Matt 13:18–23 — The Parable of the Sower

The parable of the sower is one of Jesus’ best-known parables. It is sometimes called the parable of the soils because its main emphasis appears to fall upon the four kinds of soil and the different results they produce.

Jesus gives the parable in Matthew 13:3–9. A sower scatters seed. Some falls along the path and is devoured by birds. Some lands on shallow, rocky ground, springs up quickly, and withers when the sun rises because it has no root. Some falls among thorns and is choked. The rest lands on good soil and produces grain—a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold. Jesus concludes, “He who has ears, let him hear.”

Before explaining the parable, Jesus tells his disciples why he speaks in parables. They serve a dual purpose. To the disciples it has been sovereignly granted to know the secrets of the kingdom; to unbelievers outside, it has not been given. The parables conceal truth from those who reject Jesus and reveal deeper truth to those who believe. “To the one who has,” the receptive hearer, “more will be given.” From the one who has not, even his existing religious understanding will be taken away. In Israel’s case, those who rejected the Messiah would lose even the limited benefit of the Judaism to which they clung.

Jesus then explains the parable privately to his disciples. Perhaps they remain with him in the boat while the crowd stands on the shore, or perhaps Matthew anticipates verse 36, when Jesus leaves the crowd and enters a house. Either way, the interpretation is given to believers in keeping with the revealing purpose of the parables.

The Elements of the Parable

Jesus uses explicit explanatory language: “This is what was sown along the path,” and, “As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word.” He identifies what the main elements represent. We should follow his explanation without inventing meanings for details he does not interpret.

Three elements control the parable: the sower, the seed, and the soils.

The Sower

The sower is the preacher of the gospel—first and ultimately, Jesus himself. In the explanation of the related parable of the wheat and weeds, Jesus says plainly, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.”

The image also applies to the apostles and subsequent ministers of the gospel. After his resurrection and ascension, Christ sends his servants to preach. Yet they remain instruments of the risen Jesus, so Christ is still the ultimate sower. He proclaims the gospel through the ministry of his church. This tells us something crucial about his present kingdom: the ascended King himself is at work whenever the gospel is faithfully announced.

The Seed

The seed is “the word of the kingdom,” equivalent to what Matthew elsewhere calls “the gospel of the kingdom.” The focus is not upon every part of biblical teaching indiscriminately, including the demands of the law, but specifically upon the good news and its free offer.

The sower scatters seed broadly without withholding it because of the likely condition of the ground. In the same way, the church should broadcast the gospel without trying to control or predict every response. The results belong to Christ and the Holy Spirit. The gospel is the seed that produces spiritual fruit.

The Four Soils

The soils represent hearers whose receptivity differs according to the condition of their hearts. Jesus says that the word is sown “in his heart,” linking the soil directly to the heart. This recalls the quotation from Isaiah in the preceding section: the people see without perceiving and hear without understanding because their hearts have grown dull. The decisive issue is whether the Holy Spirit has prepared and changed the heart.

The path represents a person who hears without understanding. The heart is hard, and the evil one immediately snatches away the word.

The rocky ground has a measure of outward receptivity. This hearer receives the word with joy but has no root and lasts only temporarily. When tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, he falls away. He hears, but Jesus does not say that he understands. His joy may rest upon a false conception of the gospel and its earthly benefits rather than a heart-level grasp of its saving truth.

The thorny ground also hears without understanding. The cares of this age and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. This hearer appears responsive for a time but never displays genuine saving faith.

Only the fourth hearer receives the seed as good soil. Jesus distinguishes this soil in three ways. First, it is called good soil, suggesting a heart prepared by the Holy Spirit. Second, this person hears and understands the word, unlike the first three. Third, the word bears abundant fruit.

Temporary Faith and Saving Faith

The rocky and thorny soils raise an important theological question. Luke’s parallel says of the rocky-ground hearers, “They believe for a while.” Does this mean they were genuinely regenerated and later lost their salvation? That would be the Arminian interpretation. A similar question arises with the thorn-choked soil.

Jesus’ teaching makes clear, however, that only the fourth soil represents regeneration and true saving faith. In Matthew 7, Jesus says that a tree is known by its fruit. At the judgment, some will claim to have prophesied, cast out demons, and performed mighty works in his name. Jesus will not tell them that he once knew them and later lost them. He will say, “I never knew you.” Their profession was never rooted in a saving relationship with Christ.

The rocky-ground hearer “has no root in himself.” The thorn-choked hearer remains unfruitful. Their responses are temporary professions, not genuine faith subsequently lost. Saving faith perseveres through trials and necessarily produces fruit.

We must still be careful not to press every physical detail of the parable into an independent theological claim. Our conclusion rests upon the distinctions Jesus himself emphasizes: prepared soil, heart-level understanding, perseverance, and fruit.

Effectual Calling

The parable teaches the doctrine of effectual calling. The external gospel call goes broadly to many hearers. Effectual calling occurs when the Holy Spirit uses that preached gospel to bring a sinner genuinely to faith by making the heart receptive.

The Heidelberg Catechism asks, “It is by faith alone that we share in Christ and all his benefits: where then does that faith come from?” It answers, “The Holy Spirit works it in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel, and confirms it by the use of the holy sacraments.” The parable emphasizes the first part of that answer. The seed is the preached gospel, but it bears saving fruit only when the Spirit works faith in the heart.

Word and Spirit belong together. The gospel heard without the Spirit’s inward work falls upon an unprepared heart. When the Spirit prepares the heart of an elect sinner, he makes the word effective by granting faith.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines effectual calling as “the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.” Three truths about effectual calling emerge from the parable.

Effectual Calling Produces Genuine Faith

First, effectual calling distinguishes saving faith from a temporary profession. The rocky and thorny soils show an initial response but lack root, perseverance, and fruit. Genuine faith endures tribulation because its hope rests in heaven rather than in supposed earthly benefits of Christianity.

Fruitfulness is an important distinction, but we should ask what was deficient in the temporary “faith” itself. Verse 23 supplies the answer: the good-soil hearer “hears the word and understands it.” Saving faith involves spiritual, heart-level understanding of the gospel.

For such understanding, the heart must be prepared beforehand. The Spirit produces conviction of sin and a sense of God’s holiness. A person may be attracted to Christianity because it provides moral guidance, community, help with depression, or a sense of meaning. Those temporal benefits may be real, but they do not constitute a true understanding of the gospel. The gospel announces the forgiveness of sins through Christ, and that good news can be understood savingly only by those who recognize that they are sinners before a holy God.

Isaiah 6, which Jesus has just quoted, illustrates this conviction. Isaiah sees the Lord in holiness and hears the seraphim cry, “Holy, holy, holy.” Rather than congratulating himself on his righteousness, the prophet falls down and says, “Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips.” The vision of God’s holiness exposes his sin. An angel then takes a burning coal from the altar and touches Isaiah’s lips, pointing ahead to Christ’s sacrifice and intercession as the only means by which guilt can be removed.

Jesus expresses the same truth in Matthew 9:13: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” He calls those who know their need. God’s law is not merely a list of external prohibitions that we can congratulate ourselves for avoiding. It requires us to love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves. Before that standard, we recognize our spiritual bankruptcy.

When the Spirit convicts the heart of sin and reveals God’s holiness, the gospel comes like refreshing water to a parched soul. The Spirit enlightens the mind to know Christ, renews the will, and enables the sinner to embrace him as freely offered in the gospel. That is the difference between effectual calling and a temporary response.

Effectual Calling Produces Fruit

Second, those effectually called and savingly grafted into Christ inevitably produce spiritual fruit. The good-soil hearer understands the word and bears a harvest—one hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold.

Notice that the word itself is fruitful. In the third soil, the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches “choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” By contrast, in the prepared heart effectual calling makes the word fruitful. The power does not originate in the soil—in us with all our sins, weaknesses, and difficulties. The fruit grows organically from the gospel seed. First we hear, understand, and believe; by that Spirit-given faith we are united to Christ; then fruit necessarily follows.

Jesus gives the same teaching in John 15: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” We cannot produce obedience from our own resources. Christ bears fruit in us through his Word and Spirit.

The fruit includes the higher righteousness Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount: hungering and thirsting for righteousness, showing mercy, forgiving others, loving enemies, trusting the Father for earthly needs, and refusing to be consumed by money and the fading treasures of this age. It is eschatological fruit—the life of God’s future kingdom breaking into believers here and now.

Effectual Calling Is the King’s Work

Third, effectual calling is the sovereign work of Christ, the anointed King. These are parables of the kingdom. They explain how Christ presently reigns.

His kingdom does not now advance through national restoration, military victory, or outward political glory. The risen Christ reigns from heaven through the preaching of the gospel and the effectual calling of his elect. As Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

When the gospel is scattered and the Spirit makes it alive in human hearts, Jesus is exercising his royal power. The results may remain hidden for now, but the harvest will be revealed when he returns. Therefore we can sing with confidence, “Shout, for the blessed Jesus reigns.”