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.