That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying (Psalms 78:2 , nearly as in Septuagint), I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. Though the Psalm seems to contain only a summary of Israelite history, the Psalmist himself calls it "a parable," and "dark sayings from of old" х mineey (H4480) qaadaam (H6925); ap' (G575) archees (G746)] - as containing, underneath the history, truths for all time, not fully brought to light until the Gospel Day.
Remarks:
(1) Those who maintain that the millennial era will be organically different from the present Gospel dispensation, and denounce as unscriptural the notion that the one will be but the universal triumph of the other, will find it hard to interpret the parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven on any other principle. The gradual growth of the Christian tree until the world be overshadowed by its widespreading branches-the silent operation of the Gospel on the mass of mankind, until the whole be leavened-these are representations of what the Gospel is designed to do, which it will be hard to reconcile to the belief that the world is not to be Christianized before Christ's Second Coming; that Christendom is to wax worse and worse, and be at its worst condition, when He comes; and that not until after He appears the second time, without sin, unto salvation, will the millennium commence and a universal Christianity be seen upon the earth. That those gigantic superstitions, and spiritual tyrannies, and hideous corruptions, which have for ages supplanted and well-nigh crushed out a pure Christianity in some of the fairest portions of Christendom, will not disappear without a struggle, and that in this sense the blessed millennial era will be ushered in convulsively, we may well believe, and Scripture prophecy is abundant and clear in such details. But in the light of such grand divisions as are presented to us in the parables of the Tares end wheat and of the good fish and the bad-between the present mixed and the future unmixed condition of Humanity, all such minor divisions disappear; and the representations of the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven (yeast) are seen to stretch from the commencement of the Christian era, unbroken, into and through and on to the termination of the millennial era. But,
(2) It would be a pity if these parables were used merely for adjusting our views of the kingdom of Christ. They cheer the servants of Christ, when planting the standard of the Cross on new ground, with the assurance of ultimate triumph; when exposed to crashing persecution, with assurances of final victory; and when gaining little ground on the pagan world, while old forms of corrupted Christianity seem never to yield, with the certainty that the time to favour Zion is coming, even the set time, and the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given unto the saints of the Most High, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.