The second question can be more easily answered. The separation which the reapers ultimately effected is essentially the same with that which the servants at an earlier period proposed. It is an actual, material, final separation of the tares from the wheat.
It results that there is no solid ground in the parable for the assumption that those who proposed to make the separation at an earlier date represent men, while those who were employed to accomplish it afterwards represent angels; and that the separation which the Lord prohibited was spiritual, while that which he permitted was physical. In regard to the separation which he sanctioned, the Lord interprets what the operation is, and who are the operators; whereas, in regard to the separation at an earlier date proposed, he gives no interpretation. Instead of beginning by giving my own assumption as to the meaning of the uninterpreted part, I go first to the part that is interpreted to my hand, and from the point which is illuminated I get light thrown back on the point which was left in the shade. The reapers, I know, are the angels; and the servants were the same, or at least the same class of ministers, proposing to accomplish the work at an earlier date. The separation which was actually effected in the harvest represents, we know, the personal and local as well as moral and spiritual separation of the good and the evil; thence I conclude that the separation which the same ministers, or the same class of ministers, had previously offered to make was personal and local as well as moral and spiritual. The proposed and the accepted separations were precisely the same in kind and degree; they differed only in their dates: while, therefore, one of the two is interpreted to my hand, I have no right to attach to the other an interpretation totally different. The assumption that the separation which the Lord prohibited was only a spiritual sentence, while the separation which he permitted was actual, local, complete, and final, derives countenance neither from the parable nor its interpretation.
It appears to me, then, that the Lord’s direct and immediate design in this parable is, not to prescribe the conduct of his disciples in regard to the conflict between good and evil in the world, but to explain his own. Knowing that their Master possessed all power in heaven and in earth, it was natural that Christians of the first age should expect an immediate paradise. Nothing was more necessary, for the support of their faith in subsequent trials, than distinct warnings from the Lord, that even to his own people the world would remain a wilderness. Accordingly, both in plain terms and by symbols, he faithfully, frequently intimated that in the world they should have tribulation, but that all should be set right at last. On both sides they needed, and on both sides he gave, the instruction, that in this life they must lay their account with a mixture, but that after this life they would escape. Left to their own imagination, they would readily have expected that their omnipotent Head would so rule over the world, and so instruct his ministers, whether stormy winds or flaming fires, that evil, as soon as it showed its head, would be weeded out of his people’s way: but with this parable and other cognate lessons in their hands, they would not be surprised at any amount of success which the enemy might be permitted to obtain; they would possess their souls in patience, and wait for the end of the Lord.
The parable condemns persecution, but it seems not to bear upon discipline at all. In its secondary sense, or by implication, it protects the wicked from any attempt on the part of the Church to cast them out of the world by violence; but it does not, in any form or measure, vindicate a place for the impure within the communion of the Church of Christ. Arguments against the exclusion of unworthy members, founded on this parable, are nothing else than perversions of Scripture. Elsewhere Christians may clearly read their duty in regard to any brother who walks disorderly; elsewhere they may learn how to counsel, exhort, and rebuke the erring, and, if he remain impenitent, how to cast him out of communion by a spiritual sentence; but in this parable regarding these matters no judgment is given.
While the “Notes” of Dr. Trench on the parables are generally judicious and valuable, his exposition of this and one or two others that are cognate is injured by a secret bias towards the forms in which he has been educated,—a bias that is natural and human, but not on that account less hurtful. The body of the vast and venerable institution of which he is at once a chief and an ornament, stands so near, and bulks so largely, that where it is concerned his usual acuteness fails him. The general announcement at the commencement of the parable, that it concerns the kingdom of heaven, he seems to think is sufficient proof that the “field” must mean the kingdom of heaven or the Church. It does, indeed, concern the kingdom of heaven, for it shows that when that kingdom has, by the Son of man, been introduced into the world, many things spring up and mingle with it there to mar its fruitfulness; but it betrays an unaccountable confusion to argue formally that because the parable concerns the kingdom of heaven, therefore, of all the features which the parable contains, “the field” must specifically represent that kingdom, in the face of the express testimony of Scripture that the field represents a totally different thing. The parable of the mustard-seed concerns the kingdom too, but does the “field” in that parable therefore mean the Church? No. The mustard-seed that grew in the field means the Church, and the field means the world in which the Church is planted. So in this parable the only thing that represents the Church, or aggregate of individual believers, is the mass of the wheat stalks that sprang from the good seed: the good seed are the children of the kingdom, and the field is the world in which these children live and labour. Looking minutely to the phraseology employed, we find that the kingdom of heaven is not said to be likened unto a field, but unto a man that sowed seed; pointing to the Lord himself as the head, and the good seed as his members, and the wide world as their place of sojourn, till he take them to himself.
Dr. Trench remarks further on this point, that the use of the term “world” need not perplex us in the least; and perhaps he was led to make that assertion because the use of the term did perplex him much. His solution of the difficulty is this: “It was the world, and therefore was rightly called so, till this seed was sown in it; but thenceforth was the world no longer.” If it has any meaning at all, this sentence must mean that what was the world yesterday becomes the Church to-day, when some seed is sown, when some children of the kingdom are in it. Does the whole world become the Church when one country is christianized? or is it only the portion christianized that becomes the Church? If so, how many Christians must be in a given portion of the world, to constitute that portion the Church? If there were three of the true seed in Sodom, was Sodom the Church? or did not the three constitute the Church in Lot’s house, while the world raged around it like the troubled sea?
Some of Stier’s remarks are good: “The parable moves in quite a different sphere from that of the question concerning Church discipline.” “The householder forbids and will not allow what the servants wish. These would have all the tares removed entirely from their place among the wheat, from the kingdom of Christ (ver. 41). But because the field is the world, that were equivalent to removing the bad out of the world (slaying the heretics),” &c.
The conclusion of the whole matter is, that whatever separation the parable forbids, it forbids entirely: if it speaks of discipline, it says there shall be none; so that they are wholly out of their reckoning who lean on it for the condemnation of what they consider excessive strictness while they would retain the power of excluding the worst from communion. But, in truth, the parable has nothing to say on the subject.
When we have made our way through the discussions that have accumulated round it, we return to the text in its simplicity, and grasp its plain positive truth, “The field is the world.” It was all empty; nothing good grew there, until the seed was brought from heaven and sown. The nation, the family, the soul that has not Christ, is poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked.
“The good seed are the children of the kingdom.” They are bought with a price and born of the Spirit; they are new creatures in Christ and heirs of eternal life. Expressly it is written in reference to Christ’s disciples, “All things are for your sakes” (2 Cor. iv. 15). For their sakes the world is preserved now, and for their sakes it will be destroyed when the set time has come. The darnel is permitted to grow in summer, and in harvest is cast into the fire,—both for the sake of the wheat. Because Christ loves his own he permits the wicked to run their course in time; but because Christ loves his own he will separate the wicked from the good at last.