'Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it'
Matthew 13 v 45-46.
The Parable of the Pearl would not have been lost on Jesus' Jewish audience. Israel as a nation was like the rich merchant in the parable, with a string of fine pearls in their spiritual history. In the Book of Romans, Paul cites a string of pearls that should have paved the way for Israel to have received Jesus as their Pearl of Great Price.
'What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God'- Romans 3 v 1-2.
Later in the book Paul recites these oracles as including 'the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises' - Romans 9 v 4. Despite having such a fine string of pearls, Israel rejected their Pearl of Great Price- Jesus.
One of the consistent themes in Matthew's Gospel is that of fulfillment. With respect to Israel, Jesus is revealed as the one fulfilling all that Israel longed and yearned for, and all that she represented typologically as a type of Christ. These fulfillments include:
1. Jesus is now God's Presence with Israel - Matt 1 v 22-23.
To know God now is to look to Jesus as the 'fullness of the deity in bodily form.' Israel was the womb preparing the way for Jesus to step into human history - Isaiah 49 v 1-3. Israel's calling as the servant to the nations is now fulfilled by Jesus, 'the true Light which gives light to every man' - John 1 v 9.
2. Jesus is Israel's Shepherd -Matt 2v 5-6.
One of the greatest images in the Old Testament is that of God being revealed as the Shepherd of Israel - Psalm 23 v 1, Isaiah 40 v11, Ezekiel 34 v 11-31. Jesus is the Good Shepherd- (John 10 v 11), the one who fulfills all the pastoral imagery of the Old Testament. Jesus will not only fulfill all that Israel longed for in a shepherd, but will also be a shepherd to the Gentiles as well. In John 10 v 16 we read: 'And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.' There is no division between Jewish or Gentile sheep.... one flock, and one new man in Christ.
3. Jesus fulfills Israel's Sonship- Matt 2 v13-15.
This quote is taken from Hosea 11 v 1, where the original quote is in relation to Israel - see also Exodus 4 v 23-23. Matthew sees Jesus as fulfilling Israel's sonship. The parallels are strikingly similar.
Both Israel and Jesus were called out of Egypt. The infanticide that accompanied the birth of Moses under the tyranny of the Egyptian Pharaoh, mirrors the infanticide instigated by Herod around the time of the birth of Jesus. Israel had forty years of wanderings in the wilderness, Jesus forty days of fasting in the wilderness. Israel went into the land of Canaan with God's power and anointing on them, Jesus came out of the wilderness with the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Him. Israel went through the Jordan into their promised land, Jesus was baptised in the Jordan and heaven opened over Him. Canaan is the earthly inheritance foreshadowing Israel's (and our) spiritual inheritance in Christ - (Ephesians 1 v 3, 1Peter 1 v 3-5). Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the promised land.
When the woman at the well was conversing with Jesus about worship, she pressed the point on whether geographical location with respect to Jerusalem was important. -( John 4 v 19-20). This was a question of major significance. We are familiar with the phrase that 'all roads lead to Rome', but for the pious Jew living in Jesus' day, all the roads of spiritual reality pointed to the temple in Jerusalem. Temple worship and the Torah were the glue that held Judaism together, and would have been the focal point of regular Jewish pilgrimage.
When Solomon's temple was dedicated, the Lord placed His Name and ownership on it- (2 Chronicles 7 v 12-22). Jewish pilgrimage to Solomon's temple would have been synonymous with seeking the Lord's Name for His favour and blessing. Solomon's temple was destroyed during the Babylonian exile, but the temple of Jesus' day ( called Herod's temple), was still seen by religious Jews as the place where you met with God. It was still, along with the Torah, the focal point that held Judaism together.
What Jesus said to the woman at the well is ground breaking. His pronouncement that 'the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father' is seismic in its implication. The true sons and daughters of God will worship the Father 'in spirit and in truth', without the need for any geographical centre in Jerusalem. The physical temple would no longer be a place of mediation between God and man, but rather He, Jesus, would now be the temple - the mediator between man and God-( 1 Tim 2 v 5-6).
In John's account of the temple cleansing Jesus makes reference to His own body as being the new temple where God dwells:
'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up' Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty six years to build this temple, and You will raise it up in three days?" But He was speaking of the temple of His body.' ( John 2 v 19-21)
The church is now the new temple where God lives by His Spirit-(Ephesians 2 v 19-22,1 Peter 2 v 4-10). One of the pearls that the majority of Israel held onto was the mistaken belief that they still had a privilege of sonship outside the new covenant that Jesus ushered in. Jesus is the fulfilment of their sonship.
4. Jesus fulfills Israel's calling as the Light to the Nations- Matt 4 v 12-1, Matt 28 v 16-20.
In Isaiah 49 v 6, Israel is referred to as a 'light to the gentiles'. Israel was to be the elect nation that would reveal God's glory to all the nations. Israel's calling as that light foreshadows Jesus as the Light of the World. When Jesus declared 'I am the light of the world', he was taking that mantle off Israel and placing it onto Himself, rather like the Olympic torch being passed on from location to location.
That torch has now been given to the church to be the light of the world, a point not lost on Paul. In Acts 13 v 47, he takes the very quote in Isaiah refering to Israel as the light to the Gentiles, and redefines its application in relation to his own church planting mission amongst the Gentiles.
5. Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah's Suffering Servant- Matthew 8 v 16-17.
Perhaps no race has suffered more persecution than the Jews. Jewish culture was all but wiped out in parts of Europe during the Holocaust. The word Holocaust means burnt offering, and to many that is exactly what was happening to the Jews in Nazi occupied Europe.
For many Christians, that burnt offering resulted in God establishing them again as a nation in 1948. This remains a controversial claim, but no Christian could seriously doubt the depth of Jesus' empathy with the suffering and pain the Jewish people endured in those satanic years. On the cross Jesus' final words, 'My God, My God, Why have You forsaken me? ', reveal how much Jesus can identify with those who are suffering and feel God forsaken.
Jesus is the only burnt offering that makes peace with God possible. Whatever our view of the land and the modern political State of Israel, it is only Jesus who can fully restore and heal them as a nation. Land for peace will never bring peace to the Middle East. Only Jesus, the Prince of Peace, and Suffering Servant can do that for both Jew and Gentile alike.
6. Jesus is the fulfilment of Israel's prophetic calling as the Servant of Justice and Mercy to the nations- Matt 12 v 15-21.
This quote from Matthew is taken from Isaiah 42 v 1-4, the first of four servant songs recorded in Isaiah. Despite the flaws in all of our theological systems, most would agree that a commitment to justice and righteousness are central to Jesus' life and teaching. Those who have surrendered their lives to the Great Pearl- Jesus, are to walk as He walked.
The Jews of Jesus' day were offended by His commitment to righteousness, justice, grace and mercy. He extended privilege to women, honour to children, and respect for aliens and strangers that put Israel to shame. For example, He commends a Roman centurion for his faith, and in so doing exposes the unbelief and lack of faith within Israel (Matt 8 v 5-13). He is happy to receive financial support from women ( Luke 8 v 1-3), something unheard of for a rabbi to do. He honoured children and set them as an example of how we are to receive the Kingdom of God.
Jesus demonstrates to Israel what it means to be the embodiment of justice and mercy, and in so doing fulfills the Law. Without Jesus at the centre, the pearls of the Law and the land lack both life and fulfilment.
7. Jesus fulfills the office of Israel's King - Matt 21 v 1-6, 27 v 37.
Jesus is the fulfillment of the covenant God made with David, that covenant bring summed up in the following verse: 'And your house and your Kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.' 2 Samuel 7 v 16.
Did this ever happen in Israel's history? Where was their king and their kingdom when in exile? Who was their king in their post exilic return to the land? Where was their king during the four hundred silent years between the two testaments? The answer is that only in Christ is the Davidic Covenant fulfilled. There was no king in Israel after the Babylonian exile, and hasn't been ever since that time. It is Jesus alone who fulfills the office of Israel's king.
Don Carson in his book 'Scandalous' points to the irony of the sign placed over Jesus at crucifixion, 'THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS'. He comments that 'this very Jesus who is being mocked as a king, is INDEED a king'. Israel was holding on to the pearl of a wrong hierarchical understanding of kingship, rather than surrendering to the servant king revealed in Jesus. How hard it can be for any of us to give up a wrongly entrenched belief system, when confronted with the opposite of what we were hoping for!
Alfred Edersheim was a 19th century scholar, and messianic Jew. In his work 'The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah', he comments that Israel began with one man Jacob, and ended with the one man Jesus Christ. All of Israel's calling and election is fulfilled in Christ. In Christ, God is now constructing one new man, where there is no historic divide between Jew and Gentile -Ephesians 2 v 11-22. Jesus and His church are the fulfillment of all that the Old Testament temple was pointing towards. All who have faith in Christ, Jew and Gentile, are fulfilments of the promise given to Abraham, that he would be the 'father of many nations'-Genesis 17 v 5.
The reason Israel rejected Jesus was because He didn't conform to their own theology of a messiah. There was no place for suffering and death in the Jewish concept of Messiah. When Jesus spoke openly about His pending crucifixion, Peter tried to persuade Him otherwise. Peter had no concept of a crucified Christ, and his well meaning but ultimately demonic wisdom had to be openly challenged by Jesus-Matthew 16 v 21-23.
As a nation they had completely misunderstood the nature of Jesus' calling and election, as well as that of their own. Israel was called to serve as a light to the nations, to be the seed bed through which Abraham's Seed ( Jesus) would be born, through whom all the nations would be blessed. They were to be the firstfruits of what would ultimately be a harvest of 'all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands'- Revelation 7 v 9.
When Jesus walked amongst them, they had 'eyes to see but couldn't see, ears to hear but couldn't hear.' We all have a selectivity switch, where we switch off from anything we see or hear that doesn't conform to our world view. The Jewish view of their messiah was of a conquering emperor, not a suffering servant dying on a cross. How could they have constructed that view in the light of such a clear portrait of the Suffering Servant recorded in Isaiah 53?
The Jewish nation rejected their Pearl of Great Price- Jesus, clinging instead to the lesser pearls that were all intended to point to Christ. In Jonah 2 v 8, we read 'that those who cling to worthless idols, forfeit the grace that could be theirs.' In Jesus' day, Israel's religious system had become an idolatrous self serving system. The language and actions of Jesus couldn't be more explicit.
He cleared the temple of those who had reduced religion to an opportunity for financial gain. He likened Israel to a fig tree having plenty of religious foliage but no spiritual fruit (Mark 11-12-19). Israel had a form of godliness, but no power. Rather than being the House of Prayer for all Nations, Israel's religious system had become a demonised, idolatrous, and self serving institution. Jesus was a threat to those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. It was the desire to preserve their own self interests that lay behind the Jewish religious leaders' decision to conspire with the civil authorities to have Jesus crucified.
It is easy for any of us to relegate Jesus to being the 'best in the line of' pearls. He is far more than that. Jesus stands in a unique category of one. He is not simply the best in a line of options open to us, He is the Pearl of Great Price. Israel had a string of precious pearls, but without Jesus at the centre, those lesser pearls had no eternal value. My prayer for Israel today is that they discover Jesus as their Pearl of Great Price, and that the long suffering Jewish people come back to Christ as their true source of peace.
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