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the three earlier parables, and about the three closing ones, could only be understood by those in relation to God when withdrawn from the world.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.