With the appearance of the kingdom, there are three items: the changed nature, the tares; the changed outward appearance, the façade, the big tree; and the inward rottenness and corruption, the leaven. This brings us to the parable of the leaven.
Verse 33 says, “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.” Leaven in the Scriptures signifies evil things (1 Cor. 5:6, 8) and evil doctrines (Matt. 16:6, 11-12).
Verse 33 says that a woman took leaven and hid it in three measures of meal. The church, as the practical kingdom of the heavens, with Christ—the unleavened fine flour—as its content, must be the unleavened bread (1 Cor. 5:7-8). However, the Catholic Church, which was fully and officially formed in the sixth century and which is signified by the woman here, took many pagan practices, heretical doctrines, and evil matters and mixed them with the teachings concerning Christ to leaven the whole content of Christianity. This fourth parable corresponds to the fourth of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, the church in Thyatira (2:18-29). This became the inward content of the outward appearance of the kingdom of the heavens.
Meal, for making the meal offering (Lev. 2:1), signifies Christ as food to both God and man. Three measures is the quantity needed to make a full meal (Gen. 18:6). Hence, to hide the leaven in three measures of meal signifies that the Catholic Church has fully leavened in a hidden way all the teachings concerning Christ. This is the actual situation in the Roman Catholic Church. This is absolutely against the Scripture, which strongly forbids putting any leaven into the meal offering (Lev. 2:4-5, 11).
The parable of the leaven reveals the matter of mixture. The three measures of meal refer to fine flour made of wheat grain. This fine flour was always used in the meal offering, the food for God’s priests. Those who served God as priests fed on the fine flour of the meal offering. The meal offering was not only for the satisfaction of God’s priests, but also for the satisfaction of God Himself. Thus, the meal offering was food both for the priests and for God. The meal offering is a full type of Christ in His humanity, with the fine flour signifying Christ. When the Lord appeared to Abraham, Abraham told Sarah, his wife, to prepare a full meal with three measures of fine flour. Hence, in the Bible, three measures denotes a full meal. The fact that three measures of meal have been leavened by the woman indicates that everything related to Christ has been leavened by this evil woman.
The woman of Matthew 13 is the Jezebel of Revelation 2. According to history, Thyatira signifies the apostate Roman Church. The apostate Roman Church is the woman of Matthew 13 and the Jezebel of Revelation 2. Eventually this evil woman will become the great prostitute, called Babylon the Great, seen in Revelation 17. Thus, the woman in Matthew 13, Revelation 2, and Revelation 17 is the apostate Catholic Church. After the papal system had been established, the many pagan practices which had been brought in were confirmed by that system. This is documented in Alexander Hislop’s book, The Two Babylons.