could not pass through it. It had to unload its burden and kneel, before it could pass the gate of the needle’s eye. What a striking figure of the necessity of our unloading our earthly treasures and self-righteousness before we can enter into the heavenly kingdom. The disciples are amazed at His strong language, and ask in sorrow, “Who then can be saved?” (Matthew 19:25) and the Lord replies, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). Nothing but a miracle of grace and power can bring the proud, self-satisfied human heart to see its emptiness, to part with its idols, and to pass on its knees through the narrow gate that leads to life. Self-Sacrifice
2. The Measure of Our Eternal Reward Is Determined by the Spirit of Self-Sacrifice Peter answered him, “We have left: everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” (Matthew 19:27-30) The words “renewal of all things” here is in the Greek Palingenesis, which means the new creation. It describes the coming age when the Lord Jesus will return and set up His kingdom. Then He tells His disciples the rewards of that kingdom will be determined by the sacrifices of His servants. It is not so much what we have done, as the spirit of love and sacrifice that has prompted our deeds and sufferings. But in the closing sentence which immediately follows, “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (Matthew 19:30), the Lord implies that there will be much surprise and disappointment when the testing time shall reveal the real spirit of every heart; and many that have seemed to be truly unselfish may find, to their eternal disappointment, that even their seeming sacrifices were prompted after all by some form of selfishness, even if it is sometimes religious selfishness. There is a very solemn story told by Dr. Bonar of a dream in which he saw his own heart analyzed in the presence of God by a holy angel, who dissolved it in a crucible and took each separate element and weighed it, and when all was over the good minister looked with horror as he saw that almost all the masses of elements into which his spirit had been resolved consisted of mere earthly motives, love of applause, love of intellectual work, mere habit or tradition and a thousand other things, and there was but a trace of true divine love. He woke from his dream to humble himself before God and pray with deep earnestness: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalms 139:23-24). Future Rewards
3. The Highest Recompenses in the Heavenly Kingdom Will Be Given to Those Who Serve Not for Reward, but for Love The parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) unfolds some deep principles in connection with the subject of reward. First, let us closely understand the difference between free grace and reward. Salvation is the gift of God’s free grace; but after we are saved, our services for Christ are rewarded according to the measure of our sacrifices and love. We cannot obtain the entrance into the kingdom of heaven by our own good works; this is bestowed upon the sinner freely for Christ’s sake. But having entered the kingdom, we are all competitors for various prizes which are bestowed on the principle of service and love. These rewards are various. It does not look like this at first, as we study the parable, for each of the laborers seems to receive the same amount, a penny a day. But when we look more closely into the matter, we find that the first laborers worked twelve hours for their penny and the last only one hour for the same sum, so that they really received 12 times as much pro rata as the others. The picture is a very graphic one. The Master comes to His vineyard in the morning at six o’clock and finds a lot of idle men around. He engages a number of laborers under a special contract at a penny a day, equal to about 15 cents in our money. This would be fair wages in the East today. Later, at nine o’clock, and again at noon, and again at three o’clock in the afternoon He went to the vineyard and found others standing idle and He sent them to work, but on a different contract. There was no stipulation of a penny a day, but simply the promise, “I will pay you whatever is right” (Matthew 20:4). It was work for wages, but there was a degree of trust about it. But at five o’clock when the day was almost gone and only one hour was left for work, He found still others standing idle, and He sent them into the vineyard to work, but said nothing to them about wages. The reading in our old [King James] version of Matthew 20:7 is wrong. The revised version has given it correctly by leaving out the clause about wages. He simply sent these men to work without any promise or agreement whatever. When the evening came and all received their wages, these last laborers received the same as the men that had toiled all day long, practically 12 times as much as the first workmen. When we come to inquire into the reason for this, we cannot forget that these last laborers worked in simple faith without any agreement at all, while the others labored under a law and contract. Truly, this represents the highest spirit of service, “all for love and nothing for reward.” The first represents work done under the law; the second, perhaps, for the class of Christians that try to get through as cheaply as possible; the third for those who go purely under the principle of grace, who give their lives to God in simple faith and trust Him for everything. Their reward will be the largest of all. It is quite possible for us to be working for a reward rather than for the Master with love. And this form of selfishness, even though it is spiritual selfishness, will vitiate much of our best service. How beautiful is the picture in the 25th chapter of Matthew of the persons whom the Master praised for their ministries to Him: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink… I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Matthew 25:35-36), and they were quite surprised and had forgotten all about it, and answered simply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you” (Matthew 25:37). The very unconsciousness of their own merit was their highest merit, and the Lord rewarded them all the same, adding with supreme beauty: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Fellowship in His Sufferings
4. The Prizes of the Kingdom Are Given for Fellowship in the Sufferings of Christ It was in this connection that the mother of James and John came to the Master with her two boys and made a special request for them, that they might sit the one on His right hand and the other on His left in His kingdom. The answer of Jesus was very striking; He did not refuse the honor requested, but He told them that it was to be bestowed not arbitrarily, but on special grounds. The correct reading here is very expressive: “to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, except to them for whom it is prepared of My Father.” (Matthew 20:23, author’s translation). He does not say that there is no such reward, but He says it is prepared for certain persons and will be only given to those who meet the demands. And then He tells them what these conditions are: “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38). The cup was His cup of sorrow, the baptism was His baptism of death, and He meant that only by their partnership of suffering and death could they enter into the fullness of His glory. This is what the Apostle Paul must have meant when he said in one of his epistles that there was no glory in preaching the gospel, for that was simply duty, but there was some glory in preaching the gospel “free of charge,” and in meeting gladly the sacrifices and sufferings which made him a spectacle and a gazing stock to the world and a follower of his suffering Lord in the path of danger and death (1 Corinthians 9:15-18). The words of Matthew 20:25-28, and which we have quoted above as our text, sum up the whole discussion in the strongest and most forcible language and draw a picture with vivid lines of contrast between the spirit of human ambition and Christian self-sacrifice. “Greatness in the world,” he says, “consists of lording it over others; greatness in the heavenly kingdom consists in serving others and sacrificing for Him.” Two words are here employed to describe Christian service: the one is the Greek word diakonos, which denotes ministry, or service, for others; the second is the word doulos, which means a slave. It is not merely service for others, but it is humiliating service. He says, “He that would be great, let him be your diakonos, but he that would be supremely great, the chief among you, let him be your doulos, your slave.” This is the ministry of the Son of Man who came “not… to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28), and the treasured servant will approach most nearly to the steps of his patron and Lord. There are ministries which God appoints for us which require us not only to serve our brethren, but even to suffer indignity, humiliation and the most trying provocation at their hands. There are men and women whose lives are spent enduring the weakness, selfishness, petty annoyances, overbearing un-kindnesses, exactions and misunderstandings that come from the selfish lives with whom they are called to stand in constant forbearance and loving patient service. Oh, suffering children of God, do not think your lives wasted in such trying ministries; you are following in the footsteps of the Son of Man. You are not only a minister for Him, but a slave too for His sake, and the time is coming when your exaltation yonder will be in proportion to the depths of your abasement here. These are the ministries that are forging your eternal crowns, and some day, the tear drops and the blood drops will be transformed into diamonds and rubies of surpassing glory in the recompenses of the coming age. Even human history is glorified by just such flashes of earthly heroism. The story is told far and wide of that young girl of 14 in the fearful Chicago fire who risked her life to keep open the door of a fire escape in that burning theater until her little body was blistered almost to a cinder, and yet she bravely stood there until she had saved 50 perishing men and women. The courageous little nation that is now facing the horrors of a terrific war with the mightiest empire on the globe, the Japanese, glory in these memorials of patriotic sacrifice. In the late war with China, when the gate of Port Arthur could not be forced open, a common soldier in the army of Japan rushed up with a dynamite bomb in his hand and dashed it against the gates. In the awful explosion that followed, he himself was torn to a thousand fragments, but that barrier was also pressed asunder and the soldiers of his country marched through to victory, and this was his sufficient reward. At another time one of the young officers learned that the harbor of Port Arthur was closed against the fleet of Japan by a boom that crossed its mouth and which it was impossible to break through. He went to the commanding officer and explained to him that he had invented a device by which he could destroy that boom, but that he was not at liberty to explain the secret, but only asked permission to carry it out. This was given him, and with a little company of marines, he stole up at night within 100 yards of the boom and then in a little shell slipped up alone with soft paddles until near enough to fasten a bomb to the great barrier and explode it. Again, in the explosion which followed, a human being was sacrificed and little pieces of his uniform and his body were picked up as they were scattered far and wide, but the harbor was opened and the navy of Japan stole in and captured the ships of China. A few months afterward the fragments of his mutilated body were buried in state in the presence of the Mikado of Japan. It is said that the father of this brave young soldier, his face shining with joy, was called to lead the funeral procession in the presence of his emperor, and for the first time in the history of Japan, a subject walked in front of the ruler in that procession of honor. It was a deed of sacrifice that had raised a common soldier higher than all the rank that a throne could give. And so the time is coming when the Lord Jesus shall call His humble servants and His self-sacrificing followers and before assembled worlds shall place the crowns upon their heads and gird Himself and go forth to serve them. God help us, like Him, for the joy set before us to endure “the cross, scorning its shame” (Hebrews 12:2), and not miss the opportunities so swiftly passing away for winning unfading crowns of glory.