Another parable set he before them, saying, The kingdom of the heavens is like a grain of mustard [seed] which a man took and sowed in his field;
The Lord's third parable in this chapter turns from seed sown in soil to seed that grows far beyond its own size. Readers have long asked what that growth means: the gospel's triumph, or a warning about what Christianity would become in the world?
The Lord tells His followers in advance about the gap between how small the kingdom starts and how big it becomes.
The Lord points out ahead of time the surprising contrast between how tiny it was when first sown and the height it would soon reach. He is not passing judgment here on its inner or moral nature. From the start He shows what the whole world can see once it happens. It is one of "the mysteries (or secrets) of the kingdom of the heavens," but secrets given for the disciples to know.
The chapter itself names the man and the field. The size of the seed matches the size of the start.
The field is the world (v. 38). The man who sowed is the Lord Jesus. The black mustard seed is tiny and unimportant. That makes it a fitting picture of how the kingdom began in its present form, seen from the outside. It began with only a few people. There were the 11 disciples who had followed the Lord Jesus, plus around 120 believers with them in the upper room (Acts 1). Afterwards, we see how the gospel spread and many accepted the Lord Jesus and became part of that kingdom.
Verse 32 says the plant grows larger than all the garden plants and then becomes a tree. That shift is the hinge of the parable. It describes something that never happens in a garden.
The Lord Jesus then describes growth that does not match what happens in nature. The black mustard seed does not grow into a big tree. It grows no further than a bush, and certainly not into a tree in which birds build their nests. Of course, the Lord Jesus knew this very well so He drew this illustration with a special purpose behind it. The teaching lies hidden in the contrast between what happens in nature and what He describes.
Scripture explains its own symbols, and elsewhere a great tree stands for a great earthly power.
This chapter does not explain both of these symbols, but God's book does, and it alone gives us the key to this parable... In Ezekiel 31:3-9 we find the Assyrian power compared to a great tree, a mighty cedar in Lebanon... Assyria is clearly a vast power here, because great nations lived under its shadow.
The same picture fits Christianity as a public movement. It began unnoticed and gained a very different kind of influence.
The mustard tree is the profession of Christianity. It began in the humblest possible way. In time it changed its character so completely that it became a great political force in the earth. Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, the tree is the symbol of worldly power (Ezekiel 17:3; Daniel 4:22).
A few verses earlier the Lord had already said what the birds stand for. He uses the same word in both places.
The Lord Himself tells us, in the previous parable, who the "birds of the air" are, for He uses the same word in both places. As the sower sowed the seed, the birds came and ate it. The Lord explains this. "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart." ... So this, and not the conversion of the world, is what this parable says will result in the present age.
Not everyone reads it this way. Many take the growing tree as a promise that the church will fill the earth. Commentators here reply that the church is not what this seed pictures.
Suppose the Lord had meant His church by this mustard seed, which becomes a tree and a roosting place for birds. Suppose the tree really is the church, which is His body. Then this parable would flatly contradict what He and the Holy Spirit teach elsewhere about the church on earth, its mission and its future.
Commentators differ here. Kelly says the Lord is not commenting on moral character at all. Others read the tree and the birds as a clear warning.
The parable of the leaven follows straight after this one. The two work as a pair.
The parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven carry on the parable of the Weeds. They show the bad thing in the Christian world in its two forms: outward worldly greatness and inward spiritual corruption.
- Sown by Christ — the man is the Lord Jesus and the field is the world. The seed is the tiny start: a handful of disciples.
- Grown past nature — a garden plant that becomes a tree is not normal growth. The lesson sits in that gap.
- Grown into power — in Scripture a spreading tree pictures a great earthly power, like Assyria in Ezekiel.
- Grown into shelter for birds — earlier in the chapter the Lord said the birds are the evil one snatching the word away.
- Read it with the leaven — one shows greatness spreading outward, the other corruption working inward. Size is not success.
which is less indeed than all seeds, but when it is grown is greater than herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and roost in its branches.
This is the third parable in the chapter, and it follows a tiny seed all the way to a tree with birds nesting in it. Commentators read that outcome as a picture of Christian profession grown into a power on earth.
The seed matters because of its size. One writer ties it to how the whole thing started: a small group of ordinary people in Jerusalem.
The mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds. We saw this when we were looking at Acts chapter 2. About a hundred and twenty disciples of the Lord were together in Jerusalem — fishermen, simple people. What could such a small company do in the world? In men's eyes they were "the smallest of all seeds." Yet they began at once to grow in strength and increase in numbers. They kept multiplying until in time they became a great tree.
The wording is worth a close look. The plant is first ranked with the garden plants, then it crosses into another class altogether. Older translations say "herbs" where the ESV says "garden plants."
In Matthew 13 it says that when it has grown it is "larger than all the garden plants," yet it "becomes a tree." This reads as if its normal class was that of a large herb, but by some mysterious means it became a tree.
Another writer makes that oddity the key to the whole parable.
The black mustard seed does not grow into a big tree. It grows no further than a bush, and certainly not into a tree in which birds build their nests. Of course, the Lord Jesus knew this very well, so He drew this illustration with a special purpose behind it. The teaching lies hidden in the contrast between what happens in nature and what He describes.
The image is not new. In Scripture a spreading tree pictures a kingdom or ruler. Writers use those passages as the key.
In the parable of the tree we see what the kingdom of heaven becomes in worldly greatness. That this is not what God intended is clear from the enemy's work in the parable before it… Turn now to Daniel 4. Here Nebuchadnezzar himself appears as a great tree. The whole power of the kingdom rested in him alone. More cases could be added, but these are enough to show that Scripture uses a tree to picture an earthly power, for good or ill.
Commentators differ on how dark the picture is. Some see the shelter as what any great power provides, with no verdict attached:
The kingdom itself is like a little grain of mustard seed that becomes a great tree. In the Old Testament that is the symbol of something raised high in the world, of a political power… The birds nesting in its branches stand for the protection it gives. Compare Daniel 4:12. This is the public appearance of the kingdom system as it has been for ages: here is no judgment.
Others take the birds as a warning, since the same chapter has already said who they are.
This is ominous. In the parable of the Sower, the birds stand for the agents of the devil (vv. 4, 19). The mustard tree is the profession of Christianity. It began in the humblest way possible. But in time it changed its character so completely that it became a great political force in the earth.
A common reading treats the growing tree as the church spreading across the world. One writer rejects that.
The mustard seed springs up in the field — and do not forget that the field is the world. It roots deeper and deeper in the earth and spreads in this unnatural way, making room for birds. That is the picture of something quite different. It shows us a system rooted in the earth, a system aiming at greatness in the world… The Lord never meant His church to be rooted and grounded in the field, the world.
One writer names the point in history when the change showed itself.
In less than 300 years the emperor Constantine the Great (AD 272–337) made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. That is the very reason why many professed to become Christians without having new life. They were Christians in name only. There was no reality behind it. This is true of many even today.
The same picture appears in a promise, and there the outcome is different.
He used the same picture to assure the believing heart that in His mercy all will be reversed in the day to come. He will plant the tender twig on a high and lofty mountain, the height of Israel.
- Seed. The start was tiny: about a hundred and twenty ordinary people in Jerusalem.
- Growth. In nature a mustard plant stays a bush. The tree in the parable is growth no one would expect.
- Tree. In Scripture a spreading tree pictures an earthly power. Nebuchadnezzar appears as one in Daniel 4.
- Birds. Earlier in this chapter the birds snatch away the seed. So some read their nesting as shelter for the enemy's agents. Others see only the protection a great power gives.
- Reversal. This tree grew into something God never intended. The tree He plants in the day to come will be all of His mercy.