Chapter 34 - The Kingdom and the World (13:24-43)

34 The Kingdom and the World (13:24-43)

He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprang up and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. And the slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ And the slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No; lest while you are gathering up the tares, you may root up the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds; but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened.”

All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable, so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.”

Then He left the multitudes, and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” And He answered and said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. Therefore just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.” (13:24-43)

In the first of the eight parables in Matthew 13, Jesus explained the four kinds of responses—three negative and one positive—that people would make to the gospel during the mystery form of the kingdom of heaven that is the church age, the period between His first and second comings (vv. 3-8,18-23), as well as through the Millennium. In the second parable the Lord explains what happens to unbelievers during these periods of the kingdom.

THE PARABLE OF THE WHEAT AND TARES

This parable also uses the figure of a farmer sowing seed in his field; but here the emphasis is not on what happens to the good seed (as in the first parable) but rather on what happens to the bad seed that his enemy came and sowed alongside the good seed.

This good seed is assumed to fall on fertile ground, take root, and grow into healthy and productive grain, identified here as wheat. The man who sowed the good seed is the landowner (v. 27) who is planting in his field.

The phrase while men were sleeping does not imply neglect or laziness but simply refers to the nighttime, when the farmer and his men were home sleeping and were therefore oblivious to what was happening in the newly-planted field. While they slept, the farmer’s enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away.

Tares is from zizanion, a variety of darnel weed that closely resembles wheat and is almost impossible to distinguish from it until the wheat ripens and bears grain. Because of this resemblance, sowing tares . . . among the wheat was sometimes done in ancient times out of spite or revenge by an enemy who wanted to destroy or at least greatly reduce the value of someone’s crop. It was a common enough crime for the Romans to have had a specific law against it.

It was not until many weeks later, when the wheat sprang up and bore grain, that the tares became evident also. When they saw so many tares among the wheat, the slaves of the landowner asked him how this could have happened. It was not uncommon, of course, for a few weeds, including some tares, to grow up among the good plants; but the great quantity of tares in this field made it obvious that their crop was intentionally sabotaged. The landowner explained the obvious: An enemy has done this!

Realizing the seriousness of the devastating crime, the slaves said to their master, Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up? No, he replied, lest while you are gathering up the tares, you may root up the wheat with them. The slaves were rightly concerned, fearing the tares would weaken and possibly completely ruin the wheat harvest. But the experienced landowner knew that more damage would be done to the good crop by pulling out the weeds at that time than by leaving them alone. Pulling out the tares would result in rooting up much of the wheat with them. For one reason, the plant roots would have become closely intertwined, and even if all the good and bad plants could be distinguished from each other, uprooting the tares would also uproot some the of the wheat. Not only that, but wheat that was planted or that germinated later would mature later, and some of the wheat that had not yet produced heads of grain would be mistaken for tares.

Allow both to grow together until the harvest, the farmer instructed, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up. Only at the time of harvest could the good and bad plants be distinguished with certainty. The reapers were more experienced than the slaves and were qualified to weed out the tares and burn them. After that was done, they would proceed with the harvest and gather the wheat into the landowner’s barn, where it would be stored and protected for future use.

TWO PARABLES ABOUT INFLUENCE

He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened.” (13:31-33)

After hearing the parables of the sower and of the wheat and tares, the disciples no doubt wondered how Christ’s kingdom could survive if so many people rejected Him and were then allowed to stay on earth with contaminating influence. How could God’s people survive, much less thrive, in the midst of such unfavorable circumstances? Would not the great power of Satan and his evil forces, both demonic and human, utterly overwhelm and stifle the few (cf. 7:13-14) of God’s saints on earth?

Long before Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion it was evident that the Jewish leaders rejected His claims of messiahship. It was also obvious that the multitudes who praised and followed Him did not understand His true nature or mission and were only superficially attracted to Him. His true disciples were a handful against the whole nation of Israel, not to mention the vast and ungodly Roman empire and the regions beyond. In response to that unspoken concern, Jesus used these two parables to emphasize that small things can have far-reaching effects.

Western music is commonly composed of only twelve notes—the seven basic notes and their five sharps/flats. Every symphony, hymn, love song, oratorio, and other piece of music is made up of various combinations and octaves of those same few notes. Similarly, every poem, essay, novel, letter, and other piece of English literature is composed of combinations of the same twenty-six letters.

Lord Kelvin once suspended a large piece of metal from a cord in his laboratory. He then proceeded to wad up small pieces of paper into balls about the size of a pea and systematically throw them at the metal weight. At first the almost imperceptible impact of paper hitting metal seemed to have no effect. But eventually the steel weight was swaying rhythmically back and forth due to the cumulative force patiently applied against it.

In an immeasurably more dramatic and important way, God would demonstrate through the church how a handful of believers, totally weak and inept in themselves, would in His power turn the world upside down. The kingdom of heaven would grow and prosper in spite of Satan’s opposition and would ultimately permeate and influence the whole world in Jesus’ name.

THE PARABLE OF THE MUSTARD SEED

In this parable Jesus again uses the figure of planting and compares the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed and its growth into a full-grown plant.

Mustard has long been a widely-used herb throughout much of the world, and in modern times it has found additional commercial value in the manufacture of film. Amazingly, years ago it was discovered that cows whose feed was supplemented with mustard seed developed bones that had a superior quality for use in making the silver compounds used in photographic film.

Jesus’ referring to the mustard seed as being smaller than all other seeds has often been cited as proof that Scripture is errant—that Jesus was either fallible and made a mistake or that He accommodated His teaching to the ignorance of His hearers and knowingly distorted the truth. But He was not comparing this seed to all other seeds in existence but only to the seeds of garden plants in Palestine. Many seeds, such as those of the wild orchid, are much smaller than the seed of the mustard plant. But of the many plants grown at that time in the gardens and fields of Palestine, the mustard plant has the smallest seeds, just as Jesus said.

When sperma (seed) is used in the New Testament in reference to plants, it is always used of agricultural plants, those intentionally grown for food. And of those plants, the mustard had seeds that were smaller than all other seeds.

Dr. L. H. Shinners, director of the herbarium at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and lecturer at the Smithsonian Institution, stated in a conversation that

the mustard seed would indeed have been the smallest of those to have been noticed by the people at the time of Christ. The principal field crops (barley, wheat, lentils, and beans) have much larger seeds, as do other plants which might have been present as weeds and so forth. There are various weeds and wild flowers belonging to the mustard, amaranth, pigweed, or chickweed families with seeds that are as small as or smaller than mustard; but they would not have been known or noticed by the inhabitants. They are wild and they certainly would not have been planted as a crop. . . . The only modern crop plant in existence with smaller seeds than mustard is tobacco, and this plant of American origin was not grown in the old world until the sixteenth century or later.

This parable is also criticized for supposedly exaggerating the size of the mustard plant, referring to it as a tree, in which the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. Many varieties of mustard plants are rather small bushes whose branches are too flimsy for birds to nest in. But the mustard plant of Palestine often grows to a height of twelve or fifteen feet. Just as Jesus said, when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants, and, from a comparative viewpoint, becomes a tree. At certain times of the year the branches become rigid enough to easily support a bird’s nest.

But, even though the omniscient Jesus was speaking literally and accurately in this parable, His purpose was proverbial, not technical or scientific. Because of its tiny size, the mustard seed was commonly used in the ancient Near East to represent things that were extremely small. Ancient Jewish literature contains references to a drop of blood or a blemish on an animal that was the size of a mustard seed. To this day Arabs sometimes speak of faith weighing as little as a mustard seed, in much the same way Jesus did (Matt. 17:20).

If Jesus explained this parable to the disciples, we have no record of it, and in the context of His teaching about the kingdom it would not have been necessary. Its meaning was self-evident. As just mentioned, the idea of a small mustard seed growing into a large plant was proverbial, and the disciples would have immediately understood Jesus’ point: the kingdom of heaven, though now very small and seemingly insignificant, would one day grow into a large body of believers. That is the central lesson of this parable.

During Jesus’ earthly ministry, the kingdom was almost imperceptible, both because of its few citizens and because it was spiritual and invisible. It did not come “with signs to be observed,” Jesus explained on another occasion; “nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:20-21).

When He was born, Jesus was placed in a manger, in the midst of cows, sheep, goats, donkeys, and other animals. The region of Judea, in which He was born, and of Galilee, where He grew up, were insignificant backwaters of the Roman empire. In the region of Galilee, Nazareth was among the least promising towns—a fact that prompted Nathanael to ask Philip, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). None of the twelve disciples came from the Jewish religious leadership or from the economic and social aristocracy. They were few in number, uneducated, fearful, weak, slow to understand and believe, and generally unqualified to be the leaders of any significant earthly kingdom. The group of believers who gathered for prayer in Jerusalem just before Pentecost numbered only about 120 (Acts 1:15). A modern church of that size is thought to be quite small, yet that was the nucleus of the early church. When Jesus ascended to heaven, His kingdom on earth was, figuratively and relatively speaking, much smaller even than a mustard seed.

But the kingdom that started very small would one day become very large. Although the Old Testament writers were not aware that the Messiah would come to earth twice or of the intermediate kingdom that would separate those two comings, they knew that ultimately the Lord would “rule from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (Ps. 72:8). The desert nomads would bow before Him, the kings of Tarshish and of the islands would bring Him presents, the kings of Sheba and Seba would offer gifts, all kings would bow down before Him, and all nations would serve Him (vv. 9-11). In the end, “the kingdom of the world [will] become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).

Another lesson of the parable of the mustard seed is that the kingdom of heaven will be a blessing to the rest of the world. The tree that grows from the small mustard seed represents the kingdom of heaven, which in the present age corresponds to the church.

Some interpreters have held that the birds of the air represent demons or other evil forces, as they do in the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:19). But there is no reason to expect a given figure to always represent the same thing, and the idea of evil is alien to the context of this parable.

The figure of birds making nests normally calls to mind that which is positive and helpful. Nesting carries the idea of protection, safety, refuge, and sanctuary, which the mother bird provides for her young.

In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream he beheld “a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew large and became strong, and its height reached to the sky, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. Its foliage was beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches, and all living creatures fed themselves from it” (Dan. 4:10-12). In his interpretation of the king’s vision Daniel explains that “the tree that you saw... is you, O king; for you have become great and grown strong, and your majesty has become great and reached to the sky and your dominion to the end of the earth” (vv. 20, 22). Under Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian empire had brought unparalleled advancement in almost every field of endeavor—agriculture, architecture, education, the arts, literature, economics, and many others. Despite the cost in lives and slave labor, it had brought prosperity to a large part of the known world at that time. In the king’s vision, the birds and animals who benefited from the tree’s shade and food were the other nations of the world.

In a revelation to Ezekiel, the Lord described Assyria as “a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches and forest shade, and very high; and its top was among the clouds. The waters made it grow, the deep made it high. . . . Therefore its height was loftier than all the trees of the field and its boughs became many and its branches long because of many waters as it spread them out. All the birds of the heavens nested in its boughs, and under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth, and all great nations lived under its shade” (Ezek. 31:3-6).

Both Jesus and the disciples were familiar with those accounts, and the parallel to the parable of the mustard seed seems obvious. The kingdom of heaven would grow from tiny beginnings to a great tree and would ultimately provide shelter, protection, and benefit to the entire world.

When Christians live in obedience to the Lord, they are a blessing to those around them. Individual believers become the source of benediction to nations. And with all their faults, those nations of the world who have been so influenced and who have recognized God’s sovereignty and have sought to build their laws and standards of living on His Word have proved a blessing to the rest of the world in economic, legal, cultural, and social ways as well as spiritual and moral. It is from the teachings of Scripture through Christian witness that high standards of education, justice, the dignity of women, the rights of children, prison reform, and countless other such social benefits have come. Whenever the gospel of the kingdom of God is faithfully preached and practiced, all the world benefits.

What the church is to the world is a macrocosm of what a believing spouse is to an unbelieving husband or wife. Just as the unbelieving partner is sanctified through the one who believes (1 Cor. 7:14), the unbelieving world is to a degree sanctified by the presence of the true church.

Jesus’ point is that, in spite of great opposition, represented by the three bad soils and the tares, His kingdom will start small and spread in power and influence to become victorious.

THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN

He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened.” (13:33)

As always, Jesus constructed the parable out of the common experiences of His hearers. In every household the woman responsible for baking would save a piece of leavened dough from a risen batch just before it was baked. When the next batch of dough was mixed, she took the saved piece from the previous batch and hid it in the new, in order that its leaven, or yeast, could ferment the new batch of dough and make it rise.

Three pecks of meal was about the equivalent of a modern bushel. But such a large batch of dough was not uncommon in most households of the day, because bread was the major item of food. That was about the same amount of bread that Abraham asked Sarah to bake for the Lord and the two angelic visitors (Gen. 18:6) and that Gideon prepared before the angel of the Lord at Ophrah (Judg. 6:19).

The first point in this parable is that small things can have great influence, in the way that a small piece of leavened dough can permeate a large piece of unleavened dough to make it rise. The power of the kingdom of heaven is great, far greater than its initial size and appearance would suggest. The smallest part of the kingdom that is placed in the world is sure to have influence, because it contains the power of God’s own Spirit. The influence of the kingdom is the influence of the King, of His Word, and of His faithful people.

The second point of the parable is that the influence is positive. Leavened bread has always been considered tastier and more enjoyable than unleavened. To symbolize the break with their former life in Egypt, God commanded His people to eat only unleavened bread during the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, which began on Passover evening. They were not even allowed to have leaven of any sort in the house during the seven days of the feast (Ex. 12:15,18-19). But the bread they ate the rest of the year was leavened and perfectly acceptable to the Lord. To the average person of Jesus’ day, Jew or Gentile, there is no evidence that leaven carried any connotation of evil or corruption.

The ancient rabbis often referred to leaven in a favorable way. One of them wrote, “Great is peace, in that peace is to the earth as leaven is to the dough.” When a Jewish girl was married, her mother would give her a small piece of leavened dough from a batch baked just before the wedding. From that gift of leaven the bride would bake bread for her own household throughout her married life. That gift, simple as it was, was among the most cherished that the bride received, because it represented the love and blessedness of the household in which she grew up and that would be carried into the household she was about to establish.

William Arnot writes insightfully:

Boldly as a sovereign may, this teacher seizes a proverb which was current as an exponent of the adversary’s successful strategems and stamps the metal with the image and superscription of the rightful King. The evil spreads like leaven; you tremble before its stealthy advance and relentless grasp: but be of good cheer, disciples of Jesus, greater is He that is for you than all that are against you; the word of life which has been hidden in the world, hidden in believing hearts, is a leaven too. The unction of the Holy One is more subtle and penetrating and subduing than sin and Satan. Where sin abounded, grace shall much more abound.

Because leaven causes fermentation, some interpreters insist that in Scripture it always signifies that which is evil and corrupting when it is used figuratively. But such a restrictive view is arbitrary and certainly does not fit the present text. Jesus specifically says that the kingdom of heaven, the most positive of all influences imaginable, is like leaven. To take this leaven as representing evil that permeates the kingdom is to twist the obvious meaning and construction of words—whether in the Greek or English texts. Nor does that interpretation fit Jesus’ development of this group of parables, in which this one parallels that of the mustard seed. They both illustrate the power of the kingdom to overcome the resistance and opposition illustrated in the parables of the sower and of the wheat and tares.

Even when leaven is used in relation to something evil, as in Jesus’ warning about “the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1), the point is not that leaven and hypocrisy are both inherently evil but that they both are inherently pervasive and powerful in their influence. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul uses leaven in the same way—not to illustrate the evil of legalism (which is great) but rather to point up its great influence: “A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough” (5:9).

As Paul indicts the Corinthians for arrogant indifference to the gross immorality of some of the church members, he states the same well-known proverb that he uses in Galatians and that Jesus had in mind in this parable: “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?” (1 Cor. 5:6). He is speaking in the context of demanding that believers remove immoral members from their midst, in order that the evil conduct might not contaminate the rest of the church (vv. 2-5). Here again, the figure of leaven is used in regard to something evil, but the focus of the analogy is not on common evil but on common permeation.

As Paul continues his warning to the Corinthians, he also uses leaven to represent discontinuation. Israel under Moses was commanded not to take any leaven from bread in Egypt as they prepared to leave that land of captivity and oppression and journey toward the Promised Land. In the same way, Christians are commanded to “clean out the old leaven” of “malice and wickedness” that characterized their unsaved lives and take nothing of it into their new life in Christ (1 Cor. 5:7-8a). The bread of their new life in Christ is then called “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (v. 8b).

But no analogy can be pressed too far. In this instance Paul uses leaven to illustrate the discontinuity that should be evident between an unsaved and a saved life. The relationship of leaven to the evil of the old life and of no leaven to the righteousness of the new life is incidental. The focus is on discontinuity, just as in the parable it is on permeation and influence.

In following out the story of the Exodus it becomes clear that, after the seven restricted days, the Israelites were again allowed to make leavened bread—though not from Egyptian leaven. At the Feast of Pentecost, in fact, the bread offered to the Lord had to be “baked with leaven” (Lev. 23:17), which He would hardly have required had leaven intrinsically represented evil. Otherwise that feast would have been a perpetual reminder of God’s tolerance of evil rather than of His holiness and goodness (v. 21).

The term leaven can incidentally represent something that is good, evil, or morally and spiritually neutral, depending on how it is used. But the primary analogy pertains to pervasive influence, which is leaven’s most obvious and distinctive characteristic.

A third lesson of this parable is that the positive influence of the kingdom comes from within. The leaven must be hid in order to have any impact. The idea here is not that of hiding so as not to be seen but rather of hiding in the sense of penetrating deeply, completely permeating the world as leaven completely permeates the dough. Christians are not to be of the world, but we are to be in the world, because that is the only way the gospel can reach and affect the world (John 17:14-16). Christ sends His people into the world just as the Father sent Him into the world (v. 18). The supreme purpose of the church is to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15).

When the kingdom of heaven is faithfully reflected in the lives of believers, its influence in the world is both pervasive and positive. The life of Christ within believers is spiritual and moral leavening in the world. A Christian does not have to be a national leader, a famous entertainer, or a sports figure to influence the world for his Lord. It is the power of God’s kingdom within a believer that makes his witness effective, and that is the influence on the world that Christians should seek to have.

That the meaning of these two parables was immediately clear to the disciples is seen in the fact that afterward they did not ask Jesus to explain them. Instead they asked Him to explain the parable of the wheat and tares (Matt. 13:36). The obvious purpose of the mustard seed and leaven parables was to encourage the disciples and all subsequent believers.

Each week, hundreds of new churches are started throughout the world. In China—which is still closed to missionary work, overt evangelism, and free worship—it is estimated that there are perhaps 50 million or more Christians! Most of the world’s people have the Scriptures printed in their own language, and more and more languages are added to the list each year. Through radio and literature, many millions are being reached with the gospel who could never personally hear it preached or taught.

But evangelism and other work and witness of the church often seem to have little immediate or noticeable effect. Even with the great growth and impact of the church in the world today, from the human perspective the world seems to be winning the contest for men’s souls by a wide gap. As the church grows in numbers, so does world population; and, by comparison, God’s people are still a remnant. As thousands of new converts are won daily in some countries, in others the church is losing membership and influence.

How much more reason did the disciples have for being discouraged and perplexed about the prospects of Christ’s kingdom on earth? The Messiah Himself was daily meeting more and more opposition and receiving more and severer threats against His life. The twelve knew that they themselves were totally unprepared to win the world for the Lord. If the Son of God Himself was rejected and put to death, what could a handful of His weak, insignificant followers hope to accomplish after He was gone?

But Jesus’ purpose in these two parables, as in many others teachings, was to assure the apostles, the early church, and every believer in every age that ultimately His kingdom not only would not fail but would prosper and grow Christianity will win, evil will be destroyed, and Jesus will reign. Christ Himself is building His church, and the very “gates of Hades [death itself] shall not overpower it” (Matt. 16:18).

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PARABLE OF THE WHEAT AND TARES

All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable, so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.”

Before he presents the interpretation of the parable of the wheat and tares, Matthew explains that Jesus’ speaking in parables was not an afterthought but had been prophesied in God’s Word hundreds of years earlier. To the multitudes Jesus did not speak . . . without a parable, Matthew says, so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.

Asaph, a prophet and seer (2 Chron. 29:30), wrote Psalm 78, from which Matthew here quotes: I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world. The rejection of His messiahship did not catch the Lord by surprise, and the postponement of the kingdom was not a backup plan. The things hidden since the foundation of the world pertained to “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” which Jesus explained to His disciples but not the unbelieving multitudes and religious leaders (Matt. 13:11-16). To those who rejected Him, He spoke “in parables; because while seeing they [did] not see, and while hearing they [did] not hear, nor [did] they understand” (v. 13). God made no alterations of His plan of redemption. Everything was exactly on schedule and according to the predictions of His Word.

After telling the parables of the mustard seed and leaven, He left the multitudes, and went back into the house where He had been staying (see 13:1). As soon as they were all inside, His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”

Although they did not fully understand that parable, the fact that they called it the parable of the tares shows they realized the major emphasis was on the tares rather than the wheat. The parable was obviously about judgment, and the tares obviously represented unbelievers. The disciples’ question may have reflected the same attitude as that of the slaves in the parable—”Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?” (v. 28). James and John demonstrated their attitude toward unbelievers when they asked Jesus’ permission “to command fire to come down from heaven and consume” the Samaritans who refused to receive Him (Luke 9:54).

All the disciples were doubtlessly wondering why the wicked tares would be allowed to coexist with the good wheat. Had the landowner done as the slaves suggested and had all the tares immediately been pulled out and destroyed, the disciples would have readily understood. But as it was, they were perplexed about the landowner’s reaction, because they still did not understand the greatness of God’s grace or His plan of redemption for the intermediate and millennial periods of the kingdom before Christ would judge the world.

The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, Jesus began, and the field is the world. The disciples knew that by the Son of Man Jesus referred to Himself. Because it focused on His humility and humanity in the incarnation, it was the title He most commonly used of Himself. It beautifully identified Him as He fully participated in human life as the perfect Man, the second Adam, and the sinless representative of the human race. It was also a title clearly understood by Jews as referring to the Messiah (Luke 22:69; cf. Dan. 7:13). The title is used of Jesus by others only twice in the New Testament, once by Paul (Acts 7:56) and once by John (Rev. 14:14).

The one who sows is Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, and He is sowing in His own field, which is the world. It is difficult to understand why so many interpreters maintain that the field in this parable represents the church, and that Jesus’ point is that true and false believers, represented by the wheat and tares, will exist together in the church throughout the present age. The Lord could not have identified the field more explicitly. It is the world, not the church. This is a picture of the church in the world, not of the world in the church.

Although Satan is temporarily the ruler of this world, it still belongs to God, who created it and will one day redeem and restore it. God’s “creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now” (Rom. 8:21-22).

In the parable of the sower Jesus speaks of the good seed as “the word of the kingdom” (13:19); but here it represents the sons of the kingdom, whom the Lord scatters throughout the world. The Lord plants His people in the world as His witnesses, to grow and become fruitful plants of righteousness. The sons of the kingdom are faithful to the King and reflect His will and His standards before a wicked, corrupt, unbelieving world. Christians are not left in the world by accident but are placed there on divine assignment from their Lord.

The tares, on the other hand, are the sons of the evil one, who is Satan. All human beings are either spiritual children of God and sons of the kingdom through faith in His Son or they are spiritual sons of the evil one, simply by virtue of their sinful nature and unbelief (John 8:44; Eph. 2:2-3; 1 John 3:10; 5:19).

Jesus does not make the point in this parable, because it would not fit the analogy, but all good seeds were once tares; all the sons of the kingdom were once sons of the evil one. To go beyond the scope of this parable, while still using some of its figures, it could be said that the primary purpose of the “good seeds” in the world is to make converts of “tares,” that they might also become sons of the kingdom.

The enemy who sowed the tares is the devil, the evil one. As is evident from the wording of the parable itself (see v. 25), sowed here carries the idea of thoroughness. Throughout history the tares have outnumbered the wheat by enormous percentages; and some parts of the world seem to be totally sown with the seed of the enemy.

The harvest represents God’s judgment at the end of the age, when the reapers, who are angels, will execute judgment on unbelievers, just as the human reapers in the parable separated out the tares, which were then gathered up and burned with fire.

So shall it be at the end of the age, Jesus explains. The disciples were doubtlessly ready to put the sickle to the unbelieving tares right away, just as the landowner’s slaves were prepared to do (v. 28). This was revealed as the attitude of James and John toward the unbelieving Samaritans when they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke (9:54).

In the parable we are told that “the wheat sprang up and bore grain, [and] the tares became evident also” (v. 26). Jesus does not elaborate on that statement, but in light of His other parable explanations, that aspect of the parable would seem to teach that most true believers can be identified by their spiritual and practical fruit (grain) and unbelievers by their lack of it.

The only reason given in the parable for not having the slaves pull out the obvious tares was that, in doing so, they might “root up the wheat with them” (v. 29). As observed above under the discussion of that verse, damage could be done to some of the good crop either because some plants matured late and would be mistaken for tares because they did not yet have grain or because the roots were so intermingled that some good plants would be uprooted with the tares.

In addition to the fact that the church age is for evangelism and not judgment, Christians are not qualified to infallibly distinguish between true and false believers. Every time the church has presumed to do that it has produced an ungodly bloodbath. When the fourth-century Roman emperor Constantine required every person to make a profession of faith in Christ on pain of death, he succeeded in killing many true believers who refused to submit to his spurious brand of Christianity. During the Crusades of the Middle Ages, unbelievable brutality was committed against non-Christians, especially Muslims and Jews, in the name of the Prince of Peace. During the inquisitions in reaction to the Protestant Reformation, countless thousands of Christians who did not submit to the dogma and authority of Roman Catholicism were imprisoned, tortured, and executed.

This is not the age of God’s judgment, and certainly not of judgment and execution by the church. While on earth, the Lord Himself would not lift a finger against His enemies. To Judas, who betrayed Him to His death, He offered the first sop at the Last Supper as a gesture of love and a final appeal for belief (John 13:26). For those who falsely accused Him and sent Him to the cross, He asked forgiveness (Luke 23:34). How, then, can His followers consider themselves ever justified in taking the role of judge or avenger and executioner? In the present age, believers are not God’s instruments of judgment and destruction but of truth and grace. Toward unbelievers we are not to have hearts of condemnation but of compassion.

The church is called to preach and teach against sin and all unrighteousness, but, in doing that, its purpose is not to judge but to win souls, not to punish but to convert sons of the evil one into sons of the kingdom.

In any case, the Lord makes clear that the separation of the wheat and tares, of the sons of the kingdom and the sons of the evil one, would be only at the end of the age. In the meanwhile they exist side by side, breathing the same air, enjoying the same sunshine and rain, eating the same food, attending the same schools, working in the same factories and offices, living in the same neighborhoods, and sometimes attending the same churches.

The angels whom the Son of Man will send forth. . . will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. The whole earth is seen here as the Lord’s kingdom, and truly He is the rightful monarch. Out of His world the angels collect all stumbling blocks—the devil’s sons who work against God and seek to cause many to fall into hell and those who commit lawlessness by disobeying God’s Word.

When Jesus returns, He will “come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds” (Matt. 16:27). The angels will deal “out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thess. 1:8-9).

Fire causes the greatest pain known to man, and the furnace of fire into which the sinners are cast represents the excruciating torment of hell, which is the destiny of every unbeliever. This fire of hell is unquenchable (Mark 9:44), eternal (Matt. 25:41), and is pictured finally as a great “lake of fire which burns with brimstone” (Rev. 19:20). The punishment is so fearsome that in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Hell will not be a place, as some jokingly envision, where the ungodly will continue to do their thing while the godly do theirs in heaven. Hell will have no friendships, no fellowship, no camaraderie, no comfort. It will not even have the debauched pleasures in which the ungodly love to revel on earth. There will be no pleasure in hell of any kind or degree—only torment, “day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10).

Jesus’ last word of explanation is positive, beautiful, and hopeful: Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. When the Son of Man returns with His angels, they will not only perfectly separate out the wicked for eternal punishment but also the righteous for eternal blessing. The Lord “will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other” (Matt. 24:31). Then comes the long-anticipated and long-postponed kingdom of righteousness, in which there will be no evil people and no evil deeds or even thoughts. This is the fulfilled, eternal kingdom of our heavenly Father, where, with all the righteous of all ages, we will shine forth as the sun. There we “will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Dan. 12:3).

Lest anyone fail to take seriously these truths that are both fearsome and wonderful, Jesus added, He who has ears, let him hear. Every person who is uncertain about his relationship to God should ask himself if he is wheat or merely a tare that looks like wheat, if he is a child of God or of the evil one. If he does not belong to God, he can come to God, because God is in the business of making wheat out of tares, saints out of sinners.

Those who are sure they are sons of the kingdom should hear what Jesus says here in order that their attitude toward the world might be the loving, merciful, compassionate attitude of their Lord—who has called them to witness rather than condemn, to love rather than hate, to show mercy rather than judgment. In that way we prove ourselves “blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom [we will] appear as lights in the world” (Phil 2:15).