Jesus: Seed, Sower, the Tree of Life. Part 3 – What Does “The Word of God” Mean in the Parable of the Sower?

In this post I dig more deeply into the meaning of “the word” (NIV) or “the Word” (TPT) because I believe how you interpret what Jesus is telling us about the “word” in the parable can determine, in large part, how you see yourself in Christ and can determine if you will: 1) come to know about Jesus, primarily with your mind; or 2) come to know Jesus in your heart. And there is a vast gulf between these two. The difference is whether you know His presence in theory, or experience His presence actually.

Given the cultural and social crisis in America today, some may think what I have written in this post is irrelevant as we face the challenges and dangers of a totalitarian wave, which is crashing on the shore of our lives. I disagree. We are all going to be called to fight against something or fight for something, if we refuse to be subsumed into the growing monolithic social order of maximum banality and corruption. I am choosing to fight for something. I chose to fight for the advance of the Kingdom of God in the face of anti-Christ resistance. (An aside – Louisiana Governor Huey Long was asked if fascism could ever exist in America. He said, “Yes, it can exist. It will be called antifascism”. Smart guy).

So, the correct understanding of the parable of the Sower is, in my opinion, essential for understanding how we are called and empowered to release and advance the Kingdom of God in our lives, our families, our communities, our nation, and the world – to push back the darkness, take back the territory, and defeat the power of evil and wickedness in our nation.   

As you know, the Parable of the Sower is found in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. In the explanation of  these parables Jesus uses ‘word’ or ‘word of God’. In Matthew He also calls the word of God the “message about the Kingdom (NIV) and “word of the Kingdom” (NKJV). It is clear from the parable, the: 1) ‘word’ or ‘word of God’ is Jesus’ spoken word, because throughout the parable the crowd “hears the word”; 2) these are Kingdom words; and 3) He is not referring to the New Testament, also called today the ‘word of God’, because it didn’t exist then.

What did the ‘word’ and ‘word of God’, both called logos in Greek, mean to Jesus? How do we understand them today? Here are 5 ways we use the ‘word’ or ‘word of God’ today:

God’s Spoken Words: When we read the Bible, the first principle we learn is that by His word God brought all Creation into existence – His words “called the worlds into being” (2 Peter 3: 5). Writing about Genesis 1, Walter Brueggemann says:

“The main theme of the text is this: God and God’s creation are bound together in a distinctive and delicate way. This is the presupposition for everything that follows in the Bible. It is the deepest premise from which good news is possible. God and His creation are bound together by the powerful, gracious movement of God toward that creation. The binding which is established by God is inscrutable. It will not be explained or analyzed. It can only be affirmed and confessed. This text announces the deepest mystery: God wills and will have a faithful relation with earth . . . The binding is irreversible. God has decided it. The connection cannot be nullified” (Genesis, Brueggemann, pgs. 23, 24)

Brueggemann goes on to write:

 “The mode of that binding is speech. The text five times uses the remarkable word “create”. It also employs the primitive word “make”. But God’s characteristic action is to speak. It is by God’s speech that the relation with His creation is determined. God “calls the worlds into being”. By God’s speech that which did not exist comes into being. The way of God with His world is the way of language. God speaks something new that never was before” (Genesis, Brueggemann, pg. 24).

When God speaks, His words have power to create. The ‘Word of God’, spoken out into the void created or brought something into existence that did not exist before. We can never explain or understand this greatest of mysteries. As Brueggemann writes, “It can only be affirmed and accepted”.

The word of God Spoken by Jesus in First Century Palestine: In the boat by the shore Jesus was teaching by speaking words given to Him by His Father. “But He who sent me is reliable, and what I have heard from Him I tell the world . . .  I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught Me” (John 8: 26, 28 NIV).

In Mark 4, Jesus taught the Parable of the Sower using only the words His Father taught Him to speak – Jesus was speaking the ‘Word of God’ over the crowd. The gospel writers tell us that the crowd ‘heard’ the words of Jesus.

When Jesus was explaining the parable to the disciples, He said, “Others like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy” (Mark 4: 16 NIV).

Jesus was sowing His words, which were the ‘Word of God’, over the crowd, for those who had ears to hear.

Most people today do not think about the actual words Jesus spoke on the shore of the lake to the crowd 2000 years ago in that moment as having power. That was a long time ago, and after all, they are all written down in the New Testament. Well, not all of them, but at least the important ones, right? But Jesus was speaking the words of God. These words, the word of God, were words of power that altered the time/space continuum of the spiritual realm in the same way the words God spoke, described in Genesis, altered the universe. And even though His words were spoken 2000 years ago, I think they are still ‘rippling’ across the spiritual realm today. Today, those in Christ, who have the “Spirit of Christ” in them, can discern these echoes and be spiritually affected by them (I think).

Isaiah writes about God’s words, and therefore Jesus’ words:

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word (dabar in Greek meaning speech, a saying, an utterance) that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty (‘void’ in KJV) but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which it was sent” (Isaiah 55: 10, 11 NIV).

I believe Isaiah is telling us that God releases ‘living water’ from heaven in the form of words. These words ‘go out’ into the universe; these words will accomplish what Jesus intends and will not return to Jesus empty until sometime in the future. I think Isaiah is describing the Kingdom of God. When will His words ‘return’? I have no idea; perhaps at His resurrection or when the New Heaven and New Earth come down out of heaven like a bride.

Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God: Most of us know Jesus is called “The Word” (logos in Greek) according to the gospel of John (John 1). John affirms the relationship between Jesus and the creation of all things with some of the most important words ever written:

“In the beginning was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1: 1 – 4 NIV)

In Revelation, John writes about Jesus, “His eyes are like blazing fire, and on His head are many crowns. He has a name written on Him that no one knows but Himself. He is dressed in a white robe dipped in blood, and His name is the Word of God” (Revelation 19: 12, 13).

In 1 John, John calls Jesus “the Word of life” (1 John 1: 1 NIV).

Jesus is the incarnate (“in the flesh”) Word of God because Jesus, the Word, actively lives in His believers today.

Logos is the expression of a thought – the total message of God to mankind. Jesus embodies this total message, that is why He is the logos or ‘The Word’. Jesus’ words are God’s words. In the simplest sense, Jesus is the Kingdom of God, so His words, ‘the word of God’, are also the message of the Kingdom of God. Every word that comes from the mouth of Jesus is the ‘Word of God’.

The Written Word of God – Scripture (Old + New Testaments): Today, when we tell someone to fill their hearts and minds with the word of God, we primarily mean the written word of God (also called logos in Greek). As millions of Christians will attest, the written word of God has power to transform lives.

On that day, when Jesus was teaching along the shore of the lake, everyone in the crowd understood, when Jesus used ‘the word’ or ‘the word of God’, He meant the Old Testament and especially the writings of the Law and Prophets. What we call today the New Testament did not exist until around the 4th century. Also, He tells the Pharisees they will not find life in the Old Testament:

“You diligently study the Scriptures (Old Testament) because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5: 39, 40 NIV) and, “You are ready to kill me because you have no room for my word” (John 8: 37 NIV). “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life” (John 6: 63 NIV).

Jesus is telling them, “Life is found in ‘The Word”, Me, and in my words”. As the Parable of the Sower tells us, abundant life – fruit – comes from the seed sown by the word of Jesus into the good soil.

The Spoken Word of God Today: Preaching, teaching, sharing the written word of God, and sharing the words that God gives us to speak to an unbeliever have power. But only if they flow from a heart that has been born again, consecrated to Jesus, and filled with the Holy Spirit, even if imperfectly – a Kingdom heart. We can’t release what we don’t have.

In addition to logos, rhema is also translated as ‘the word of God’. Rhema is generally interpreted to be a ‘conversational’ word God speaks to us. For example, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word (rhema) I will let down the net” (Luke 5: 5 NKJV).

These are the five different ways Christians today think about the ‘Word’ and the “Word of God’. But what did Jesus mean when He told the crowd along the shoreline that day, “The farmer sows the word” or Scripture says, they “hear the word”?

The answer to that question seems straightforward. The parable is about sowing seed. Mark writes that “The farmer sows the word” (Mark 4: 14 NIV). TPT capitalizes the word “Word”. The seed that the farmer is sowing is the “word”. Luke makes it even more clear. “The seed is the word of God” (Luke 8: 11 NIV). Like in Mark, Luke is telling us that the ‘word of God’ is being sowed like seed.

Here, I believe, is the heart of the parable: 

Jesus sows the word by speaking His Father’s words, and as a result, in the person with the ears to hear and heart prepared to receive the creative words of Jesus, a seed is planted.

You cannot separate the ‘word’ or the ‘word of God’ from the Word, Jesus. I believe the ‘word of God’ Jesus spoke, or sowed, over the crowd on that day were words of power and creation. Jesus’ words had the same creative power as the first words God spoke at the beginning of time “calling the worlds into being”; when God spoke all creation into existence. Only now, Jesus was calling into existence a new creation – something the world had never seen before; a new humanity and a new world order --- the Kingdom of God. He was offering the crowd Kingdom life. He was restoring – or He was telling them He was going to restore – creation back to the time when God lived in harmony with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Except now the garden is the human heart, the heart of “good soil” where Jesus will plant the seed of Himself to grow up into the Tree of Life; “Christ in us, the hope of glory”. Paul writes, “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field (“God’s cultivated garden”, TPT), God’s building” (“the house He is building” TPT) (1 Corinthians 3: 9 NIV).

This truth was announced here, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, with a parable called the Parable of the Sower, 2000 years ago. It was here, on that afternoon, that the wedge was first driven into the kingdom of the world; the wedge through which the Kingdom of God would enter into the kingdom of the world and restore creation back into God’s original blueprint. It would take a resurrection to fully fill these words with power, and that no one in the crowd could imagine or foresee.

Jesus’ words were the seed, but in the sense that He and His words were inseparable. When you received His word, you received Him. I believe that the seed Jesus sowed was Himself. I think of the relationship between Jesus, the Word of God; the word of God, and the seed this way: The Word of God spoke the word of God, which carried the seed, who is the Word of God.

In the parable of the Sower, Jesus announced to His world then, and more broadly to us now, “I am going to restore the world back to My Father’s original blueprint and this is how I am going to do it – I am going to do it the same way My father did – I am going to use the power of God’s words to speak a new creation into existence. The difference is that now that new creation will be in your hearts. My Father spoke the world into existence. I am speaking the Kingdom of God into existence. And the Kingdom of God is the rule and reign of Me, Christ Jesus, living, alive in your hearts”.

Jesus is the incarnate Word of God; He is present in the written word of God. He is just as active today as He was in that small boat on the shore of the Sea of Galilee teaching to the large crowd. As we will see, His plan is to multiply His words, through those in whom the seed is planted. We are called to be sowers.

When the seed is planted in good soil, it will germinate, sprout, and grow into a tree – a tree of life. But to grow to its full potential the tree needs to be watered, fertilized, and the soil weeded. We do this in our lives when we read and study Scripture, when we devote time to prayer, and when the rocks and thorns are removed from our heart by healing prayer. Caring for the seed is discussed in more detail in Part 4 of this series. 

If I am right about the relationship between the word of God and the seed (Jesus), there are implications for how we live as Christians today. The written word of God is powerful. But the written word of God is not the seed – Jesus is the seed. The written word of God is powerful because it can ‘carry’ the seed in the same way the wind carries a dandelion seed. But the wind is not the seed. I believe some Christians mistake the written word of God for the seed. The written word of God and the Word of God (Jesus) are intimately connected, but I think it is possible to know about Jesus, to know the written word of God intimately, even preach about Jesus, and not really know Jesus, the seed who wants to live and grow in our heart.

I believe the seed in the parable is Jesus. Some of the commentaries I read call the seed the written word of God, the Scripture – period. I think many people read the parable this way. They tell us fruit is produced in our lives when we read, study, and memorize Scripture. This is true, if first Jesus has been sowed into our hearts and our hearts are ‘good soil’. The fruit Jesus refers to is the fruit of the Tree of Life, which grows in our spirit, and that Tree can only grow from Jesus, the seed, in us. I agree, the parable doesn’t explicitly tell us the seed is Jesus, but the totality of Scripture does.

That is the topic of the next post.

John