📘 Arnot, The Parables of Our Lord (assigned excerpts)

1. Why the Lord Spoke in Parables

William Arnot, The Parables of Our Lord (1865), Introduction, part III, “The Parables of the Lord”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.

A question, on some of its sides difficult, meets us here, regarding the reason why the Lord employed parables in the prosecution of his ministry. On the one hand, it is certainly true, as may be proved from all history, that comparisons between material and moral facts or laws, spring up naturally in human converse; and further, that the truth expressed in parables, if not in all cases immediately palpable, is better fitted both to arrest attention at first, and to imprint the lesson permanently on the learner’s memory. But the use and usefulness of the parable in this respect are obvious and undisputed; it makes spiritual truth more attractive and more memorable. The difficulty does not lie on this side; it adheres to a second function of the parable, in some respects the opposite of the first,—the function of concealing the doctrine in judgment from closed eyes and hardened hearts. In some instances and to some extent, the parables, while they conveyed the doctrine to one portion of the audience, concealed it from another. In those cases “they are like the husk which preserves the kernel from the indolent, and for the earnest.” It is the method, not unknown in other departments of the divine government, of making the same fact or law at once profitable to the humble, and punitive to the proud. Not only the Lord’s word, but also the Lord himself, partakes of this twofold character, and produces these diverse effects; the same rock on which a meek disciple surely builds his hope, is also the stone over which scoffers stumble in their final fall.

The judicial or penal function of the parable was indicated by the Lord in express terms when he explained the meaning of the sower in private to his own disciples (Matt. xiii. 11–17; Mark iv. 10–13). In these cases, however, the wilful blindness of men’s hearts appears as the sin which brought down the punishment, and the obstacle which kept out the blessing. Every word of God is good; but some persons maintain such an averted attitude of mind, that it glides off like sunbeams from polar snows, without ever obtaining an entrance to melt or fructify. To one of two persons who stand in the same room gazing on the same picture in the sunlight, the beauty of the landscape may be fully revealed, while to the other, on account of a certain indirectness of position and view, it appears only as an unpleasant dazzling glare. So, of two Jews who both eagerly listened to Jesus, as he taught from the fishing-boat on the Lake of Galilee, one found in the story the word of the kingdom, refreshing as cold waters to a thirsty soul, while the other, hearing the same words, perceived nothing in them but incoherent and tantalizing enigmas. For the right comprehension of the parables in particular, as of revealed truth in general, a receptive heart is a qualification even more peremptorily and essentially necessary than a penetrating understanding. “If any man is willing to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God” (John vii. 17).

Each of the parables contained some characteristic, or presented some aspect of Christ’s kingdom. His kingdom was not of this world, and therefore it was intensely distasteful to the carnal Jews of that day. The idea did not readily enter their mind; and when it did in some measure penetrate, it kindled in their corrupt hearts a flame of persecuting rage. It was necessary that the Lord should, during the period of his personal ministry, fully develop and deposit the seed of the kingdom; but it was necessary also that he should remain on earth until the set time when his ministry as prophet should terminate in his offering as priest. Now, if he had at any period displayed all the characteristics of his kingdom in terms which the mob and their rulers were able to comprehend, the persecution that ultimately crucified him, would have burst prematurely forth, and so deranged the plan of the Omniscient. It was necessary, for example, in order to provide consolation for his own disciples in subsequent temptations, that the Lord should predict his own death and resurrection; but this prediction, when uttered in public, was veiled from hostile eyes under the symbol, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John ii. 19). More generally, it was necessary that such features of the kingdom as its spiritual character and its expansive power should be made known to true disciples for their instruction and encouragement, but hidden for a time from persecutors in order to restrain their enmity. Parables served the twofold purpose. Tender, teachable spirits caught the meaning at once; or, if they failed, they asked and obtained an explanation from the Master in private; while those who had not the single eye, were for the time left in darkness. It was their own hardness that kept out the light; their own hardness was employed as the instrument whereby judgment was inflicted upon themselves.

2. The Seed, the Sower, and the Living Word

William Arnot, The Parables of Our Lord (1865), chapter I, “The Sower”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.

From the Lord’s own exposition here and elsewhere recorded, we learn that the seed is the word of God; that the sower is the man who makes it known to his neighbours; and that the ground on which the seed falls is the hearer’s heart. The main drift of the parable concerns the ground, and to it accordingly our attention must be chiefly directed. The lesson, however, is drawn, not from the inherent, essential properties of the soil, but from the accidental obstructions to the growth of grain which it may in certain circumstances contain: some notice, therefore, of the seed and the sower in their spiritual signification is not only profitable at this stage, but peremptorily necessary to the full apprehension of the instruction which the parable conveys.

Seed has been created by God and given to man. If it were lost, it would be impossible through human power and skill to procure a new supply: the race would, in that case, perish, unless the Omnipotent should interfere again with his creating power. For spiritual life and food the fallen are equally helpless, and equally dependent on the gift of God. The seed is the word, and the word is contained in the Scriptures. When we drop a verse of the Bible into listening ears, we are sowing the seed of the kingdom.

The seed is the word, but the Word is Christ: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” (John i.) Christ is the living seed, and the Bible is the husk that holds it. The husk that holds the seed is the most precious thing in the world, next after the seed that it holds. The Lord himself precisely defines from this point of view the place and value of the Scriptures,—“They are they which testify of me” (John v. 39). The seed of the kingdom is himself the King. Nor is there any inconsistency in representing Christ as the seed while he was in the first instance also the sower. Most certainly he preached the Saviour, and also was the Saviour whom he preached. The incident in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke iv. 16–22) is a remarkably distinct example of Christ being at once the Sower and the Seed. When he had read the lesson of the day, a glorious prophetic gospel from Isaiah, “he closed the book, and gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” As soon as he had taken from the Scriptures the proclamation concerning himself, he laid them aside, and presented himself to the people. The Saviour preached the Saviour, himself the Sower and himself the Seed. In the beginning of the Gospel, when the chosen band of sowers first went to work upon the ample field of the world, taught of the Spirit, they knew well what seed they ought to carry, and were ever ready to cast it in where they saw an opening. One of them, and he the greatest, formed and expressed a determination to know nothing among the people save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Twice in one chapter (Acts viii.), we learn incidentally, but with great precision, what kind of seed Philip the Evangelist carried always in his vessel, and cast into every furrow as he passed along. When a large congregation assembled in the city of Samaria to hear him, “he preached Christ unto them;” and when, on a subsequent occasion, he was called to deal with an anxious inquirer alone in the desert, “he opened his mouth and began at the same scripture”—He was led as a lamb to the slaughter—“and preached unto him Jesus.” This is the seed sent down from heaven to be the life of the world.

The Sowers, although they have become a great company in these latter days, are still, like the reapers, “few” in relation to the vastness of the field. The Lord’s message to Ananias of Damascus concerning Saul, immediately after his conversion, graphically defines the office of a minister as a sower of the seed: “He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts ix. 15). A vessel for holding Christ and dropping that precious seed into human hearts wherever an opening should appear—this is the true idea of a minister of the Gospel. Nor is the work confined to those who, being trained to it, and freed from other cares, may thereby be capable of conducting it on a larger scale. As every leaf of the forest and every ripple on the lake, which itself receives a sunbeam on its breast, may throw the sunbeam off again, and so spread the light around; in like manner, every one, old or young, who receives Christ into his heart may and will publish with his life and lips that blessed name. In the spirit of the Lord’s own precept regarding the harvest, we may all be encouraged to adopt and press the prayer that our Father, the husbandman, would send forth sowers into his field.

3. “Who Is My Neighbour?” or “Am I Neighbourly?”

William Arnot, The Parables of Our Lord (1865), chapter XVII, “The Good Samaritan”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.

“This do and thou shalt live:” whether by an emphasis on the word, or by an expressive glance at the moment in the speaker’s eye, or by the simple majesty of the truth declared, the scribe’s conscience was aroused and arrested. The questioner was not altogether comforted by the result of the conversation; he could not allow the matter to drop there. The reason why he continued the dialogue is expressly given; he was “willing to justify himself.” Justify himself! But who accused him? Not the Lord: he had only said, “This do and thou shalt live.” The man’s own conscience was awakened and at work: well he knew at that moment that he had not done what his lips confessed he should do; he had not loved God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself.

It is interesting to notice the principle on which he proceeds to defend himself: conscious that love to neighbours is in his heart a very narrow thing, he conducts his argument so as to justify its narrowness. If he can show that his neighbours are limited to a small circle of relatives, with the addition perhaps of some chosen individuals beyond the line of blood, he may yet be able to live on good terms with himself as a keeper of the law; accordingly, in order to form a basis for his own defence, he inquires, “Who is my neighbour?”

The parable constitutes the answer. But before we proceed to examine its contents, it is of great importance to observe that it is not a direct answer to the scribe’s question. It is the answer which the Lord saw meet to give, but it is not a decision on the case which had been submitted for adjudication. In his question the scribe contemplated other people, and speculated upon who had the right to receive kindness: the answer of Jesus, on the contrary, contemplates the scribe himself, and inquires whether he is prepared to bestow kindness. As to those who should receive our love there is no limit: the real subject of inquiry concerns the man who bestows it. The question is not, Who is my neighbour? but, Am I neighbourly? This is the line in which the parable proceeds. It does not supply the scribe with an answer to the question which he had put; but it supplies him with another question which he desired to evade. He is not permitted to ride off upon a speculative inquiry about the abstract rights of other men; he is pinned down to a personal practical duty. “A certain man went down from Jerusalem,” &c. It is a narrow, dreary mountain pass. By nature it is fitted to be a haunt of robbers; if there are any robbers in the country, they will certainly gravitate to this spot. In point of fact it was notoriously unsafe for travellers in that day, and it is equally dangerous still. A particular portion of the road acquired the name of the path of blood, and under the feeble government of the Turks, as well as in more ancient times, it has well deserved its appellation. The scene of the event therefore is laid in a place which is eminently suitable to its character: the audience who heard the story first would at once and fully recognise its appropriateness.

Robbers assailed the solitary traveller, and after plundering him of his money, left him so severely wounded that he could do nothing to help himself, and must soon have died if he had not obtained help. Although it is not expressly stated, it appears from the whole complexion of the narrative that this man was a Jew. Indeed this is so obvious and so necessary that the point of the parable would be lost if it were otherwise: I think the nationality of the unfortunate sufferer is not stated, precisely because it could not be mistaken.

4. The Father Runs to Meet the Prodigal

William Arnot, The Parables of Our Lord (1865), chapter XXIV, “The Prodigal Son”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.

“When he was yet a great way off his father saw him.” He must have been looking out. Often, doubtless every day, his eye turned and strained wistfully in the direction of his son’s retiring footsteps. While that son was starving in a foreign land, his father was weeping at the window, longing for his return; when at last the prodigal appeared, the watchful father caught sight of his form in the distance, and ran to meet him. Behold again in this glass another feature of redeeming love! Jesus, looking down on Jerusalem, wept for sorrow, because its giddy multitude would not turn and live; if they had with one accord come forth to accept the pardon which he offered, he would have wept again for joy. In his tears, as well as in his teaching he showed us the Father.

The reconciliation is immediate and complete. The parable reveals an extraordinary outburst of paternal tenderness. The son, melted, and in some measure confused by the undeserved, unexpected warmth of his reception, bethought of the speech which, at the turning point of his repentance, he had resolved to address to his father, and began to recite it as he had conned the words in exile:—“Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;” but there stopped short, omitting the portion about being content with the position of a hired servant. Bengel suggests that the father may have cut the prodigal’s speech short by giving aloud an order to the servants for the kind and honourable reception of his child; but another thought, also suggested by the same acute and experimental expositor, brings out, I think, more truly the deep significance of the omission:—The son lying on the father’s bosom, with the father’s tears falling warm on his upturned face, is some degrees further advanced in the spirit of adoption than when he first planned repentance beside the swine in his master’s field. There and then the legal spirit of fear because of guilt still lingered in his heart; he ventured to hope for exemption from deserved punishment, but not for restoration to the place of a beloved son. Now the spirit of bondage has been conclusively cast out by the experience of his father’s love; the fragments of stone that had hitherto remained even in a broken heart are utterly melted at last, as if by fire from heaven. He could not now complete the speech which he had prepared; its later words faltered and fell inarticulate. He could not now ask for the place of a servant, for he was already in the place of a son.

The father’s command regarding the son’s reception represents the complete reconciliation of the Gospel—the total oblivion of the prodigal’s past sins, and his admission into the favour and the family of God, as a dear child. Even the details at this point have been framed after the pattern of spiritual privileges as they are elsewhere represented in the Scriptures; and they admit, consequently, of being minutely examined and applied. The best Robe points to the Redeemer’s righteousness which the believer puts on, and wherein he is justified; the Ring is the signet of a king, the seal of the Spirit in the regeneration; the Shoes suggest that the sinner, forgiven and renewed, shall walk with God in newness of life; the Feast indicates the joy of a forgiving God over a forgiven man, and the joy of a forgiven man in a forgiving God.

These two lessons Christ has tenderly and plainly taught in this parable,—first, that God receives and forgives a sinner who comes back repenting; and second, that he delights in the act of so forgiving repentant sinners: on these points no ambiguity is left, and no room for controversy. These features of our Father’s character, if they were fully perceived and frankly accepted, would soon change the face of the world. Guilt makes the guilty suspicious and distrustful. For the chief ailment of humanity the parable supplies a specific antidote: let the aspect of God’s character, which is here displayed, take possession of a sinful heart, and it is forthwith won.

5. The Publican’s Confession

William Arnot, The Parables of Our Lord (1865), chapter XXIX, “The Pharisee and the Publican”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.

“The publican standing afar off,” &c. The difference does not lie in that this was a good man while the other was bad. This is a sinner too; but he has come to know it, and therein lies the distinction between him and the Pharisee. His judgment of himself accords with his actual state and character; he knows and owns the truth regarding his own sinfulness. There is no merit in this discovery, and in itself it cannot save. If two men should both take poison, and one of them should become aware of the fact ere the poison had time to operate; the one who knows the truth is more miserable than the one who is ignorant, but not more safe. If there be a physician within reach who can cure, the knowledge of his danger will send one man to the source of help, while the ignorance of the other will keep him lingering where he is, till it is too late to flee. But even in that case it was not the man’s knowledge of his danger that saved him. Another saved him; his knowledge of his own need only led him to a deliverer.

It is so here. There is no merit and no salvation in the publican’s conviction and confession; although he confesses his sin, he is still a sinner. His own tears are not the fountain in which his guilt can be washed away. If there were no Saviour, his penitence would do him no good; if Christ had not come to save the lost, the lost, though alarmed, would not have been saved.

If we take care to notice that there was neither merit nor safety in the man’s confession, we may profitably listen to the confession, and learn what it was.

“He stood afar off.” Here we begin to observe external marks of an inward penitence; he judged and condemned himself. He had the same right with other worshippers to come near; but a consciousness of his uncleanness before God compelled him to take the lowest place even among men. Such was the tenderness of his spirit, that he thought everybody better than himself. Humility is the exact opposite of pride; as the one man counted himself better than all, the other counted himself worse than all. When he obtained a sight of his own vileness before God, his feeling was that even his brother would be polluted by his presence. As love of God, when we have tasted his grace, carries love to men after it, like a shadow; so shame before God, because of sin in his sight, diffuses humility and modesty through the spirit and conduct in the ordinary intercourse of life.

He was unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven. He looked down to the earth; but his heart was rising up to heaven the while. His eyes could not bear at that moment to look, as it were, on the light of the great white throne; but his soul ascended, and pressed with violence on the gate of the kingdom. Against that strait gate his spirit is now striving; the King of glory from within feels the pressure well pleased, and opens to let the agonizer in. “Smote upon his breast;” it is like other signs of grace, precious if it is true, worthless when it is false. A worshipper will not be heard for his much beating, any more than for his much speaking: but when it is the true external symptom of a broken heart within, the knocking on his own breast is reckoned a knocking at the gate of heaven. To him that knocketh at this lower gate, the highest will be opened.