"The Parables. No. 5. The Hidden Leaven and the Hidden Treasure." by Charles H. Welch in The Berean Expositor, circa 1912-13. "The Parables. No. 5. The Hidden Leaven and the Hidden Treasure." by Charles H. Welch in The Berean Expositor. The parable of the Leaven is the last of the four spoken by the Lord outside the house. It reaches a climax and tells us what the end of the external history of the kingdom of the heavens will be -- "the whole was leavened." The parable occurs in Matt. xiii.33 and Luke xiii.20, 21. Matt. xiii.33 says, "Another parable spake He unto them. The kingdom of the heavens is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened." Luke xiii.20, 21 says, "And again He said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened." The wording of the two passages is very similar. Luke adds the question, "Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom?" and uses the expression, "The kingdom of God," for "The kingdom of the heavens." The reader will remember that Luke and Mark prefix this question to the parable of the Mustard Tree, and its recurrence is suggestive of something parallel. Before going further in our investigations we must consider the Scriptural meaning of the word "leaven." The word in Greek is zume, and occurs thirteen times in Scripture. The significance of thirteen is that of rebellion and the work of Satan. Practically all the titles of Satan are multiples of 13, and the suggestion that leaven is a type of evil is strengthened by this fact. Let us notice how the word is used in other N.T. passages. In Matthew's Gospel the Lord uses it as a type of corrupt and corrupting doctrine. "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees . . . . Then understood they how that He bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees" (Matt. xvi.6-12). In Mark viii.15 we read, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod." A further explanation is given of the meaning of the leaven of the Pharisees in Luke xii.1, "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Scripture affords us therefore the plain statement that the Lord Jesus used the figure of leaven as a type of evil doctrine and hypocrisy. This of itself should be sufficient to dispose of the idea that the leaven in Matt. xiii. is typical of the truth. Every occurrence of the word, moreover, whether in the N.T. or the O.T., bears out the fixed meaning of the symbol. The apostle Paul uses leaven as a figure in I Cor. v.6, 7, 8, and Gal. v.9. He speaks of the "leaven of baseness and wickedness," and contrasts it with "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (I Cor. v.8). The passage opens with the words, "Know ye not that a little leaven doth leaven the whole lump? Purge ye out the old leaven," and ends with the words, "Remove ye the wicked man from among yourselves" (I Cor. v.6-13). In Exod. xii.15 we read in connection with the Passover, "Ye shall put leaven out of your houses." Exod. xxxiv.25 and Lev. ii.1 declare, "Thou shalt not offer the blood of any sacrifice with leaven," and "No meal offering which ye shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with leaven." Here we see that both the sacrifice with blood, and the wonderful bloodless meal offering, must alike be free from leaven. Amos, speaking of Israel's sins, says, "Come to Bethel and transgress .........and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven .........for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God" (Amos iv. 4, 5). Leaven is undoubtedly a type of evil as used by the Holy Spirit in the inspired Word. What of the three measures of meal? They certainly cannot typify the corrupt human heart any more than the corrupting leaven can represent the blessed truth of God. Neither can the three measures of pure meal represent the "Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Greek sections of Christendom." If they do, then the Protestant expositors who are largely the supporters of this interpretation must confess that Rome is looked upon by the Lord in the same light as their own community, and will finally be "leavened with the gospel" (to use their own phraseology), like the Protestant and the Greek. Of course the answer will be that the measures of meal represent "Christendom, the professing church," not the true church of Christ. This again yields another difficulty. Will "Christendom, the professing church" be so "leavened with the gospel" that at the end it will be true that "the whole was leavened"? When the Son of man cometh, will He find a completely evangelized and believing Christendom? Facts of everyday life as well as prophecy testify to the exact opposite. Can we find the Scriptural meaning of the three measures of meal? The word meal in the original is aleuron, and means by its etymology meal produced by grinding. The word occurs nowhere else in Scripture apart from the parable of the Leaven. In the O.T. meal and fine flour were typical of the spotless purity of the offering of the Lord Jesus, and of the perfect character of the Word of truth. In Lev. ii. we have the "meat offering." The word "meat " is an old English word for food (we still say "grace before meat"), but there is no flesh or blood in the "meat offering" of Lev. ii. The instructions given in the first verse tell us of the perfect purity of the offering; "his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon ....no meat offering which ye shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with leaven" (verse 11). Meal was used by the prophet Elisha to counteract the "death in the pot" caused by the "wild vine" which had been gathered, symbolizing the deliverance to be wrought by Christ (2 Kings iv. 38-41). In Jer. xxiii. we have the Lord's severe indictment of the false prophets. "They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord" (verse 16). "The prophets .... that prophesy lies in my Name .... they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart" (verses 25, 26). "I am against the prophets .... that steal my words .... that use (or smooth) their tongues, and say, He saith" (verses 30,31). "He that hath My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord" (verse 28). These passages must suffice to show that corn, meal, or fine flour typify the Word of God, living and written. There is one other symbol to consider and that is "The woman." In the preceding parables it is a man who sows the seed, but now the symbol changes. Students of the Scriptures are familiar with the fact that a woman is used many times to represent a system either good or bad. Thus we have "that woman Jezebel" in Rev. ii. 20, and she is seen very plainly hiding the "leaven" in the meal. "Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel which calleth herself a prophetess to teach and to seduce My servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols." Here is corruption; this is the doctrine of Balaam as specified in verse 14. In Rev. xvii. 4, 5 we have another woman:- "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And upon her forehead was a name written, a secret, Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and the abominations of the earth." The interpretation given by God is that this woman "is that great city" (verse 18), and Babylon, and all that Babylon stands for, is intended here -- the great corrupter. The revival of Babylon forms part of Zechariah's prophecy. In chapter v., under the figure of a lawless woman sitting in the midst of an ephah (a dry measure used for grain, &c.), the prophet depicts the return of wickedness to its original seat -- "to build it an house in the land of Shinar." Many commentators look upon the woman as symbolizing Rome. Romanism is certainly one of the polluted streams, but it is not the fountain head, for idolatry and its accompaniments were doing their deadly work before Rome was built, or Romanism founded. It is interesting to note the efforts now being put forward in Mesopotamia for the revival of this ancient seat of rebellion and corruption. We have seen that leaven signifies corrupt doctrine. We have seen that the meal represents the perfect offering of Christ and the unadulterated Word of God, and we see that the woman has much to make us feel that Babylonianism is behind this corrupting work. In the parable of the Tares we see the enemy sowing his false seed; in the parable of the Mustard Tree he is found supported by the branches of the abnormal growth which typifies the Gentile epoch; and in the parable of the Leaven he is seen using that great system of corruption, of which he was the founder (Gen. x.), to leaven the pure meal of God. Coming back to Matt. xiii. we ask, with the disciples, why it is that the kingdom of the heavens is delayed, and the King rejected? The answer is "An enemy hath done this." He has sown his tares, he inhabits the tree, he leavens the truth. We have already seen the connection between the leaven and the doctrine of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians. Here is leaven enough for the thee measures of meal. It will be found that this leaven has reference to the Word of God and the Person of Christ. In Matt. xvi. 6-12 the Lord warns His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and immediately the Scripture records His question, "Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" Peter's wonderful confession is immediately followed by an attack of Satan, where the cause of the opposition is the revelation of the fact that the Lord Jesus must suffer, die, and rise again. Peter's words, "Be propitious to Thyself" (verse 22) savoured of men, and were instigated by Satan (verse 23). The Lord had said, further, that the leaven of the Pharisees was hypocrisy. This leaven is exposed in Matt. xxiii. 13, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of the heavens against men." This is why the King was rejected and the kingdom shut up. In Mark vii. the Lord again unveils their corrupting influence:- "Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. However, in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commands of men . . . . full well ye reject the commandment of God that ye may keep your own tradition" (Mark vii.6-9). Space will not allow us to multiply examples, those given are sufficient to show the working of the leaven. The leaven was everywhere making its corrupting way. Distorted views obtained concerning (1) the Messiah, (2) the Kingdom, and (3) the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus, standing in the midst of a people thus already corrupted, prophesied that this leavening would go on its evil course until the whole was leavened. "When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith in the earth?" The apostle Paul, writing in 2 Thess. ii. of the rise of Antichrist, says:- "For the mystery of lawlessness already is inwardly working itself, only until He that restraineth become out of the midst, and then shall be revealed the lawless one . . . . because the love of the truth they did not welcome . . . . they believe the lie" (verses 7-11). This brings us to the end, "the whole was leavened." This is the state of things as given in the book of the Revelation. The last parable of the external history of the course of the kingdom is sad indeed. The state of Israel at the "time of the end" is deplorable, and may be summed up under the three heads, Pharisaic, Sadducean, and Herodian. Hypocrisy, infidelity and worldliness "like unto Sodom and Gomorrah." We are thankful that this is not the end of these parables. There is another side of the question, there is the divine standpoint, there is the purpose of Him Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. This divine aspect is the common link between the next four parables spoken "inside the house" to the disciples. These we must consider in subsequent articles. Before concluding this paper shall we set out the history of the kingdom of the heavens so far as we have seen it at present? The Sower. The ministries of John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, and the Apostles during the "Acts" were to a large extent, externally, failures, but there is yet to be a gloriously fruitful sowing when the time comes for the New Covenant to be put into operation. The Darnel. The reason for the delay in the setting up of the kingdom is discovered in the fact that an enemy is at work, and side by side with the true children of the kingdom are the children of the wicked one, but these are not removed until the end of the age. The Mustard Tree. The next reason for the delay is that whereas the small seed of Israel should have flourished and filled the earth with fruit, the sovereignty changed hands, and was deposited with the Gentiles, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar, "until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." This stage is marked by the words, "it becometh a tree, and the fowls lodged in its branches." That which should have been preeminently the kingdom of righteousness, becomes the habitation of Satan and his angels. The Leaven. The third reason for delay is that the leaven of evil has been put into the meal of God's truth. This will work its course until the rise of Antichrist, and the complete corruption of the visible witness for God. Thus we see that the Lord Jesus had no idea of the gradual uplifting of the masses, and the permeating influence of the gospel. He saw that man had corrupted his way upon the earth, even as it was in the days of Noah. Hence it is that He uses the same words to represent the end. Blessed be God, that out of all this corruption and apostasy He will yet bring His treasure and display His grace. For this creation groans, and the study of this blessed aspect of the divine purpose shall now be our privilege. We have considered the first four parables and discovered something of their bearing upon the course of the kingdom of the heavens. A division is now observable, emphasized alike by the structural arrangement, the teaching, and the different place in which they were spoken. The Treasure. After the parable of the Leaven the Lord dismissed the multitude, and went into the house. There He explained the parable of the Tares, and then proceeded to unfold the inner or Godward aspect of the kingdom in the four parables that followed. Their relation to each other may be summarized thus:- A | The treasure in the field. -- The nation of Israel as distinct from the nations. B | The one beautiful pearl. -- The remnant of Israel as distinct from the nation. B | The many fish. -- The Gentile nations as distinct from Israel. A | The treasure in the house. -- Israel, viewed as a missionary nation, sent to the nations. The first of this series (the Hid Treasure) is in direct contrast with the Hid Leaven. These four parables are found only in Matthew's Gospel. "The kingdom of the heavens is like unto a treasure hid in the field, which a man finding, hid, and by reason of his joy, withdraweth and selleth whatsoever he hath, and buyeth that field." Let us examine the terms of the parable in the light of the subject of the kingdom and the Scriptures relating thereto. Just before this parable the Lord had said, "The field is the world," hence the field here (not "a field," as the A.V.) means the world. In this world a treasure was hidden. What is the treasure? Starting with Gen. xii. we have the inception of the special nation, separated and called to a higher glory than any other nation on the earth. When this people was redeemed from Egypt the Lord said to them, "Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure (s'gullah) unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine: and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation" (Exod. xix. 5, 6). No other nation has ever had such a calling or such a title. Deut. xiv. 2 reads, "The Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar (s'gullah) people unto Himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." Again, in Deut. xxvi. 18 we read, "The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar (s'gullah) people . . . . to make thee high above all nations . . ." In Psa. cxxxv. 4 we read, "The Lord hath chosen ...Israel for His peculiar treasure (s'gullah)." In Mal. iii. 17 we read, "And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels" (s'gullah). The "jewels," or peculiar treasure, represent the whole nation of Israel, secured in their position of final blessing by the unchanging love of God (Mal. iii. 10). But in the day of Israel's blessing one jewel brighter than the rest will be seen -- the remnant of faithful ones during the days of Israel's sin and apostasy. This will be considered under the parable of the one Pearl. Psa. lxxxiii. 3, 4 supplies another name for Israel, "Thy hidden ones," which should be considered in this connection. The next item to notice is the statement, "Which a man finding, hid." The hidden treasure is hidden again until the day when the treasure is claimed. When the Lord Jesus came to this world He limited His ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; He came to seek and to save that which was lost. Israel could never qualify under law to be the treasure; they must be redeemed. They will never be a kingdom of priests by virtue of their own deeds, but solely upon the basis of redemption (cf. Rev. i.). Up till Matt. xvi. the Lord had not spoken of His death, but in verses 20 & 21 He hides the treasure, and declares the great price which He is about to pay for its redemption. That death on the cross secured the treasure and the field. There the Lord Jesus gave His all. In Luke xix. 11-27 we have further light upon this hiding of the treasure. Lest any should think by His words that the kingdom was to be set up at once, the Lord said, "A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return." Thus the second hiding of the treasure is symbolical of the abeyance of the kingdom. The day of manifestation is coming when the words will resound, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign unto the ages of the ages" (Rev. xi. 15). This parable declares that in spite of all opposition God's purpose for Israel and the kingdom will be fulfilled. This would comfort the hearts of the disciples. They would see how irresistible is the purpose of Him, Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. Thus has God declared His answer to the evil one. He had hidden his leaven, but the Lord had hidden His treasure. Soon the day will come when the Lord will remove the stain of sin and the corruption of the enemy: soon He will come to make up His jewels, and then shall Israel be a glorious diadem in the hand of their God.