Matt 13:51–52 — Things New And Old

This passage concludes Jesus’ teaching on the parables of the kingdom. There are five major blocks of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel of Matthew. The first is the Sermon on the Mount, and the second, in Matthew 10, concerns the mission to Israel. Here we reach the conclusion of the third block: the seven parables of the kingdom.

The best known of these is the parable of the sower and the soils. That parable teaches us about the kingdom in its present phase. The kingdom advances through the preaching of the gospel and the effectual calling of the elect. There is also a consummated phase of the kingdom, as the seventh parable—the parable of the net—makes clear. At the end of history, Jesus will return, and the angels will separate the evil from the righteous and cast the evil into the fiery furnace. The righteous, by contrast, “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43).

That is the consummation of the kingdom at the second coming of Christ. In its present, inaugurated phase—the “already” before the “not yet”—the kingdom advances through gospel preaching and effectual calling. The elect are saved and brought into the kingdom of grace and salvation through the preaching of the gospel. It is a hidden kingdom, like leaven that cannot be seen but works powerfully until the final stage when Christ returns.

“Have You Understood All These Things?”

Jesus concludes this teaching by asking his disciples, “Have you understood all these things?” (Matt. 13:51). In other words: Have you understood what I am teaching about the nature of my kingdom? Have you understood its two-stage fulfillment—the already and the not yet, its hidden present form through gospel proclamation and its consummated form at my return?

The disciples answer, “Yes.” They seem somewhat overconfident. As we read further in Matthew, it becomes clear that they do not yet understand everything. They still have much to learn about the kingdom, particularly that it must be established through the suffering and death of Christ.

In Matthew 16, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They answer that some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. When Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter rightly responds, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus pronounces Peter blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to him; the Father in heaven did.

Jesus then tells the disciples something shocking that does not fit their expectations. “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things … and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matt. 16:21). This too belongs to the nature of the kingdom. The kingdom will come in glory at the end of history, but first it must be secured through the sufferings of Christ, who redeems his people from their sins.

The disciples are therefore overconfident when they claim to understand all the mysteries of the kingdom. They are not yet ready to go forth and teach others without further instruction. Yet Jesus is patient with them. He does not condemn or sharply correct them. He receives their initial understanding as something good, even though they have more to learn.

Jesus then anticipates what will happen in fuller measure after his resurrection. The disciples will become teachers in the church, explaining the parables of the kingdom, the mysteries of the gospel, and the atoning work, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. He says, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matt. 13:52).

This question is probably addressed primarily to the Twelve. There was a broader company of disciples—Luke mentions seventy—but the Twelve especially needed to understand this teaching because they would establish and build the church after the resurrection.

The seven parables reveal the architecture of God’s kingdom throughout the epoch from Christ’s first coming to his second coming. Jesus is already training the apostles to understand that there will be a prolonged interval between these two events. They could not have known that at least two thousand years would pass, but Jesus’ teaching clearly anticipates an intervening period.

The mustard seed begins as the smallest seed, but when it grows, it becomes larger than the garden plants and turns into a tree. In the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24–25, Jesus again describes an interval between his departure and return. The parable of the talents portrays a master who goes away, entrusts work to his servants, and later returns to reward them. There is an epoch—the church age—in which Christ’s servants labor as they await his return.

The apostles are being taught the architecture and purpose of God’s kingdom for this age. The kingdom advances primarily through the preaching of the gospel and effectual calling. This work will continue through the preaching and teaching of the apostles and through the pastors and teachers they ordain to serve after them.

Scribes Trained for the Kingdom

Christian Scribes

Jesus likens his disciples to scribes: “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom.” Until this point in Matthew, the word “scribe” has generally appeared in a negative light. At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, the crowds are astonished because Jesus teaches with authority and “not as their scribes” (Matt. 7:29). The pronoun “their” suggests an emerging distinction between Jesus and his disciples on the one hand and the Jewish religious leaders on the other.

In Matthew 13:52, however, “scribe” is used positively. The disciples are scribes, but not scribes devoted to rabbinic and oral traditions that were said to come from Moses. They are scribes who have been discipled in the kingdom.

The Greek word translated “trained” comes from the same verb translated “make disciples” in the Great Commission. Here it is passive: a scribe who has been made a disciple for, or in, the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is forming Christian scribes—students of Scripture who labor to understand the Word of God in the light of Christ and his kingdom and who then teach it to others.

The rabbinic scribes also studied and taught the Bible, but they separated the Old Testament from Christ and often treated it as a body of prescriptions by which people could make themselves holy. Christian scribes read differently. They study Scripture in the light of Christ, his kingdom, his death and resurrection, and the gospel of grace.

The calling of a scribe has these two dimensions. First comes devoted study. We might picture the scribe withdrawn into a study, laboring over manuscripts in order to understand God’s Word. But study is not an end in itself. The second dimension is teaching—communicating to others what has been learned. Learning is wonderful and important, but it is not only for our own benefit. Those who have learned much have a duty to share it with their fellow disciples in the church.

Jesus therefore calls the disciples to be serious students of Scripture, trained not in a rabbinic way of reading the Bible apart from Christ, but in a Christian way. Their understanding must be shaped by everything the seven parables reveal about the kingdom: the gospel accomplished through Christ’s death and resurrection, proclaimed to the world, and made effective through the calling of the elect.

The Master of the House

Jesus also compares the kingdom-trained scribe to “a master of a house.” This is a familiar image in his teaching. In the Olivet Discourse, he asks, “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?” (Matt. 24:45). That servant likely represents pastors and teachers whose calling is to provide God’s household with rich spiritual nourishment from his Word.

The responsibility to feed God’s people is a common scriptural theme. After the resurrection, when Jesus restores Peter following his denial, he asks, “Do you love me?” and then commands him, “Feed my sheep.” Pastors and teachers are responsible for the spiritual well-being of God’s household. A Christian scribe discipled in the mysteries of the kingdom is like a householder charged with providing for the people entrusted to him.

The Scribe’s Treasure

This householder brings things out “of his treasure.” Jesus uses the same image in Matthew 12:35: “The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.” A person’s treasure consists of truths learned so deeply and incorporated so thoroughly into the heart, life, and way of thinking that speech flows from them.

The Christian scribe has a treasure house filled through careful study of God’s Word. These truths have not merely been collected as information; they have been incorporated into the scribe’s own heart and life. He can therefore bring them out for the benefit of God’s people, so that they are nourished and grow in grace.

What does it mean that the scribe brings forth “what is new and what is old”? At one level, this may describe sound teaching practice. This principle applies even outside spiritual instruction. A good teacher does both: reminds students of truths they have already learned and leads them into new insights. Students need to review and consolidate what is familiar, but they also need the teacher to take that established knowledge a step further. The teacher brings forth old truths and new understanding together.

That is probably part of Jesus’ meaning, but it is not the whole. More importantly, Jesus is describing the relationship between truths revealed before his coming and the new truths revealed through his coming—the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.

The Christian scribe has been trained in the kingdom that has dawned in the person and work of Christ and will be consummated at his return. From deep study of God’s Word, the scribe brings forth what is new and what is old. He teaches the pattern of promise and fulfillment. The Old Testament contains God’s promises; the New Testament reveals their fulfillment. This fulfillment displays the newness of what God has done in Christ and in the new covenant while also demonstrating continuity with the old.

The context of Matthew 13 confirms this interpretation. Jesus tells the disciples, “Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it” (Matt. 13:16–17). The prophets and righteous people of the Old Testament longed to see the days in which Christ would fulfill the promised kingdom.

Matthew 13:34–35 likewise says that Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.” This quotation is not from Isaiah or Jeremiah but from Psalm 78, a psalm of Asaph.

Another well-known psalm of Asaph is Psalm 73, in which the psalmist struggles because the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper. When he enters the sanctuary of God, he understands their end and gains the proper perspective. In that same collection of Asaph’s psalms stands Psalm 78, which gives a theological perspective on the whole history of Israel.

Psalm 78 and the Story of Israel

Psalm 78 begins:

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old.

Jesus quotes the second verse, but he is not isolating it from the rest of the psalm. Psalm 78 extends to seventy-two verses and belongs to a group of lengthy narrative psalms that recount the history of Israel. Psalms 105, 106, 135, and 136 employ a similar form. In Psalm 78, God brings his people out of Egypt, leads them through the wilderness, settles them in the land, and eventually sends them into exile.

Psalm 78 traces the redemptive-historical story of God’s dealings with his people in fulfillment of his promises to Abraham. It recounts the giving of the law and Israel’s persistent inability to keep it. One of its central themes is the people’s disobedience. Verse 8 describes “a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.” Verse 10 says, “They did not keep God’s covenant.”

Verse 17 continues, “Yet they sinned still more against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert.” Although God had brought them out of Egypt, they forgot his deliverance and rebelled against him in the wilderness. God judged them; many died, and the people wandered for forty years before entering the land.

Their rebellion did not end when they received the land. “In spite of all this, they still sinned” (v. 32). “Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant” (v. 37). “How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness” (v. 40). Later, “They tested and rebelled against the Most High God and did not keep his testimonies” (v. 56). Verses 56–64 carry the story to Israel’s captivity. The same rebellious pattern continued after the wilderness and in the land, eventually leading to exile.

Near the end, however, the psalm turns: “Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a strong man shouting because of wine” (v. 65). The analogy is startling, almost humorous: it evokes a mighty man suddenly rousing after a night of strong drink. Its point is that the Lord now rises to act decisively and change the course of the story. “He put his adversaries to rout; he put them to everlasting shame” (v. 66). Then he chooses Judah and Mount Zion, which he loves.

God will fulfill his promises despite his people’s repeated disobedience and continual turning away from him. He will put his adversaries to rout. Those adversaries surely include the Babylonians who carried his people into captivity, but the deepest adversary is the hardness of his people’s hearts. External deliverance from Babylon will not, by itself, solve the problem traced throughout the psalm. God must change their hearts and redeem them from their sins, and he will do so through the coming of David’s greater Son.

The psalm concludes:

He chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance. With upright heart he shepherded them and guided them with his skillful hand.

In the full movement of the psalm toward the answer to exile, this points beyond the historical David, whose reign preceded the exile, to the Son of David, the Messiah. Christ will shepherd God’s people, take away their hard hearts, redeem them, and fulfill the promises of the kingdom.

Matthew repeatedly presents Jesus as this Shepherd-King who addresses Israel’s disobedience and hardness of heart. In the infancy narrative, Matthew quotes Micah’s prophecy that a ruler will come from Bethlehem to shepherd God’s people (Matt. 2:6). In Matthew 9:36, Jesus sees the crowds as sheep without a shepherd, harassed and helpless. The image of scattered sheep recalls the exile and the prophetic promise, found especially in Ezekiel, that God will gather his scattered people. Jesus comes to reconstitute the people of God under his kingship and lordship.

When Jesus says that a kingdom-trained scribe brings forth things new and old, he is preparing the disciples to interpret the entire Bible for God’s people. He is teaching them a proper hermeneutic—that is, a proper way of reading and interpreting Scripture. His instruction contains three principles.

A Christian Hermeneutic

Continuity: The New Fulfills the Old

First, there is continuity. The New Testament does not abolish the Old Testament; it fulfills it. The Old Testament is indispensable for understanding the New.

This theme appears throughout Matthew. Jesus cannot be understood as the Messiah apart from the Old Testament teaching about the anointed king. His title “Son of Man” comes from Daniel. The genealogy of Matthew 1 places him within the history of Israel, and Matthew repeatedly marks events in his life as fulfillments of Scripture. Jesus declares in the Sermon on the Mount, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17). Later he says, “All the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John” (Matt. 11:13).

As the history of God’s kingdom moves from one epoch to the next, there is fundamental continuity because there is one covenant of grace and one people of God. After the fall, God first announced the promise in Genesis 3:15: the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. He expanded that promise in the Abrahamic covenant. This one promise of God anchors the entire Bible.

There is likewise one people of God, defined as those who believe the promise. Before Christ, they trusted God’s promise of the coming Messiah. After Christ’s coming, they trust the Messiah in whom that promise is fulfilled. The people of God across the ages are united by faith in the one gospel promise. Whoever believes the promise of the gospel belongs to the people of God.

Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 78:2 illustrates this continuity. Sometimes a preacher may borrow biblical wording to illustrate a point without claiming to expound that verse in its original context. Jesus is doing something more. He presents himself as the fulfillment of Psalm 78—the greater Asaph. Asaph lamented Israel’s repeated unbelief, rebellion, and refusal to trust God’s promise, yet he also looked forward to the Messiah. Jesus teaches the kingdom in parables as the fulfillment of Asaph’s reading of Israel’s story: the exodus, wilderness wandering, conquest, exile, and ultimately the coming of Christ.

Discontinuity: The New Is Greater

Second, there is discontinuity. The New Testament is not merely a repetition of the Old; it brings something greater because it brings fulfillment.

Psalm 78 exposes the fundamental problem: Israel’s repeated rebellion, disobedience, and unbelief. The psalm ends in hope, yet it leaves us asking how this deep problem of the human heart will be resolved. Simply repeating the law cannot overcome it.

The new covenant therefore does not merely give the law again and tell sinners to try harder. It announces that Christ has fulfilled the law for us. It promises the gift of the Spirit, who works obedience within us. Jeremiah 31 describes the new covenant in these terms: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” Something new and greater is taking place.

Jesus repeatedly emphasizes this greater reality. He declares that something greater than the temple is here (Matt. 12:6), something greater than Jonah (Matt. 12:41), and something greater than Solomon (Matt. 12:42). He does not merely repeat the law and ask Israel to make another attempt. He brings the law’s fulfillment and provides the answer to the pattern of rebellion that Psalm 78 recounts. The continuity between the Testaments is real, but so is the discontinuity created by humanity’s problem under the law and by Christ’s unique fulfillment of it.

The New Interprets the Old

Third, the New Testament has hermeneutical priority over the Old Testament. This is suggested by the order of Jesus’ words: the householder brings out of his treasure “what is new and what is old.” We might expect “old and new,” following the historical order. Instead, Jesus places the new first.

The apostles, and the pastors and teachers who follow them, must give priority to the new. This does not mean overlooking, denying, or disregarding the old. It means interpreting the old in the light of the new.

The New Testament has this priority because the whole Bible is structured by promise and fulfillment. If we are to understand a promise fully, we must look at its fulfillment. The Old Testament presents promises through types, shadows, and prophecies whose final form could be difficult to discern. The prophets and righteous people longed to see how those promises would be fulfilled.

The disciples are blessed because they live in the age of fulfillment. They see what the prophets longed to see and hear what they longed to hear. The Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ, and the fulfillment has interpretive priority over the promise. Christ himself has priority.

This was not immediately obvious, even to the disciples. Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah but then resisted the announcement that the Messiah must suffer, die, and rise. The suffering of Christ was foretold in the Old Testament, yet its place in the kingdom became clear only in the light of its fulfillment.

Reading the two Testaments is like reading a novel in which early events remain mysterious until the final resolution. When we reach the end, we understand those earlier scenes and must go back to read them again in the light of the conclusion. In the same way, we cannot properly understand the Old Testament unless we read it in the light of its New Testament fulfillment.

This is what Jesus did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). The Christian scribe follows the same pattern: loving the whole Word of God, bringing forth treasures new and old, and showing how all the promises find their fulfillment in Christ.