Matthew 13:37-43 Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
In Jesus’ parable, the field that has both good seed and bad seed is the field of the world. In this world there are people who accept the Good News and those who reject it. Some individuals have receptive hearts and others have hardened hearts. The evil one captures the hearts of the latter with sinful deeds that lead to death. Jesus says that in the kingdom these people look like the real thing, but they are tares, posers, imitators, living lives that are not capable of bearing fruit that pleases God. The tares thrive like the wheat, but they are just a semblance of the real plant intended for that field. They use the nutrients of the soil, experience the sun, soak up the water that falls on the field, existing just as the wheat. Their presence is an ongoing danger to the wheat, for they occupy space that should belong to the wheat. They can block the sun, use up the nutrients of the soil, keep water away from the roots of the wheat, and often their roots become entangled with the wheat. Because of their close proximity, Jesus concludes they should not be weeded from the field until the end of the age, when all things will be judged rightly. At this time of harvest, their falseness will be revealed completely, causing the angels to throw them into the fire. The righteous who have also been harvested will find their place in the kingdom as true servants of God, forever blessed in the presence of the Almighty Father. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. This parable stands as a strong word from Jesus, for He describes the challenge to Christians from the weeds. Perhaps the most important aspect of Jesus’ teaching is that the weeds will look like the real thing, but they have not accepted the Good News that He has sown. They will live lives planted on the same land, thriving in their own likeness, but they are imitators of the wheat that can produce a crop for God. The essence of the Sower is that He is the truth, the life, and the way. Only his seeds will end up in God’s household. The other plants will be found worthless, not of any value for eternity. The truth of the good seed rests in the knowledge that Jesus is God’s Son, the Messiah—the sower of the good seed. He is the ONLY WAY to a bountiful harvest, life eternal.
This parable clearly reveals sin’s contamination of the world’s environment. No matter the soil’s quality, the days of sun, or the abundance of rain, sin thrives in any soil. From the beginning, the evil one has spoiled the land with seeds of rebellion, hatred, fear, and violence. No matter how well the soil is prepared, no matter its ideal location, if the seed of sin is sown, it will inhabit the soil. Outside of Christ, the condition of man changes little, and evil thrives alongside goodness and love. Man in his self-help demeanor has tried to convince himself that he can become good through much self-effort. If he tries harder, is better taught, has more positivity in his life, he will achieve a land that is void of everything that causes sin. But Jesus says this purity will not come until the end of time. People will go on sinning as a result of the evil one’s activity until the end of time. Every generation must deal with sin or discover that the whole field has been taken over by the tares, the imposters. In this kingdom, sin must be constantly attacked by the Good News, The Way, the true answer to a bountiful harvest. If not, weeds will prevent full maturity of the wheat, limiting the harvest. These tares stood out in Jesus’ time. They were cloaked in the robes of the religious leaders. They had a semblance of serving God, but they were really a hindrance to the people knowing God. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. (Matthew 23:13) There were so many tares that they were willing to attack Jesus directly, finally able to have him executed by the Roman government. They did not appreciate Jesus implicating them as fleshly tools of darkness. Jesus knew they had to deal with this kingdom that thrived on religious darkness; sin had to be eradicated by something other than religious practices and priestly functions. The people needed a deeper cleansing of their souls than just worshipping in the temple or covering their sinful deeds with sacrifices of animals, birds, and grain. This teaching of Jesus bewildered the religious elite of that day. But Jesus was talking about something more spiritual than their traditional religion and the law’s commandments. In the Old Testament book of Leviticus, we see that our sins of omission are considered just as bad by God as the behaviors we recognize as sin. We usually repent of our known sins, wiping them off the ledger of God’s book of judgment. But the former unrecognized sins are still in the book that God’s keeps. No grace covers these unconfessed sins. If any of the common people sin by violating one of the Lord’s commands, but they don’t realize it, they are still guilty. (Leviticus 4:27) To cover these unconscious sins, the law required the priest to sacrifice a female goat to cover all the unrecognized sins of the people. The law of Moses demanded that all sin must be covered by blood, for it is a cancer to the will of God. In the Old Testament, a female goat’s blood covered temporarily the conscious and unconscious sins, but this was not an eradication of evil. All sin, aware and unaware, was dealt with permanently by Jesus’ blood spilt at the cross. The demands of the law were fulfilled by his sacrifice once and for all time. God’s ledger of judgment was wiped clean by Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice for our imperfections. Consequently, because of Jesus’ creative power in our lives, our plant turns out differently from the Adamic seed planted in the hearts of men by the evil one. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. THROUGH HIM all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3)
Christians should take heart because a weed in the kingdom might thrive, but it cannot make itself into the real thing—only God can do that. The tares existed, but were unproductive. The tares brought no honor to God who created all things for his glory. In the real kingdom where we live, the falseness of the weeds does exist. They are sometimes hard to detect, for they are similar to the wheat in many ways. At times the hardiness and productiveness of the wheat is challenged by the existence of these imitators, for these invasive weeds get into the very church of God, hurting the testimony of the believers. Those who do not adhere to or advocate the doctrine of Jesus try to tempt those who do, wanting to kill the true seed of God. The blood of Jesus is the only way to God’s grace and mercy. Weeds actuate other false ways to eternal life—to rightness with God. These tares entangle their roots within the doctrines of the church. Behaviors and rightness with God are not judged on Jesus’ works but on man’s works. This emphasis on man’s efforts to gain God’s favor is detrimental to the hardiness of the church. Our lives should point to Jesus. Christians should reflect God’s goodness to people, but reliance on effort to please God is futile. Without the resurrected life of the Holy Spirit within human beings, the spirit of death rests in the souls of men. As in the above parable, we know the seeds from the hands of God are good, able to produce life; but the destination of death abides in the bad seed. Jesus proclaims, Whoever has ears, let them hear. Jesus knows those with spiritual ears will understand that wrong teaching and wrong living standards are detrimental to the kingdom of God. Doing the will of men will not honor God. Tares committed to self-willed living only imitate real life. Doing the will of God leads to abundant, eternal life. In a kingdom with tares where the yeast of the Pharisees exists, how will the wheat thrive? The wheat thrives through dependence on Jesus Christ. The abundant life of the wheat requires the absence of fleshly endeavors as the primary reason for living. Christians do not achieve hardiness by living within self-willed desires or by serving the law of right and wrong; instead, we live by the grace and mercy of God through Christ our Redeemer. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2:19-21) Only the Son of Man plants life in the garden, sowing the good seed of eternal life. He plants the seed in the rich soil of thriving life. But that soil is also the home of ideas and people adverse to the God of creation. Rebellion exists in the hearts of many. Their thoughts and activities lead to death. If they could, they would choke out Christianity in the kingdom. But we know God is reconciling the kingdom to himself through the blood of Jesus, his Son. God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Jesus), and through him to reconcile to himself ALL THINGS, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:19-22) The good seed is planted and will thrive if we provide fertile soil and nourish the plants as they mature until the harvest. Rise up in the fulness God has provided and live for him.
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