Six of the seven parables found in Matthew 13. are divinely described as similitudes of the Kingdom of heaven. The parable of the Wheat and the Tares is the first of the six, and with it is given the Saviour’s interpretation thereof to His disciples. The Kingdom of heaven in its present form covers the whole profession of Christianity, whether true or false. In the coming age it will cover the whole earth, as predicted in Old Testament prophecy. Let us not confound the kingdom of heaven with heaven itself. This is one of the blunders of Popery, and the blunder is most serious in its results. Many are to-day in the Kingdom of heaven who will have no place in heaven; their profession of allegiance to the absent Christ being merely formal and unreal.
The Son of Man has sown good seed in His field. Christianity thus began with a number of persons who were true sons of the Kingdom. Satan soon set to work to corrupt the new testimony. He effected his purpose by introducing false brethren amongst the true. This happened “while men slept,” i.e., when Christ’s servants became so negligent of their Master’s interests, and so dull in their spiritual perception, that they admitted to the outward communion of Christianity men whom they should never have countenanced―unregenerate persons, sons of the wicked one (Jude 44For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 4)). These are called, not “tares,” but “darnel” ―a worthless weed very like wheat in its early growth.
When it became manifest that the crop was mixed and spoiled, the servants inquired of the householder if they should gather up the tares. He replied: “Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with them.” To gather out weeds is to kill them. In like manner the wheat field of Christendom can only be weeded by putting to death every false professor of Christ’s name. This is expressly forbidden, and for the grave reason that true wheat would be in danger of being mistakenly rooted up by erratic servants. Our Lord’s prohibition has not been heeded in Christendom. Zealous ecclesiastics, Papist and Protestant, have from time to time sought to eradicate from the earth those whom they have judged as weeds, only to fall into the very blunder deprecated by the Saviour. Some of God’s best wheat has been destroyed in the process; many of His truest saints have been burnt at the stake or otherwise martyred. Both wheat and tares are to grow together until the harvest. This means that they are to live side by side in the world (for “the field is the world”), neither molesting the other. To have fellowship together in the Church is quite another matter. So evil a blend was never contemplated in the parable.
Harvest-time is at the end of the age, at least a thousand years before the end of the world. The Saviour will gather every true believer into His barn at His coming again, and the angels will deal with the residue in unsparing judgment. Christ’s heavenly glory, with all its blessedness, is the destiny of every blood-washed confessor; the lake of fire, with all its unutterable woe, is the eternal portion of every empty professor of His name. When the final separation has taken place, the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. From their exalted position of heavenly bliss the redeemed will dispense the blessing of God throughout the coming ages, to the countless myriads who will be placed beneath their sway in the earth below. The final result will demonstrate that God’s purposes of grace have not failed, whatever the seeming success of the great adversary during the present time.