In the outward appearance of the kingdom of the heavens there are not only the tares and the great tree, but there is also something hidden within—the leaven. "Another parable he spoke to them: the kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened" (13:33). In the Scriptures, leaven does not have a positive meaning. Rather, it indicates something corrupting and evil. The woman here is a figure of the Roman Catholic Church. In Revelation 17:3 John saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast. That woman is the Roman Catholic Church and the beast is the Roman Empire. This indicates religion joined to politics. When Christianity became the national religion of the Roman Empire, the church was transmuted from a small mustard herb into a great tree full of evil things.
The woman took the leaven, signifying sinful, evil, and corrupting things, and put it into the fine meal. The fine meal signifies Christ as life in the form of food. The Roman Catholic Church takes the real things of Christ, represented by the meal, and adds false things, represented by the leaven. Among some of the Protestant churches, there are the modernists who do not believe that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God or that He is God or that He was born of a virgin. The Catholic Church does not have this kind of heresy. They do recognize that Christ is the Son of God, even God Himself, and that He was born of a virgin. In this sense they do have the fine meal, but they have added much leaven into the meal, including many heathen teachings, heresies, and pagan things. For example, the birth of Christ may be considered as meal, but Christmas has been added as a kind of leaven. The incarnation of Christ is meal, but Christmas is leaven. Christ is the fine meal, but images and pictures of Christ are leaven. In some believers' homes, I have seen pictures of Christ. Those are not a true likeness of Christ. Those pictures portray Him as a beautiful person. Actually the Bible says that when the Lord Jesus was on the earth He had no beauty (Isa. 53:2). Those pictures are leaven.
One young sister whom I knew in the past desired to express her love to the Lord. Because she was a young Christian and did not know better, she bought a so-called picture of the Lord Jesus and placed it in her room. Daily she respected and appreciated and even bowed down to that picture. Later she began to be possessed by a demon. When she got rid of the picture the demon left. I beg you to get rid of all the pictures of Jesus. Those are a kind of leaven. What a great amount of leaven has been put into Christ as the fine meal.
In the Far East, although many have never called upon the name of the Lord Jesus, they still celebrate Christmas as a holiday. On December 25 they have a party for dancing and call it a holy party. According to ancient history December 25 was celebrated as the birth of the sun god. When Christianity was accepted as the state religion in A.D. 313, the people were accustomed to celebrate December 25 as a festival to their heathen gods. In order not to disappoint the people, the Roman Catholic Church suggested that the festival be kept as a celebration to the birth of Christ. This is evil leaven. What is leaven? Leaven is something which is added to flour to make the bread enjoyable and easy to take. If leaven is left out, the bread is too hard to enjoy. Based upon this principle, the Roman Catholic Church has added many things to Christ in order to make Him easier to take. To tell people that Christ is the Spirit seemed to them too mysterious, so they felt it was better to put up an image representing Christ so that people could understand Christ. To set up an image or picture to help people contact Christ is an evil leaven. In one place I saw some superstitious people come to kiss the foot and touch the hand of a stone image of Mary. This is leaven. They do preach Christ, but they preach Christ plus all the paganism, heathenism, and many idols. These things are the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens; they are not the real thing.
Among Christians today, there are all kinds of leaven: leaven in doctrine, leaven in practice, leaven in power, and leaven in authority. In Matthew 16:6 and Mark 8:15 three kinds of leaven are mentioned: the leaven of the Pharisees, of the Sadducees, and of the Herodians. The leaven in chapter thirteen taken by the woman and mixed with the fine flour refers to all the evil, heretical, and pagan things adopted by the Roman Catholic Church.
By His mercy, we would take no leaven into the local churches. We would take only Christ. We would take only the pure, life-giving Spirit. Do not consider that this matter of the reality of the kingdom of the heavens and the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens is our invention. No! This is God's revelation in His Holy Word. By comparing these two sections of Matthew, we can see that there is a great difference. In chapters five through seven are many real, pure, and genuine things. But in Matthew 13, in the three parables, there are false and evil things. Thus, there is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, and there is the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens. We are not in the appearance of the kingdom; we are in the reality of the kingdom. We must have nothing to do with the tares, the great tree, or the leaven. This is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, and this is the proper church life.