Masterful Parables: The Language of Supremacy in Christ’s Parables

By Gerald M. Bilkes

It is widely agreed that the parables proclaim the kingdom of God. [1] This conclusion is difficult to avoid when Christ Himself said so (Matt. 11:12; Mark 4:11; Luke 8:10). [2] However, few have pursued the question how Christ’s parables promote the kingdom of God. In other words, exactly how did Christ extend the rule of God through the parables? How did He master hearts by the parables?

One reason this angle of inquiry has not received its due is because many blunt the force of Christ’s assertion in Mark 4:12: “That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.” [3] The obvious meaning of this statement is that the parables serve God’s sovereign work in graciously allowing some to understand and causing others to reject Christ. [4] Many, however, are unwilling to admit God’s sovereignty operates behind both the revealing and the concealing of truth. They claim instead that Jesus spoke in parables to make His teaching easy, simple, and alluring for all people to embrace. [5] This then is also how people generally understand the parables. It can only be wondered, however, why then so many failed to appreciate His parables, especially those in authority (e.g., Matt. 21:45-46).

It is striking that most sources on the parables fail to take account of the datum of authority, supremacy, or power. [6] In this brief article, I wish to offer a corrective. I contend that the parables are clear instances of Christ subtly but decidedly reasserting the sovereignty of God by, first, assuming the stance of a sovereign Revealer to ignorant man; second, unveiling God’s sovereign salvation to fallen man; and third, announcing to perishing man that he is the object of God’s sovereign judgment.

Supremacy and Revelation

Christ was not the first to tell parables as a function of rule and authority. It was the territory of kings to gather knowledge concerning patterns in creation and deduce the moral and spiritual lessons from this first book of divine revelation. Proverbs declares: “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter” (25:2). Scripture confirms that this applies to Solomon, for “he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes” (1 Kings 4:33).

Patrick Fairbairn helpfully points out that, through the parabolic method of instruction, Christ

drew the attention of His followers in every age to the profound and intimate connexion that subsists between the realms of nature and of grace, and taught them to look through the one to the other.... By means especially of His inimitable parables, He showed, that when nature was consulted aright, it spoke one language with the Spirit of God; and that the more thoroughly it is understood, the more complete and varied will be found the harmony which subsists between the principles of its constitution and those of Christ’s spiritual kingdom. [7]

It is not too much to say that Christ displayed His royal authority by speaking about natural things in ways that conveyed supernatural truth. Christ harnessed the glory of His own creation and used it to convey most splendidly the glory of His kingdom.

To natural man, the disturbing part of it all is that Christ needed to reveal the kingdom. After all, this implies man’s fundamental ignorance of it. It is humbling to man’s religious sensibilities that he needs someone to teach him about the kingdom of heaven, especially when we consider that he had been a subject of God once in the kingdom of Paradise.

Moreover, man’s ideas of the kingdom stand opposite Christ’s portrait of the kingdom. We by nature are not sympathetic to the idea of the kingdom of heaven being like a sower, whose seed meets with all sorts of bad soil. [8] Instead, we might appreciate something more like a steamroller with ourselves in the driver’s seat. It is offensive for us to think of the kingdom as a treasure or pearl for which we would need to sell all (Matt. 13:44-46). It is offensive to think that the kingdom would suffer the mixture of wheat and tares, good fish and bad fish, for awhile until the end (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43; 47-50).

Despite man’s negative responses, Christ promoted the kingdom of God through His parables by revealing infallibly what man by nature fails to understand and, in fact, misunderstands. Those whose hearts have been rendered teachable will submit to Christ’s teaching and to His position as Teacher. The rest, however, offended at the claim of sovereignty, will continue hardened and the truth of the kingdom will be only further concealed to them.

Supremacy and Salvation

The second way Christ promoted the kingdom was through manifesting how it is a rule in which God sovereignly dispenses His grace for salvation. Many of the parables that convey the message of grace can be found in the Gospel of Luke, and appear to have been annunciated when Christ traveled through Palestine from Galilee to Jerusalem, a journey of about six months. [9] This is where we find the parables of the good Samaritan, the great supper, and the prodigal son. Many of them demonstrate how God graciously draws people into His kingdom. God’s people continue to live depending on grace and in turn showing grace to others.

Quite a few of these parables from this time, interestingly, also deal with money, showing how the love of money is a force opposed to the principle of the kingdom. The Pharisees, whose religion was based on principles of works and rewards, showed themselves to be covetous (Luke 16:14). Their religion and their lifestyle meshed perfectly. For that reason, Christ shows the error of both. In turn, He coordinates the generosity of God’s grace with a life of faithful stewardship under God. Both were concepts that would have been alien to the Pharisees to whom Christ is speaking. The operating principle of the kingdom is not money nor man’s works, but God’s gifts through Christ. Simply put, the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of grace.

Despite the fact that we might have expected natural man to receive this as good news, some of the parables that were considered most offensive by the Pharisees and others in authority highlight how God’s kingdom operates by the principle of grace. Think, for instance, of the parables of the lost son (Luke 15:11-32), the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:23-35), the two debtors (Luke 7:41-43), the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:9-14), and the banquet (Luke 14:15-24). The context of all of these parables clearly indicates that many in the audience took great exception to the gospel of forgiving grace.

Moreover, the parables that explicitly set forth Christ as the way whereby God could be gracious to lost sinners are particularly offensive to natural man. Think, for instance, of the parable of the wicked husbandmen (Matt. 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19), or the parable of the sheepfold (John 10:1-18). It is offensive to man’s pride to think he would need a sovereign Savior.

Clearly, natural man does not only stumble over the fact that he needs revelation; he also stumbles over the content of that revelation, even when that concerns how he could be delivered from his sin and misery. This coordinates with what Paul says about the gospel of the cross as “foolishness” to the natural man (1 Cor. 2:14). Not only is man an adversary of God’s sovereignty; he is, additionally, an adversary to God’s grace.

It is not surprising, then, that Christ announces this negative reaction before He begins to tell any of the parables. Indeed, many will hear but will not understand, “lest they should be converted, and their sins forgiven” (Mark 4:12). Christ’s parables sovereignly render them more hardened. But others find their hearts melted by the same message of grace. They are mastered by the grace of Christ conveyed in these parables among other things.

Supremacy and Judgment

As Christ approached Jerusalem, the focus of the parables shifted again—this time toward Christ’s return, an event that would mark a radical division in the kingdom. Think of the parable of the man without the wedding garment (Matt. 22:1-14), the parable of the ten virgins (Matt. 25:1-13), or the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:14-30). Christ exhorts His disciples to be watchful. When He returns, God’s supremacy will be in evidence, and all who falsely claim to be part of the kingdom will be destroyed.

Like prophetic announcements of the day of the Lord (Amos 5; Joel 2), these parables assume the equity and propriety of God’s judgment. They urge readiness in light of the stark and sudden manifestation of judgment. They stress the permanent and inescapable character of divine judgment, pressing on the hearer the supremacy of God and Christ, His Son.

Snodgrass correctly writes, “No message about the kingdom of God could make sense that did not express at least the hope of the fulfillment of God’s universal rule.” [10] One could even go further, however. Christ’s emphasis on judgment in His teaching corpus, including the parables, was part of His aim to vindicate His Father’s and His own supremacy. Those who rejected the message of grace along with Christ as the King of the kingdom will one day face the damning supremacy of Christ in judgment, when He will say: “Depart from me” (Matt. 25:41).

Conclusion

The Old Testament prophets have properly been identified as representatives and defenders of the supremacy of God. [11] Christ’s teaching ministry should be understood in this light, including His parables. [12] Far from being simply beneficent and inspiring tales to illustrate His message, the parables promote the supremacy of God. In fact, Christ is more than a prophet speaking on behalf of the King; He is the King come down to speak to His subjects. His parables are no exception to this posture of sovereign address. They assume authoritative revelation from the very first; they urge the message of sovereign grace; and they hold out a sovereign judgment of every soul. In this light, it is no wonder that the parables met with such rejection, especially from those who found their own authority challenged. Their self-assumed supremacy collided with His proper supremacy, and Christ’s words proved themselves infallibly legitimate: “That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them” (Mark 4:12).

It is no wonder that these words were first uttered by the prophet Isaiah when he was called to be a prophet (Isa. 6:9-10). He “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up” (Isa. 6:1). From out of this vision, he also promoted the supremacy of God by revelation, in grace, and in judgment. But Christ did not only see the Lord, he was the Lord. He not only sat on the throne, but was willing to leave His throne in heaven in order to set up His throne in hearts, and among the means to that end, there are those masterful parables.

Notes

1. David Wenham speaks for many when he writes: “What are Jesus’ parables all about? The simple answer to that question is that they are all describing some aspect of ‘the kingdom of God’” (The Parables of Jesus, The Jesus Library [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1989], 20). Recent years have seen considerable fresh work on the parables, including Klyne Snodgrass, Stories With Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); Terry Johnson, The Parables of Jesus (Fearn: Christian Focus, 2007); Richard D. Phillips, Turning Your World Upside Down: Kingdom Priorities in the Parables of Jesus (Philadelphia: P&R, 2003); Richard N. Longenecker, The Challenge of Jesus’ Parables (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000); Craig L. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2000). Some older works that are still relevant today include: John Laidlaw, Studies in the Parables of Our Lord (Minneapolis: Klock & Klock Christian Publishers, 1984); James Montgomery Boice, The Parables of Jesus (Chicago: Moody Press, 1983); Simon Kistemaker, The Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980); Herman C. Hanko, The Mysteries of the Kingdom: An Exposition of the Parables (Grand Rapids: Reformed Free Publishing Assoc., 1975); and Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Parables of Our Lord (London: John W. Parker and Son, 1857).
2. When the biblical authors use this term it refers to the domain in which God rules by His grace through His Holy Spirit. The kingdom of heaven is where God manifests His gracious reign through the Spirit in bringing sinners into fellowship with Himself through Christ. It has in view God’s mediatorial rule at the climax of redemptive history, effected by the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. Through Christ’s work, God overthrew all principalities and powers, triumphing over them. Jesus manifested this kingdom in His preaching and parables, calling for willing subjects of this reign, and He will consummate this reign when He returns on the clouds. Herman Ridderbos helpfully writes, “The coming of the kingdom is first of all the display of the divine glory, the re-assertion and maintenance of God’s rights on earth in their full sense” (The Coming of the Kingdom [Philadelphia: P&R, 1962], 20-21). John Laidlaw says it like this: “That kingdom is just the Gospel of Jesus, or Christianity considered as a power—a cause, an influence, a moment, the power of God unto salvation. And that King is none other than Jesus the Lord” (Studies in the Parables of Our Lord, 52).
3. Snodgrass (Stories with Intent, 157-63) traces how many have stumbled over this passage and tried to soften its force. Snodgrass himself proposes that the passage means that “parables enlighten and instruct, but often with a message that people do not want to hear” (159). This certainly is true enough, but Snodgrass is missing the real point when he says that these words are “irony, an attempt to shock into repentance, or reverse psychology” and “not literalistic” (160).
4. See Johnson, The Parables of Jesus, 26.
5. For example, Heinrich Kahlefeld conveniently but inappropriately obscures the whole matter by distinguishing within the gospels “two differing interpretations of the parable discourse. There is apparently an older way of thinking that is closer to the words of Jesus, and therefore takes precedence, which in principle sees in the parable a means of understanding, spoken out of the desire to unlock the truth for the hearers, to provide them an access to the meaning, to convince and win them. Alongside, a later and secondary interpretation appears; it is probably determined by the late Jewish exegetical method, which accepted a multiple meaning and was inclined to see the real revelation in that very meaning which was not evident but concealed behind the verbal statement” (Parables and Instructions in the Gospels, trans. by Arlene Swidler [New York: Herder and Herder, 1966], 36-37).
6. One notable exception is Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), esp. pp. 13-44. However, his analysis suffers from a proclivity for neo-orthodox and existentialist interpretations.
7. Hermeneutical Manual or Introduction to the Exegetical Study of the Scriptures of the New Testament (Philadelphia: Smith, English and Co., 1859), 176.
8. See the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:3-23; Mark 4:3-20; Luke 8:5-15).
9. Jakob Van Bruggen (Christ on Earth: The Gospel Narratives as History [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987], 194-200) gives a good defense of the historicity and integrity of the Lukan record of these chapters.
10. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 478.
11. E.g., O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Prophets (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2004), 46-65.
12. This accords with a point Snodgrass makes (Stories with Intent, 159).