The multitude are sent away, and Jesus goes into the house with His disciples. They say, “declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.” They had asked, (ver. 10,) “why speakest thou unto them in parables?” and the Lord's answer shows the awful position of the Jews. They were become a rejected people. Lo-ammi was written upon them. They had been a people separated to God. They had been a vineyard planted in a pleasant place, walled in. and kept apart from the surrounding Gentiles by rites and ceremonies of God's own instituting, by a law and ordinances of His giving, and righteousness was demanded of them. They failed in producing righteousness. God looked for grapes, and behold wild grapes. Prophets, the messengers of God, were sent to them; but like the husbandmen in the parable, (Matt. 21:3333Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: (Matthew 21:33),) they “beat one, killed another, and stoned another.” Promise and threatening, blessing and chastisement, entreaty, expostulation, and reproach were all used, but in vain. The tenderest appeals were made by God. He reminds them of all that He had done to draw them to obedience, but they will not hear. What anxiety, if we may use the word, is seen in the messages sent through the prophets, that they might escape impending judgment! Everything necessary was there to maintain them in their exalted position, had they been obedient. “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Mic. 6:88He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8)). But the kingdom must be brought to them, that their rejection of it may be made public to the world. John the Baptist cried, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Repentance, confession, and baptism were the means pointed out by him for an entrance into, or preliminaries for, the kingdom. But him they beheaded. Jesus comes and preaches the advent of the kingdom. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He comes with His hands full of blessing; He gives numerous instances of His power and goodness; He went about “healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people,” casting out devils and banishing them from the land, samples of the blessing and the power of the kingdom, brought for their acceptance, but by them rejected. They would not have the kingdom with Christ. His citizens hated Him, saying, “we will not have this man to reign over us.” They ascribed His power, in casting out devils, to Beelzebub, the prince of the devils (chap. 9). But Jesus still works in grace: it is not quite over with them yet. He sends His disciples to herald the coming of the kingdom in all their cities, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, forbidding them to go in the way of the Gentiles. Though they had rejected Christ, they had not yet publicly rejected them. But whether one lamented to them, they mourned not, or piped; they danced not; that is to say, in whatever way the testimony of God came, there was no response. The testimony of God was ever rejected by them, save by a remnant. The Pharisees seek to kill Jesus, and He hides Himself. They put the seal to their iniquity and condemnation in again ascribing His work to the prince of the devils (chap. 12:21). Now they are judged.
The Lord decidedly breaks with them. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in that to come; and Jesus severs the natural tie which connected Him, as the Messiah after the flesh, with them, and only acknowledges the relationship of obedience to His Father. They tell Him that His mother and His brethren desire to speak to Him. But who are His mother and brethren? He points to His disciples— “Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” This rejection of Jesus and the consequent destruction of Jerusalem cut short all God's dealings with them as a nation for the time. They were set aside, and a new work, as we have seen, was entered upon. Meantime judicial blindness is sent upon them, and the saying of Esaias the prophet is fulfilled. Therefore He speaks to them in parables. (See verses 11-15). Before this the Lord had not spoken in parables, but now that He is the rejected One, now that Israel is cut off for the time, He speaks in parables—none understand but they whom He instructs. And the disciples take the place which Jesus had marked out for them. He called them His mother, and sister, and brethren, and in the holy nearness and confidence of this position, they say not, “Why speakest thou in parables?” but “Declare unto us.” &c. They are now within the house in presence of their Lord—alone with Jesus—happy place!—the multitude, or world outside. The separation is marked and distinct. Now there is communion. And where else can the Christian enjoy communion, save in the presence of Jesus? But this is the Christian's place, and he may ever be in the house with Jesus.
Even when the outer man is necessarily occupied with the things of this life, with the bread that perisheth, the inner man may be enjoying secret communion with God. The question of sin settled, the conscience at peace, and the heart at liberty, then is God able, and delights as a Father, to commune with His children. He hides nothing from them concerning the glory of Jesus. He tells them the thoughts and counsels He had concerning Jesus and His Church before the foundation of the world. He opens out before their eyes the prospect of future glory, which He gives to Jesus, and which Jesus gives to them (John 17:2222And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: (John 17:22)). Even concerning the judgment of the world, He reveals to them His purpose— “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” (Gen. 18:1717And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; (Genesis 18:17).) “I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.” (John 15:1515Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. (John 15:15).) Dear reader, if you are a Christian, then, through the amazing grace of God, Jesus calls you His friend. He points to you as to His disciples of old, and says, “Behold my mother and my brethren.” To them, to us, it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Mark the care of the Lord to instruct them fully, and to unfold the meaning of His parables. His world has its theories concerning the present age, and is forming plans for the future amelioration of its citizens, but how contrary to truth! Is not judicial blindness settling (as it certainly will) upon apostate Christendom, as it did upon apostate Israel? May we not say, on contrasting the prevailing doctrines and opinions of the mass in Christendom, what the Lord said of rejected Israel, “To them it is not given,” &c.?
But it is given; and accordingly the Lord not only explains the parable, but gives additional information. “The harvest is the end of the age;” and then at that time “the Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” The parable speaks of “good seed.” The Lord's explanation tells us the “good seed are the children of the kingdom.” There we read of “tares,” here “the children of the wicked one.” There, “an enemy hath done this,” here “the enemy is the devil.” Then there are “reapers,” here “the reapers are the angels. The servant wished to do the reapers' (the angels') work. Not so; the angels are the executioners of God's wrath. So does this teach us that it is not the province of the disciples of Christ, during His absence, and the time of His rejection, to do the work of judgment.
We are not taught to extirpate heresy and evil men by the strong arm of the sword; to do so is to depart from the proper place of the Christian. To bear testimony to Christ and against the evil, most assuredly; but to leave judgment in the hands of God, in the hands of Jesus; for, mark, He does not give up His title to the kingdom. Now He is patient and forbearing, but by and by He will send His angels, and they shall gather out of His KINGDOM all things that offend, and them that do iniquity. It is His kingdom yet, though an usurper reigns in His place. But He is coming, and will show “who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.” Then the world, delivered from the thralldom of the oppressor, shall cease its groanings, and shall enjoy the rest and repose consequent upon the manifestation of the sons of God. (Rom. 8:1919For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. (Romans 8:19).) “So shall it be at the end of the world.” The phrase “end of the world” is frequently misunderstood. We are not taught that the harvest is the end of the world, the earth, but that it is the end of the dispensation or age which is characterized by the preaching of the kingdom (the true king, Christ, the Son of man, being rejected and absent, till He returns and establishes it in power and glory on the earth).
But the fact here communicated to the disciples was not given the multitude. In what was said to them everything took place in the field, in the world, excepting only the fact that the good seed would be taken out of it, and placed in the barn. It is a view of the present age. But in the house the Lord goes beyond the bounds of the present age, and we get a peep into the future one. There is the binding of the tares, the gathering of the wheat, the closing scenes of this age; but the curtain is lifted, and we have the terrible result of the judgment of the tares in the weeping and gnashing of teeth. On the other side, we behold the righteous shining as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. These are not established in the marred kingdom; it is in the kingdom of their Father that they shine; and this is the reason why there is no question of purging the field. There were better things reserved for us; and so we have now a new principle of the kingdom manifested, a principle with which the world outside has nothing to do. We have had the effects of the sowing, the facts of the mixing and the separation, and the consequent form of the kingdom. But now we have the hidden motive, a principle which is fully developed in the hearts of the “children of the kingdom,” and which Jesus brings out in the two next parables.
The Lord, though rejected by His own, would have a people, and He secures the object of his desire at the expense of all besides. So it is a principle with him who acts according to the understanding of the purpose of God, that he will esteem nothing in comparison with Christ. The principle of giving up all for Christ would not have existed if Christ had not been rejected: the taking up the cross and following Christ was the necessary result of rejection. And accordingly we do not get this principle in the parables to the multitude. But Christ, for the sake of the wheat in the field, suffers the rejection of the mass which rejection serves to bring out a new light upon the kingdom, and a higher glory upon them that are His. They shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. The use of the term “righteous” marks the saints of God in their individuality before and after the sowing of the seed. Deborah sang of this glory (Judg. 5:3131So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years. (Judges 5:31)), “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord, but let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.” Daniel speaks of it also (chap. 12:2). It was a thought common to Old Testament saints. But no saint before was ever in the house with Jesus, none was before called “my brother, and sister, and mother;” and Jesus goes on unfolding more and more of the principles and purpose which actuate God during the present state of the kingdom. To us it is given to know them. May we be kept from our own thoughts about them.