MEDITATIONS FROM THE GOSPELS

 

November 14 , 2007

Reading:  Matthew 13:45-46

 

"One pearl of great price” Matthew 13:46

 

The pearl of great price can be none other than the church. It is not the Baptist church on the corner or the Methodist church downtown, it is, rather, the Body of Christ, some of whom attend the Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, etc. churches. It is the church to which Jesus is committed to build.

 

“I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” Matthew 16:18.

 

The church is that which Jesus loved and for which He gave Himself:

 

“Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” Ephesians 5:25. 

 

These two verses tell us a lot about the church, and, that which is true of the whole must be true of each individual part. The parable speaks of—

The selectiveness of it. The Merchant did not just pick up the first pearl He saw, but searched until He found the one that pleased Him. Our God is a selective God. He chose Israel as His nation “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” Ephesians 1:4. The church is made up of the “elect of God” Colossians 3:12. We are selected by Jesus for service. Just as Jesus chose His disciples from among the thousands in Judea, so He selects the individual members of His church to love and serve Him. God has a purpose in mind and has selected each one to serve in that capacity so His eternal purpose will be fulfilled. Jesus chose Judas Iscariot to fulfill His purpose of the scriptures being fulfilled – John 17:12.  Paul uses a different analogy, that of the body. One is a hand and another a foot, one an ear and another an eye, but we are all of the same body, the Body of Christ, the church – 1 Corinthians 12:12-26.

The distinctiveness of it. There is something very distinct and different about the church and its members. They are particular, different from the world, different from anything else. If they are not different there is something very wrong. They are a new creation in Christ. Nothing like it has ever existed before and nothing ever will again.

The preciousness of it. This is very obvious from the text itself. The pearl was of “great price.” Jesus gave everything He had for it—His life, His blood.  His was the supreme sacrifice typified by the thousands of sacrifices in the Old Testament. His was the blood shed for the ratification of the New Covenant.

 

“He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth” Isaiah 53:7.

 

“But you denied the Holy one and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life” Acts 3:14-15.

 

The man is seeking something definite, a distinct pearl, one that excels all others. When He has looked, with the eye of a Divine Connoisseur, over many pearls, He finds one of unexcelled beauty, the price of which exhausts all of His resources. Allen J. Bartlett.

 

So, much, so much, dear Savior, You have given for me,

Your life, Your blood, Your all;

The blood of sheep and bulls could never suffice,

To save me from the fall.

 

O how precious You are, dear Savior, to me,

Is far more than words can portray;

But for me to be precious to You, O my God

Again, I know not what to say.