Matthew 13:17, commentary and pictures

Christ's disciples were blessed above earlier prophets and righteous men because their eyes saw and their ears heard Christ Himself and the truths of His coming, mission and kingdom which those before them had longed to experience but died without knowing. The saying belongs to the parable of the sower, where it is given to the disciples to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven while to others it is not given, the Father hiding these things from the wise and prudent and revealing them unto babes because the multitude seeing see not and hearing hear not, neither understanding. Seeing and hearing means receiving His words and instruction with believing eyes, ears and hearts open to instruction, in contrast to hearts closed by prejudice like the Pharisees who shut their eyes and ears and remained blind, unable to understand, turn and be healed. Those now living are likewise highly favored because the precious advanced light of truth now unfolded, including the messages given from 1840 to 1844 and the message of Christ's soon coming carried by the remnant church, is what prophets and kings and righteous men desired to see and hear and understand but were not given the privilege to understand. The same truth meets different hearts with different results, as hardened habits, shallow faith, and worldly cares, riches, pleasures and honors choke the word, while good and honest hearts understand, receive and live it, so the heart must be prepared as soil by repentance and diligent cultivation to bear fruit to the glory of God.

Parable Context and Purpose

The verse belongs to the parable of the sower, which sets forth the different kinds of hearts and of people Christ taught. It explains why His ministry had meager and limited immediate results, since people were free to accept or reject Him according to the tendencies of the human heart. After the sower and the seed He spoke in parables because the multitude seeing see not and hearing hear not, neither understanding. This fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias that hearing they hear without understanding and seeing without perceiving, because hearts are gross and ears dull and eyes closed lest they be converted and healed. The Father has hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes, and it is given to the disciples to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven while to others it is not given.

Truth was presented in parables to rebuke sin without causing personal offense. Great truths were hidden under similitudes so that persons who had not the truth or the love of it, whose hearts were misled by their own tempers and gratified inclinations, could not know His doctrines, while an honest and pure heart will discern them although given in parables. Unfruitful hearers are the skeptical, the superficial, or the secular, who cannot discern the moral glory of the truth or its practical, personal application to their own hearts. They lack the faith that overcomes the world, and as the sure consequence the world overcomes them, whereas there are fruitful hearers in proportion as they understand the Word and receive it into good and honest hearts, and that will be in proportion to their faith. It is not learned men that make the heart feel, but close connection with God that opens the understanding and makes it quick and sharp, while the words of life may fail to bear fruit when the hearer's heart is unprepared and the enemy's suggestions weaken their force.

Blessed Eyes and Ears

The disciples were blessed and privileged above all who came before them because their eyes saw and their ears heard Christ Himself and the truths of His coming, His mission, and His kingdom. Many prophets and righteous men had long desired to see those things and to hear those things, yet they did not live to experience them, did not witness or hear them, and died without knowing them. That privilege brought greater light, and those who rejected that light did so despite the instruction and warnings they had received. Christ by His presence and teaching opened minds to truths that had been hidden from the foundation of the world, bringing joy, while those who rejected Him turned away from the freedom, light, peace, and joy He offered. His teaching and work were a privilege and an essential lesson for believers in every age to study and carry into their ministry. The eyes that saw what was seen in 1843 and 1844 and the ears that heard are presented as a fulfillment of that same blessing, making those who witnessed them especially privileged.

To see and to hear meant to receive Christ's words and instruction with believing eyes and ears and with believing hearts open to instruction. The disciples were blessed because they so saw and heard the teaching of Jesus, receiving the light of His ministry. Those who refused the truth or neglected their opportunity remained unable to understand it. Eyes that see and ears that hear stand in contrast to hearts closed by prejudice, which keep people from understanding, turning to God, and receiving healing. The Pharisees shut their eyes and ears and remained blind to the truth, while Christ's disciples saw and heard with believing hearts open to instruction. Those who have been given the opportunity to hear God's word must not close their hearts against it.

The patriarchs and prophets longed to sit at Christ's feet and learn from Him in person and would have thought themselves highly honored to minister to Him, but they did not see and hear Him as the disciples did. The disciples were blessed because their eyes saw and their ears heard Christ Himself, who is greater than Jonah and greater than Solomon. Their knowledge came from Jesus, not from the schools of the prophets, and was free from tradition and bigotry. His teachings in word and example were sown for His disciples to cultivate, and He scattered heavenly truth for minds and hearts seeking light and knowledge to receive as treasure from heaven.

Truths Long Desired

The verse means the disciples were blessed to witness in person Christ's coming and mission, which many prophets and righteous people had longed to see and hear but did not live to experience. His mission revealed and opened minds to truths that had been hidden from the foundation of the world. His presence and teaching brought joy, while those who rejected Him turned away from the freedom, light, peace, and joy He offered.

God had presented truth across the ages, to the Jews through prophets and others, and Jesus gathered up those truths that had been mixed with error so they could shine forth in the gospel. He restored truths that had been obscured or misinterpreted, presenting them in their original beauty and setting each in its proper place. In Him truth was therefore seen more fully than before.

Patriarchs and prophets had longed to see and understand divine truths that were not yet revealed to them, and Christ came to make those truths known. Yet those unable to grasp plain teaching could not understand mysteries hidden from mortal sight.

Greater Light in Present

Those living on the earth now are highly favored above all people, because the precious light of truth, advanced light, hidden truths unfolded, is given in this day, the very things many prophets and righteous men desired to see and hear but did not see and did not hear. The eyes that saw what was seen in 1843 and 1844 and the ears that heard the messages given from 1840 to 1844 are blessed in fulfillment of this, for many prophets and righteous men desired to see and hear those things and did not. That blessing means those messages are to be made forcible now and carried to all the churches without delay, for the signs of the times are fulfilling and the closing work must be done. A great work is to be done in a short time by a message given by God's appointment that will swell into a loud cry, when Daniel will stand in his lot to give his testimony.

The mysteries now carried to the world by the remnant church and the obedient church on earth in messages from God, including the precious truth and message of Christ's soon coming which the church is to make known to the world, are what prophets and kings and righteous men desired to see and hear and understand. The prophets foretold these things but were not given the privilege of understanding what they foretold, nor of seeing what is now seen and hearing what is now heard, while those who walk in accordance with the light of God's Word understand them better. They will know all fully at the second coming of Christ, when surrounded by a multitude which no man can number He explains the deliverance wrought out by His great sacrifice.

People who faithfully follow God receive the light available in their own time, and as truth unfolds they should accept and obey it as faithful people of earlier generations would have done had they lived then. Prophets and righteous people of earlier times longed to see and hear the blessings and truths made known through Christ, but died without experiencing or knowing them, and the gospel of Christ gives believers greater light than those faithful people received. Those entrusted with greater light are accountable to serve faithfully and, like the faithful servants before them, will receive glory, honor, and immortality.

The instruction in Matthew 13 must be read as for life and taken to heart, guarding against being blinded by human sophistries and mocking of sacred things, for Christ looks to the future destiny of those for whom He gave His life. Those who are saved must form characters without fault before a pure and holy God, doing the work God has given each one, cooperating with Christ by wearing His yoke and learning His meekness and lowliness, and gaining daily experience in the meaning of the divine beatitudes, so they can stand acquitted in the judgment according to deeds. The disciples were privileged to witness and hear truths about Christ and the kingdom that many earlier prophets and righteous people had longed to see and hear but had not experienced, their privilege brought greater light, and those who rejected that light did so despite the instruction and warnings they had received. Christ's teaching and work were a privilege and an essential lesson for believers in every age to study and carry into their ministry, since many prophets and righteous people longed to see and hear what His hearers witnessed but did not experience it themselves.

Receiving and Sowing Seed

The same truth meets different hearts and produces different results. Some hearers lose their regard for truth because of hardened habits and corrupt influences, others receive it eagerly but fall away when tested because their faith lacks depth, and still others let worldly cares, riches, pleasures, and honors choke the truth. The ennobling message of the kingdom stirred many hearers and made a holier life desirable, yet while some carried its principles into daily life, others soon lost the impression and returned to indifference. Hearing and professing belief do not by themselves produce lasting Christian character, but the truth must take root and be lived.

Hearts can fail to receive heavenly truth as barren, hopeless, and profitless soil where the seed cannot take root. Such is the heart filled with a self-deluding feeling of superiority, where exalted self claims all faith, honor, and love, so that it supposes others are at fault. It is full of evil thoughts and suspects even the purest, speaking words of reproof and condemnation strong and hard as nether millstones that crush all hope and courage out of the soul and make a man an offender for a word. When confronted with the goodness of heart manifested in true Christians it develops roots of bitterness whereby many are defiled. This was the condition of the Pharisees' hearts.

The different results of the seed depend on the soil, yet the heart's response to God's word can be changed through repentance and cooperation with God. As the garden must be prepared for natural seed, so the heart must be prepared for the seed of truth. No raw land yields at once a harvest, but requires diligent, persevering labor in preparing soil, sowing seed, and culturing the crop. So spiritual sowing requires cultivation of the garden of the heart, breaking up of the soil by repentance, uprooting of the evil growths that choke the good grain, and overcoming of evil tendencies and thorn-overgrown habits only by earnest effort in the name and strength of Christ.

Casting seed into the ground teaches death, and the springing blade teaches resurrection, and the correspondence between natural and spiritual sowing continues as the plant grows. The privilege of the sowing parable must be taught in practical work with soil and seed. It is to be taught to children as they prepare soil and sow seed and to youth in tilling the soil.

Christ is the great Sower scattering the seeds of truth, and the human heart is soil that must be prepared to receive them. Parents have been given the work of preparing that soil in their children by educating them for usefulness and bringing them up in nurture and admonition, making the Word of God the standard and leading them to cheerful obedience. Then the sown truth will grow up into Christian men and women and secure their future happiness. Good seed of instruction so planted can take root in the prepared heart.

Seeing and hearing divine truth is a blessed privilege long desired by prophets and righteous men. When God's Word is taught by a teacher whose work is wrought in God, lessons of divine truth linger in the memory even of the most careless students, though the teaching may seem to have little effect on mind and heart at the time. The Holy Spirit waters the seed sown, and often after many days it springs up and bears fruit to the glory of God. Hearts prepared for the seed receive the divine message with joy.

Christ's work and the work of His servants is sowing the word of God. The privilege of seeing and hearing Christ as the divine Teacher sowing the seeds of truth calls for doing the same work as He did. It is to be done with care, anxiety, self-denial, and continued sacrifice for others' good with His mind, by unselfish, earnest, persevering missionaries laboring without weariness in well-doing as co-workers with Christ and the heavenly angels in the salvation of others. Poor soil is no reason to stop sowing, but the truth is to be proclaimed everywhere and sown among people who have not yet heard it, even when results are not immediately visible. Gospel work may bear fruit only after long delay, as God's Spirit nurtures what has been sown, and the worker should trust God to quicken the seed to life when it has lain dormant, so that by convicting grace it awakens, springs up, and bears fruit to the glory of God, leaving the outcome to God.

The things Christ's hearers saw and heard from Him that day were seed of truth sown in their minds that would spring up and bear fruit to the glory of God and save many souls. Its effect was not seen at once, but was revived in the hearts of many attentive listeners after His crucifixion and resurrection. It was then repeated by them for the benefit of future generations to the close of time. Likewise hearing His words could plant the gospel so that some who heard Him at His trial later grew in reverence and faith in Him as Redeemer, and some became disciples who were themselves tried for their lives.

The seed of truth may bear fruit when Christ is presented as the Saviour and His redeeming love is proclaimed. God's word is like seed that can be gently planted in a suffering person's heart. This is especially so when the heart has been softened by hardship and is open to divine influence.