WHEAT & WEEDS PART 3
Historical facts show that it was “while men were sleeping” that Satan “came and oversowed weeds in among the wheat.” Once the apostles, who collectively ‘acted as a restraint’ upon apostasy, began falling asleep in death, many Christian elders failed to “keep awake.” (
2 Thessalonians 2:3,
6-8)
Becoming spiritually drowsy, they did not protect the “sons of the kingdom” from the “oppressive wolves” that began entering in among them. These were “weeds” sown among the “fine seed.” Referring to the approaching end of the apostolic period, John, the last of the apostles to die, wrote: “It is the last hour, and, just as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now there have come to be many antichrists; from which fact we gain the knowledge that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of our sort; for if they had been of our sort, they would have remained with us. But they went out that it might be shown up that not all are of our sort.” (
1 John 2:18,
19)
Jesus stated: “The weeds are the sons of the wicked one.” (
Matthew 13:38) In his book Natural History of the Bible, H. B. Tristram comments on the type of weeds referred to in this parable. He writes: “The Tares (zizania) are the same as the Arabic zawan, from which the Greek name is derived, the Lolium Temulentum or Bearded Darnel . . . . It is a kind of ryegrass, and is the only species of the grass family the seeds of which are poisonous. The derivation of
zawân is from
zân, ‘vomiting,’ the effect of eating darnel being to produce violent nausea convulsions, and diarrhera, which frequently ends in death. The plant, having a broader leaf than most wild grasses, is entirely like wheat until the ear appears.”
It should be noted that the “weeds” are not, as some Jewish Talmudists and others once believed, a degenerate form of wheat. Wheat seed never transforms itself into weeds. This would be contrary to YHWH God immutable law: “Let the earth cause grass to shoot forth, vegetation bearing seed, fruit trees yielding fruit according to their kinds.” (
Genesis 1:11,
12) This scientific fact exonerates the “Son of man,” Christ Jesus, the “sower of the fine seed,” from any responsibility for what happened in “his field.” The “fine seed” he sowed would never have become a crop of weeds. It could only produce “wheat,” or true “sons of the kingdom.” What later developed in his “field” was the direct result of his enemy’s deliberate and malicious oversowing of “weeds,” or “sons of the wicked one.”
So, Jesus’ illustration of the “wheat” and the “weeds” does much to explain the history of Christianity throughout the centuries. Historical facts show that after the death of the apostles Satan introduced among the congregations of true Christians many “weeds,” “oppressive wolves” and “antichrists,” just as Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and Jude had foretold. (
Acts 20:29;
2 Peter 2:1-3;
1 John 2:18) It has been just as Jesus stated: “When the blade sprouted and produced fruit, then the weeds appeared also.”(
Matthew 13:26)
These “weeds” became particularly apparent during the second and third centuries, at which time such unscriptural doctrines as the inherent immortality of the soul, hellfire and the Trinity began to be taught by so-called church fathers. Many of these men were more philosophers than true Christian overseers faithful to the teachings of the Bible. The climax came early in the fourth century, when pagan Emperor Constantine fused this apostate Christianity with the pagan religion of Rome. Such counterfeit Christianity, in its Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox and Protestant varieties, has produced a bumper crop of “weeds” not only throughout the centuries but also right up until the present time.
This situation could not fail to disturb the ‘Son of man’s’ “slaves.” Jesus’ parable continues: “So the slaves of the householder came up and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow fine seed in your field? How, then, does it come to have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy, a man, did this.’ They said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go out and collect them?’ He said, ‘No; that by no chance, while collecting the weeds, you uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the harvest season I will tell the reapers, First collect the weeds and bind them in bundles to burn them up, then go to gathering the wheat into my storehouse.’”(
Matthew 13:27-30)
Whether these worried “slaves” (
Matthew 13:27) are identical with the “reapers” (
Matthew 13:30) Jesus does not explain. If they are, this would mean that the angels were distressed by the abundant growth of “weeds” in their Master’s field. (
Matthew 13:39) These “slaves” asked if they should immediately weed out the bearded darnel, symbolizing the “sons of the wicked one.” (
Matthew 13:38) They feared that these counterfeit Christians, or “weeds,” maliciously sown by the “enemy,” the Devil, might choke the true “wheat,” the authentic “sons of the kingdom
But the “householder,” the “Son of man,” did not authorize his “slaves” to go out and collect the “weeds,” or pseudo-Christians, separating them from the “wheat,” true Christians. He said: “Let both grow together until the harvest.” And so it has been that true and false Christianity have grown together in the “field,” or “world,” of mankind. About the year 100 “the weeds appeared.” About the year 300, there were more “weeds” than there were wheat.
There have always been people who were “the wheat,” that is, true Christians. Jesus said to his disciples: “I am with you
all the days until the conclusion of the system of things.” (
Matthew 28:20) So Jesus would protect the anointed Christians all the days up to the time of the end. But since the weeds, or false Christians, had overgrown the wheat, we do not know for certain who were part of the wheat class during all those years.
