Matthew 13:24

parable

This parable (Matthew 13:24) is also interpreted by our Lord (Matthew 13:36). Here the "good seed" is not the "word," as in the first parable (Matthew 13:19); (Matthew 13:23) but rather that which the word has produced. (1 Peter 1:23); namely: the children of the kingdom. These are, providentially (Matthew 13:37) "sown," that is, scattered, here and there in the "field" of the "world" (Matthew 13:38). The "world" here is both geographical and ethnic -- the earth-world, and also the world of men. The wheat of God at once becomes the scene of Satan's activity. Where children of the kingdom are gathered, there "among the wheat" (Matthew 13:25); (Matthew 13:38); (Matthew 13:39). Satan "sows" "children of the wicked one," who profess to be children of the kingdom, and in outward ways are so like the true children that only the angels may, in the end, be trusted to separate them (Matthew 13:28); (Matthew 13:40). So great is Satan's power of deception that the tares often really suppose themselves to be children of the kingdom (Matthew 7:21). Many other parables and exhortations have this mingled condition in view (for example); (Matthew 22:11); (Matthew 25:1); (Matthew 25:14); (Luke 18:10); (Hebrews 6:4).

Indeed, it characterizes Matthew from Chapter 13 to the end. The parable of the wheat and tares is not a description of the world, but of that which professes to be the kingdom. Mere unbelievers are never the children of the devil, but only religious unbelievers are so called.

Compare (Matthew 13:38); (John 8:38); (Matthew 23:15).

The kingdom

( See Scofield) - (Matthew 3:2).