Christ is the sower in both the first and second of these parables, and the sowing is continued by His messengers throughout this age.  The field is the world of men, which reveals a marked change from the responsibility of the Jewish age that was then closing; and the results of the sowing are most definite:  not all the good seed sown comes to fruitage; and the wheat and the tares grow together until the end of the age.  This interpretation is not fanciful, for it is given by Christ Himself; and the following parables must necessarily agree with these.  The third and fourth are of the mustard seed and the measure of meal.  Though commonly interpreted to mean the world-wide development of the Church and the permeating influence of the Gospel, in the light of the interpretation of the previous parables they can mean only the mixture of evil with that which began as small as a mustard seed and as pure as meal.  The fifth parable is of a treasure hid in a field, which pictures the earthly people in the world; while their real relation to Christ is covered until the accomplishment of that which is revealed in the sixth.  Here the same man, the Lord Jesus Christ, sells all that He hath to purchase the Church, the pearl of great price, for He “loved the Church, and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25); the pearl, by its formation and its power to reflect the light, being a wonderful type of the Church in her present formation and future place in glory.  Both the treasure and the pearl are found in the world, but do not include all of the world.  The last parable but restates the truth that the mixture of the good and the evil is to continue to the end of the age.

The highest ambition of the great missionary, Paul, was to be all things to all men that he might save some, not all.  He found that his preaching was a savor of “death unto death” as well as of “life unto life” (II Cor. 2:15, 16), and he clearly states in II Tim. 3:13, “And evil men shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”  Christ also predicted that the end of this age should be marked by such sin as provoked the judgment of the flood:  “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.  For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:37-39).

This truth is often rejected as being pessimistic and disloyal to the progress of the world:  yet has not the history of the age verified the teaching?  And is not the coming glory nearer and more certain when depending upon His promised return in resistless power and splendor, than when depending upon any human progress the world has ever known?  One is the majestic movement of the Divine program in fulfillment of every covenant:  while the other is the vain dream of the world in its ignorance and disregard of the testimony of God.