Wheat and Tares

by Mike Ratliff

9 Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” 11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
Cursed are you more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you will go,
And dust you will eat
All the days of your life;
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.” Genesis 3:9-15 (NASB) 

24 Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. 26 But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. 27 The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves *said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he *said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’” Matthew 13:24-30 (NASB) 

36 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” 37 And He said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, 38 and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. 40 So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, 42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. Matthew 13:36-43 (NASB) 

Several years ago a preacher asked me what a tare was. He knew that I was from Oklahoma and he thought I would know. I am no country boy, but when I was a young man, I worked in a grain elevator. Actually, most wheat farmers I knew complained about a weed, which grew in their fields, they called “Cheat.” I may not be spelling it correctly. I have seen the weed though. Wheat looks like a thick-bladed grass when it is young and green. “Cheat” is a native rye grass whose species name is Lolium Temulentum. When it is young, it looks just like the Wheat. However, when it matures, it has a head on it as does Wheat, but you can tell them apart. Wheat has value, but “Cheat” is a nuisance. We offered a Wheat cleaning service to farmers just prior to planting. To clean Wheat seed we ran it through a screening process to remove any other seeds that were not Wheat. We would drop the grain down a chute into a cleaning machine that had several well-placed screens that allowed only the Wheat grains to make it through the process. The rest of the chaff and weed seeds were waste, which we bagged. Some of the farmers took that waste and fed it to their chickens.

I placed three scripture passages at the beginning of this chapter. The first one explains the events immediately after Adam’s sin and is the basis for the Doctrine of Original Sin. God questions Adam who blames Eve. God questions Eve who blames the serpent. God then addresses the serpent who we know is Satan. Let us look at that part of the passage again.

14 The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
Cursed are you more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you will go,
And dust you will eat
All the days of your life;
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.” Genesis 3:14-15 (NASB)

This passage is symbolic. The serpent is Satan. The woman represents the Church, which is the elect. The seed of Satan are all reprobate people who are not part of the elect. God proclaims to Satan that He will put enmity between him and the elect. That is no surprise. He also tells him there will be enmity between his seed and the Woman’s seed. Women do not have seed, men do. Women have ovaries and eggs not seed. The Woman’s seed symbolizes those who are not born of Man. This statement symbolizes the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Is there enmity between Satan and our Lord Jesus Christ? Satan bruised Jesus’ heel at the cross, a non-fatal blow. However, Jesus bruised or crushed Satan’s head, a fatal blow, in His victory over sin at the cross. The seed of the Woman also includes the elect who are regenerated, reborn, through saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This regeneration is followed quickly by justification by God declaring these Born Again believers righteous. This is possible because of the act of Atonement for the elect’s sin. (Romans 5:11) Jesus paid the price for the elect’s sin by becoming sin on the cross. This satisfied the justice of God against that sin. As regeneration becomes fact, because of the Atoning work done by the Lord, God the Father adopts all new believers into the family of God. This is why the Woman’s seed includes Jesus Christ and all believers because God the Father considers all in Christ as Jesus’ brethren. (Romans 8:14-18)

As we have seen, there is enmity between Satan’s seed and the Woman’s seed. Since the Woman’s seed is Jesus Christ and all of His brethren, we must conclude Satan and his seed really hate the true Church as much as they hate Him. Satan’s seed are the reprobate non-elect in this world who will never believe. Unlike the unregenerate elect, these unregenerate will always hate God, the gospel, and the true Church.

The next two passages I placed at the beginning of this chapter are a parable Jesus told followed by His interpretation. I have heard many sermons and teachings on the “Wheat and the Tares” parable. After I studied this for myself, I have found that most of those sermons were dead wrong.

Many years ago a very famous evangelist came to our Church in Oklahoma when I was serving as a deacon there. He preached a sermon titled, “The Wheat and the Tares.” His sermon had Jesus give this parable to us as a warning that the Church contained true believers (the Wheat) alongside phony believers (the tares). He has boasted that this sermon usually results in most of the deacons at whatever church he preaches it in “getting saved.” I remember like it was just the other day when he preached it in our church. I knew I was a believer and his sermon did not cause me to doubt. When he gave his invitation at the end, he seemed very disappointed when none of our deacons “got resaved.” His approach was Arminian to the core. He also misinterpreted  and misapplied Jesus parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Let’s look at Jesus own interpretation of this parable.

36 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” 37 And He said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, Matthew 13:36-37 (NASB) 

Who sows the good seed? Jesus told us that He does that. This is talking about salvation. This is describing the regenerate, the chosen of God, as seed the Lord sows. The seed do not choose this. The sower sows them. The Lord saves those who are His. There is no human choice involved here at all. Where does Jesus sow His good seeds?

38 and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; Matthew 13:38 (NASB) 

This verse shows us that Jesus sows His good seed in the world and those seed are the children of the kingdom. The chosen of God are Jesus siblings by adoption. They are God’s children. Since they are in the world this is referring to living believers. This is not a picture of the Church as a whole, but is a picture of believers living in the world. What about the tares, who are they?

38 and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. Matthew 13:38-39 (NASB) 

This is very clear. The tares are Satan’s seed that he planted in the world. Read this very carefully, the Wheat does not become tares and the tares do not become Wheat. This is a very straightforward teaching on election and perseverance of the Saints. God knows those who are His. He also knows who the tares are. Could it be possible for tares to be part of the Church? There most definitely are tares in the visible or physical Church. If there are tares who are professing believers then they are part of what some of us call the “Counterfeit Church”, spiritually. A local church body may very well contain members of both the Counterfeit Church and the true Church, side-by-side. All genuine believers, the chosen, are part of the true Church, spiritually. However, physically they may be part of the Counterfeit Church if they are mired in false doctrine. The physical churches contain believers and non-believers. However, the spiritual true Church is 100% chosen of God. The Reformers referred to the “Church” as being made up of the Visible Church and the Invisible Church. The Visible Church is made up of both true believers and unbelievers.  There are many “churches” in the Visible Church that are apostate and/or heretical as well.  On the other hand, the True Church or Invisible Church is made up of the Elect of God.  There are no unbelievers or Tares in it. Many of these believers are in churches that are not very good theologically and we should pray that God would cause His people to be led by Godly men.

All non-professing reprobate people are Satan’s seed and are not part of any church but are tares in the world. The false professors are those who claim to be Christian but are not so they are Satan’s seed as well. These would be tares in the visible church. The Spiritual true Church contains no tares. The false professors are not the chosen of God. They are tares. What happens to the tares at the end of the age?

39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. 40 So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, 42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 13:39-42 (NASB) 

There is nothing funny about that message. The chosen of God will avoid the furnace of fire. However, the tares will not. It is at this point the Pelagian, Semi-Pelagian, and Arminian would step up and say something like, “There must be something we can do to get these poor people to decide for Christ in light of their future!” This is not a message of evangelism. This is a message by our Lord about the future of those who are not the chosen of God. However, we must get the gospel to all people because there are many elect who have not yet believed. The gospel must be preached  throughout the world to all peoples so the elect will come to faith, but only the chosen of God will believe because they are the only ones given God’s effectual call by His grace.

Soli Deo Gloria!