Matthew 13:24-32.AT 13:24-32{
The six following parables are similitudes of the kingdom, not as set up in power, but as during the absence of the rejected King. The first three describe its outward form and are told in the hearing of the multitude (Matthew 13:2). The last three present it as what is precious to God in it, and are told to the disciples alone inside the house (Matthew 13:36); they also get the explanation of the parable of the tares and wheat. The Lord Jesus is rejected on earth as King. The Jews in rejecting Him, condemned themselves. Now it is to be a Kingdom formed by sowing the Word of God. It is not power exercised in righteousness and judgment; that will be when the kingdom appears again; now it is the Word bearing testimony to the hearts of men, and using men to spread it; but God alone can give the increase. He sends the servants and watches over the harvest.
Matthew 13:24-30. The parable of the tares gives a general idea of what follows the committing of the kingdom here below to the care of men. A man sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept (men should have watched), his enemy came and sowed tares. This made the field look unlike the Lord's work; the Lord does not sow that kind of seed, but the carelessness or weakness of the servants let the enemy do his work to bring in those into the field that did not belong to the Lord. This is the evil we see in that which bears the name of Christ. The Lord Jesus and His servants sow good seed. Satan and his servants sow bad seed ̶ teachers of law; teachers trying to uplift the people without redemption or the new birth; and grievous wolves have all found an entrance into it.
Can these tares be rooted out? The servants want to try; the Master says, "no." The mixed condition is to go on to the time of the harvest. Men who lacked spiritual discernment, could not keep the evil from entering, and were not fit to put the evil out after it had come in. So the state of the kingdom is seen here as good and evil growing together in the field ̶ another witness that everything committed to man fails.
We must take care not to confound this with Christian fellowship in the assembly. There we are distinctly told to "put away from among yourselves that wicked person." (1 Cor. 5:12; 13.) It is never the duty of a Christian to have fellowship with evil. (2 Cor. 6:17, 18; 2 Tim. 2:19.) At the time of harvest, the tares will be bound in bundles by the reapers, but the wheat will be gathered into His granary. The servants now are to let the tares alone, and to be occupied with the good. It needs greater knowledge and wisdom than men have to discern who are the Lord's now. It is the tares that are to be bound in bundles. The Lord will take the wheat to Himself.
Matthew 13:31-32. Here we see how that out of a small seed a tree has grown. A tree in Scripture is used to symbolize a power in the world: (See Ezek. 15; 17; 31; Dan. 4.) So the profession of the name of Christ has become a great power among men, and under it others find shelter, as birds under a tree.
But, alas! in truth, every kind of evil shelters itself under the profession of Christianity in the persons of men who are Satan's servants. (2 Cor. 11:13-15.)
(To be Continued.)