From Matthew 13:45-46 / Kingdom parable #6 is the mystery of TRANSCENDENCE or SUPERIORITY.

This principle, is the explanation of Paul counting all things but dung in comparison to Christ. It is seeing the One Pearl that is infinitely higher than all other good things.

There is truth all around us. And all sorts of good things given to us by God’s hand. But we have come to know there is one Gift that is transcendently superior to them all – Christ Jesus the Son.

He is not “a” truth, He is THE Truth.

He is not “a” gift, He is THE Gift of God.

He is the highest of all God’s goodness.

In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead.

Every other “pearl” granted to us by the hand of God pales in comparison. They are but types and shadows of Him, samples of what finds its fullness in the King of Kings. And as real as all the other good things God has given to us -are, not one of those things – or all of them considered together – is to be compared to the Jewel of Heaven. The outshining of God’s own glory. Christ the Lord.

No one has said it better than old John Flavel: “It is a special consideration to enhance the love of God in giving Christ, that in giving him he gave the richest jewel in his cabinet; a mercy of the greatest worth, and most inestimable value, Heaven itself is not so valuable and precious as Christ is: He is the better half of heaven; and so the saints account him, Psal. 73:25. “Whom have I in heaven but thee?” Ten thousand thousand worlds, saith one,* as many worlds as angels can number, and then as a new world of angels can multiply, would not all be the bulk of a balance, to weigh Christ’s excellency, love, and sweetness. O what a fair One! what an only One! what an excellent, lovely, ravishing One, is Christ! Put the beauty of ten thousand paradises, like the garden of Eden, into one; put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colours, all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all loveliness in one; O what a fair and excellent thing would that be? And yet it should be less to that fair and dearest well-beloved Christ, than one drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths. Christ is heaven’s wonder, and earth’s wonder.

Now, for God to bestow the mercy of mercies, the most precious thing in heaven or earth, upon poor sinners; and, as great, as lovely, as excellent as his Son was, yet not to account him too good to bestow upon us, what manner of love is this!¹

¹ Flavel, John. The Whole Works of the Reverend John Flavel. W. Baynes and Son; Waugh and Innes; M. Keene, 1820, pp. 67–68.