TEXT.MAT.13:33-35.
INTRODUCTION:
This is another parable that is almost universally misinterpreted among professing Christians today. This parable teaches that the same enemy who over-sowed the field with tares will introduce a corrupting agency into the bread of life, or the Gospel. Almost universally this parable is wrongly interpreted to mean that the leaven is the Gospel and will eventually convert the whole world.
If this is what Jesus taught here, he contradicts what he taught in the other parables. For instance, the wheat did not convert the tares to wheat. This teaching would also contradict his other teaching concerning the thoroughly corrupted state of open rebellion to God in the last days. Mat.24:11-12. This would also contradict the teaching of the Holy Spirit.
1Tim.4:1-2. It would also contradict the teaching of the Apostles. 2Tim.3:1-5.
The meal in Ver.33. represents the Gospel, not the human heart , as some of the commentators say. Mat.4:4. is a good illustration of this. The three measures could easily represent the saving truth of the Gospel which is in three parts --- the death, burial, and resurrection.
The leaven of Ver.33. MUST represent false doctrine, which is unholy and corrupting by it’s very nature. Everywhere else in the Bible where leaven is used symbolically it is used in this sense, why should it be otherwise here. A perfect example is 1Cor.5:6-8.
Mat.16:6 and Lk.12:1. show some other examples of how leaven is used as an example, but represents something else. The leaven of Herod was legality, the leaven of the Sadducees was, worldliness, and the leaven of the Pharisees was ritualism.
This leaven is corrupting the Gospel of Salvation in churches today, and as it grows, spiritual conditions will grow worse until the whole religious world is corrupted. Remember, Jesus taught that, “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” And also Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, taught about the worsening of spiritual conditions in the last days. See if what he writes sounds like the leaven is the Gospel and will eventually convert the world. 2Tim.3:1-7 -- 2Tim.3:12-13 -- 2Tim.4:2-4.
Leaven put into a mass of meal, leavens it all, and false doctrine, mixed with the soul saving doctrine of Christ, corrupts it. It is interesting to compare the opposite term, “unleavened” it is from the Hebrew word , “Muzzoth”, meaning, sweetness or purity. Even Webster defines leaven as, “a corrupting change in the mass.”
There is also something insidious about the woman’s actions with respect to the meal. Notice that she hid the leaven in the meal. If the leaven is the Gospel, do we hide it?
This woman, I believe, represents an enemy. And I don’t think that it is an accident that Jesus uses this as an illustration. A woman, in scripture is a symbol of a false church in many places. Read the book of Proverbs and see what God has to say in this respect. Also notice that she introduces the leaven stealthily, very much like the enemy who sowed the tares among the wheat. The scripture in another place identifies this woman as an apostate church. Rev.17: 1-6.
So then, Christ gave us many illustrations of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. The rest of the Bible is not silent on this subject, and although the words,” the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto,” are missing we can find this teaching in the writings of the Apostles. 2Tim.2:20. is a good illustration of this. The churches need to remember that we are not going to take this world for Christ, as some believe. Though the corruption will be on every side, there will always be a few that will band themselves together to form a pure church, one that will hold to the truth of God’s word. I hope that this church will be one of the ones still preaching the pure unleavened Gospel of salvation.