This site is for those that believe in the sovereignty of God. If you wish just jump in.

Monday, October 31, 2005

The Hid Treasure and

The Hid Treasure and The Pearl of Great Price
by Sylvester Hassell

THE GOSPEL MESSENGER
Devoted to the Primitive Baptist Cause
Sylvester Hassell, Editor ---- J.E.W. Henderson, Associate Editor


Williamston, N.C., April 1904

THE HID TREASURE AND THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE
In the beautiful and instructive cluster of seven parables, or natural similitudes of spiritual truth, spoken by Christ, and given in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, the fifth and sixth, in which the kingdom of heaven is compared to a treasure hid in a field and to a pearl of great price, form a similar and inseparable pair, showing the characteristics of the two classes of the people of God, who are really one after all, though their early experiences may seem to differ. These two parables were spoken, not to the multitude, but to Christ's disciples, not by the seashore but in the house (Matt.xiii. 36,44-46).
'The kingdom of heaven,' says our Lord, 'is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant-man, seeking goodly pearls; who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.' In the first parable, a farmer or hired laborer seems to be working in a field, and to unexpectedly plough up a great buried treasure,, and hiding it again, and in joyful anticipation of possessing it, he goes and sells all his property, and buys the field, and thus secures the treasure. In the second parable, a merchant, seeking to buy valuable pearls, finds one pearl of such surpassing value that he sells all he has and buys it. The treasure and the pearl are Christ, the Salvation of God, in who are the unsearchable riches of grace and glory, pardoning, purifying, guiding, preserving grace, and heavenly and immortal glory. The field is the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which testify of Christ the Written Word Of God, of which Christ, the Living Personal Word of God, is both the chief Witness and the chief Substance. He is the Infinite Treasure hidden from the natural mind of both Jews and Gentiles who read or hear the Scriptures. But God suddenly reveals Christ to some of His elect who had not previously sought for Him, as Christ says in Isa 1xv.1, and Rom, x.20 I was found of them that sought Me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after Me'; as was the case with Matthew the publican (Matt. ix.9), Zaccheus the publican (Luke xix.1-10), the woman of Samaria (John iv.), the man born blind (John ix.), the thief on the cross (Luke xxiii.39- 43), and Saul of Tarsus (Acts ix.). These at once hide Him in their heart, anxiously meditate on and carefully keep and value the slight revelation that Christ has made of Himself to them, the hope of a hope that they have in Him, though they try to hide it from others, and they rejoice in it however small and slight, and they are willing to part with everything else to have it confirmed and secured to them forever. The merchant, in the second parable, represents another class of God's elect, who are quickened into divine life long before they realize their possession of the slightest interest in Christ. They are sensible of the holiness of God and their own sinfulness; they are restless and distressed; and some of them for months and years make it their chief business to seek goodly pearls to find relief and rest by morality, legal righteousness, prayers, vows, fastings, alms-givings, reading the Scriptures, attending upon the public worship of God like the Ethiopian eunuch, Cornelius the Roman centurion, and Lydia the purple seller (Acts viii., x., and xvi.); and when Christ, by His Spirit, reveals Himself to them as their Prophet, Priest, and King, their Divine-Human all-suitable and all-sufficient Saviour, their Wisdom, their Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption, their Sin-Atoning Sacrifice, their Risen and Justifying Redeemer, their Food and Drink and Clothing and Habitation and Physician and Captain, their Lord and their God, their All-in-All for time and eternity, the Chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely to their souls, they are made by His almighty grace perfectly willing, as He has given Himself for them, to give up all for Him their self-righteousness, self-wisdom, self-strength, all the riches, honors, and pleasures of the world, and mortal life itself for Him. And so both the farmer and the merchant, the non-seeker and the seeker after Christ, the seemingly accidental by really providential finder and the graciously intending finder of Christ, all of who are the elect and redeemed people of God, after Christ is revealed to them, are taught by His Spirit to esteem Him incomparably above all other persons and objects, and to exclaim, with the poet
'I could from all things parted be,
But never, never, Lord from Thee.' They incomparably esteem the Lord above all other beings, His people above all other people, His Book above all other books, His law above all other laws, His doctrine above all other doctrines, His gospel above all other pretended gospels, His church above all other societies, His salvation above all counterfeit deliverances, and His holiness, wisdom, love, and power inconceivably above all others. To all such characters the salvation of Christ is given without money and without price, because Christ has Himself, as their Head, paid down all the price of it in His sufferings and death and resurrection, and it is theirs forever just as surely as if they had bought and paid for it.
S.H.



"

No comments: