Mustard Seed, Leaven, and the Strait Gate

In Lk 13:18-30 Jesus gave two parables concerning the kingdom of God and then gave his Jewish audience an exhortation to enter the kingdom of God through the strait gate.

The kingdom of God is like two things, a grain of mustard seed and leaven.

A Grain of Mustard Seed

Jesus said the kingdom of God “is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it”.

The interpretation is this.  A mustard seed is very small.  Jesus said, it is “less than all the seeds that be in the earth”, Mk 4:31.  That’s tiny.

A man takes this seed and casts into his garden.  This is like Jesus, the sower, sowing the seed of the word of God only in Israel.  By comparison to the other kingdoms of the world (Egypt, Syria, Assyria, Babylon, etc) Israel was very small.  The idea being conveyed in this parable is that the Kingdom of God had a very small beginning.

It waxed a great tree.  To wax is to grow toward full development.   The surprising thing about this tiny mustard seed is that it becomes, not only a tree, which is rare, but a great tree.  Mustard plants generally only grow to be 3 to 6.5 feet tall, occasionally becoming sub-trees.

The idea being conveyed here is that the kingdom of God’s little beginning in Israel spreads until it is world-wide.

The problem, though, is that once the tree is great, the fowls of the air lodge in the branches.  Fowls in the Bible have a negative association.  See Matt 13:4, 19 where the fowls represent the wicked one, the devil, Lk 8:12.

Thus, the further abroad the kingdom spreads, the more Satanic influences are evident within it.  Post-millennialists viewed this parable as a world-wide spread of the gospel until the whole world would be saved and Jesus would then return.

But the fowls in the branches indicate that the pre-millennial view is the right view of the future.  In the name of Christ, there is today more heresy connected with the gospel than there is truth.  The world is becoming ripe for the arrival of the antichrist.

Leaven

Jesus also said that the kingdom of God “is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, thill the whole was leavened”.

Leaven, like fowls, has a very negative connotation in the Bible.  In Lk 12:1 it pictures the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.  In 1 Cor 5:6-8 leaven pictures malice and wickedness.

In this parable a woman (typical of the woman in Rev 17:1-6) hides leaven in three measures of meal.  During Jesus’s ministry, the world was divided into three main geographical regions, Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Thus, the leaven spreads world-wide as the kingdom spreads throughout the world.  Jesus said, “the whole was leavened”.

So, as in the parable of the mustard seed, this parable indicates that everywhere you find the gospel, anywhere in the world, you’re going to find a perversion of the truth.

The kingdom of God is entered through the strait gate.

The Strait Gate

In v.23 someone asked Jesus, “are there few that be saved”?  And his reply was, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able”.  Strait is a narrow space or passage.  So, a strait gate is narrow, Matt 7:13-14.

So, his answer was, “yes”, with instructions on how to be one of the few who enter, rather than the many who won’t.  Jesus made it clear that he is the only way to the Father, Jn 14:6.  There may be many religions, but there is only one way.

Jesus proceeded to describe the problem with those who don’t get to enter.  There comes a time when the master rises up and shuts the door and those left standing without never get to go in.  They are like all the poor souls who mocked Noah and the ark until the rain started to fall.  Once they saw they were going to die in the flood, it was too late.

The ones left on the outside say, “Lord, Lord, open unto us”.  And he will reply, “I know ye not whence ye are”.  They will insist that they had eaten and drunk in his presence, and that he had taught in their streets.  But he will deny that he knows them.

The Lord knows his sheep, Jn 10:27.  This is the seal, “The Lord knoweth them that are his. And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity”, 2 Tim 2:19.

They call him, “Lord, Lord” while they’re desperately trying to get in.  But the problem is that they wouldn’t, Jesus said, “do the will of my Father which is in heaven”, Matt 7:21.  And he will tell them, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity”, Matt 7:23.

The will of the Father is narrow and every other religious concept is wide and broad and leads to destruction.  It’s God’s way only; everything else is a work of iniquity.

The end result for these workers of iniquity is weeping and gnashing of teeth as they are thrust out.  They will “see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God”.  But these knocking on the door won’t be there.

Jesus said that even Gentiles from all over the world will “sit down in the kingdom of God”.  This had to be quite a rebuke to the Jews to whom he was talking that day.  Yet, from the Old Testament prophecies, Gentiles were always going to have a place in God’s kingdom, Rom 15:8-12.  Even Simeon said so in Lk 2:32 when he quoted Is 42:6.

Then Jesus ended his teaching by saying, “there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last”.  Israel was the first to get the gospel and the remnant of Israel will be the last, at the end of the Tribulation, to be saved.

We Gentiles were last to get the gospel (Jesus first came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Matt 15:24) and most of us will have go into the kingdom of God before the remnant at the last.

To study the previous lesson, click on In a Synagogue on the Sabbath.