Meditations in Matthew Thirteen: the Treasure and the Pearl

The usual view of the parables of the “treasure” and the “pearl of great price” (Matt 13:44–46) is glorious. Christians must “abandon anything that would stand in the way of wholehearted allegiance to Christ and the priorities of the kingdom.”¹

Scripture supports this teaching. We should place a high value on the kingdom. Jesus told us to seek “first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matt 6:33). Sometimes, this requires us to sacrifice our possessions (e.g., Heb 10:34).

But these parables teach a far more glorious truth. They show the value Christ places on the kingdom.

The “treasure” and the “pearl of great price” represent the kingdom. We who are born again by the Holy Spirit have entered the kingdom (John 3:3). So, these two precious objects represent us—the saints in the kingdom. The man who purchases these precious objects in the parables represents Jesus. He obtained the kingdom (i.e., us) at a great price.

This post will give our reasons for taking this position. It will conclude with a brief look at an objection to this view.

Consistency With Other Parables

This view of these two parables shows it conforms to the other five parables in this passage.

In a previous post, we said these are all kingdom parables. They share at least four characteristics. “First, they all show us ‘the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt 13:11; 19, 24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52). . . . They describe the messianic age. Second, in each, something valuable is within or among something of lesser importance. . . . Third, each parable distinguishes or separates the good thing from its inferior surroundings. . . . Fourth, the actors that make the separations are the Son of Man or his agent(s).”²

Our view of the “treasure” and “pearl” parables agrees with the common view on three of these commonalities. The “treasure” and “pearl of great price” represent Jesus’s temporal kingdom, his kingdom on earth. We have called this the messianic-age “church kingdom.” These parables are not showing a sale of God’s unchangeable “creation kingdom.”³ No one other than God ever possessed that kingdom. A “purchase” of it is impossible.

Each parable places the thing of value (i.e., the kingdom) within a less-important context. The “treasure” is in a field. The “pearl of great price” is among inferior pearls.

Both parables show a separation. The man buys the field so he can take the “treasure” from its hiding place. A “merchant man” buys the most valuable pearl and leaves the others.

It is the fourth characteristic that makes our view different. We identify the man as Christ. The common view takes him to represent us.

Jesus does not explain these parables, so we must infer the man’s identity. Our inference should come from Jesus’s explanations of previous parables. In each, a person performs an action related to the kingdom.

The first three parables had a “sower” who sows seed (Matt 13:3, 24, 31). Jesus said he represents “the Son of Man” (Matt 13:37). In the fourth parable, a woman places leaven in meal. This action represents Christ establishing God’s kingdom⁴ in the world.

We see no reason to deviate from this pattern. In the fifth and sixth parables, the actor is the Son of Man. He is the Redeemer who pays the price necessary to secure the “treasure” and the “pearl.”

This identification is not conclusive. But, there is far more evidence for it than for us being the purchasers.

The Way Saints Possess the Kingdom

Other Scriptures show how the saints possess the kingdom. Our interpretation of these two parables agrees with those passages.

Daniel foresaw a time—the messianic age —when the saints would have the kingdom. Daniel said, “the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever” (Dan 7:18). In his vision, “the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom” (Dan 7:22).

But how did the saints “take” and “possess” the kingdom?

Daniel is describing what would happen after Christ rose from the dead. In the vision,  

one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. (Dan 7:13–14; emphasis added)

Daniel asked “one of them that stood by” what this vision meant. He wanted to know “the truth of all this” (Dan 7:16). In his explanation, this angel said the kingdom “shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High” (Dan 7:27).

“The Ancient of days” (God the Father) gave the kingdom to the Son of Man (Jesus). The Son of Man gave the kingdom to his saints. They possessed it as a gift of his free grace. They did not give something for it. This action was not a purchase.

Other prophecies reinforce this view of the messianic-age “church kingdom.” Isaiah 55, for example, speaks of this age as a time when the saints would purchase “wine and milk to strengthen, cheer, and nourish.” These symbols represent “the spiritual blessings of the Gospel”⁵ (cp. John 7:37). They are kingdom blessings.

But how would the saints “purchase” these blessings? They would do so “without money and without price” (Isa 55:1). They would have “no money” with which to buy. “Now the big point of this verse is that the food and drink offered to relieve the people’s need is free.”⁶

The saints cannot purchase the benefits of the kingdom. Much less can they purchase the kingdom itself from which those benefits flow.

The New Testament also teaches this perspective. Consider a passage often quoted to support the usual view of the “treasure” and “pearl” parables. Jesus said:

Seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. . . . Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12:31–34)

The usual view seems to read this passage, as quoted, into our two parables.

But the ellipsis is important. In it, Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Saints do not sell what they have to purchase the kingdom. They do so to please God who has given the kingdom to them.

In a parable about forgiveness (Matt 18:23–35), Jesus made a point about our inability to pay kingdom debts. In “the kingdom of heaven,” the “king” does not demand payment in order for his guilty servants to live as free men. Those servants cannot pay their debs. The parable shows God has freely forgiven us. He has not exacted payment for our kingdom life. As in other passages, the servants do not “purchase” the kingdom or its privileges.

Matthew tells us about a rich man who asked Jesus what he must do to get eternal life (Matt 19:16–30). The man was unwilling to obey the Lord. He would not sell what he had to “have treasure in heaven.” Then Jesus says, “Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matt 19:23–24; emphasis added).

Men cannot enter the kingdom by any kind of purchase or exchange. Jesus “said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matt 19:26). Men would enter the kingdom “in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory. . . . and [then they] shall inherit everlasting life” (Matt 19:28–29). An inheritance is not a purchase.

Many other passages teach that the kingdom is God’s gift to his people. Men cannot get it by purchase. So, the man who purchases the kingdom in our two parables does not represent us.

The One Who Purchased the Kingdom

Our view conforms to other passages that show Jesus purchasing his people. 

We agree with Jeffrey A. Gibbs: “the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl of Great Price are parables of the atonement.”⁷ “Jesus has told two parables about the kingdom of heaven which have the concept of ‘selling and buying’ at the core of their intended sense. . . . The primary question, then, is the meaning of ‘selling and buying’ in Matthew 13:44-46.”⁸ Our view of “selling and buying” follows.

Jesus described his mission to make an incredible purchase. He said, “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom in exchange for and instead of many” (Matt 20:28).⁹ These “many” comprise the messianic-age “church kingdom” as we have defined it.¹⁰ This is the “purchase” in the parables of the “treasure” and the “pearl.”

This purchase occurred on the cross. It was a transaction between the Father and the Son. Jesus paid the ransom price with his life. He then lay in the grave three days and nights. He rose from the tomb “early the first day of the week” (Mark 16:9). Forty days later, he ascended to heaven in the clouds (Acts 1:9–11). As we saw above, he then went to the Father to receive the kingdom he had purchased. The Son of Man then gave the kingdom to his saints. He will rule in it until “all dominions shall serve and obey him” (Dan 7:13–27; cp. Psa 110:1; 1 Cor 15:25–26; et al.).

Paul described what Jesus did before this purchase. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor 8:9). He also said Christ, “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation [or “did empty himself” (YLT)], and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Php 2:6–8).

Jesus gave up more than we can imagine to purchase us. He, in a figure, “sold all that he had, and bought” those that comprise his kingdom (Matt 13:46). We “were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet 1:18–19). Christ Jesus bought us (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23).

Jesus was willing and able to pay for the kingdom. We could never pay the required amount. He is the Purchaser in the parables, not us.

A Possible Objection

Few commentaries agree with our interpretation of these two parables. So, the literature contains few formal objections to it. In private conversations, however, we have heard a certain protest. This view places too much importance on the saints.

This objection springs from several statements in Scripture that emphasize our unworthiness. Here is one: “we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isa 64:6). The objection says such passages prevent the thought that we are a “treasure” or a “pearl of great price.”

But do such passages show how Christ sees his kingdom saints? We will only have space here to begin our answer to this question. We will do so by looking at Israel after the flesh (1 Cor 10:18) as a typical kingdom.¹¹

 In the Old Testament, God often tells Israel they are his “treasure.” 

“If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me” (Exod 19:5; emphasis added). 

“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God . . . a special treasure” (Deut 7:6, NKJV; cp. Deut 14:2). 

“And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession” (Deut 26:18, ESV). 

“The LORD hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure” (Ps 135:4).

And “in a passage that is extremely important for our purposes” God “refers to the righteous within apostate Israel”¹² as “my jewels” (Mal 3:17).¹³

God “purchased” this treasure. Moses said, “Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee?” (Deut 32:6).

God spoke of typical Israel as his purchased treasure. It should not surprise us if he speaks of the antitypical kingdom in similar terms, whether by parable or epistle.

Lord willing, we will continue our answer to this objection in our next post. We have much more to say about how God views us.

Conclusion

Jesus gave a prophecy that links our poverty to his kingdom. It summarizes our reason for rejecting the common interpretation of the “treasure” and “pearl” parables. He said, 

What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. (Matt 16:26–28; emphasis added)

He expects us to answer his question in the negative—we have “nothing” to exchange. We cannot purchase life in the kingdom he has now established.

Only Jesus could sell all he had and purchase the kingdom. And, he loved us enough to do so. What wondrous love! “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” (1 John 3:1).

The parables of the “treasure” and the “pearl of great price” are beautiful pictures of what Christ has done, not what we must do.

1. Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew, vol. 22 of The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1992), 224.
2. This quote is from Meditations in Matthew Thirteen: The Sower.
3. We defined these two kingdom terms here, here, and here.
4. That is, his messianic-age “church kingdom”⁠.
5. A. R. Fausset, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments: Job–Isaiah, vol. III (London; Glasgow: William Collins, Sons, & Company, Limited, n.d.), 736.
6. Herbert C. Leupold, Exposition of Isaiah, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1971), 250. Emphasis added.
7. Jeffrey A. Gibbs, “Parables of Atonement and Assurance: Matthew 13:44–46,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 51 (1) (1987): 19.
8. Gibbs, “Parables of Atonement and Assurance: Matthew 13:44–46,” 21.
9. Kenneth S. Wuest, Expanded Translation of the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 52. Emphasis added.
10. We again refer the reader to our definition of this term here, here, and here.
11. See our post Typology and Inmillennialism.
12. Gibbs, “Parables of Atonement and Assurance: Matthew 13:44–46,” 33.
13. We will see the importance of this statement to inmillennialism in a future post.