How is heaven like treasure hidden in a field (Matthew 13:44)?

The Jews were nothing new; the world had no attraction; but this new treasure induced the One who had discovered it to sell all He had that He might gain it. In fact Christ forsook everything. He not only emptied Himself to redeem us, but He renounced all that belonged to Him as man, as the Messiah on earth, the promises, His royal rights, His life, to take possession of the world which contained in it this treasure, the people whom He loved.

And now, having explained the public history and its results in judgment and in glory for the full instruction of His disciples, the Lord communicates to them the thoughts of God with respect to what was going on upon earth, while the outward and earthly events of the kingdom were being developed — that which the spiritual man should discern in them. To him, to one who understood the purpose of God, the kingdom of heaven was like a treasure hidden in a field. A man finds the treasure, and buys the field in order to possess it. The field was not his object, but the treasure that was in it. Thus Christ has purchased the world. He possesses it by right. His object is the treasure hidden in it, His own people, all the glory of the redemption connected with it; in a word, the church looked at, not in its moral and in a certain sense divine beauty, but as the special object of the desires and of the sacrifice of the Lord — that which His heart had found in this world according to the counsels and the mind of God.

152 The kingdom of heaven was carrying the mind of God, however the Christ might be rejected, or its development on earth spoiled. The Lord had found a treasure hid in the field of this world. This was not Israel; Israel would none of Him. It was Israel's responsibility, and was over. Here He was seeking, He was acting, and takes the world because of what was there to be found in it, His heavenly people; and had given up all His earthly title and place to take this. It was worth while. Surely He shall have it more gloriously as Son of man, but He gave all up then and took the world, for all things are now His. But it was not only the value of His people in His sight, but He knew and judged of the moral beauty the nature and heart of God desired. He was it; and the heavenly saints alone, formed into His likeness, answered to this delight. He sought goodly pearls - understood what was beautiful, found one very precious one, and gave up all and bought it. Think what a privilege, what an unspeakable privilege to be the express and singular object of divine delight! For the treasure and the value He had for it, He bought the whole world, has a title to all, but with the treasure as His object; but here He seeks what can be the divine delight, and has one thing which can be the satisfying object of it. It is wonderful. We can understand why we are taught to be imitators of God; why the beatitudes express Christ's character; why the exhortation in Philippians 2 is the exact portrait of what Christ was. To have this object of His moral delight, Christ gave up all He was entitled to as Son of David then. The wickedness of man may reject Him, and shew what he is, and this we have learned in Matthew; but God always pursues meanwhile His own counsels.

Israel is the treasure in the field. "Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine" (Exodus 19:5). "For the Lord hath chosen Jacob for Himself and Israel for His peculiar treasure" (Ps. 135:4). When He came from heaven He found His people in the field. He bought the whole world and with it, inclusive, the people who are His earthly treasure. "He died for that nation" is spoken of His blessed work (John 11:51). However, we do not read that He got possession of the treasure; it is rather the thought which we get from it, that the treasure found is hid still in the field which He bought by so great a price, for the sake of owning that treasure. And in this we have the key, why this is introduced in these parables of the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens.

But in the privacy of the house the Lord added to His disciples three further parables. Here we have the kingdom from the Divine standpoint, and if our eyes are anointed we too shall see in it what God sees. First, we shall see that there is something of hidden value. The "field" here is still the world, and the Lord has bought it, with a view to securing the hidden treasure in it. This buying must be distinguished from redeeming, for evil men may go so far as "denying the Lord that bought them" (2 Peter 2:1). They were bought but not redeemed, or they would not go on to "swift destruction." The kingdom is established that the hidden treasure in the world may be secured.

In the kingdom of heaven a field has been purchased. In appearance perhaps, the field is the object which the purchaser had in view. Christ has the right of possession over this field; His authority should be acknowledged there, because He has purchased it; but the joy of His heart, His object in all that, is the treasure (the church) which is hid there. That which was purchased by Christ and which belongs visibly to Him, there where His name is eternally acknowledged in the times of the mysteries of the kingdom, that which is His right, and which the understanding of man might recognise as the purchase which He made, that which is as a field which a man bought, is not what He has at heart, for He thinks of the treasure which is hidden there. It is the form which the kingdom has taken.

But this treasure is said to be ‘hid in a field’; and the church, described in the Pauline epistles as a ‘mystery’ (that is, a secret, previously hidden but now made known), remarkably tallies with the figure (cf. Rom. 16:25, 26; Eph. 3:4, 5, 9; Col. 1:26; 2:2, 3). In this respect the church affords a contrast to the nation of Israel for when the Israelites were called out of Egypt to be Jehovah’s treasure (Ex. 19:4–6), it was not said to be hid in a field because their deliverance from the oppressor and their introduction to Canaan was but the due accomplishment of promises made centuries previous to Abraham their forefather. But the calling and privileges of the church were never the subject of promise. From Genesis to Malachi, no revelation from on high was given concerning the church of the heavenly calling. The mystery was hidden from the sons of men, hidden in God. The divine seeker alone was aware of its existence; He alone knew and appreciated its worth. Truly there is a day coming when the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matt. 13:43). But Christ discerns beforehand and divests Himself of all to obtain the treasure — a treasure whose value is the product of His own grace, and which apart from Him is worthless and worse.

The Lord bought the world and every soul in it: all mankind belongs to Him. It is not merely that He has the earth as the One Who created it; He has also bought it. After sin entered and brought in confusion and every evil work, He bought all here below with a price. So, in the parable of the treasure hid in a field (Matt. 13:44), the man who found it goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field — not the treasure but the field. Doubtless it is the treasure which gives him joy, but he buys the field, and not the treasure only. Such is our Lord's testimony.

As we move on to the next three parables which we have read we find that all within the sphere of that kingdom is not bad. The first two were uttered outside the house, these three inside the house. We need to take care lest we spend too much time on the parables which speak of evil and have little time to speak of that which is good. Had we the two outside only to consider we might have given up any attempt to go on for the Lord, thinking all was just a waste of time, but we have something very valuable here. First, "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field". We have already seen that "the field" became "His field", and now we have "a field" as bringing before us the world again. There was something hid in this world which was of such value to the Lord that He sold all that He had to buy the field in order to possess the treasure.

This treasure of which the Lord speaks was hidden in the field of the world: no other eye but His discerned what lay hidden there. It is a treasure in which He finds peculiar delight, and that brings deep joy to His heart. Having found the treasure, He hides it, and buys the field. The treasure is still hidden in the world; for the church, which is a peculiar treasure for Christ, is viewed as for His own heart, as composed of true saints of God, and as unknown by this world, even as it is written in 1 John 3:1, “Therefore the world knows us not, because it knew Him not.” It is not the church in its public witness for Christ, nor yet the mixture of good and bad as seen in the wheat and tares.