Thus shall it be in the completion of the age the angels shall go forth and sever the wicked from the midst of the just,
The Lord has just told the story of the net full of fish, and now He explains it. Three questions follow: when is "the end of the age," who does the separating, and why are the wicked taken from the just, not the just from the wicked?
The older wording "the end of the world" makes many readers think of the earth burning up. The word is age, and what follows it is a new era, not the end of everything.
In Matthew 13 we find the expression "the end of the world" occurring three times. A reader might suppose that this refers to the end of the world, as the Apostle Peter describes it: "the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed" (2 Peter 3:10). But the correct translation is "the end of the age." So it refers to the close of this present age of God's grace. God will then pour out His judgments on this guilty world, leading up to the Lord setting up His kingdom on this earth for a thousand years, called the millennium.
The direction of the move matters here. The wicked go and the just stay. That is the reverse of what happens when the Lord comes for His own.
This is the clearance of the earth for millennial blessing. When the Lord comes for His own, which 1 Thessalonians 4 sets before us, He removes the saints. Then the wicked will not be severed from the just, but the just from the wicked. The righteous will be taken, and the wicked left. Here it is the reverse of this — the wicked taken and the righteous left... Here, on the contrary, the righteous are those not taken away to inherit heavenly blessing, but left behind to inherit earthly.
In the parable the men on the beach sort the fish. In the explanation the workers disappear and angels take over. They handle only one group.
At the end of the age, the angels will come out and sever the wicked from among the just. They do not gather the just from among the rest, as the fishermen did. They will cast the wicked into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Nothing here says the angels are busy with the just. Gathering them into vessels was not the angels' work, but that of the fishermen. The angels are in both parables occupied with the wicked.
The same event has two halves, and the motive behind each is not the same. One is preservation; the other is punishment.
The fishermen gather the good into vessels, to take care of and preserve them — an act of interest and value. The angels sever the wicked from among the just. The fishermen sought out the good. The angels seek out the bad for punishment, and "cast them into the furnace of fire" — an act of vengeance and wrath.
Not everyone reads the net the same way. Many call it the gospel net at work today. One writer denies that and places the whole scene at a later point.
This is not the Gospel net, as it is often called. This parable falls into the completion of the age... All this cannot refer to the present time nor to the church, but to the time when the kingdom is about to be set up.
If the severing belongs to angels at the end, it is not a task for believers now. People who claimed Christ's name have taken it up anyway.
Some who claimed to be Christ's servants handed over supposed heretics and other spiritual offenders for outward punishment. They did exactly what is forbidden for now... Destructive judgment on Christians in name only is not the servants' work. It belongs to the angels of the Son of Man.
- Age, not world. The phrase means the close of an age. What follows is Christ's kingdom on earth, not the end of everything.
- Views differ. Commentators split over the net: many call it today's gospel work, while another places the whole scene when the kingdom is about to be set up.
- Angels sent. Angels do the severing, and they deal with the wicked alone. Other hands gather the good into vessels.
- Wicked removed. The bad go out and the just stay in place. That is the opposite of the Lord's coming for His own, so it is not the same event.
- Ours meanwhile. Christ's servants are not to hand people over for punishment now. That judgment belongs to the angels.
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
The last parable in this chapter does not end with the good fish safe in vessels. It ends with a sentence: a furnace, and a sound of grief. Who carries out that sentence? On whom, and when? Commentators also mark this act off from the work the Lord gives His servants now.
The sorting on the beach and the casting into the fire are two different actions by two different sets of hands. One commentator draws the line, and says what it leaves for Christians to do.
This was the fishermen's work of careful sorting. It is all the more striking because in the first parable the servants were forbidden to gather the weeds. In both parables, it is the angels who deal with the wicked. They are, as the interpretation goes on to say (not only explaining, but adding), to come out and separate the wicked from among the righteous. This is another truth, which must not be confused with the fishermen's work of gathering the good into vessels. Both are true, but they differ in what they are and what they aim at. We, the servants or fishermen, have to do with the good; the angels will carry out judgment on the wicked. The Christian is called to the work of grace.
A furnace was an everyday object, and Scripture uses it in more than one way.
People used furnaces for many purposes: smelting raw metal, refining it in crucibles, making lime and bricks, and baking as an oven... The furnace also pictures the oppression of Egypt, out of which God delivered the Israelites (Deuteronomy 4:20). It pictures too the afflictions God later brought them into, to purify them from their idolatry and sin (Ezekiel 22:18, 22). In the New Testament the furnace of fire refers to the place of eternal punishment.
Some argue that fire burning up weeds must mean the wicked stop existing. One writer answers that the weeping named here rules that out.
The explanation shows that the thought is not extinction, which is only a conclusion drawn from the effect of fire on weeds. The effect of the fire, as of the outer darkness, is weeping and gnashing of teeth. So the effect is not a ceasing to exist, as they claim, but suffering. It is suffering called everlasting (Matthew 25:46), in contrast with everlasting life.
The two words are not one idea repeated. Each carries its own attitude, and neither is repentance.
The weeping is only self-pity, not 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.
The phrase appears only in a few places. One commentator points to the pattern running through them all.
We call attention to this phrase. In the New Testament only Matthew uses it elsewhere (Matthew 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). Always, you will notice, it refers to those who have treated the offer of grace lightly. Gentiles will accept grace and sit down in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matthew 8:11). Natural descent from Abraham, which the Jews boasted of and gloried in so much, will count for nothing if they reject grace.
Commentators differ on how much of this parable belongs to the present. One writer is careful to say that the believer's hope is a different event, and an earlier one.
Angels will bind the weeds in bundles, and gather the wheat into the barn, and also separate the wicked from among the just. I hardly need to say that the catching up of the saints is not a separating of the wicked from among the just. It is a separation of the saints from among the wicked, and will have taken place before the end of this present age.
Another writer places the whole parable later, after the present period has closed.
This is not the Gospel net, as it is often called. After the one pearl is taken up, the end of the age begins. This parable falls into the completion of the age... The separating of the good and the bad is done by angels. All this cannot refer to the present time nor to the church, but to the time when the kingdom is about to be set up.
- Cast — in the first parable the servants were forbidden to gather the weeds; the mixture stands until the end.
- Sorted — the fishermen handle only the good; the Christian is called to the work of grace, not to judgment.
- Severed — angels separate the wicked from among the just. That is judgment, not the catching up of the saints, which comes earlier.
- Sentenced — the furnace of fire is the place of eternal punishment; the weeping shows the fire does not end existence but brings suffering.
- Stubborn — the weeping is self-pity and the gnashing is rebellion, never repentance; this phrase always falls on those who treated the offer of grace lightly.