The Pearl of Great Price

Pearls are one of nature's loveliest, most fascinating gems, and have always been prized for their lustrous, iridescent beauty. Since time immemorial, these precious gems with their characteristic soft, inner glow have adorned the necks of queens and princesses the world over and have been treasured as a symbol of beauty, luxury, and elegance. Pearls were so closely associated with wealth, power, and high social standing during the Renaissance that several European countries actually passed laws that made it illegal for anyone but nobility to wear them.

All talk of beauty, luxury, and elegance aside, however, arguably one of the most fascinating aspects of pearls is where they come from:

They are cut out of the crust-covered shells
of slimy, parasite-infested bivalve mollusks.

(Now there's a line you won't see in a Zale's ad.)

Pearl oysters have an internal organ called a mantle, which is a layer of tissue that separates the inside of the shell from the other organs. Using minerals taken from the oyster's food, the mantle produces a substance called nacre. Nacre is the hard, smooth material that lines the inside of the shell (aka mother-of-pearl). As the oyster grows, the shell grows to accommodate it and more nacre is produced to line the inside.

Although it is commonly believed that it is a bit of grit or a grain of sand that becomes lodged between the mantle and the inside of the shell that triggers the pearl-making process, experts say that—at least in nature—it is actually a small parasite that bores into the oyster's flesh. The oyster's immune system responds to the infestation by coating the intruder with layer after layer of nacre, and after a number of years and innumerable coatings of nacre, voilà.

You have a pearl.

What's the deal with pearls?

In Matthew 13, Jesus relates a series of seven parables that are collectively known as the kingdom parables, and they have to do with different aspects of what Jesus refers to as the kingdom of heaven. Although some refer to the transition to the Millennial Kingdom at the end of the Tribulation, one that clearly refers to the Gentile Church is the sixth one, commonly known as the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price:

One reason we know that Jesus is talking about the Gentile Church is that oysters are not kosher, or are considered unclean by Jews.

This brief parable is an illustration of how Jesus gave all that He had—His very life—to redeem His Church. He purchased us with His blood and claimed us as His own. And when we stop and carefully consider the nature of pearls, what begins to emerge is a beautiful picture of the body of Christ.

As usual, the deeper we dig into the parable, the more layers of meaning we uncover. As we consider pearls, we begin to see rich layers of symbolism that apply to the Church—that body of believers who have been born of His Spirit by repentance and faith in Jesus' atoning work on the cross.

In this article, I'd like to share with you a Top 10 list of ways in which pearls paint a beautiful picture of not only the body of Christ collectively, but also of born-again believers individually, and of the nature of our relationship with God and our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.

1. Every pearl starts with an infestation that gets covered.

At the core of a pearl is a parasite—an infestation that the pearl cannot rid itself of. That infestation gets covered with nacre. But when you look at a pearl, what do you see?

You don't see the infestation—you see the covering.

In a similar manner, we all come to the Lord as sinners at our core, utterly unable to rid ourselves of our sin or our sin nature.

But when we repent of our sins and place our faith in Jesus to forgive us and believe in faith that His death and resurrection paid the penalty for our sin, we become like the parasite that just got its first coat of nacre. From that moment on, we're covered.

So when God looks at us, what does He see?

He doesn't see our infestation—He sees our covering.

He sees only the garment of salvation He has put on us—the righteousness of His Son.

This does, however, lead us to one particular way in which believers are very much unlike pearls:

We will be changed at the Rapture—we will be given glorified bodies that will make it possible for us to live in heaven with the Lord, but will still be physical in nature. We won't just be a bunch of incorporeal wisps floating around. The Bible says we'll have incorruptible bodies, and at that point we will also finally lose our sin natures. We will say goodbye and good riddance to the infestation of sin that caused us so much pain and so many problems during our earthly lives, and our redemption will be complete.

Pearls have that parasite at their core for as long as they exist. When pearls get harvested, they don't lose that infestation buried within them.

We will.

2. This irritant gets covered by a natural substance produced by a living creature.

Most gems are produced by heat and pressure deep within the earth over many eons. The process is inorganic, involving no living things. Pearls are unique in that they are produced by a living creature in a totally organic manner, and they live and grow within that living creature until they are harvested.

Similarly, God is a living Being who created and sustains us—He is not an impersonal cosmic force. He created us and loved us enough to send His Son into the world to die in our place so that we could be reconciled to Him.

3. The coating never stops—it continues throughout the life of the oyster.

Oysters keep secreting nacre to coat the pearl as long as they live. The longer the oyster lives, the bigger the pearl gets.

In the same way, God never stops applying His love and grace to us.

• Every time we trust Him in any situation, we get another coat.

• Every time we stumble and He picks us up, we get another coat.

• Every time we are suffering or undergoing a trial and we sense His love and protection, we're getting another coat.

• Every time we respond to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and put His love into action, we get another coat.

• Every time we apply His Word to our lives, we get another coat.

Our coating of His love and His grace keeps getting bigger and bigger as we seek Him and allow His Word to transform us and we grow in our faith and in our knowledge of Him.

And He won't be done with us in this life until He is ready to "harvest" us (see no. 10).

4. Pearls cannot be produced any other way.

There is no artificial or man-made substitute for the process by which pearls are produced. They can only be produced by a living oyster. Even cultured pearls are produced the same way—by living oysters. The only difference is the process is initiated and carried out under controlled conditions.

This speaks to the fact that there is simply no other way we can be spiritually regenerated and reconciled to a holy God. There is no other way we can become a pearl—that is, spiritually reborn and reconciled to the God who created us to spend eternity with Him.

• No man-made religion can do it, no matter how ardently practiced.

• No body of philosophical thought can do it, no matter how profound.

• No amount of education can do it, no matter how sophisticated.

• No amount of charitable works can do it, no matter how selfless.

These things, though most may be good in and of themselves, do nothing to reduce, much less eliminate, our sin debt that separates us from a holy God.

There is no other way we can establish a relationship with God. Period. Every other way is a counterfeit that comes up short and leads us away from the truth. We are sinners, and our only recourse is to take advantage of God's one and only remedy for sin: faith in the perfect sacrifice that His Son Jesus Christ made on our behalf.

Jesus did it all—He provided the way. He is the way, and He alone.

5. Other gems need to be cut and polished, but pearls are 100 percent natural.

Most other gems are of nominal intrinsic value when originally mined—and to be honest, most of them don't look all that good, either. Their value lies solely in their potential to be expertly cut and polished by hand and with various types of machines. It is only through the skillful efforts of highly trained individuals that their beauty is revealed and their value is acquired—and one slip can drastically reduce that value.

Pearls, however, are 100 percent natural. Top grade pearls are never even so much as polished. It may surprise you to learn that even attempting to shine a pearl adds nothing to its luster, and in fact can actually damage the outer layers of nacre and thus detract from its natural beauty. Absolutely nothing needs to be done to pearls—their beauty in no way depends on man's efforts, which, if anything, actually serve to diminish it.

Of course, this is a perfect picture of the way we grow in grace and in faith. It is God alone that brings out our spiritual beauty, and our efforts in the flesh contribute nothing to our growth. We only grow as we remain in the true vine which is Jesus Christ. Our fleshly human efforts do nothing but get in the way and mess things up.

God doesn't require our assistance—only our obedience.

6. Pearls come in a wide variety of different colors, shapes, and sizes, and have widely varying commercial values.

We often think of pearls as these uniform, creamy-white spheres. However, pearls come in an infinite variety of colors, shapes, and sizes—some that many people would scarcely recognize as pearls (were it not for the soft inner glow that is characteristic of all pearls). And although their commercial value may vary greatly, one thing remains true:

They're still pearls.

It's the same with believers. We are all unique individuals in God's eyes, and as children adopted into His family by grace through faith, we too come in an infinite variety of colors, shapes, and sizes—literally and figuratively.

To the world, we might not look like much. We may seem to have little value to society. The world may look at us and shake their heads, wondering how we could be such a bunch of deluded bozos that we can't get it through our thick heads that the Bible is obviously just a book of Jewish legends that is about as "divinely inspired" as the Wall Street Journal.

Or that Jesus—if He even existed—was just a great moral teacher. Or a psychic adept who fully achieved the Christ consciousness. Or an Ascended Master. Or a Pleiadian.

Or that we should be tolerant of all religions, which all lead to God and which should all be respected as being equally valid (even though their beliefs are mutually contradictory and are completely at odds with that book of Jewish legends we're always yammering on about just because of a bunch of fulfilled prophecy).

And then there are Christians who believe all manner of diverse biblical doctrines, many of which are contradictory and steeped in error and misunderstanding of Scripture. Not only that, but some of those people may look at you as if you were some vile species of vermin if you espouse a doctrinal position that differs from their own.

It is also true that as born-again believers, we are not all of equal value to God's kingdom. The more we pray and read the Word and seek to apply it to our lives, the more the Holy Spirit is able to convict us of sin and help us continue turning from it, and the more we find ourselves walking in the Spirit. The more we walk in the Spirit, the more we are able to live overcoming lives and the more spiritual fruit our lives will produce. And the more spiritual fruit our lives produce, the more our lives glorify God and the more He can use us to influence others to seek Him.

But not all believers do that as much as they could or should (to be honest, none of us do). Some born-again Christians seem to let the cares of this world weigh them down, and they grieve the Holy Spirit by allowing their sin nature to continue to rear its ugly head far more than they should. Although the Lord may discipline them, their spiritual growth gets stifled down to a trickle. They may be saved, but they produce very little spiritual fruit and accomplish little of any value for the kingdom of God.

Yet God loved us and His Son died to save us, even though there was nothing about any of us that was worth loving or saving.

It's not because we are inherently lovely; it's because He is infinitely loving.

Regardless of our color, shape or size—no matter how much or how little value we have in the eyes of the world or of other believers, or how much we do (or fail to do) for God's kingdom—if we are born of the Spirit and have been adopted into His family, then we are still precious in the eyes of our Heavenly Father because one thing remains true:

We're still pearls.

7. The beauty of pearls comes from the way they reflect light, and the way it filters through them.

Each layer of nacre in a pearl is composed of millions of tiny aragonite platelets. The thickness of these tiny platelets (about 500 nanometers) falls within the spectrum of visible light (400–700 nanometers), and this causes some light to pass through and some to be reflected. The result is basically light bouncing around, being filtered through many layers. This is what gives pearls their characteristic iridescent inner glow.

In a similar way, our spiritual beauty comes from the way we reflect God's love and way His light filters through us, and bounces around and filters through others as well.

And just when you think you've exhausted the layers of meaning of something in God's Word...

Remember those millions of aragonite platelets I mentioned? Well, if you happen to have an electron microscope handy, you will notice that these platelets are hexagonal. (OK, so it's hard to tell in the photo, but that's what scientists say.) Six, the number of man. And not only that, but they fit closely together in a sort of brickwork pattern that gives the pearl incredible strength and resistance to cracking.

So, even the interior structure of a pearl gives us a beautiful picture of the body of Christ!

8. Pearls should not be worn too frequently, since the outer layers of nacre can be damaged by acids in the skin.

Human skin contains varying amounts of acids, and these acids can have a corrosive effect on a pearl's outer layers of nacre. This tends to diminish their natural beauty, and so experts recommend that if you want to preserve the beauty of pearls, you should seek to minimize their contact with flesh by not handling or wearing them too frequently.

It's pretty tough to miss the spiritual parallel here, and pardon me if I take a little extra time with this one. As born-again believers, excessive or prolonged contact with the flesh—with sin—damages our walk with the Lord, interrupts our fellowship with Him, and greatly diminishes our spiritual beauty, which comes from a life filled with the fruit of the Spirit:

As believers, when we carelessly allow unconfessed sin to fester in our lives, it stops our spiritual growth in its tracks. As this continues, we probably don't pray as much we should—if at all. Nor do we read the Word as much as we should—if at all.

Maybe we think we're on spiritual autopilot—only there's no such thing.

And then we crash into a mountain.

Here's the thing: If we love God, we should love the things He loves, and hate the things He hates. And God sure enough hates sin, because He loves us and our sin separated us from Him.

But the simple truth is that we all still have a sin nature, and we all still sin to some degree. Pretty much every day, to be honest: a flash of anger, a flicker of pride, a selfish motive, a lustful thought, and so on and so forth.

And those are sins. Listen—keep short accounts with God. Don't give sin a pass. Don't let it slide. Don't let it incubate in a dark corner of your life. Maintain an attitude of repentance and continually turn from sin as the Holy Spirit convicts you, guides you, and conforms you to the image of Christ.

And just in case you start feeling pretty good about yourself because you think you're being so good, keep one thing in mind:

It's not about willing yourself to be good.
It's about being willing to obey God.

It's not about expressing your grand illusions of goodness.
It's about expressing your gratitude for His goodness.

Billions of people around the world who adhere to various man-made religions are enslaved by the idea that you have to do good works in order to earn and keep your salvation—whatever form that "salvation" may take. They believe that all their charitable acts and selfless devotion to the welfare of others will earn them a place in heaven or a spiritual promotion of some kind in their "next life." After all, that idea seems eminently fair and reasonable to sinful men—but not to the holy God that we have been separated from by our sin.

As usual, this fallen, sin-infested world that is temporarily languishing under the dominion of Satan has it backwards:

Good works don't lead to biblical salvation.
Biblical salvation leads to good works.

Some naive Christians who haven't read or don't understand God's Word very well have been led to believe a version of this lie, thinking they have to work hard to earn and/or keep God's free gift of salvation. It never ceases to amaze me, because my question for these people is simply this:

Are the following passages of Scripture unclear in some way?

Since I've gone this far, I can't let you go without sharing one of my personal favorites—the story of Paul and Silas in prison:

I love the fact that these guys were chained up in prison, and yet were praying and singing hymns out loud—loud enough that everyone in the entire prison could hear them. Oh, and loud enough to wake up the jailer—whose first question reveals that it wasn't the earthquake that woke him up. He had been listening to Paul and Silas, too.

I could give you more, but please tell me you see a pattern developing here.

9. Pearls only consist of the original irritant covered by many layers of nacre.

I mean, that's all they are—a parasite covered by nacre. That's it. As such, a pearl is a picture of what believers are in this life: sinners saved by grace. That's basically all we are here on earth: a creature with a sin nature covered by God's grace. We are a picture of His grace in action.

But as I said in no. 1, at the Rapture we will lose that sin nature and at that point we will be free from sin forever. For the rest of eternity, we will be a tangible display of the infinite riches of God's grace.

10. Pearls must be harvested.

Pearls don't just come floating to the surface on their own—a pearl diver has to go down to harvest them and bring them up out of their environment.

(You knew I was going to save the best for last, right?) As born-again believers, we too are going to be "harvested." One day soon, the trumpet will sound and Jesus—the Master Pearl Diver—will descend from heaven with a shout and will gather us up out of our environment (the world) and into His environment (heaven) in the Rapture.

And please, don't allow yourself to get caught up in pointless (and unbiblical) speculation about the exact timing of this event, because God's Word makes one thing abundantly clear:

We will never know exactly when it will happen until it happens.

Hey, here's an idea. Instead of wasting time trying to figure out exactly when the Lord will take us to be with Him in the Rapture (which we cannot do), why don't we stay busy living lives that are pleasing to God by obeying His Word and storing up treasure in heaven (which we can do) so we won't feel like a bunch of ungrateful schmucks when He does. I'm just saying.

"Here comes the bride..."

As the prophetic scenario crystallizes and inexorably comes together as foretold in Scripture, we who are alert and watching the signs understand how close the Rapture may actually be. And when He does take us to be with Him, we will be spiritually united with our Lord for eternity in an event that Revelation 19:7–9 refers to as the marriage of the Lamb (Jesus Christ).

This is obviously not a marriage in the earthly sense, but it does serve to represent our spiritual relationship with Jesus and it is figuratively described in terms of a bridegroom marrying a bride in several places in Scripture.

Of course, when any bride's wedding day arrives, it is common for her to be adorned with pearls—an enduring symbol of beauty, elegance, and purity.

As the Church, we are the pearl of great price.

So, when we take part in the marriage of the Lamb in heaven, the pearl won't be an adornment worn by the Bride.

The pearl will be the Bride.

Greg Lauer — NOV '13

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