Some Background

The Parable of the Tares is about final judgement of the wicked. Final judgement of the unrepentant, otherwise known in scripture as the wicked, is a terrible and permanent reality. I thought it was time to describe what the bible says about the final judgement, particularly since I have come to the Parable of the Tares in my study of the gospels.

This parable uses agricultural language similar to the parable of the sower but it has a completely different meaning. Here is an interesting difference between the two parables: the parable of the sower is about good and bad soil, whereas the parable of the tares is about good and bad seed.

The parable of the tares, like the parable of the sower, is explained by Jesus in detail, so it has some importance (not all parables recorded in the gospels are explained by the Lord). I’ve provided the link above to Jesus’ explanation of the parable.

The Parable of the Tares can be divided into the following sections:

• The lexicon of terms (the table below)
• The gathering of the tares from the Lord’s worldwide Kingdom by His angels
• The disposal of the tares (final judgement)
• The final Kingdom of the Father

The parable gives some information about the very end of the age leading up to the fullness of God’s Kingdom, to include final judgement. What does Jesus mean by “end of the age”? Good question. The term “end of the age” is used by some Christians to mean the end of the church age which culminates in the removal of the church from the earth (the “rapture”) prior to the Tribulation.

But “end of the age” is defined to carry a very specific meaning by the Lord, and this is found only in the Gospel of Matthew, in the Parable of the Tares and in the Parable of the Net (Matthew 13:47-50) which is a shorter parable with less detail, but has the same meaning. Interesting that the Lord uses two parables to describe the same event using different language: one for farmers, the other for fishermen – probably the two most prevalent livelihoods of the day.

Clearly these two parables are about the end times – the end of the end times. I’ll explain what the Lord means by “end of the age” in the next post but I think its helpful to set some end times context first.

Eschatological Framework

A proper understanding of this parable depends on proper understanding of eschatology (study of end times) in the bible. There are a number of eschatological perspectives regarding the sequence and timeline for getting to what I call the fullness of God’s Kingdom. The eschatological perspectives about end times prophecies in the bible range from preterism (from the Latin “praetor” which means “past”) to futurist.

Briefly, Preterism, as the term implies, holds that most prophecies have already been fulfilled. Preterists believe end time events described by Jesus in Matthew 24 were fulfilled in AD 70 with the destruction of the second Temple built by Herod. Jesus did indeed prophetically predict that the Temple would be completely destroyed (Matthew 24:1-2; Mark 13:1-2; Luke 21:5-6), but that prophecy was given in a different place and at a different time than the end times prophecies of Matthew 24:3-14; Mark 13:3-13; Luke 21:7-19. They are different prophecies about different things happening in different periods in history.

Preterists don’t believe in a coming Tribulation period or global antichrist system. Some believe we are already in the Kingdom of God and take the Olivet Discourse in the synoptic gospels and the Book of Revelation prophecies of judgement as already fulfilled in AD 70. This viewpoint usually includes a doctrine called “replacement theology” which says that the church is the new Israel and the promises of God to Abraham and the historic Hebrew people, were nullified by their unfaithfulness and given to the church. In other words, the Hebrew people have been completely rejected by God. This has a whole boatload of doctrinal problems as it relates to the scriptures – enough for a future post, but I encourage you to do your own research. I do not accept the preterist viewpoint at all. I am a futurist.

Futurists believe end time prophecies in Matthew 24, the Book of Revelation, and other prophecies in the Old and New Testament, are in process of fulfillment or will come to fulfillment in the near future. We believe the promises of God to the nation of Israel are intact and will be fulfilled soon. The reestablishment of Israel as a nation in a single day in 1948 was the miraculous fulfillment of an ancient prophecy from Ezekiel 37 and kicked off a season of prophetic fulfillment that will culminate in the final disposition of evil and the establishment on the earth of the Kingdom of God.

The world culture including most Christians is ignorant about end times prophecies and thus cannot discern what is happening so rapidly in our world and where it is all going. The United States and the rest of the world is on a freight train to a number of events described in biblical prophecy. What is happening in the world today is absolutely consistent with what has been spoken of through the prophets, the Apostles, and Jesus Christ Himself as documented in the Word of God. The world is about to go through a very difficult time – much more than what we see today.

Its not my intent to dive any deeper into eschatology. But a correct understanding of the end time prophecies is necessary to properly understand this very interesting parable. As a futurist, I believe the scripture teaches that the Kingdom of God is not here yet which is why we continue to pray “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”.

I believe all prophecies in the bible will have literal fulfillment because that is the track record of prophetic fulfillment throughout history. It is, of course, necessary to account for language types in scripture to properly understand any scripture to include end times prophecy. But when the Lord declares the judgement of the wicked as described in Revelation, consistent with the prophets, you can bet it will happen just like it did in the time of Moses in Egypt, just like Sodom and Gomorrah, just like many times in the history of Israel as documented in the Old Testament – literal judgement just as described – will happen.

More coming in the next post…