The Parables of Our Lord

by William Arnot

The question which demands solution here, and which, when solved, will solve all the rest, is, What is meant by thrusting in the sickle and reaping the ripened grain when the harvest has come? Apart from this parable two distinct significations may be attributed to the analogy, both alike true in fact, and both alike adopted in the Scriptures. In some cases the harvest and the reaping point to the end of the world and the awards of the judgment; expressly in the Lord’s own interpretation of the parable of the tares, it is said, “The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels” (Matt. xiii. 39). But in other cases the reaping of the ripened grain is employed to represent that success in the winning of souls which human ministers of the word may obtain and enjoy. Such is its meaning in Ps. cxxvi. 6, “He that goeth forth and reapeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” In the same sense it is employed by the Lord (John iv. 35, 36), “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already unto harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.” The same idea is expressed in terms, if possible, still more articulate, in Matt. ix. 37, 38. “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers unto his harvest.”[56]

But while the symbol taken from the reaping of ripened grain represents alternately in Scripture, these two distinct though analogous conceptions, it is the latter and not the former which this parable adopts and employs. The reapers are the human ministers of the word, and the reaping is their successful ingathering in conversion here, not the admission of the redeemed into glory at the end of the world.

No other conclusion is compatible, either with the scope of the lesson or the facts of the case. The sower in this story neither helps the seed to grow nor understands how the growth proceeds. The parable is spoken in order to show that, while men are employed at first to preach the word and at last to gather the fruits in the conversion of their brethren, they can neither perform the converting work nor trace the footsteps of the quickening Spirit in the secrets of a human heart. By this similitude the Lord represents the extent and the limits of human agency in the progress of his kingdom.

Having made our way through the difficulties of the parable, and found the key-note of its interpretation, we turn again to its terms for the sake of observing and applying the practical lessons which it contains.

The sower sows the seed; the seed is the word; the hearts of those who hear it are the field. Parents make known the Gospel in their families, ministers in the congregations, teachers in the schools. These sowers lose sight of the seed from the moment that it drops into the ground. It sinks and disappears; they must go away and leave it. They sleep by night,[57] and attend to other matters by day; they cannot see how it fares with the Gospel in a neighbour’s soul. They cannot put their hand to the work at this stage to help it: the seed must be left to itself in the soil.

At this point the likeness between the natural and the spiritual is exact and obvious. When you have made the Gospel of Christ known to some in whom you are interested, you are precisely in the position of the agriculturist who has committed his seed to the ground. If you think of the matter when you lie down, or when you awake, you discover, perhaps with pain, that you do not know whether the seed is swelling and springing or not: and that though you knew its condition you could not reach it, to stimulate the process. It is out of your hands, and out of your sight. It is not, however, out of mind, when it is out of sight; and your own helplessness may draw forth a more eager prayer to the Almighty Helper. In this way it is when we are weak that we become strong; it is when we are made most keenly sensible of our own weakness that we cast our care most fully on the Lord. The law that shuts the sown seed out from us, shuts it in with God. One door closes; but the closing that hides the seed in its seed-bed from our eyes and separates it from our hands, leaves it open to His sight, and pliant to his power. The moment that the seed is sown, he takes it out of our sight, but then and thereby he brings it into his own. It is away from us, and with God.[58]

The parable shows, with great perspicuity and certainty, both the extent and the limits of this withdrawal from human cognizance and help. In the main concern the exclusion is complete; but in some subordinate and incidental matters, it is only partial. As to the power of germination, and the knowledge of it, the sower is entirely shut out from the seed, both in the natural and spiritual departments. But as he may continue his care in nature, with much profit to the seed; so he may, in a subordinate capacity and in an indirect manner, do much to promote the growth of grace in the heart, after the Word has been addressed to the understanding. The exclusion of a minister, a teacher, a parent, from knowing and helping the growth of grace after the Gospel has been published, is like the exclusion of the farmer from his seed after it has been committed to the ground. He can help it, and does help it much by his care. He keeps the fences up, that the field may not be trampled by stray cattle: he keeps the drains open and the furrows clear, that water may not stand on the field, but run off as soon as it falls: he gathers off the stones, that they may not crush the seed, and pulls out the weeds that they may not choke it.

In a similar way and with similar profit, ministers and teachers of the word may remove obstructions which would prevent its growth. Not only have we permission to do this: we are bound positively to do it. The parable excludes us indeed from further knowledge or power, after the word is made known, but it excludes as the farmer is excluded from his sown seed. We know the nature and extent of that exclusion. While the lesson relieves us from the responsibility of that which is beyond our power, it lays upon us the responsibility of that which is within our power.

You may have seen a sown field in spring immediately after a great rain-fall; and you may have observed that a large portion of it, on its lower side, was smooth, and run together and caked, bearing all the marks of having been for some days under water. On the higher portions the wheat was springing, but on this portion, sown at the same time, the ground was bare. You examine the matter more minutely and discover that the drains that had been made for carrying off the surplus moisture, had been choked in the operations of the seed-time, and not cleared out again; and that consequently when rain fell heavily, it accumulated on the lower ground; and having soaked and soured it for several days, had killed the germinating seed beneath the ground. You go to the farmer and ask why he had allowed a large portion of his crop to be lost. Suppose he should say, My work was done, as soon as the seed fell from my hand into the soil; I can neither make it grow, nor understand how it grows; it was not in my province that the failure took place, and therefore the failure could not be my fault. No such specimen of hypocrisy is found in the kingdom of nature: no man could hold up his face before his fellow and cover his indolence by such an impudent plea.

We must see to it, that we be not guilty of the same inconsistency in matters of greater moment. A parent or minister or teacher has committed the good seed of the word to the hearts of his young people, with all due solemnity and care; and thereafter permits them to be steeped in a flood of folly, which he could easily have drained away. The good seed is drowned in that deluge; but it is the sower’s fault. It is true he cannot make it grow by his care; but he can make it not grow by his carelessness. We cannot do the saving; but we can do the destroying. Many pains and many prayers are competent to the sower, although he cannot directly control the growth of the seed. When it grows, it grows independently of him; but when it fails, the failure may in part be due to his unfaithfulness.