than in the secular political arena. Ironically, however, many Christians seem more willing than the
The Wheat and Tares
hris tians are not supposed to live like unsaved people. That may not sound especially profound, but many evangelicals today do not seem to understand it. I am chagrined at the way Chris tians tolerate flagrant sin in their midst. Like the Corinthian church, who arrogantly welcomed a brazen fornicator to their fellowship (1 Cor. 5:1 – 2),1 some Chris tians today seem to take perverse pride in never challenging the lifestyle of anyone who claims to be a believer.
Sin that was unheard of in the church only a generation ago is now commonplace. Divorce and immorality are epidemic among Chris tians. Churches claiming to be evangelical smugly offer the right hand of fellowship to unmarried couples openly living together. One fast-growing denomination consists almost entirely of practicing homosexuals. Many in the church believe them to be Chris tians because they affirm faith in Jesus. Worst of all, the state of leadership in some of the most obvious segments of the church is pathetic. Recent news headlines have made that clear to the world.2
I am convinced that the popularized gospel of our day has made all this possible — even inevitable. The notion that faith is nothing more than believing a few biblical facts caters to human depravity. If repentance, holiness of life, and submission to the lordship of Christ are all optional, why should we expect the redeemed to differ from the heathen? Who is to say that someone might not be a believer, just because that person lives in stubborn rebellion against God? If people say they believe, shouldn't we just take their word for it?
1. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for their cockiness about the sin in their congregation (5:2). He implied that they had no right to assume that an incestuous fornicator was a true believer — his sin was so wicked that even pagan Gentiles would not do such things openly (v. 1). He demanded that the Corinthians excommunicate the man (vv. 2, 5, 13) and referred to him as a "so-called brother" (v. 11). Paul clearly doubted that a regenerate person would live so contemptuously.
2. It is embarrassing that the scandals of recent decades have exposed even worse sin in the church than in the secular political arena. Ironically, however, many Chris tians seem more willing than the world to restore their disqualifi ed leaders to positions of prominence, violating the cardinal requirement that a leader be above reproach (1 Tim. 3:2, 10; Titus 1:6).
Jesus Illustrates His Gospel
The tragic result is that many people think it is fairly normal for Chris tians to live like unbelievers. As I noted in chapter 2, contemporary theologians have devised an entire category for this type of person — the "carnal Chris tian." Who knows how many unregenerate persons have been lulled into a false sense of spiritual security by the suggestion that they are merely carnal?
Please do not misunderstand me. Chris tians can and do behave in carnal ways. But nothing in Scripture suggests that a real Chris tian might pursue a lifestyle of unbroken indifference or antagonism toward the things of God. Chris tians do not masquerade as children of the devil. The reverse is true; Satan pretends to be an angel of light, and his servants imitate the children of righ teous ness (2 Cor. 11:14 – 15).
When Scripture acknowledges the difficulty of telling the sheep from the goats, the point is not that Chris tians may seem ungodly, but rather that the ungodly often appear to be righ teous. To switch metaphors slightly, the flock is supposed to be on the lookout for wolves in sheep's clothing, not tolerant of sheep that act like wolves. In this regard, Jesus' parable about the wheat and tares (Matt. 13:24 – 30) has often been misunderstood.
This parable uses imagery similar to that of the parable of the soils, but here our Lord makes a completely different point:
He presented another parable to them, saying, "Th e kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his fi eld. 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 fi eld? 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." ' " (Matt. 13:24 – 30)
Oversowing another's grain crop with weeds was a common enough act that Rome had a law against it. It was an almost certain way to ruin one's neighbor, because it rendered his crop useless and thus nullified his chief source of income.
In this parable, a man's enemy had sowed tares in his field. "Tares" refers to darnel, a wheatlike plant that produced useless seed instead of grain. It so closely resembled wheat that it was known as bastard wheat. Until its seed
The Wheat and Tares
head was mature, it was nearly impossible to distinguish from real wheat, even under the most careful scrutiny.
The landowner in Jesus' parable chose not to risk destroying any of the legitimate crop while trying to pull out the tares. Instead, he decided to let both wheat and weeds grow together until harvest, at which time the reapers would separate the good crop from the bad when the difference would be obvious.
What can this story mean? It is surprising that the multitudes did not ask, but they were more interested in seeing miracles and being fed than in knowing the truth (John 6:26). The disciples, however, did want to know. Matthew 13:36 says that after the Lord had left the multitudes and entered a house — very likely Simon Peter's house in Capernaum — the disciples said to Him, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field."
The Players
Jesus' explanation begins simply: "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man." That is the title the Lord used more than any other to refer to Himself. Only once in the New Testament is "the Son of Man" used by someone else to describe Jesus; every other time it appears, He uses it of Himself. It identifies Him in His humanness as the incarnate One who was the perfection of all that a man could be. It speaks of Him as the second Adam, the sinless representative of the race. It also associates Him with messianic prophecy (Dan. 7:13).
According to Matthew 13:38, "The field is the world." By implication the sower — the Son of Man — owns the field. He holds in His hand the title deed to it. He is its sovereign monarch. And He cultivates His crop there. What does He sow? "As for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom" (v. 38). The children of His kingdom are believing people, those submissive to the King. And He sows them throughout His field, the world.
"The tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil" (vv. 38 – 39). These are unbelievers. The phrase "Sons of the evil one" is similar to the terminology Jesus used in John 8:44, when He castigated the religious leaders: "You are of your father, the devil." First John 3:10 indicates that all who are not children of God are children of the devil.
The Plot
The meaning of this parable is not at all complicated. The Son of Man — Jesus — sowed the children of His kingdom in the world. The enemy — Satan — ruined the purity of the crop, mingling his children with those the Son of Man had sowed. These unbelieving children of the Evil One
Jesus Illustrates His Gospel
live together with believers in the world. In the final judgment God will separate the wheat from the weeds.
As simple as that is, many Bible students miss the point entirely. Although the field is clearly said to represent the world, a surprising number of commentators see the field as the church. To them, the parable is a message about false elements in the church and divine permission to leave them alone until the Lord and the angels sort out the true from the false in the final judgment.
Obviously, that is not the point of this parable at all. Such a teaching would violate everything the New Testament teaches about church discipline. Satan likes to sow his tares as close to the wheat as he can, and he does sow some of them in the church. But this parable is not teaching Chris tians that they should tolerate unbelievers in the fellowship. We are to have nothing to do with false teachers and sham believers (2 John 9 – 11). We are clearly commanded to purge such influences from the church (1 Cor. 5:2, 7).
This parable contains instructions for the church in the world, not a free pass for the world in the church. Satan sows his people everywhere. We who belong to the kingdom exist in the same realm as unbelievers. We breathe the same air, we eat the same food, we drive the same highways, we live in the same neighborhoods, we work at the same factories, we go to the same schools, we visit the same doctors, we shop at the same stores, we enjoy the same warm sun, and we are all rained on by the same rain. What we can never share, however, is spiritual fellowship (2 Cor. 6:14 – 16), and this parable does not teach otherwise.
The message of the wheat and the tares is simply that God does not sanction any effort that would rid the world of unbelievers by force. The disciples were ready to put in the sickle and get rid of the children of the devil. We understand their passion. We can certainly relate to the prayer of the psalmist, "Let the wicked perish before God" (Ps. 68:2). We can understand why James and John, the Sons of Thunder, would ask Jesus, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:54).
In essence, that is what the slaves of the landowner were asking when they said, "Do you want us, then, to go and gather them [the tares] up?" (Matt. 13:28). The landowner wisely told them not to pull them up, because rooting out the tares might destroy the wheat also.
World history confirms the wisdom of such a plan. Whenever there has been a religious movement to rid the world of paganism, it is the true church that has suffered the most. Read, for example, Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Many of those slaughtered for their faith throughout church history have been faithful believers put to death by misguided zealots claiming to represent God. The Inquisition was responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of Chris tians, killed because they held God's Word as a higher authority than the teachings
The Wheat and Tares
of church leaders. One of my friends owns a sixteenth-century Bible stained with the blood of a martyr, put to death simply for owning it. Religious fanatics always see genuine believers as the enemy.
God does not call His people to a ministry of inquisition. Now is not the time to rip the tares out. Our mission is not a political or military crusade, and this is not a time of judgment. Moreover, we are not called to dole out retribution. We are sent out rather to be ambassadors for Christ, emissaries of His mercy and grace.
We are not here by accident. We are planted by the Lord, in the world. We should never try to escape that. We are not told to sequester ourselves in a monastery or escape with other believers into a holy commune. We are to stay where we are planted and bear fruit. We might even have a positive effect on the tares.
Here, of course, is where the symbolism breaks down. Real tares cannot become wheat, but a son of the Evil One can be transformed into a child of the kingdom. That is the whole point of salvation. In Ephesians 2 Paul wrote, "We . . . were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest" (v. 3). Salvation gives us a new nature and turns us from "sons of disobedience" (v. 2) into members of God's household (v. 19), from tares into wheat. "We are His workmanship," Paul wrote in verse 10 of that same chapter. And we are "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them." In the spiritual sense, all wheat begins as tares.
We are not to root out the tares or demand that they live by the spiritual principles of the kingdom. It is futile trying to make tares produce good harvest. Without a divine rebirth, a tare will never be wheat. Grooming a weed to look like wheat will not make it produce good grain. In Matthew 7:6, during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Do not throw your pearls before swine." In other words, do not take kingdom principles and try to enforce them on a society that lives outside the kingdom.
Chris tians are not to condemn the world or force external reform upon it, though we must preach against its sins. We are commanded to teach the gospel (cf. Matt. 28:19 – 20) and live as examples of righ teous ness. But we are not God's executioners.
The Plan
At harvesttime, the wheat and the tares will be separated. "The reapers are angels" (Matt. 13:39). They will carry out judgment at the end of the age. The tares — the sons of the Evil One — will be gathered and burned (v. 40). Hell will be their eternal abode. The reapers "will cast them into the furnace of
Jesus Illustrates His Gospel
fire" (v. 42). The picture is terrifying: "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" — literally, "grinding of the teeth and piercing shrieks." The sons of the kingdom — "the righ teous" (v. 43) — will eternally inhabit the kingdom.
How will the reapers know the wheat from the tares? The issue, as always, is the spiritual fruit they bear. Tares may look similar to wheat, but tares cannot produce wheat kernels. The mature grain clearly sets wheat apart from tares. So it is in the spiritual world. The sons of the Evil One can imitate the children of the kingdom, but they cannot produce true righ teous ness: "A bad tree [cannot] produce good fruit (Matt. 7:18). The language of the parable confirms this. The tares are called "stumbling blocks . . . those who commit lawlessness" (v. 41). The wheat are called "righ teous" (v. 43). Clearly, character and behavior are what separate the wheat from the tares. In the judgment the difference will be fully manifest.
Yet this parable is not saying we should be unconcerned with the difference between wheat and tares until the final judgment. It does not encourage us to accept tares as wheat. It does not sanction indifference about the sins of the lost. Nor does it suggest we forget there are weeds in the field and be inattentive to the peril they pose. It simply tells us to leave final judgment and retribution in the hands of the Lord and His angels.
In the end, real wheat will inevitably be identified by the crop it produces. Wheat will not produce dandelion heads. It will not grow to look like a tumbleweed. Because of its inherent nature, it will produce wheat grain, though it be cultivated in a field overgrown with tares.
The children of the kingdom are like that as well. They live in the world, where children of the Evil One flourish. But the children of the kingdom have a heavenly nature. The fruit they bear will be different from the fruit borne by the children of the Evil One. You can count on it.