Miscellaneous
Writings Vol. Two
HOPE OF THE MORNING STAR
4. THE TARES, THE WHEAT, AND THE HARVEST.
MR. BROWN brings forward in further proof the Scripture
statements as to the end of the age and the harvest; but these we shall better
consider as more fully taken up by another writer, B. W. Newton,* to whose
arguments I therefore turn. The parable of the wheat and tares will come before
us in this connection, and he believes it decisive as to the whole question
before us. I think it will be found that all depends as to this upon how the
parable is to be explained. But we must go carefully through his arguments
which touch many questions and a considerable range of prophetic scripture. He
says:- "I have long felt the parable of the tares to be quite conclusive of the
question we are considering. Whatever else may be true, the Lord's explanation
of the parable must certainly stand. We have in it a period definitely, and I
might also say, chronologically marked, commencing with the sowing of the Son
of man, and ending with the separation of the children of the wicked one. It is
said that this separation shall not take place until the harvest; consequently
until the harvest the field has some wheat in it. 'Let both grow together until
the harvest.' No words could be more plain than these. They could not grow
together until the harvest, if all, or even some of the wheat were gathered in
many years before the tares were fully ripened; and they will not fully ripen
until the time of Antichrist; indeed, it is expressly said that the tares are
to be gathered first; and let it be remembered that not one tare is gathered
except by angels sent forth; not one is gathered except at the time of harvest;
not one is gathered without being rooted up; that is, taken out of the world.
The meaning of the gathering of the tares is not left to our conjecture, but is
explained by the Lord Himself : 'As therefore the tares are gathered and burned
in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this age. The Son of man shall send
forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom [this is the
explanation of the gathering] 'all things that offend and them that do
iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire:' this is the explanation
of the burning. The wheat and the tares are to grow together until this is done
.
"How can any one doubt after reading this parable that the saints of this
dispensation (for to them alone the name of wheat, as contrasted with tares,
belongs) will continue in the world together with the professing visible body
until the end of the age, that is the harvest? For it must be remembered that
the harvest is not said to be in the end of the age, but that the harvest is
the end of the age." (Pp. 18-20.)
This is the whole of Mr. Newton's
argument; which he defends, however, at the close of his pamphlet from
objections drawn in part from some very natural mistakes as to his doctrine,
which will serve to keep us from falling into theni, while some of them with
his answers we shall have to consider further on.
First of all, as to
the ''end of the age," a term which we have already considered, and which is of
very great significance in relation to the whole matter before us, he guards us
from the mistake that he takes it to be "one definite moment, marked by one
event, and that the saints remain until it is entirely over and passed away."
He regards it "as the name of a certain period, perhaps a considerably
lengthened period, during which many events will occur. But this period," he
remarks, "must have a beginning, and as soon as ever that beginning comes, we
may say, 'the end of the age' has come. . I have never said that the saints
will remain on the earth until the end of the age."(P. 95.)
One may
agree then thoroughly with this, that the saints of the present time will
remain upon earth, neither resurrection nor rapture will take place, until the
end of the age arrives. The Lord's concluding words in Matthew are alone
sufficient proof of this: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
age." Nay, more, they should make us also expect that this would be the precise
measure of the time in which we should need such an assurance. When the end of
the age arrives, we may infer that the period of the Church's stay upon earth
will have reached its limit, and His coming to take us to Himself will be no
more delayed.
It has been already shown that the "end of the age" can
in no way be taken as the end of the Christian age; for there is no such age:
times and seasons are now not being reckoned, but we live in a gap of time, a
blank in Old Testament prophecy, which has Israel always in the foreground.
Israel it is that is to ' blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with
fruit "(Isa. xxvii. 6). Israel then being nationally set aside, it is not hard
to realize that all is at a stand as far as this is concerned, until she is
again taken up.
What, then, must be the significance of times
beginning again which are specifically times determined upon Israel to bring
her into blessing ! Such times we find in Daniel's seventy weeks, which are to
end with this, sixty-nine having already passed when Messiah the Prince having
come and being cut off, the downfall and ruin of the nation followed, and all
was indefinitely suspended. The one week that remains is naturally and
necessarily therefore the end of the age, the last seven years of these
determined times. The beginning of this period means that God's thoughts have
once more returned to Israel; consequently, that the Church period is just at
an end. With the beginning, therefore, of the end of the age, the hour strikes
for her removal to heaven.
Of all this Mr. Newton has nothing to say.
For him the Church and the remnant of Israel are found side by side during at
least a considerable time towards the end of the Christian age, as he considers
it,- a view which we have to consider presently. We have seen already, however,
how differently the whole structure of the book of Revelation speaks. But the
Lord's words: "So shall it be at the end of this age; the Son of man shall send
forth His angels and they shall gather together out of His Kingdom," show that
now the Kingdom of the Son of man is come, and the present time of the Son upon
the Father's throne is already over.
But this is the Lord's
interpretation of the parable, and not the parable itself, which ends short of
any actual coming of the harvest. The householder tells his servants what will
take place when the time of harvest shall have come, but this is when he is
comforting them for their own impotence in undoing the mischief that has been
done. They are not competent to remove the tares that have been sown amongst
the wheat: but angel hands shall do it effectually at a future time. The time
is future: the action of the parable does not go on to it.
Notice now
another thing: the interpretation of the parable is cut off from the parable
itself, and begins a second section of the whole series, which is thus divided,
as commonly with a septenary series, into four and three. Four is the number of
the world, and the first four parables, as spoken in the presence of the
multitude, give us the public or world-aspect of the Kingdom in the eyes of
men; and not one of them goes on in its action to the end. The three parables
which follow (the number being that of divine manifestation) give us on the
other hand what is told to disciples in the house; and in them we have the
divine side, the secrets whispered in the ear of faith. Thus the parable of the
treasure gives us the purpose of God as to Israel; that of the pearl, the
Church in its preciousness to Christ; that of the net, the going forth of the
everlasting gospel among the nations after the Church period is over.* It is
with this second series that the interpretation of the second parable has its
place, and thus we come in it to the "end of the age," as in the last parable
of the draw-net; for we are in both beyond the present time. The
interpretation, therefore, carries us beyond the present, and we must not
hastily assume that the gathering the tares out of the Kingdom and casting them
into the fire is simply the equivalent of the expressions in the parable
itself. Indeed upon the face of them they are not so: gathering into bundles to
be burnt is not the same as the actual burning, though it may be preparatory to
it; just as again the gathering the wheat into the barn is not the equivalent
of the righteous shining forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Mr.
Newton even allows this, although he does not carry the difference out
sufficiently, as we see by the answer he makes to an objection. The Lord
Himself explains, he says, the gathering of the tares as gathering out of His
Kingdom all things that offend. And to the objector who urges that "All the
tares being burned before the saints are caught up at all, nothing remains to
be judged," he answers, "I have never said that the tares would be burned
before the saints are caught up. I make a distinction between gathering them
into bundles, and burning them."(P. ioo.) This is true, but how far does the
distinction go? For he says of the gathering, "Not one is gathered without
being rooted up; that is, taken out of the world." Thus the objection is not
really met: for the meaning would be the same if it were put: "All the tares
being rooted up out of the world before the saints are caught up, nothing
remains to be judged (on earth)." Then his only reply would be what
follows:
"Even if the tares were all burned," (or rooted out of the
world), "there yet remain Jews, Apostates, Heathen Nations, to be judged." (P.
ioo.)
He says again: "'Gathering' does of itself imply removal from the
field; for the reason given for allowing the tares to grow with the wheat until
the harvest is this, 'Lest while ye gather (the same word) the tares, ye root
up the wheat with them." (P. xoi.) Thus the tares he takes to be really rooted
up out of the world as the first thing; then the wheat being gathered into the
barn, the field of Christendom is entirely empty.
Before we go on to
consider what he says is left in this case as objects of the judgments
afterwards, let us see if this idea of gathering as rooting out of the world he
in this case warranted.
We are told in the parable that the servants of
the householder, as soon as they discerned the tares among the wheat, inquired
if they should go and gather them up. Are we to suppose that their question
meant, should they root them up out of the world - exterminate them? No doubt,
Romanists have attempted to do so, and illustrated the inability to separate
the tares from the wheat; but is that what the servants wished really to
suggest? Had they no thought but of killing the heretics that had come in among
the orthodox? Alas! the tares were found much earlier than the time in which
the Christians could have used or thought of using the arm of flesh to
accomplish such a purification; and they must have sought it in other ways than
by carnal weapons which both our Lord and His apostles so emphatically condemn.
Was it not, in fact a rectification of the Kingdom which they desired, rather
than of the world? A kingdom which, however easy it may be for us now,
primitive Christians would never have thought of identifying with the world, or
any portion of the world!
May not this put us upon the track of what
the gathering of the tares would mean in the interpretation? Of course, before
harvest-time the riddance of the mischief could only be by the hand, and the
rooting up would be what would take place. But at harvest-time it would not be
so. Reaping would be ordinarily at least with the sickle, and there would not
be rooting up at all. Rather it would be a severing from the root that would
take place, which might imply a separation from the doctrinal faith, of the
heretic from his heresy, but not for good, so that apostasy would be the
outcome. Angelic hands might accomplish the severance -events might take place
even which would make it impossible to retain the heresy; the apostasy would be
their own. Thus two of Mr. Newton's classes would be one: a thing which Rev.
xvii. would indicate as probable, and which would naturally lead to the Beast
throwing off the woman, and the kings of the Roman earth helping to destroy
her. The "strong delusion" of 2 Thess. looks exactly in the same direction,
except Mr. Newton has proof that the professing Christians that fall into the
snare of Antichrist are not "tares." Certainly the present antichristi an
systems should furnish followers for the Antichrist to come; and his rise in
connection with the great head of the revived Roman empire, must make us think
of Romanism and kindred systems as those out of which the great mass of these
followers come. Are not these tares, who become apostates? if not, what
else?
It is easy to see, then, why Mr. N. should have to speak as he
does of the great book of prophecy in the New Testament. "I see comparatively
little," he says, "about the judgment on the tares in the Revelation; it
appears to me to be concerned almost entirely with the means which lead to the
consummation and the consummation itself of Apostasy. But that apostasy is the
result not merely of Christianity first perverted and then renounced, it is
also the apostasy of man as man ('worship him who made the earth), and also of
the Jew; a threefold combination of Apostasy." No intelligent student of
prophecy doubts the combination of other elements with it; but what is this
"Christianity perverted, and then renounced," but virtually tares becoming
apostates?
Nay, but, says Newton, "I also see that angels and not
saints, are sent to the Tares, whereas saints come with the Lord against
Apostates." "On the Tares [judgment] is by angels sent forth while they are
growing quietly with the wheat. Certainly in this manner we can make
plenty of oppositions, by comparing things that cannot rightly be compared. A
wheat-field is, no doubt, a very image of quietness; but one may well doubt
whether that is what we are meant to gather from it. And angels come with
Christ against the apostates; as Mr. Newton himself says: His army,
i.e. saints and angels. (As to the exact part each may have in the
judgment, Revelation does not seem to say.
But to return to the
parable: the binding in bundles must come after the reaping, if the figure is
to be preserved. Would one naturally think of it as something to follow death?
If so, one can hardly expect to translate it into any distinct meaning. If, on
the other hand, the tares (though dead as tares) are still viewed as in the
field of the world, then we may imagine a various compacting of men loosened
from the hold of their religious systems, in ways that are not pointed out, but
which lead them on toward their final doom. The gathering out of the Kingdom of
the Son of man, as in the interpretation of the parable, goes, I believe,
further than this: for the Kingdom of the Son of man is not local, but over the
whole earth. It is a gathering after that of the parable itself, and
immediately to judgment.
Mr. Newtons own interpretation is different
in so many respects from this, that there would be little profit in proportion
to the labour of any extended comparison. For him the end of the age is the
Christian age, and although in the tract from which I have quoted, he allows
that the "end" may be "a considerably lengthened period," yet elsewhere he
charges those with endeavoring to avoid the force of the argument from this
parable, who suggest that "the end of the age may mean an indefinitely (?)
lengthened period." He replies that it is definitely marked as "the harvest,"
quotes the interpretation of the parable as if the gathering and casting of the
tares into the fire were the whole matter, and asks, "Is Antichrist to arise
after this ?" But we shall apprehend his system better when we have reviewed
his arguments as to the Jewish and Christian remnants at the time of the end.
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