One of the worst things that I have seen these days is people sitting in churches all over simply accepting whatever is said. Or worse, there are those church-hoppers or once-a-month/year attendees that find a reason to disagree just so that they don't have to commit or can find a reason to ignore what God is actually about. I have noticed much of the former, and tried hard myself to not be the latter. Oddly enough, there is quite a lot wrong with much of the teachings today, because we have come to a point where we are convinced of offering truth in the most plush, comforting way possible. Yet, we should not be too instantly critical, nor should we back out at any sign of wrong. Thing is, if we all were to stop attending a church for something that was not communicated or acted upon exactly to biblical standard, we would never go to any church, ever. No church is perfect. I do, however, want to take the opportunity to rebuke, correct, and teach to the best of my ability. Now, back to my first comment about people that accept anything they hear for a moment. I may venture to say that these people are more harmful to the church than those who object, argue, or question. The thing is, we need to not so readily accept what we hear, lest we become the same people that the New Testament writers warned against. Everything needs to be tested by Scripture and by God's word to us all. I might consider that God will give us a Spirit of understanding and wisdom if we ask Him to and if we approach Him in all earnestness and love, not for selfish reasons. Thus, what I am doing here is looking just at Scripture and trying to understand the main points of it all. I want to discern what it is trying to say, and I want to ask questions and explore possibilities. I will do my best to clearly explain my thoughts, and I also will clearly note when I am giving my own opinion on things. The point is, here are some things to think about, and I hope you will find it in your hearts to take all the matters of God seriously, and that it may lead you to a deeper understanding of and relationship with God.
One last thing, as I alluded in the opening sentence. This subject is not easily understood anymore, and it amazes me that we understand so little about it, considering Jesus goes through so much trouble to tell us so much about it. The subject is the Kingdom of God.
First up for tonight, to make things interesting, is the Parable of the Weeds. This one I want to tackle first because of a conversation I had with my roommate about this. Here is the text of the Weeds parable (NIV):
Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?' 'An enemy did this,' he replied. The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'" . . . He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear."A pretty relevant illustration for the time. There are some things to note right off the bat. Jesus explains his parable, so we have some of the work done for us here. The sower is the Son of Man. We could go into many different explanations of what Jesus meant by "Son of Man." It is a reference to the "one like a son of man" from the Old Testament book of Daniel. One explanation of this is that Jesus uses the word to describe himself and his person. In this sense, Jesus himself would be saying that the wheat that has been sown is all sown by him, which is another indication of the idea of the three-in-one God. Another explanation is that "Son of Man" is a reference to Israel, or perhaps what Israel was supposed to be. The grounds for this are based in connections between the books of Isaiah, Daniel, and Psalms. Israel tended to understand themselves as God's son, or child. This explanation is a bit provocative, because it implies Israel's former occupation as the kingdom of priests. As we understand, Israel was intended to bless other nations by its relationship to God. So, if this was Jesus' intent by using "Son of Man," then we might understand Israel (or now, those who are followers of Christ) as the ones sowing the good seed, thereby creating more people of the kingdom. Whichever you prefer, what is obvious is that there is a field (the world) that has good seed (people of the kingdom) sown throughout. There is also an enemy (the devil) that sows weeds. A quick word here, weeds are useless. They are not pretty, so they do not contribute to the beauty of the world, and you do not harvest them to eat them, so they do not contribute to food. All of this, plus they take up nutrients that are supposed to help the wheat (or other crops, for that matter) grow and they can choke out the good plants. So we have here a pretty clear picture of good sowing good things and evil sowing bad things.
The next thing that Jesus explains is that, at the harvest, the weeds (everything that causes sin and all who do evil) are first pulled up, bundle, and thrown into the fire, while the wheat (the righteous) will be gathered into the barn (shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father). Again, there are some pretty clear things that we can take from this. There are two clear distinctions of people, and there are two clear destinations for people that fit into the distinctions. There is fire for the people who do evil and cause sin, and there is the kingdom for those who are righteous. Without sounding too much like the streetcorner preacher with fire and brimstone, I must conclude that there is a heaven, or eternal paradise, and there is a hell, or a place of eternal damnation. There is also clearly an end of the world, or an end of the age, as it was said in the passage. From this, we can conclude a few things about this picture. First, no, the idea of "hell" is not the chaos, pain-ridden world we live in now. Not even close. Second, it appears that the righteous and sinful are handled at the end of the age, or at the end of the world. It may appear to some that this is indication or proof of purgatory, but it is not (more on this later).
Now, we come to the portion that might make people feel a little uncomfortable. It is at this point that, in order to explore different options or to give answers, I will also reference other parts of Scripture for insight. I mentioned that it is clear that there are two beings that sow two different kinds of people. The question, then, is this: if we are "planted," does that mean that we have no free will? Are we predestined to be either sown as wheat or sown as weeds? The Calvinists might rush in and say "told you!" However, I think we might be able to respond with a few things. First, I don't believe that Jesus' intention here was to tell people "hey, some of you are destined to be followers but the rest of you, sorry!" Instead, the purpose of the parable was to explain that the people of the kingdom and the people of sin will grow and live together until the end of the age, but that, ultimately, evil will be separated out. Even though the enemy intended on causing chaos in the field (world), at the time of the harvest, all will be separated out. When weeds and wheat are not fully grown, it is difficult to tell the difference between the two. However, when the wheat is fully grown and ready for harvest, it looks different and can be easily distinguished from the weeds.
Now, a better set of questions that will bake your noodle, and these will require some close following: If the enemy can also sow, and what he sows is different, does that mean the enemy can create? Then, if the enemy can sow what he created (weeds, sin) into the same field (world), is it possible that the evil people in the world are never meant to be saved? And is it possible that, in this case, they aren't really people and are just meant to look like us? Yes, I know, this is all crazy and complicated. Let me try to explain these one at a time.
God creates. He also created us with the ability to create. Does the devil also have this ability? If he does, then it means that he has some creative power that can have great influence in our field (world). I am inclined to consider this point of view, if for no other reason, because if I believe that what God created was good, and that when he created man he created man and woman equally, then I would have to believe that he didn't create two classes of human beings. Remember from the parable that it wasn't two types of wheat sown, it was wheat and weeds. Two completely different things. I have a hard time believing that God created two classes of humans and then decided that one wasn't good and that he allowed the devil to keep that one for himself. It is actually very easy for me to believe that evil was created by somebody other than God.
Now, to tackle the second question: is it possible that the evil people in the world are never meant to be saved? I have a hard time with this one. With the countless Old Testament examples of people from outside Israel being given quarter among them and the New Testament examples of Gentiles believing in Jesus Christ, I have a really hard time thinking that anyone is out of reach of God. So we might ask, can God in His infinite power change a weed into wheat? If I believe God is all-powerful, then yes, I would say that is within the realm of His power. But I also know that God's ways and thoughts are not like ours (Isaiah 55:8-9), so while I would say he can do those things, I cannot venture to say whether or not he would. There are examples in Scripture that indicate God's willingness to change the circumstances or forms to bring them to him, including the easy-to-remember one in Romans 11 about ingrafted branches. In that passage, Paul talks about God taking the Gentiles, which are of a wild olive plant, and grafting them into the cultivated olive tree, which is where Israel was supposed to be. Now, the problem with this is that, at least in Paul's example, both trees were still olive trees. We are dealing with two completely different types of plants in the parable example. In addition, we might have to question the weeds' capacity for change, and again whether or not God would go through with it anyway. Therefore, I am not comfortable making any sort of final statement concerning that question. However, trying to answer the next question gives an alternative, albeit an unusual one.
Is it possible that those sown or created by the devil and put into our world are not real? Ah, the old philosophical question of what is or isn't real comes up. Luckily, I'm not going to delve into that. I will simply use the word "real" as it relates to our perceptions that we have in our world, including what we can see, smell, taste, hear, and touch. As Christians, we believe in a God that we cannot, by our world's standards, see, smell, taste, hear, or touch. Now, we claim we can do each of these things, but these experiences are extra-sensory, meaning that in order for them to happen, there needs to be something beyond what our normal senses can do. This is usually where the Holy Spirit comes in. I say these things to help you understand that our idea of reality based on senses is not necessarily concrete. It stretches and contracts as our understandings and experiences permit. Now, we as Christians also have a common saying that goes something like this: "Don't listen to the devil's lies." So, in our daily lives we acknowledge that the devil has some power to influence what we hear, and we can extend this to say that we acknowledge the devil has power to influence our minds. Think about that. If that is true, then it is possible that the influence of the devil can distort our view of what is real. Now, if we keep this in mind and return to the question posed, we can start offering up explanations. Let's say that the weeds sown by the devil are not real, or that, if they are real, they are not like us, never were meant to be like us, and are only around to steal our nourishment and choke us. If that is so, then you could start to imagine tragedy, devastation, and death in a different light. What if some of the bad things that we heard have happened out there were designed by the devil to appear a certain way so that we might question God? Or perhaps even the things we experience first-hand, what if those things were designed to appear in such a way to make us doubt? Think about it. Do we not all agree that the devil is trying to direct us away from God? Do you think he would stop short of anything to do so? Keep in mind, I am not saying that tragedies don't legitimately happen. Of course, we could ask different questions about those types of things (I am actually working on writing something for that too).
So we can see that this parable raises some interesting questions, but none of them are totally answered by itself or by the rest of Scripture. There are other questions that might arise that I did not mention. A note that I mentioned earlier: I said that some might view the gathering of wheat and weeds at the end times to be proof of purgatory. I will say that I believe it is not the case, and I will quickly offer you my explanation, though I could go more in depth and may choose to do so in another post at another time. My belief is that, once a person has died, their perception of time as we experience in our reality is no longer applicable. They might then move into a similar sense as described of God in Psalm 90 or 2 Peter 3, where a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. So, even if they have died one hundred years ago, according to a person living on earth still, the person who died essentially is not part of the same time that the one on earth is. So the next person might die and they both instantly become part of the same reality again, only where time is not of the same value. I believe that it is in this way that those who have died before us, a day, a year or 1000 years before us will experience the end days at the same time as we who are still alive. So, if someone were to ask me if my grandma, who passed away in 2007, was in heaven or not, I might be inclined to answer both yes and no. I would say no because, as far as I have personally experienced, the end times has not come, so she would not have yet been admitted into paradise. Yet, I would also say yes because, perhaps according to my grandma's reality and within the scope of eternity, heaven has come and even I am there with her. Seems complicated, I know. But it is an interesting and, I feel, proper way to view the working of death as it relates to the end times.
So, these are some things that I have been thinking of, and I hope to do more posts like these soon. The final thoughts I would like to share about all this is that these are simply thoughts and, in some cases, beliefs that I have formed. I will not venture to say that all of these things are right or that Jesus was trying to say all these things in one little parable. I do not believe that these were the purposes of the parable. However, I think that they do raise many of these questions, questions that the Bible often does not answer. I think Scripture is important enough and the words of God are important enough to think on these things. I think that how we think of God and how we think of His kingdom, the world, reality, and life are extremely important. I hope you will feel the same way. I hope you come away thinking more deeply about aspects of Scripture and life. I would say there is no such thing as pointless talk about subjects like these, so long as we entertain them in the hopes of understanding, seeing, and hearing God better.
Thank you for reading, I know it was long.
Grace and peace.
-J
