The following is an excerpt from a paper for an upcoming volume on Bible difficulties related to eschatology. This particular paper deals with the parables of the mustard seed and leaven. I take the view that these two parables depict the current evil age rather than the future Messianic kingdom. Part of this reasoning is that leaven typically represents corruption in the Bible. The most common response that I’m hearing is “But the Bible says that the kingdom is like leaven, so leaven must be the good kingdom here.” Here’s my response to that:
The Kingdom Is Like What?
An objection to the views that the leaven represents corruption might be that if the leaven is evil, then the kingdom of heaven is also evil, as the parable begins “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven…” (Matt. 13:33a). Herbert Lockyer is in the second category of interpreters, seeing that perspective that the parable of the leaven is depicting the internal doctrinal corruption of professed Christianity, but he responds well:
Jesus did not stop at, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven,” but is “like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.” It was not the leaven alone that illustrated the kingdom of heaven, but the whole of the parable… The leaven was hidden in the meal, and as a type of evil, represents the way in which Satan’s subtle forces militate against the truth.[1]
Just as the Parable of the Sower begins, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man…” (Matt. 13:24), but is not claiming the kingdom to be like the man and the man alone apart from the whole situation, the Parable of the Leaven likewise is not comparing the kingdom to the leaven alone. The entire picture is vital to understanding the parable. The parable features leaven, which represents evil in every other context, a woman who is hiding the leaven, and the large sum of three measures of meal into which she is hiding the leaven and waiting for it to ferment. The amount of three measures is helpful here, as Toussaint comments:
This parable reveals the fact that evil will run its course and dominate the new age. But it also indicates that when the program of evil has been fulfilled, the kingdom will come. This is indicated by the use of the preposition “until” (ἕως). The definite limit and program of this age is also indicated by the fact that three measures of meal are used. The parable stops when this amount is leavened. So the kingdom will come when the evil of this age has run its course.[2]
The parable of the leaven is not only about the growth of leaven, but about the complete leavening “till it was all leavened” (Matt. 13:33b; Luke 13:21b). The kingdom of heaven is not being compared just to the leaven per se, but rather to the entire situation of a sum of dough arriving to a state of being completely leavened.
This notion that the kingdom is being compared to more than the leaven is evident even to those who disagree with classic and revised dispensationalism.[3] I will provide two examples before moving on to the study of leaven.
The first example comes from the Gospel of Thomas, which contains a form of the parable of the leaven in Coptic. This is by no means an inspired text, but whoever wrote it was most likely putting the parable of the leaven into other words. The Gospel of Thomas version of the parable is:
96.1 Jesus s[aid], ‘The kingdom of the Father is lik[e a] woman. 96.2 She took a little leaven, [h]id it in some dough, and made it into lar[ge] loaves. 96.3 He who has ears, le[t] him hear.’[4]
Notice here that after “The kingdom… is lik[e]” comes “[a] woman,” whose actions are then explained. The author of the Gospel of Thomas likely understood that it was not the yeast specifically[5] that Jesus was comparing the kingdom to, but rather to the whole process.
The second example is from George Eldon Ladd, who did much work to develop an anti-dispensational already/not yet theology of the kingdom, but when he came to the parable of the leaven, he realized that this was not depicting a permeating kingdom:
Jesus’ reply is that when a bit of leaven is put in a mass of meal, nothing seems to happen. In fact, the leaven seems quite engulfed by the meal. Eventually something does happen, and the result is the complete transformation of the dough. No emphasis is to be placed upon the way the transformation is accomplished. The idea of the Kingdom of God conquering the world by a gradual permeation and inner transformation was utterly foreign to Jewish thought. If this was Jesus’ meaning, he certainly must have reiterated the truth again and again, even as he did the unheard-of truth that the Son of Man must die. The idea of gradualness is contradicted by the parables of the tares and the dragnet where the Kingdom comes by apocalyptic judgment and separation of evil rather than by its gradual transformation of the world.[6]
Ladd’s treatment of the emphasis is close to mine in that he sees the emphasis as the final result rather than the process. We disagree on that process and the result. I would say that the result is a fully corrupted world that is ready for Jesus to set right. Ladd firmly disagrees on what the leaven itself is, but agrees that the emphasis is on the final form of the dough:
The emphasis of the parable lies in the contrast between the final, complete victory of the Kingdom when the new order comes, and the present, hidden form of that Kingdom as it has now come into the world. One would never guess Jesus and his small band of disciples had anything to do with the future, glorious Kingdom of God. However, that which is now present in the world is indeed the Kingdom itself. This is the mystery, the new truth about the Kingdom. How or when the future Kingdom will come is no part of the parable.[7]
The parable of the leaven does not compare the kingdom itself to mere leaven, but rather to something greater to the end of the leavening process. This is not only evident to third category dispensationalists. Since the kingdom is not leaven, it should not be ruled out that the leaven may maintain its negative connotation here.
[1] Herbert Lockyer, All the Parables of the Bible, 190.
[2] Stanley Toussaint, Behold the King: A Study of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1980), 182.
[3] David Turner is a progressive dispensationalist who criticizes classical dispensationalist interpretations of the parable of the leaven: Most classical dispensationalists interpret the imagery as portraying the presence of evil within professing Christendom. This is due primarily to bifurcating the kingdom of God (understood as the future millennium) and the kingdom of heaven (understood as a “mystery” encompassing Christendom, viewed as organized, or nominal, Christianity)… The classic dispensational position depends on the dubious understanding of the kingdom of heaven as the mystery of evil within Christendom between the two advents of Jesus. But the kingdom in Matthew is the rule of God, inaugurated through the words and works of Jesus and consummated at his return. David L. Turner, Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 344, 345. However, it is worth recalling that classic and essentialist dispensationalist positions do not need an additional kingdom of heaven here to recognize that the parables of the mustard seed and leaven are speaking of current evil in an interim period that results from the kingdom postponement.
[4] The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 96. From Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 545.
[5] Gathercole proposes that there is an intentional clash of genders from “the kingdom of the Father” to the woman, but this is not necessarily antithetical to my point because even if the author of Thomas wanted to introduce a gender element, the basic meaning of the parable would have stayed the same even if the woman was replaced by the yeast. Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 547.
[6] George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, revised edition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 97, 98.
[7] George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, revised edition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993), pg. 98.