CLAIM: Jesus first refers to the partial judgments on Israel described in Isaiah 6. Next, He describes the characteristics of the nature of the kingdom through a series of parables. One underlying theme in these parables is that the full manifestation of the kingdom will happen after the Second Coming.
Not Primarily End Times Focused.
The general basis for this claim is that Jesus the “mysteries hidden” constitute some sort of long-range explanation of church history. Contrary to the idea of the Seven Church Ages, which may or may not have some merit in the larger picture of things, this idea that the parables show the Kingdom growing from a “hidden” or “invisible” form to a manifest form, with corruption and whatnot, actually runs completely contrary to the actual interpretation of these parables.
These parables, while a couple of the last ones do rightly discuss things of the “End of the Age” (see here for an analysis of this phrase, meaning the end of the World, not the Jewish Nation), describe life in the Kingdom, as Jesus was living, and as He was discipling His students to do also.
The parables describe hearing the Word and having faith come into the heart (the sower), the life of the Holy Spirit (the leaven), the transcendant worth of the Kingdom far above the fleshly soulish life and mere religion (the treasure and the pearl of great price), and certain aspects like the continuing presence of evil up until the end (the wheat and tares).
The statement about bringing out old treasures as well as new refers to the fact that we have the anointing from the Holy One, and we know all things (1 John 1:20). We have the Spirit of God, Paul said, and what was before unknowable and undiscernable has been revealed to us by His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10).
As these describe a very present reality, never with any mixture (the wheat is always wheat and the tares are always tares–there is always a difference between the real and the false), they cannot in any way refer to the church through history. They are instructions for living, for those who have eyes to hear.
The main focus of the items that refer to the time of the end is not the eschatology, but the life in the Holy Spirit, in the Kingdom, for believers.
For those who have will have more given them; and from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away.
Mark 4:25