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The first thing we must understand about the parable of the wheat and the tares is that it is not about individual Christian life. That will be hard processing for many contemporary believers, for whom the salvation of Jesus is no bigger than their next crisis or concern. Jesus points to the focus of this most significant parable in His opening words: “The kingdom of God…” This is a parable about a reality larger than all our lives, a realitywhich Jesus came to “bring near”, into the very flow of history in which we live each day. That reality is the Kingdom of God, which Jesus administers from the right hand of the Father (Ps. 110), is characterized by righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), is commended to all the followers of Christ as their first priority in life (Rom. 14:18; Matt. 6:33), and which is so powerful and compelling that it gathers up even non-Kingdom members in its awesome pull and sway (Matt. 13:47-50).
This parable is about the Kingdom of God, and Jesus says plainly that He is sowing the Kingdom into the world – the whole world, all of it, every nation, tribe and tongue. The world as Jesus is currently upholding and sustaining it (Heb. 1:3) is the staging-ground for the unfolding a His eternal reign of justice and righteousness, which He is increasing and will increase without end, right on into eternity (Is. 9:7).
“How can that be?” many will no doubt ask. After all, there is so much evil, suffering, and Godlessness in this world. Whole cultures are closed to the Gospel, and vast segments even of our own society have blocked admission of Christian truth into important sectors. The world is in the grasp of forces too strong to permit the Kingdom of God to advance much farther than the walls of local churches. Wickedness is on the increase, and the Church is threatened on every hand. Surely we should just group together, encourage one another in love, and hope for the Lord’s soon return?
This, sadly, is the view of history, the Gospel, and the Christian worldview currently embraced by a great many contemporary Christians, at least in America. But it is decidedly not the view of these matters that Jesus taught, or that the Church has, by and large, embraced for nearly 2,000 years.
The Kingdom of God and the Gospel of that Kingdom – which Jesus and the apostles proclaimed – come, in Jesus’ words, with spiritual violence against the fortresses and redoubts of unbelief (Matt. 11:12; cf. 2 Cor. 10:3-5). In the power of the Spirit and Word of God, every counsel of hell and flimsy protest of sinful men collapses under the advancing weight and thrust of that realm of grace and truth which Jesus is sowing into the world (Matt. 16:18; Ps. 33:10-12). Through His reign and power Jesus Christ is making all things new (Rev. 21:5) and reconciling the whole world back to God (2 Cor. 5:18, 19). This does not mean that every human being is going to be saved or that the Church will succeed in bringing all of heaven down to all of earth before Jesus returns to complete the work He is pursuing even now.
But it does mean that a new era has begun, a new King is on the throne, a new power has come among men, a new ethic is being established and is spreading, and a new hope is available to all who believe the Gospel of the Kingdom and take their proper place in seeking and advancing it throughout the world. Someone will say, “OK, but I don’t see it.” And that’s precisely the problem. We have been taught for nearly two hundred years now that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is mainly about forgiveness and going to heaven, that the world is implacably entrenched in sin, that the darkness is going to get even darker before the great day of light, and that the best we can hope for is the comforting presence of God’s Spirit to keep us against the inevitable and growing wickedness of the world.
If that is what you believe, it’s not quite a lie, but you can see The Lie from there.
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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Pattern of History
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