Another parable set he before them, saying, The kingdom of the heavens has become like a man sowing good seed in his field;
The Lord has just finished the parable of the sower. Now He tells a second story about seed — and this time He gives it a name: the kingdom of heaven. What does that phrase mean here, who is the man doing the sowing, and whose field is he working?
The words "another parable" mark a shift. The first parable was never called a picture of the kingdom of heaven. This one is. The difference lies in where the Sower stands.
In Matthew 16 our Lord speaks of building His church, or assembly, as something still future. In the same way the kingdom of the heavens is always said to be "at hand," never come… In the great cycle of parables in Matthew 13 the first is not a likeness of that kingdom, because the Sower is seen here on earth. When He carries on the work in the world from heaven, the kingdom of the heavens is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. While the Son of man is above, this is that kingdom in mystery, as the Gospel shows it. It will be that kingdom in open display, as the prophets show it, when He comes on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
The tense of the verb matters. Some parables in this chapter compare the kingdom to one feature at one moment. This one describes something that happened to it.
In Matthew 13:24 and Matthew 18:2 the words are "become like" or "was likened." These are historical likenesses, which the others are not. They are the form the kingdom took through the rejection of the Lord and His going on high. The rest (Matthew 13:31, 33, 44, 45, 47; Matthew 20:1) were only likenesses of certain special features at particular seasons.
The Lord later identifies the man as the Son of Man and the field as the world. Note the small word "his" — the ground was already His before He sowed anything in it.
The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He sowed it. It was good seed He sowed, and He sowed it in His field; and this is the world. He had a right to this field; it belonged to Him… The world was the field. The field belonged to Jesus, and He sowed good seed in it — something that had not been in it before, something planted that did not grow there naturally.
One nation had already refused Him. The field He now sows is much wider.
As He is the rejected but glorified Son of man, it is no longer the land of Israel, but the world. The needy, the guilty, the ruined world is the very object of His gracious care… Now, from the right hand of power, He sowed the good seed in His field, the world.
That definition also rules out a common misreading — that the field stands for the church.
The Son of man comes to sow the gospel, the word of God, in the world — not in the church. The church has received it already… He does not sow it in the church — that would only repeat what was done before — but in the world.
In the first parable the seed was the word. Here the Lord gives it another meaning.
Here the seed is not, strictly speaking, the word. It is the children of the kingdom, whom Christ brings into the world, and they have their life — their moral existence — from Him. We sow the word. But the great fact here is that the Son of man brings His own into the world. It is a work that He begins.
The verse records one sower and one quality of seed. Whatever spoils the field later comes from a second hand.
In the first of these we see the Lord begin the work. He has done so, of course, without any mixture of evil; the good grain is all good. The enemy does a separate work — he cannot do anything else… But there are two distinct works, and the two stay distinct until the end.
- Field — the world, and it already belonged to Christ. Not the church, and no longer the land of Israel: the guilty world itself is the object of His care.
- Sower — the Son of Man, rejected on earth and now working from heaven. That is why this parable, unlike the first one, is a likeness of the kingdom.
- Seed — not the word here but people. They are the children of the kingdom, brought into the world by Christ, and their life comes from Him.
- Kingdom — "was likened" is history, not theory. This is the shape the kingdom took when men refused its King and He went on high: hidden now, in open display when He comes in glory.
- Purity — every seed the Lord sowed was good; the two works, His and the enemy's, stay distinct to the end.
but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel amongst the wheat, and went away.
Between the sowing and the harvest comes a second sowing — at night, by an enemy, while the guards sleep. Why is the Christian world such a mixture of true and false, and who is to blame?
The parable first settles blame. A hostile hand caused the mixture, and it is new — it began only after Christ sowed.
In this parable of the weeds, Satan was awake and men were sleeping. The result is the mixture of the evil and the good. This is now the work of the devil, mixing evil with good in this world. We can still say "an enemy has done this." Whether we can fix it is another question. But settle this as a first principle. If we see evil and good mixed in Christian profession, this is the work of Satan. And remember: the weeds are not simply unconverted men. There were plenty of those before the Lord came. The weeds are the work of Satan that followed His coming.
The enemy did not force the door. He found it unguarded. Older translations read "while men slept," and that sleep was a failure in Christ's servants.
The Son of Man has sown good seed in His field. Christianity began with many people who were true sons of the Kingdom. Satan soon set to work to corrupt the new testimony. He achieved his purpose by introducing false brothers among the true. This happened "while men slept." Christ's servants grew careless about their Master's interests and dull in their spiritual perception. So they let into the outward fellowship of Christianity men they should never have accepted: unconverted people, sons of the wicked one (Jude 4).
Older translations read "tares"; the ESV has "weeds." Asked what the word means, one commentator corrects two mistakes at once.
The word beyond doubt means "darnel"… The "tare" or vetch is not a harmful weed at all. It is a wholesome grain, useful to the farmer in spring and winter for feeding his cattle. The two plants are as distinct as the two words. Since man began to observe, there is not the smallest evidence that wheat ever turned into either. That is a mere and baseless fancy… Writers old and new make an even plainer mistake. They overlook our Lord's interpretation of "the field" as "the world." To take it as "the church" opens the door to confusion and evil without end.
The enemy did not sow bad wheat. He sowed a different plant — and the difference shows in what it produces.
The enemy cannot do his work by sowing seed of the same kind. He sows darnel in the middle of it, and goes his way… Darnel is a poisonous rye. The Jews thought it was wheat gone bad. Its grain is black and bitter. So it is clear that we have here not just false profession, but error and its fruit. At first it deceives, and looks not very different from the truth. In time it grows into complete opposition.
The enemy leaves as quietly as he came. The field looks unchanged, and the harm stays hidden for a while.
How little men realise the tireless persistence of the enemy of souls! It is while men sleep that he does the mischief. It may not show itself for a time, but he has sown it, and it will soon spring up. Not even the good seed being there holds Satan back… You may not see the weeds at once, but they are still in the ground, and they take up much of it.
Can the damage be undone? One writer says the parable settles that question — and the answer shapes what believers should do now.
In this parable the Lord gives His judgment on the point. The evil Satan did in the field where the good seed had been sown would not be repaired. It would continue until the harvest… Keep this in mind. Our separation from the evil, and our enjoyment of the presence of Christ with the "two or three," is quite another thing from claiming to set the whole thing up again now that the evil has come in. The first is both a duty and a privilege; the second is the fruit of pride.
- Sleep — human carelessness gave the enemy his opening; the servants slept while he worked.
- Sowing — not an open attack, but a false crop: deceptive at first, fully hostile later.
- Silence — he "went his way," so the harm stayed hidden for a time; unseen is not the same as undone.
- Spread — the field is the world, not the church. Reading it as the church, one writer warns, breeds endless confusion.
- Separation, not surgery — no one will repair the mixture before the harvest. Our task is to stay separate from the evil, not to uproot it.
But when the blade shot up and produced fruit, then appeared the darnel also.
The picture is of a field that looked fine until it grew. Verse 26 is the moment the copy can no longer hide. It raises three questions: why the weeds showed up only now, what they really are, and what a servant should do about them.
Some translations call this weed a tare or a darnel. It copies wheat closely enough to pass, and only one thing exposes it.
Good and evil stand side by side. Here is a stalk of wheat, there is a blade of the tare; both grow side by side. They look alike; they resemble one another on the outside. But you will never get any good fruit from a tare. The good wheat will produce the food that keeps us alive; the tare will not. Except in bearing fruit, the two look very much alike.
That likeness is why the Lord points to the fruit and not to the young blade.
I think these tares — darnel is the better word — are very much like wheat. That would be why the Lord calls attention to the fruit.
One writer reads the growing blade as the spread of Christianity itself. On that reading the weeds were not sown late; they only showed late.
Some time later, "when the plants came up and bore grain" — when Christianity began to spread fast across the earth — "then the weeds appeared also." But clearly the weeds were sown almost as soon as the good seed was.
These weeds are not a small fringe group. One writer describes both what they are and how far they spread.
At first you could not tell them apart. Before long the difference was plain. For the darnel are the sons of wicked ones. You find them all over the field, the world of Christian profession. That is Christendom, to say nothing worse, and worse evils appeared early on as well. But these are bad enough, and they open the door to every evil from below. The darnel are those who hold false teaching and those who live lawlessly among the baptised.
Once the two grew together, no one could clear the field. That was not because God had lost control of it.
"When the plants came up ... then the weeds appeared also." This was the successful result of the enemy's work; they came up together. At first there was no outward difference; they were all mixed up together. For the present state of things there was no cure. God did not intend to set the world right at once. Man proved a faithless steward. He was careless, he let the enemy in, and weeds overran the field. But this did not frustrate God's plans.
Some have tried to pull the weeds out anyway.
In fact, the professing church has sometimes tried this — getting rid of those it considers heretics. These ambitious efforts have put many true Christians to death, while the tares carried on as strongly as ever.
This leaves a question about correction inside the church.
So we can see this. When the Lord forbade His servants to pull up the darnel, He in no way denied the discipline that the Holy Spirit requires in the church (1 Cor. 5). Under the picture of gathering the darnel out of the field, what He forbids is the wiping out of wicked people who profess His name. Experience agrees. How often His disobedient servants have rooted out the good seed, on the plea of getting rid of the darnel! Grace is to reign now.
The weeds can take over a believer's attention. The cure is short.
If we were more occupied with the wheat we should not be so distressed about the darnel.
- Sown early. The weeds went in almost as soon as the good seed did; they were present long before anyone saw them.
- Seen late. Darnel imitates wheat. The difference stayed hidden until fruit came, which is why the Lord points to fruit and not to looks.
- Named plainly. What appeared were not weak believers but the sons of wicked ones. False profession spread right across the field.
- Left standing. No human hand may clear them out. Efforts to do so have killed real Christians, while the weeds grew on untouched.
- Judged at harvest. Grace reigns now, and the field waits for the Lord. Until then, be occupied with the wheat instead of distressed by the darnel.
And the bondmen of the householder came up and said to him, Sir, hast thou not sown good seed in thy field? whence then has it darnel?
The crop is up. The mixture is now plain to see. The workers do the one thing the parable never blames them for: they take the trouble straight to their master. Their question is not a complaint but a puzzle — the field is his, the sowing was his, so where did the rest of this come from?
The men in the story know what they are looking at. They can tell one plant from the other, and the sight shocks them.
At the beginning the servants could tell the good seed from the weeds, and they told them apart perfectly well. It astonished them to find weeds in a field where their master had been sowing. Yet it was not their place to carry out the judgment on the weeds. They worked near the master, caring for the good condition of the field that belonged to him. But only judgment could cleanse that field.
That nearness is a privilege. They belong to the household, so they have somewhere to take their distress.
The household is a circle of even closer intimacy. Those who belong to it are attached to the person of the King. They know what suits Him, and it troubles them deeply to find that in His field He had been wronged. They also have access to Him. They can bring their concerns to Him and receive His assurance that the evil will not win.
The servants' first instinct is to clear the master's name. Everything from His hand was good. The enemy did the damage, not the master.
He truly laid the foundation for the Kingdom. He laid that foundation and sowed the good seed in His field. Now His enemy is at work, sowing bad seed, just as He foretold. Do not think of the devil so much as your enemy. He is that. But he is the enemy of your precious Saviour. As it says, the Son of Man's enemy came and invaded His field and sowed the bad seed.
The question comes late because the damage stayed hidden. The weed in the story looks like wheat.
Satan soon set to work to corrupt the new testimony. He achieved his purpose by introducing false brothers among the true. This happened "while men slept." Christ's servants grew so careless about their Master's interests, and so dull in their spiritual perception, that they let into the outward fellowship of Christianity men they should never have accepted. These are called, not "tares," but "darnel" — a worthless weed very like wheat in its early growth.
Having asked where the weeds came from, the servants offer to pull them out. Their eagerness earns a rebuke.
The servants were eager enough to remove the bad effects, but He reproves them. He warns them about their effort to correct the evils brought into the field. Using the name of the Lord to reform the "Christianised" world only roots up the good as well as the bad, if not more so.
What replaces that ambition is a simpler assignment, with the clearing-out handed to others at another time.
In that field the servants must not take on the job of destroying the weeds among the wheat. Care for the true, not judgment of the false, is their business. Others — the angels — will deal with the children of the wicked one in the time of harvest.
This refusal answers one question, not every question about evil.
Keep in mind that the parable has nothing to do with discipline among God's children. It deals with the evil that Satan brought into the whole Christian era itself "while men slept." Can that evil be cured, and can the era be put back on its original footing? The Lord settles that question plainly and with authority: the answer is no.
- Sown. Only good seed came from the Master's hand. The servants' question takes that for granted, and the parable never takes it back.
- Slept. The weeds got in while the servants slept. Darnel looks like wheat at first, so the damage showed only when the crop came up.
- Seen. These servants can tell the mixture apart, but seeing the evil is not permission to judge it. They are near the Master, so they bring the trouble to Him.
- Stopped. The Master refuses their offer to weed the field. Human hands pulling out the false tear up the true wheat as well.
- Separated. The angels do the sorting at harvest. Until then the servants' work is care for the true, not judgment of the false.
And he said to them, A man [that is] an enemy has done this. And the bondmen said to him, Wilt thou then that we should go and gather it [up]?
The servants ask their master where the weeds in his field came from, and his answer names an enemy. Then they offer to pull the weeds out — and the answer they get has shaped, and damaged, much of church history.
The master does not blame the seed, the soil, or the servants. He names a person behind the mixture:
In this parable of the tares we find that Satan was awake and men were sleeping. The result is a mixture of the evil and the good. This is now the work of the devil, mixing evil with good in this world. We can still say, "an enemy has done this." Being able to remedy it is another thing. But let us settle this as a first principle. If we see evil and good mixed in the profession of Christianity, this is the work of Satan. And remember, the tares are not simply unconverted men. There were plenty of those before the Lord came. The tares are the work of Satan after His coming.
The enemy's method was not open attack but imitation. The weed named here is one that passes for the real thing:
The method was to put a counterfeit seed in the field. The darnel looks, in its seed, like the wheat. When it springs up it cannot be told apart from the wheat, yet it is a poisonous weed. The darnel stands for the lie the devil puts into the field. It is evil doctrine, a counterfeit of the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. The denial of the Deity of our Lord, the denial of the resurrection, the denial of the inspiration of the Bible — all belong to this darnel seed. It makes itself felt at the very beginning of this Christian age.
The servants at once propose a cure. Their instinct is the one men have followed ever since:
The Son of God looked down at His field, which He had sown with good seed, and found it filled with tares. Yet even in that position, we find it is not the wisdom of God to set the world right by plucking up the tares. The servants' offer to go and gather them up follows man's wisdom. Man would set the world right again by plucking up and rooting out heretics, purging out the wickedness as he desires.
Many read the Lord's refusal as a ban on all church discipline. Commentators reject that reading:
Yet this does not make the field the church. The field is the world. Only those who understand neither are so deceived as to confuse the two. So when the Lord forbade His servants to uproot the darnel, He in no way denied the discipline the Holy Spirit demands in the church (1 Cor. 5). What He forbids, under the figure of gathering up the darnel from the field, is the wiping out of wicked people who claim to be Christians. Experience agrees with this. How often His disobedient servants have rooted out the good seed under the excuse of getting rid of the darnel! Grace is to reign now.
The warning was not theoretical. History shows what happens when servants ignore it:
People who claimed to be Christ's servants handed supposed heretics and other spiritual offenders over to be punished by force. They did just what the Lord forbids for the present time. The value of our Lord's warning became clear when the Waldenses and others were persecuted to death. Here blind zeal tried to get rid of the tares, and rooted out at least some wheat. It is not for the servants, but for the angels of the Son of Man, to carry out destructive judgment on Christians in name only.
The Lord's no leaves the servants real work:
The tares are not simply wicked men — pagans; these have not been sown among the good grain. The tares are a particular evil sown by the enemy after Jesus Christ had sown the good seed. So what we may call heresy — corruption of the truth in any way or to any degree — will remain until the harvest. The evil which Satan has produced by a corrupted religion will exist until the end. We should aim all our efforts — not at plucking out the tares, but at gathering in the children of God, bringing together the co-heirs of Jesus Christ.
- Enemy. The mix of good and evil in what calls itself Christianity has one source: not a failure in the seed, but an enemy sowing while men slept.
- Counterfeit. What he sowed imitates wheat: evil doctrine that looks like the real thing, yet is poison.
- Question. The servants' offer to pull the weeds is human wisdom: fix the world by removing the bad people from it.
- Refusal. The Lord says no. The field is the world, not the church. He forbids wiping false Christians out of the world; He never forbids discipline inside the church.
- Assignment. Uprooting waits for the angels at harvest. Grace reigns now, so the servants' work is to gather in God's children, the co-heirs of Jesus Christ.
But he said, No; lest [in] gathering the darnel ye should root up the wheat with it.
The owner's answer holds two things: a "no" to the servants who wanted to clean the field, and a reason that says more about the wheat than about the weeds. Why would the owner of the field leave a spoiled crop standing, and what does that leave His servants free to do?
The weed looks like the crop while it grows. And the servants' plan was not careful sorting: in a real field, weeding means killing.
The weed sown among the wheat is darnel — a worthless weed very like wheat in its early growth... To gather out weeds is to kill them. In the same way, the only way to weed the wheatfield of Christendom is to put to death everyone who falsely claims Christ's name. The Lord expressly forbids this, and for a serious reason: erratic servants would be in danger of rooting up true wheat by mistake.
They asked to do a job they could not do. Two things were missing.
The servants are not capable of doing this. Their weakness and carelessness caused the mixture, and it is such that in gathering out the tares they would root up the wheat as well. To carry out their purpose they would need discernment and the practical power to separate, and both are missing... Their service is with the good. The work of purging Christendom from them was not in their province... The execution of judgment on the wicked in this world does not belong to the servants of Christ. He will accomplish it by the angels of His power.
The field in this parable is the world, not the church. So this "no" does not stop the church from dealing with evil among its own members.
Yet this does not make the field the church. The field is the world. Those who confuse the two understand neither, and are deceived. So we may see something here. When the Lord forbade His servants to uproot the darnel, He in no way denies the discipline the Holy Spirit demands in the church (1 Cor. 5). Under His picture of gathering up the darnel from the field, He forbids one thing: wiping out the wicked who profess His name.
Another writer answers those who use this parable to keep evildoers in the assembly.
Some argue like this: the tares and the wheat are to grow together in the world, so the assembly may knowingly allow evildoers to stay. That argument sets the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 13 in direct opposition to the teaching of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 5. It cannot stand for a moment.
The danger is not just theory. Religious leaders have often done the weeding themselves, and the result has been the one the Lord warned about.
Some claimed to be Christ's servants and handed over supposed heretics or other spiritual offenders for outward punishment. They did exactly what He forbids for the present time... Our Lord's warning proved its value when the Waldenses and others were persecuted to death. Blind zeal tried to get rid of the tares, and it uprooted at least some wheat.
The reason for the refusal is the safety of the good grain. A spoiled field shows patience, not indifference.
No, says the Lord, "lest you root up the wheat along with them." See here the tender care the Lord takes of His own! He would rather let the tares grow than have one single ear of wheat hurt, or pulled up before it was ripe. He would rather hold back the judgment on the wicked than have the little body of true believers broken up in its infancy... The children of God now stand in grace, and only grace must they show; they have nothing at all to do with judgment on earth.
This "no" does not excuse the weeds or leave them alone forever. Only the timing changes, and the hands that do the work.
Yet the Lord fully recognises the coming of the judgment. It is only delayed, not set aside. In the meantime He allows evil to show itself. At harvest time He will say to the reapers, "Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn."
(Where these writers say "tares" or "darnel," the ESV renders the word "weeds.")
- Request — The servants asked to pull the weeds out of the field. Pulling weeds means killing them, and the Lord says no.
- Reason — They could not tell wheat from weed, and they had no power to separate them. The wheat would come up with the weeds.
- Restraint — The ban covers the field, and the field is the world. Inside the church, the discipline the Holy Spirit demands still stands.
- Record — When servants took the weeding into their own hands, they uprooted wheat: believers persecuted and killed.
- Result — The judgment waits for the sake of the wheat; it is not cancelled. At harvest the reapers act, and until then the servants show grace.
Suffer both to grow together unto the harvest, and in time of the harvest I will say to the harvestmen, Gather first the darnel, and bind it into bundles to burn it; but the wheat bring together into my granary.
The servants wanted to pull the weeds out; the householder said no, and set a date instead. That "no" raises two questions. Where is this field, and who may do the pulling?
Everything turns on where this field is. One writer says the parable's own explanation settles it, and that missing this has misled sincere people:
Scripture never speaks of the good seed or the weeds as sown in the church. They are sown in the world, for the field is the world. Many good men have gone astray by failing to notice this. The Lord told His servants not to root up the weeds, but to let them grow among the wheat till harvest time. Some have wrongly thought from this that evil men were to be tolerated in the church. This the Lord never said, and it is never contemplated in Scripture.
Why refuse? Because of what weeding a field would actually require:
These weeds are darnel — a worthless plant that looks very like wheat while it is young. To gather out weeds is to kill them. In the same way, the only way to weed the wheatfield of Christendom is to put to death everyone who falsely claims Christ's name. The Lord expressly forbids this, for a serious reason. Erratic servants would be in danger of rooting up true wheat by mistake. Christendom has not heeded our Lord's prohibition. Zealous churchmen, Catholic and Protestant, have from time to time tried to wipe from the earth those they judged to be weeds. In doing so they fell into the very blunder the Saviour warned against. Some of God's best wheat has been destroyed in the process.
How does this verse fit with the command to put a wicked person out of the church? One answer sets three passages side by side and gives each its own sphere:
The first speaks of evil people who claim the Lord's name. They are not ours to wipe out. They live in the field of the world until judgment falls at the end of the age. The second commands the wicked man to be at once put out of the church. The third provides for the day when the professing church approves vessels fit only for dishonour. The faithful soul is bound to separate from them.
Leaving the weeds alone is not the same as doing nothing. The order redirects the work of the Lord's servants in this age:
This is the Lord's verdict. Satan has done evil in the field where the good seed of the word was sown. That evil will remain and ripen there until the end. The Lord plainly declares that the efforts of Christians will not take the evil away. It stays until the day of judgment... We must keep in mind that now, in God's dealings with us and through us, we have to do with grace and not with judgment. We have not to judge the world. Suppose we could say with certainty of someone, he is a child of the devil. That is the very reason he is outside our authority. He is a weed. We have to do with grace. We cannot lay a hand on the evil Satan has produced. But we can act as instruments of grace, for God permits us to sow good seed.
One writer draws attention to what gets bundled and what does not:
"At harvest time" implies a certain period taken up with the various processes of gathering in. Nothing says the wheat must be bound in bundles to be taken to heaven. There is no hint of any special preparatory work about the saints before they are taken up. But there is such a dealing of God with the weeds. The angels are to gather the weeds in bundles before the Lord clears them out of the field.
The small word "to" carries this. Another writer reads it as purpose rather than immediate action: the bundles are tied "ready to burn" or "with a view to burning them," and the burning itself is not mentioned until the Lord explains the parable.
One writer fills out the last clause from the scene in 1 Thessalonians 4:
We know very well what this is, and how many joyful hopes are packed into that short sentence. The scene is pictured for us in 1 Thessalonians 4. The descent of the Lord into the air; the shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God; the resurrection of the dead in Christ... the change of the living saints throughout the earth; the meeting and the welcome; the "always with the Lord" from then on. All these are the parts and features of what these words picture to us: "Gather the wheat into My barn."
- Field. The Lord defines the ground as the world, not the church. Misuse of this verse starts by swapping those two words.
- Forbidden. He bans the killing of those who falsely claim His name, because zealous hands would tear up real wheat with them — as history has proved.
- Fenced. The two spheres stay in harmony. The wicked stay in the world until judgment, yet the church must put the wicked person out at once.
- Grace. We cannot undo Satan's sowing. Our task now is not to judge the world but to sow good seed as instruments of grace.
- Gathered. At harvest the weeds are bundled where they stand. Only the wheat leaves the field, into the Lord's own barn.
Another parable set he before them, saying, The kingdom of the heavens is like a grain of mustard [seed] which a man took and sowed in his field;
The Lord's third parable in this chapter turns from seed sown in soil to seed that grows far beyond its own size. Readers have long asked what that growth means: the gospel's triumph, or a warning about what Christianity would become in the world?
The Lord tells His followers in advance about the gap between how small the kingdom starts and how big it becomes.
The Lord points out ahead of time the surprising contrast between how tiny it was when first sown and the height it would soon reach. He is not passing judgment here on its inner or moral nature. From the start He shows what the whole world can see once it happens. It is one of "the mysteries (or secrets) of the kingdom of the heavens," but secrets given for the disciples to know.
The chapter itself names the man and the field. The size of the seed matches the size of the start.
The field is the world (v. 38). The man who sowed is the Lord Jesus. The black mustard seed is tiny and unimportant. That makes it a fitting picture of how the kingdom began in its present form, seen from the outside. It began with only a few people. There were the 11 disciples who had followed the Lord Jesus, plus around 120 believers with them in the upper room (Acts 1). Afterwards, we see how the gospel spread and many accepted the Lord Jesus and became part of that kingdom.
Verse 32 says the plant grows larger than all the garden plants and then becomes a tree. That shift is the hinge of the parable. It describes something that never happens in a garden.
The Lord Jesus then describes growth that does not match what happens in nature. The black mustard seed does not grow into a big tree. It grows no further than a bush, and certainly not into a tree in which birds build their nests. Of course, the Lord Jesus knew this very well so He drew this illustration with a special purpose behind it. The teaching lies hidden in the contrast between what happens in nature and what He describes.
Scripture explains its own symbols, and elsewhere a great tree stands for a great earthly power.
This chapter does not explain both of these symbols, but God's book does, and it alone gives us the key to this parable... In Ezekiel 31:3-9 we find the Assyrian power compared to a great tree, a mighty cedar in Lebanon... Assyria is clearly a vast power here, because great nations lived under its shadow.
The same picture fits Christianity as a public movement. It began unnoticed and gained a very different kind of influence.
The mustard tree is the profession of Christianity. It began in the humblest possible way. In time it changed its character so completely that it became a great political force in the earth. Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, the tree is the symbol of worldly power (Ezekiel 17:3; Daniel 4:22).
A few verses earlier the Lord had already said what the birds stand for. He uses the same word in both places.
The Lord Himself tells us, in the previous parable, who the "birds of the air" are, for He uses the same word in both places. As the sower sowed the seed, the birds came and ate it. The Lord explains this. "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart." ... So this, and not the conversion of the world, is what this parable says will result in the present age.
Not everyone reads it this way. Many take the growing tree as a promise that the church will fill the earth. Commentators here reply that the church is not what this seed pictures.
Suppose the Lord had meant His church by this mustard seed, which becomes a tree and a roosting place for birds. Suppose the tree really is the church, which is His body. Then this parable would flatly contradict what He and the Holy Spirit teach elsewhere about the church on earth, its mission and its future.
Commentators differ here. Kelly says the Lord is not commenting on moral character at all. Others read the tree and the birds as a clear warning.
The parable of the leaven follows straight after this one. The two work as a pair.
The parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven carry on the parable of the Weeds. They show the bad thing in the Christian world in its two forms: outward worldly greatness and inward spiritual corruption.
- Sown by Christ — the man is the Lord Jesus and the field is the world. The seed is the tiny start: a handful of disciples.
- Grown past nature — a garden plant that becomes a tree is not normal growth. The lesson sits in that gap.
- Grown into power — in Scripture a spreading tree pictures a great earthly power, like Assyria in Ezekiel.
- Grown into shelter for birds — earlier in the chapter the Lord said the birds are the evil one snatching the word away.
- Read it with the leaven — one shows greatness spreading outward, the other corruption working inward. Size is not success.
which is less indeed than all seeds, but when it is grown is greater than herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and roost in its branches.
This is the third parable in the chapter, and it follows a tiny seed all the way to a tree with birds nesting in it. Commentators read that outcome as a picture of Christian profession grown into a power on earth.
The seed matters because of its size. One writer ties it to how the whole thing started: a small group of ordinary people in Jerusalem.
The mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds. We saw this when we were looking at Acts chapter 2. About a hundred and twenty disciples of the Lord were together in Jerusalem — fishermen, simple people. What could such a small company do in the world? In men's eyes they were "the smallest of all seeds." Yet they began at once to grow in strength and increase in numbers. They kept multiplying until in time they became a great tree.
The wording is worth a close look. The plant is first ranked with the garden plants, then it crosses into another class altogether. Older translations say "herbs" where the ESV says "garden plants."
In Matthew 13 it says that when it has grown it is "larger than all the garden plants," yet it "becomes a tree." This reads as if its normal class was that of a large herb, but by some mysterious means it became a tree.
Another writer makes that oddity the key to the whole parable.
The black mustard seed does not grow into a big tree. It grows no further than a bush, and certainly not into a tree in which birds build their nests. Of course, the Lord Jesus knew this very well, so He drew this illustration with a special purpose behind it. The teaching lies hidden in the contrast between what happens in nature and what He describes.
The image is not new. In Scripture a spreading tree pictures a kingdom or ruler. Writers use those passages as the key.
In the parable of the tree we see what the kingdom of heaven becomes in worldly greatness. That this is not what God intended is clear from the enemy's work in the parable before it… Turn now to Daniel 4. Here Nebuchadnezzar himself appears as a great tree. The whole power of the kingdom rested in him alone. More cases could be added, but these are enough to show that Scripture uses a tree to picture an earthly power, for good or ill.
Commentators differ on how dark the picture is. Some see the shelter as what any great power provides, with no verdict attached:
The kingdom itself is like a little grain of mustard seed that becomes a great tree. In the Old Testament that is the symbol of something raised high in the world, of a political power… The birds nesting in its branches stand for the protection it gives. Compare Daniel 4:12. This is the public appearance of the kingdom system as it has been for ages: here is no judgment.
Others take the birds as a warning, since the same chapter has already said who they are.
This is ominous. In the parable of the Sower, the birds stand for the agents of the devil (vv. 4, 19). The mustard tree is the profession of Christianity. It began in the humblest way possible. But in time it changed its character so completely that it became a great political force in the earth.
A common reading treats the growing tree as the church spreading across the world. One writer rejects that.
The mustard seed springs up in the field — and do not forget that the field is the world. It roots deeper and deeper in the earth and spreads in this unnatural way, making room for birds. That is the picture of something quite different. It shows us a system rooted in the earth, a system aiming at greatness in the world… The Lord never meant His church to be rooted and grounded in the field, the world.
One writer names the point in history when the change showed itself.
In less than 300 years the emperor Constantine the Great (AD 272–337) made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. That is the very reason why many professed to become Christians without having new life. They were Christians in name only. There was no reality behind it. This is true of many even today.
The same picture appears in a promise, and there the outcome is different.
He used the same picture to assure the believing heart that in His mercy all will be reversed in the day to come. He will plant the tender twig on a high and lofty mountain, the height of Israel.
- Seed. The start was tiny: about a hundred and twenty ordinary people in Jerusalem.
- Growth. In nature a mustard plant stays a bush. The tree in the parable is growth no one would expect.
- Tree. In Scripture a spreading tree pictures an earthly power. Nebuchadnezzar appears as one in Daniel 4.
- Birds. Earlier in this chapter the birds snatch away the seed. So some read their nesting as shelter for the enemy's agents. Others see only the protection a great power gives.
- Reversal. This tree grew into something God never intended. The tree He plants in the day to come will be all of His mercy.
He spoke another parable to them The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until it had been all leavened.
This is the fourth parable Jesus told the crowd by the sea, and one of the most disputed. Two questions decide its meaning: what does leaven stand for, and what is the meal it is hidden in?
Jesus names His subject in the verse itself, and that name limits the picture.
The Lord's parable of the woman hiding leaven in three measures of meal (Matt. 13:33) was not a picture of the church or assembly, but of the kingdom of the heavens, as the verse itself says. So it concerns Christendom — the whole mass of people who profess to be Christian. In this it agrees with the companion parables of the field and the tree. In both of those there are foreign elements too, the tares and the birds, just as here the leaven is hidden in the meal.
Jesus did not invent the image. His audience had lived with a standing command about leaven for centuries.
Exodus 12:15 and Lev. 2:11 are enough to show how the Saviour's Jewish audience must have understood the picture of leaven. For fifteen hundred years God had commanded them to keep leaven out of their houses during their religious festivals. He also forbade them to mix it into any offering made by fire. It is therefore the emblem of what is evil, and the Saviour often used it that way in His teaching. Again and again He rebuked the leaven of the Pharisees, of the Sadducees and of Herod. These stand in turn for ritualism, rationalism and worldliness.
Leaven and seed do not work the same way.
It shows how a doctrine, or creed, makes a certain measured area like itself, until the whole of it is soaked through. That is very different from seed, which carries life in it and bears fruit. Seed is a fitting and frequent picture in Scripture. Leaven is never used that way anywhere else. From the earliest days it stood for a corruption that works and spreads, as at the Passover. 1 Cor. 5 applies it with authority to evil that must be purged out. Leavening works by fermentation. It makes dough rise, and makes it more pleasant to the natural taste.
The measured meal is not background detail. It points back to an offering in Leviticus.
The "three measures of meal" are the "fine flour" of the meal offering. No leaven was ever to go into it (Lev. 2:11). The essential point is that the woman is doing what was expressly forbidden. This at once brings the picture of the kingdom into line with what has gone before. The process of decline we see in the first three parables simply takes on a more decidedly evil character in the fourth. For the meal offering is Christ the bread of life, the food of the priestly people of God. Mixing in the leaven means Christ as that food is adulterated — and it is the woman, the professing church, who does it.
Why did the woman hide the leaven? One writer points to her motive.
The suggestion in Matt. 13:33 is that the woman did not hide the leaven because she wanted a hiding place for it. She hid it because she meant to leaven the meal — and in the end the whole of it was affected.
Many take the leaven to be the gospel spreading through the world. One writer traces where that reading goes wrong.
Nothing is clearer than that "leaven," from its first mention in Exodus 12, has the uniform meaning of evil. The only passage claimed as an exception is Matt. 13:33-34. That argument comes from one mistake: confusing the gospel with the kingdom of heaven. It takes the leaven to mean the gospel and its effects in this world, as if the gospel will keep working until its blessed power and influence have spread through the whole world. But is some special evil meant by leaven? We think not. Any spiritual evil that might corrupt the saints or the church may rightly be called leaven.
In 1 Corinthians 5, leaven must be purged out. So why does the Lord let it run "till it was all leavened"? Two spheres are in view.
The Son of man will, by and by, do in His kingdom what His servants are told to do now in the assembly. In the Gospel leaven is allowed to remain and spread; in the Epistles it is to be purged out so that it may not spread. In the Gospel the leaven is hidden; in the Epistle its presence is known.
- Symbol. Leaven means corruption at work. Scripture uses it that way from Exodus 12 onward, and Jesus used it of the Pharisees, the Sadducees and Herod.
- Sphere. The verse says "kingdom of heaven," not church. It covers everyone who professes the Christian name, like the tares in the field and the birds in the tree.
- Substance. The three measures are the fine flour of the meal offering. That flour pictures Christ as the food of God's people, so leaven in it means Christ adulterated as that food.
- Secrecy. The woman hid it on purpose. It spreads through everything without being seen at work.
- Sentence. In the assembly, leaven is to be purged out. In the kingdom, the Lord lets it run its course until the Son of Man Himself deals with it.
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and without a parable he did not speak to them,
Jesus taught the crowds that day only in stories. Commentators ask two things of this verse: why He would not speak plainly to the people, and what these stories held that no one had said before.
This verse marks a turning point. Right after it the Lord leaves the crowds and teaches a smaller group indoors.
Notice a change now. The Lord stops speaking to the crowds, who had been in view up to this point. As it says, "All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, He said nothing to them without a parable." But now Jesus sends the crowds away and goes into the house. I want you to notice this, because it divides the parables and begins a new set. The parables that follow were not ones the crowds could see or enter into.
This way of speaking began at a set moment. The same words then did two opposite things at once.
The Jewish leaders had just gone as far as blaming His power on Beelzebub. They could go no further in wickedness. Leaders and people were so far from God that the blessings promised to Israel could not be brought in at that time. From that point the Saviour began to use this puzzling way of speaking. It was clear enough to the devout minority, but completely unclear to the godless mass. Like the cloud in Moses' day, which stood between Israel and the Egyptians, the parables were light to the one and darkness to the other.
A national judgment was coming. Even so, the parables did not remove the crowd's responsibility to receive Him.
The Lord of course knew this national judgment and its far-reaching results in advance. He told His disciples about it beforehand, for their instruction. He did not tell the crowds, except in parables only, because He was still presenting Himself to Israel, in both Galilee and Judea, as the promised King... His ministry in parables about the coming change in no way took away their responsibility to receive Him, since they did not understand.
Speaking in stories also sorted the listeners.
By this way of teaching He tested everyone in the vast crowd who heard Him, to see who wanted to learn. For we read: "He said nothing to them without a parable." Yet He spoke, as Mark alone tells us, "as they were able to hear it." His aim was the good of souls, and all who wanted the meaning had it.
Verse 35 backs the method with a psalm of Asaph. One writer notes what it was quoted for — and what it was not.
Verses 34 and 35 again stress the parable form of teaching. But now the quotation is from Psalm 78, written by Asaph — so we know he was a "prophet". It is not quoted for the blinding of the crowd, who rejected plain testimony when He gave it to them. It is quoted as holding things "kept secret" — hidden from the world's foundation. And so it indeed was, for a kingdom to be set up in this way.
These secrets were not buried in the older Scriptures for someone to dig out. No one had spoken them at all.
Verse 35 of this same chapter tells us what the parables contained. Long ago it had been written, "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world." These truths about the kingdom of heaven were neither disclosed nor hidden in the Old Testament. They were secrets that God kept back until His Son came into the world. We have the divine nature, and the Spirit of God lives in us. So it is our privilege to understand the divine secrets spoken by the Son.
It also settles what Jesus means by "the kingdom of the heavens" in these parables.
Here the Lord says, "The kingdom of the heavens is like." Suppose He had in view the Old Testament kingdom promised to Israel. Then He could not have said that He uttered things hidden from the world's foundation. For the kingdom in the Old Testament is not a mystery. It is clearly revealed.
- Cause. The parables began after the leaders turned on Him. A national judgment was coming, so He no longer spoke plainly to the crowd.
- Effect. Like the cloud between Israel and Egypt, one and the same word gave light to the willing and darkness to the rest.
- Grace. The method was a test, not a barrier — He spoke as they could hear it, and anyone who wanted the meaning could have it.
- Content. Verse 35 points back to Asaph's psalm. These secrets were never told in the Old Testament. God held them back until the Son came to speak them.
- Consequence. These things were hidden from the world's foundation. So the kingdom in these parables is not the kingdom promised openly in the Old Testament. And the Spirit who lives in believers lets them understand it.
so that that should be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from [the] world's foundation.
Matthew stops the flow of parables to tell us why Jesus taught this way at all: it was the fulfilment of a line written centuries earlier in Psalm 78. It raises two questions. Why is a psalm called the word of "the prophet"? And what could stay hidden from the world's beginning until now?
The quotations below say "kept secret from the foundation of the world." That is an older wording of the ESV's "hidden since the foundation of the world."
The words come from Psalm 78, written by Asaph, and Matthew introduces them as the speech of a prophet. One writer notes who wrote the psalm, and why Matthew brings it in here:
Verses 34 and 35 again stress the parable form of teaching. This time the quotation is from Psalm 78, written by Asaph, who was therefore known to be a "prophet." It is not quoted for the blinding of the crowd who rejected plain testimony when it was given to them. It is quoted because the parables hold things "kept secret" — hidden from the world's foundation. And so it truly was with a kingdom that was to be set up in this way.
Asaph sang of a past history. One writer sets Asaph and Christ side by side:
The prophet's word was being fulfilled in Him (Ps. 78:2): He was taking the place of another Asaph, to speak of things more deeply hidden than those Asaph spoke of. So the psalmist's words are quoted freely rather than exactly. Asaph's deep things lay in a past history, and it was given to him to tell its meaning. Christ's deep things lie in a history still to come. Its general lesson sadly echoes that older story of another people. Man's history does repeat itself. But now the subject was a state of "things hidden from the foundation of the world" — things the prophets of the Old Testament themselves knew nothing about.
If these things were truly secret, they cannot repeat what earlier Scripture already said:
So we are prepared to expect that in these parables the Lord would bring out things kept secret since the foundation of the world. And so it was. We cannot find anything like them in the Scriptures that came before. Some have fairly called this strange state of things the kingdom of heaven in mystery. The name marks it off from the kingdom of heaven that the prophets foretold.
The same words had two effects at once, and they depended on the hearer:
When the Lord Jesus spoke His parables to the crowd in Matthew 13, the Spirit of God tells us why He spoke in this way. It was the fulfilment of the word of the prophet, "I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 13:35). Here were divine revelations for the disciples of the Lord. But He spoke them in such a way that the very words which revealed God's mind to His own hid it from those who had no divine perception.
Where does that phrase place us in time?
Scripture often mentions the "foundation of the world" as the far edge of the past, the point "from" which human history is counted (Matt. 13:35; Matt. 25:34; Luke 11:50; Heb. 4:3; 9:26; Rev. 13:8; Rev. 17:8).
Until when did the silence last, and Who broke it?
"Kept secret from the foundation of the world" simply means that in the ways of God the secret had not yet been told. It is Christ Who discloses that secret.
When did He start teaching this way, and why then?
He often spoke figuratively. But parables only became prominent in His teaching after Israel refused Him... The group of parables the Lord gives there describes Israel's guilt in rejecting Him. They then show the kingdom of heaven set up in mystery by His ascension to the right hand of God... But from its beginning it held something dear to Him: His own special treasure, the church.
- Secret spoken. Matthew quotes Psalm 78:2 as prophecy. The Lord fulfils it as another Asaph: Asaph told a past history, Christ a history still to come.
- Secret sealed. The parables carry what no earlier Scripture contains. Nothing like them can be found in the writings that came before.
- Secret veiled. One and the same words reveal God's mind to His own and hide it from those without divine perception.
- Secret dated. "The foundation of the world" is the line from which human history is counted. The secret stayed untold until Christ disclosed it.
- Secret prized. These hidden things describe the kingdom of heaven in mystery, set up while the King is rejected. Inside it lies His own special treasure, the church.
Then, having dismissed the crowds, he went into the house; and his disciples came to him, saying, Expound to us the parable of the darnel of the field.
The four parables spoken from the boat are finished, and Jesus goes back indoors without the crowd. From this verse on, He teaches only the people who came and asked Him.
The first half of Matthew 13 describes what anyone can see of the kingdom in the world. Sending the crowd away marks that subject as closed.
In verse 36 the Lord sent the crowd away and returned to the house (compare v. 1). In those four parables He has finished His treatment of the public character of the present kingdom. What follows is instruction for disciples: the explanation of the parable of the wheat and tares, and the last three parables. The world can know nothing of it today. It deals with God's counsels about the kingdom, not with the kingdom as it appears in the present age.
Earlier in the chapter Jesus had gone out of the house and sat by the sea. That first house stood for Judaism. The house He now re-enters means something else.
The Lord gives the last three parables — making up the third division — and the explanation of the three before them, in the privacy of the house, after He has sent the multitudes away. The house here does not represent Judaism, as it does in verse 1. It shows instead that the teaching about the three earlier parables, and about the three closing ones, could only be understood by those in relation to God when withdrawn from the world.
The disciples do not pretend to understand. Their question is itself a mark of what they believed about the One they were asking.
The disciples ask Him, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field." They might be ignorant, but they still had confidence in their Lord. They trusted that what He had spoken He was willing to explain.
The explanation given indoors is not a repetition. It carries the story past the point where the public version stopped.
But in the house the Lord goes beyond the bounds of the present age, and we get a glimpse into the future one. There is the binding of the weeds, the gathering of the wheat, the closing scenes of this age. But the curtain lifts, and we see the terrible result of the judgment of the weeds: the weeping and gnashing of teeth. On the other side, we see the righteous shining as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. They are not established in the spoiled kingdom. They shine in the kingdom of their Father. That is why there is no question of purging the field.
In the parable the weeds are left standing until the harvest. That decision shapes what Christians may and may not do about evil now.
It is a plain declaration that the efforts of Christians will not take the evil away. The evil is to remain until the day of judgment: "Let both grow together until the harvest." … We must remember that now, in God's dealings with us and by us, we have to do with grace and not with judgment. We are not to judge the world. Even if we could say with certainty of someone that he is a child of the devil, that is the very reason he is outside our jurisdiction; it is a weed. We have to do with grace. We cannot lay a hand on the evil which Satan has produced. But we can act as instruments of grace, for God permits us to sow good seed.
The pattern of this verse holds across Scripture: the explanation comes to those who withdraw and ask.
This teaching may be regarded as exclusive, entrusted in this way to these chosen witnesses, so that after the Lord's ascension it might be spread throughout the world. Even so, the general truth matters: God makes His ways known in the hush of the sanctuary, not in the noise of the camp. The warning of the coming destruction of the cities of the plain did not go to Lot in the busy streets of Sodom. It went to Abraham in the quiet of a hot noon at his own tent door. … So the Prophet of Jehovah revealed the truth about the special character of the coming kingdom — not to the surging crowds by the Galilean lake, but to the disciples who came to Him as He was alone in the house.
- Outside — the four parables by the sea show the kingdom's public face, what any observer can see of it in the world.
- Inside — the house marks a change of audience; what He says there belongs to those withdrawn from the world with Him.
- Asked — the disciples came with confidence, not with understanding, and He was willing to explain.
- Further — the indoor explanation lifts the curtain past this age, to the weeping and gnashing of teeth, and to the righteous shining in their Father's kingdom.
- Meanwhile — since the weeds stay till harvest, our work is not judgment but grace: we sow good seed and leave the reaping to God.
But he answering said, He that sows the good seed is the Son of man,
The disciples heard the story of the wheat and the weeds in public. Now they are alone with Jesus in the house, and they ask what it means. His first word of explanation is about Himself. Everything else in the parable — the field, the harvest, the enemy — follows from who the sower is.
Jesus does not leave the meaning to us. He explains it Himself, piece by piece.
Again we are not left to search for an interpretation. After He had spoken two other parables, our Lord answers His disciples' question and tells them what He meant by it. We must turn to this perfect interpretation by the divine Speaker to find the correct and far-reaching meaning of this second parable.
He does not call Himself "the Messiah" here. Writers tie that choice to His rejection by Israel.
A quick look is enough to show us that the Lord took up this title because the people of Israel did not accept the kingdom of God which He proclaimed. Instead, they met Him with personal hatred... All the passages agree in marking out this title. It is wider in meaning than "Messiah," and the Lord took it because the chosen nation He came to had rejected Him.
Sowing means breaking new ground. That marks a change from the way God had worked with Israel.
But Israel had been His vineyard, planted, fenced and cared for long ago, according to His own words at another time (Matt. 21:33). From it He had looked for fruit — not as a fresh field to sow for a harvest. So He had to "go out" from Israel to somewhere else. He carried that "word of the kingdom," which they had already rejected, to get fruit for Himself in the field of the world at large. For "the field is the world," as He Himself explains to us — not a chosen nation, but the whole earth.
In the earlier parable of the sower the seed is the word. Here the Lord means something else.
Here the seed is not strictly the word. It is the children of the kingdom, whom Christ brings into the world. They have their life — their moral existence — from Him. We sow the word. But the great fact here is that the Son of Man brings His own into the world. It is a work which He begins.
Later servants take up the same work in a lesser way.
Afterwards the apostles, in their ministry of the truth, became sowers themselves in a secondary sense. For example, Paul used this figure when writing to the Corinthians: "If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?" (1 Cor. 9:11).
The parable sets another person opposite the Sower.
The Son of Man and the wicked one, it has been well observed, are set over against each other... Scripture presents Satan as always acting as the great personal opponent of the Son. The Son of God appeared "to destroy the works of the devil."
Some readers take this field to be the church. The Lord's own words rule that out.
Notice how absurd it is to think, as some do, that this passage speaks of the church. The Son of man comes to sow the gospel, the word of God, in the world — not in the church. The church has already received it. The church is made up of those who, either in profession or in reality, have already received the good seed.
If the work started with Him, the outcome is not in doubt.
That is a beginning which must produce an abundant harvest. It is important to grasp that a Divine Person set the beginning of Christianity in motion, and what He does is good. So the harvest must be for His glory. Much that is marked by failure has come in, but what He began will not fail.
- The Sower — Jesus names Himself as the one who sows, and He explains the parable Himself. Nothing is left to guesswork.
- The title — He sows as "Son of Man," a name of wider reach than Messiah, taken up in view of His rejection by the nation He came to.
- The field — not the vineyard of Israel where He looked for fruit, but the world, where He starts fresh. It is not the church.
- The seed — people, children of the kingdom, whom Christ brings into the world to live by life received from Him. His servants sow the word after Him in a lesser way.
- The outcome — the enemy stands against the Sower, but a work begun by a Divine Person must end in an abundant harvest for His glory.
and the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom, but the darnel are the sons of the evil [one];
Here the Lord stops speaking in pictures. He hands His disciples the key and names each part of the parable of the weeds. Two of those definitions carry the whole chapter: the field is the world, and the two crops growing in it are two families of people.
The word translated "world" here is not the same word used a few verses later for the end of the age. One writer warns against flattening the two together:
If we treated these words as having the same meaning, we would miss the thought in some of the passages. For instance, in Matthew 13:38, "The field is the world" means the material world with people living in it. In Matthew 13:40, "The end of the world" is really "the end of the age" — the period that will close when the Lord appears.
In the first parable of the chapter the seed was the word. Here the seed is people, planted in the world by Christ — and the enemy copies His work:
Here the seed is not strictly the word. It is the children of the kingdom, brought into the world by Christ. They have their life — their moral existence — from Him. We sow the word. But here the great fact is that the Son of Man brings His own into the world. It is a work which He begins… When He has done that, Satan does the same, active in evil on the ground where good has been done.
The title itself carries a promise. It also marks off one kind of person from another:
In the parable of the tares, Scripture calls saints "sons of the kingdom" (Matt. 13:38), for they will certainly inherit it. Mere men of the world it calls "sons of this world" (Luke 16:8), who in their generation are "wiser than the sons of light."
Israel held the title only as a nation. Once the King was present on earth, it became real in individuals:
The King was truly on earth, gathering souls around Himself by the word of the kingdom, the seed the sower spread abroad. All who heard and received His word became in reality what Israel was only as a nation: true sons of the kingdom.
The weeds are not everyone in the world who is evil. They are a narrower group, planted right where the wheat is:
The tares mean, not all the children of the wicked one, but only those sown among the wheat, as counterfeit and false plants. They are hypocrites — people of every kind who falsely claim to be Christians, whether they know it or not.
Behind the two seeds stand two persons, deliberately set against each other:
The Son of Man and the wicked one, as others have well remarked, are opposed to each other… Scripture always shows Satan acting as the great personal opponent of the Son. The Son of God has come "that He might destroy the works of the devil." The devil uses the world to entangle people and to stir up the flesh, working on the heart's natural liking for present honour and ease.
The Lord said "world," not "church." So this parable gives no ground for tolerating open evil in a congregation:
In His wonderful discourse in Matthew 13, our Lord teaches that the wheat and the tares are to grow together. Yes — but where? In the church? No. They grow "in the field," and He tells us that "the field is the world." To confuse these two is to falsify the whole Christian position and to do away with all godly discipline in the assembly.
That leaves one thing forbidden and another commanded:
They were not to be rooted out of the field. The church was to put them out when they showed themselves to be wicked persons. The church and the kingdom are quite distinct, though the one may be said to be inside the other. The limits of the kingdom stretch far beyond the limits of the true church of God… The tares are to be put away from the Lord's table, but not rooted out of the field. The church was not to use worldly punishments in dealing with offenders. But the very thing the Lord is here guarding His disciples against came to pass, as the long list of martyrs so painfully shows.
Commentators differ on how far "sons of the kingdom" reaches. Most read it as true believers. F. W. Grant argues the phrase is broader, pointing out that the same words in Matthew 8:12 describe people cast into outer darkness — so, he says, the term "is not interchangeable with those born again."
- Field. The Lord defines it Himself: the inhabited world, not the church, and not the end of the age.
- Seed. The first parable sowed the word; here that word stands up as people. Christ brings His own into the world, and they draw their life from Him.
- Sons. The title marks out heirs. Israel held it only as a nation; now it belongs to all who hear and receive the word of the kingdom.
- Counterfeits. The weeds are people, not ideas. They look like wheat, and the personal enemy of the Son of Man planted them.
- Restraint. The field is the world, so believers do not uproot. The church is not the field, so they still put away open evil.
and the enemy who has sowed it is the devil; and the harvest is [the] completion of [the] age, and the harvestmen are angels.
Here the Lord explains His own parable. In one verse He names three things: who sowed the weeds, when the field is cleared, and who clears it. Each answer takes away a comfort we might want. The evil was deliberate, the cure waits, and the hands that bring it are not ours.
The enemy had a motive and a method. One writer traces how he worked — not by open attack, but by copying:
The devil is the enemy, and the sowing of the weeds was his countermove. He could not stop the kingdom of heaven from being set up in the world where he was the prince. So he went to work at once, with great cunning, to oppose it and spoil it. He opposed it by imitating it.
Two different words stand behind "world" in verse 38 and "the end of the age" here. Mixing them up changes the whole picture:
"The world" in verse 38 must not be confused with "the world" in verse 39. They are totally distinct words and things. "The world" in verse 39 means the age. It is a course of time, and not a geographical sphere. Verse 38 means the sphere, the place where the gospel goes out. Verse 39 means the span of time in which the gospel is either advancing or held back by the enemy's power. The harvest is the completion of the age, that is, of the present era. It is the time while the Lord is absent and the gospel goes out over the earth... The Lord shows here that an end will come to the present sending out of the word of the kingdom, and that a day is coming when the effects of Satan's work must be fully developed and judged.
Older English versions read "the end of the world" here. Commentators call that a mistranslation, and point to the context: the Lord cleans the field, He does not destroy it:
I repeat that the end of the age is not the end of the world. The phrase "end of the world" in Matthew 13:39 is a clear error of translation... Far from being the end of the world, the very context proves the contrary. The Lord sends His angels and clears out of the field or world what is offensive to Him. The evil is judged, the scandals removed... So this is far from being the end of the "world". The harvest that closes this age will be the start of the world going on in blessing under the displayed kingdom of the Son of Man.
The servants in the parable wanted to do this work themselves. Naming the reapers as angels answers them, and settles what a disciple may do about evil in the meantime:
The servant wished to do the reapers' (the angels') work. Not so; the angels are the executioners of God's wrath. So this teaches us that the work of judgment is not the business of Christ's disciples while He is absent and rejected. We are not told to root out heresy and evil men by the strong arm of the sword. To do so is to leave the proper place of the Christian. We are to bear testimony to Christ and against the evil, most certainly. But we are to leave judgment in the hands of God, in the hands of Jesus.
The clearing waits for the end of the age, so the mixture stands. Can the damage be repaired in the meantime, and the first order of things set up again?
The Lord settles this question plainly and with authority, and His answer is no. He tells us that nothing will remedy the evil for the whole length of this age. The time of harvest — that is, the judgment — will root it out, and until then the evil goes on. Remember, though: separating from the evil, and enjoying the presence of Christ with the "two or three," is quite a different thing from claiming to set that order up again now that the evil has come in.
What men's hands were unfit to do, angels will do at a stroke. The same moment that removes the weeds also secures the wheat:
Men's hands are declared unfit for this separation. It is left to angels' hands, in the day of the harvest of Christendom. They are the reapers then. The field is to be cleared of wheat and weeds alike. At one moment the order goes out to gather the weeds in bundles to be burned, and to gather the wheat into the barn. So solemnly the day of Christian profession ends.
- Enemy. The weeds were not an accident of soil or weather. A person sowed them, and the Lord names him: the devil, working by imitation, not by open attack.
- Age. The harvest comes at the end of the age — a stretch of time, not a place. It is the span while the Lord is absent and the gospel goes out.
- Not extinction. This is not the world's destruction. The Lord clears out of the field what offends Him, so the world can go on in blessing under the reign of the Son of Man.
- Reapers. The clearing belongs to angels, not to disciples. Our part is testimony against evil. We leave the sword and the sentence to Christ.
- Meanwhile. Nothing will remedy the evil before the harvest, so the mixture stands. Separation from evil is a duty; rebuilding what has been spoiled is not on offer.
As then the darnel is gathered and is burned in the fire, thus it shall be in the completion of the age.
The Lord has just named every part of His own story — the sower, the field, the seed, the enemy, the harvest. Now He draws a line from a farmer's bonfire to the close of this age, and one word here has confused readers ever since: what ends when the weeds are burned?
The older translation reads "the end of this world." But the word for "world" in verse 40 is not the same word as in verse 38. One writer sets the two side by side:
If we treated these two words as meaning the same thing, we would miss the thought in some of the passages. For instance, in Matthew 13:38, "The field is the world" means the physical world where people live. In Matthew 13:40, "the end of the world" really means "the end of the age" — the period that closes when the Lord appears.
The difference matters. The next verses show an earth that is cleared out and then carries on, not one that is cancelled:
This is not the end of the world; the next verse proves the opposite. The Lord sends His angels and clears out of the field (that is, the world) everything that offends Him. He judges the lawless, removes what makes people stumble, and destroys the bad crop and the bad fish... The field, or world, that Satan's schemes had spoiled will be cleared of all its corruptions and of the lawless people behind them. So the harvest that closes this age is not the end of the world at all. It is the start of the world going on in blessing, under the openly displayed kingdom of the Son of Man.
The verse ties the outcome to the burning of the weeds, and a farmer burns them at the end, not while the crop is growing. So the mixture is not cleaned up before then:
The parable is not about discipline among God's children. It deals with another question: is there a cure for the evil Satan brought into this whole period "while men slept"? Can this period be put back on its original footing? The Lord decides that question at once, and with authority: no. He tells us that all through this period the evil will get no cure. The time of harvest — that is, the judgment — will root it out, and until then the evil will go on.
Verse 39 has already said the reapers are angels. That sets a clear line between the work of now and the work of then:
The angels bring in judgment from God, while the gospel lays hold of poor sinners to save them. The Lord shows here that the present sending out of the word of the kingdom will come to an end. A day is coming when the effects of Satan's work will be fully developed and judged. "The reapers are the angels." We have nothing to do with the judging, only with spreading the good; the angels deal with the judgment of the wicked.
Earlier in the parable the weeds — "tares" in the older wording — are tied into bundles before they are burned. One writer will not guess how that will happen, but he points to something already at work:
The Lord does not say that the wheat is tied into bundles to be taken to heaven. Nothing points to any special preparation of the saints before they are taken up. But God does deal with the tares in that way. The angels are to gather the tares into bundles before the Lord clears them out of the field. I will not claim to know how that will happen. Perhaps the way people group themselves together today is paving the way for the Lord's final action about the tares. But the principle of worldly association is growing fast.
The burning is not the last word here. Once the bad is taken away, the good comes into view — and the Lord's choice of verb is worth weighing:
Then comes the separating. The angels gather the tares and throw them into the fiery furnace, and "the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Notice how exact the wording is: they shine — it does not say they are caught up. It will be a new age, with no mixing of the good and the bad. The gathering out of the wicked for judgment closes this age, so that the good may be blessed in the next.
- Age, not world. The harvest closes this age, not the planet. The same harvest that ends one age opens the next, under the reign of the Son of Man.
- Wait. Until the harvest the evil the enemy sowed gets no cure. Good and bad grow side by side for the whole age.
- Bundle. Before the fire comes the tying. The angels bundle the false with the false, and the true are left standing apart.
- Burn. The reaping belongs to the angels. Our work now is to spread the good, never to sort the field.
- Shine. The last word is not fire but light. With the offenders cleared out, the righteous shine like the sun in their Father's kingdom.
The Son of man shall send his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all offences, and those that practise lawlessness;
Matthew 13:41 comes from the Lord's own explanation of the parable of the wheat and the weeds. He says what happens at the end to the good and evil that grew up side by side in the world. Two words carry the weight: His kingdom, and the angels He sends to clear it.
The harvest that closes this age does not close the world's history. One writer points to this verse as the proof. The earth is cleared so that it can go on:
Far from being the end of the world, the next verse proves the opposite. The Lord sends His angels and purges from the field (or world) what is offensive to Him. In short, He punishes the living wicked, and the righteous shine in the kingdom of their Father… The harvest that closes this age will be the start of the world going on in blessing under the kingdom of the Son of Man on display.
Verse 41 speaks of the Son of Man's kingdom; verse 43 speaks of the Father's. Commentators read these as the earthly and heavenly sides of a single kingdom of God:
Here we have the upper region, called the kingdom of the Father, and the lower, the kingdom of the Son of Man… Those gathered out are not even allowed to be on the earth. They are cast into a furnace of fire. "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Both are "the kingdom of God." What a glorious prospect! Is it not a sweet thought that God will deliver even this present scene of ruin and confusion? That He will have the joy of His heart, not only in filling the heavens with His glory, but in honouring the Son of Man in the very place where men rejected Him?
The word His matters. Another writer sees in it a change in Christ's position:
"The Son of Man will send His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom" — it is now His kingdom, He is not simply sitting on the Father's throne.
The two things gathered out are traps that make others fall, and people whose lives are lawlessness. The scene of the gathering is the same field the parable began with:
Does anyone doubt that our Saviour speaks of the harvest-field, the world, as His kingdom? At His coming He sends His angels there to gather out all offences (or traps that make people fall) and those who practise lawlessness. … The earth is purged for the Son of Man's kingdom, not yet dissolved or destroyed. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father.
This gathering says something sobering about the kingdom's present state:
Weeds are in it as well as wheat, foolish virgins as well as wise. At the end of the age the Son of Man will send His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers. So the kingdom will be freed — but they must be in it to be gathered out.
The verse names who carries out the clearing, and it is not the Lord's servants:
The execution of judgment on the wicked in this world does not belong to the servants of Christ. He will accomplish it by the angels of His power, to whom He commits the execution of this work.
Another writer applies the same rule to the professing church today:
The children of the wicked one will be disentangled from the children of the kingdom and cleared right out. That happens when the Son of Man comes and opens the era of the kingdom displayed in power. Angels will do this work, not men. To clear the evil out of Christendom is no business of ours.
Because verse 41 removes the wicked and verse 43 shines on the righteous, some read the passage as the taking away of the church. One writer answers that the sequence runs the other way:
Matthew 13:41 and 43 only prove one thing: when the wicked are judged, the righteous shine out. But the righteous had already been gathered into the barn so that they could do so… Judgment leaves the just where they were. One is taken and the other left.
The clearing is not revenge. It prepares the earth for the reign of righteousness:
He gathers out of His Kingdom all things that offend. It must be so, for righteousness is about to reign. During the present day of grace righteousness suffers because evil is predominant.
- Whose kingdom — The field is the world. At the harvest Christ claims it as His kingdom. He is no longer only seated on the Father's throne.
- What is cleared — Not the world itself. He removes all that trips people up, and all who live in lawlessness.
- Who clears it — Angels, sent by the Son of Man. This judgment is not the servants' work, so clearing the church by human hands is not our task.
- When — At the close of this age, after the wheat is already safe in the barn. This is judgment, not the taking away of the church.
- Why — Because righteousness is about to reign. God will honour Christ in the very place where men rejected Him.
and they shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
These words come from Jesus' own explanation of the parable of the wheat and the weeds, given to His disciples away from the crowd. He tells them what the harvest does with the weeds, and the furnace He pictures raises hard questions about judgment and how long it lasts.
The verse belongs to a harvest that closes the present age. One writer draws a line between the two kinds of work going on — the gospel now, judgment then:
"The reapers are the angels." We have nothing to do with the judging. Our part is only to spread the good; the angels' part is to judge the wicked… The harvest is the close of the age, that is, of the present period. It is the time while the Lord is absent and the gospel goes out over the earth. Grace is going out now. The only means God uses to work on souls are moral or spiritual. The angels bring in providential judgment; while the gospel lays hold of poor sinners to save them.
What follows this verse is the righteous shining out. That order matters. The harvest clears the earth for a coming age instead of wiping it out:
The earth is cleansed in this way for the Son of Man's kingdom — not yet dissolved or destroyed. Who can doubt that the righteous will then shine out like the sun in the kingdom of the Father? This is the age to come before eternity, the thousand-year age. The glorified are on high, and the earth is free from the usurper and blessed under the reign of Christ.
Weeds thrown on a fire disappear. Some argue from that picture that the wicked stop existing. One writer answered a question about this verse. The rest of it, he says, rules that reading out:
The explanation shows that the thought here is not extinction. People only reach that idea from what fire does to weeds. The effect of the fire, as of the outer darkness, is weeping and gnashing of teeth. So the effect shown is not the end of existence, as some claim, but suffering. It is suffering called everlasting, set against everlasting life. The fire is a figure, the usual figure of judgment… They will be tormented forever and ever — words used for the length of God's own existence.
Neither reaction is a change of heart. One writer explains what each one shows:
The weeping is only in self-pity, not in repentance. Wailing is the attitude of complaining, because faith is absent. Gnashing of teeth is a spirit of rebellion, not corrected even by the solemn judgment of God.
Does each person there show both? One writer thinks not:
The two words "weeping" and "gnashing" of teeth bring out different characters. I do not think both must be true of every person.
One writer traced every place this phrase appears and found the same sort of person each time:
Weeping and gnashing of teeth! We point to this phrase, used elsewhere in the New Testament only by Matthew. It always refers to those who have made light of the offer of grace… The Jews boasted in their natural descent from Abraham and gloried in it. That descent will do nothing for them if they reject grace… They will show everlasting sorrow and regret for their folly in rejecting the salvation offered to them in this life.
The furnace carries out a sentence; it does not open a trial:
We must never for a moment think that the judgment has to do with deciding whether a soul is saved or lost. That is settled in this life. At the Great White Throne, judgment will be measured out rightly, in perfect righteousness, and no one will have a word to say.
- Now — grace works. While the Lord is absent the gospel goes out, and the only means God uses on souls are moral and spiritual.
- Now — the case closes. This life settles whether a soul is saved or lost. The furnace does not.
- Then — angels act. At the end of the age the angels take up the judging. They clear the field instead of destroying it, so the earth can be blessed under Christ's reign.
- Then — the figure holds. Fire is the usual picture of judgment. The weeping after it proves suffering, not extinction — suffering called everlasting, set against everlasting life.
- Then — hearts stay hard. Weeping is self-pity. Gnashing is rebellion. The sorrow there is regret over grace refused here, never repentance.
Then the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that has ears, let him hear.
The Lord has just told His disciples why the weeds stay in the field until harvest. Now He turns from the removal of evil to what follows it: when the righteous shine, whose light they shine with, and why He calls it their Father's kingdom.
The shining has a date. It comes after the gathering out of the wicked, and one writer weighs the exact words the Lord used.
The severing then takes place. The weeds are gathered and thrown into a furnace of fire, and "then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Notice how exact the wording is: "Then the righteous will shine" — not "Then they will be caught up." It will be a new age, with no mixing of the good and the bad. The gathering out of the wicked for judgment closes this age, so that the good may be blessed in the next.
The order matters. The wheat reaches safety before the fire falls, and the shining comes last.
The weeds are gathered into bundles to be burned; and before they are thrown into the furnace of fire, the wheat is gathered into His barn... First we have the practical separation — the providential gathering of the wheat out of the way of judgment into the barn. Then comes the actual judgment of the weeds. And following on that, the wheat shines forth.
Why is the field not cleaned up now? One writer finds the answer in what is promised here.
It is a matter of further revelation that then the righteous will shine as the sun in the kingdom of the Father. And it seems to me that the term "the righteous" is not necessarily limited to those who lived after the seed of the kingdom was sown. This is the reason why there was no question, in the meantime, of purifying the field here below. God had better counsels in store for us.
Just before this the Lord spoke of the Son of Man's kingdom. Here He says "their Father." Commentators read the change as marking two spheres of one reign.
The Father's kingdom is heavenly, just as plainly as the Son of Man's kingdom is earthly. Matthew 13:41-43 proves it. The risen saints shine as the sun — and the sun is not earthly — in their Father's kingdom. Meanwhile the Son of Man, by His angels, carries out judgment on all offences and unrighteous persons in His kingdom, and just as plainly on earth.
If the righteous shine like the sun, whose light is it? One writer answers by setting the two spheres side by side.
Notice the contrast. The Kingdom of the Son of Man is below; the Kingdom of the Father is above. The righteous reign in the Kingdom of the Son of Man; they shine in the Kingdom of their Father. The Sun of righteousness has risen on the earth, and this is why the righteous shine as the sun. They are with Him, sharers of His glory. They are not suns themselves — central, independent orbs — but shining with the glory put upon them.
One writer connects the word "shine" here with an earlier scene in Matthew.
I note that this word "shine" is the same as the one used of our Lord on the mountain where He was transfigured — "His face shone like the sun" (Matt. 17:2).
One word carries the warmth here: "their." It tells the believer whose kingdom he will shine in.
Further, notice that it says, "In the kingdom of their Father." Here is great blessedness to the child of God in this word of happiness that makes it his own. It shows the position in which the Lord Jesus has placed them — associated with God as their Father, in His kingdom... He unites Himself to them as one who calls them brothers. He calls them to look up to God as their Father: "I will tell of your name to my brothers"; and again, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
The verse ends with a call the Lord had already used earlier in the chapter. One writer notes who it singles out now.
Yet, though covering so large a sphere, the Lord says in verse 9, "He who has ears, let him hear." In the Old Testament the call went to all Israel, to all the people. Now it comes to each of us, to a Christian personally. Whatever happens, no one can hand this responsibility of hearing and receiving the truth of God to someone else. Woe to those who deny or weaken it.
- Cleared — the angels gather out the offences and the lawless first; the shining starts only when the mixture in the kingdom is over.
- Kept — the wheat goes into the barn before the fire falls; the righteous are safe before the glory begins.
- Above — "their Father's kingdom" is the heavenly side; the Son of Man's kingdom is the earthly side of the same reign.
- Borrowed — they shine because they are with the Sun of righteousness, wearing a glory put on them, not their own.
- Heard — the promise closes with an appeal to the individual, and each hearer answers for his own ears.