This past Sunday I was sick with a bad cold, so I stayed home, drank plenty of liquids, and rested. At one point, I turned on a TV broadcast of a sermon by Greg Laurie. He began to discuss the wheat and the tares. He said that the wheat represented “true Christians” and the tares “false Christians.” Laurie believes in Lordship Salvation, so I knew where he was going: The members of his congregation and TV audience needed to check their lives to make sure they were true Christians.
At that moment, a thought occurred to me.
Everyone understands the wheat as believers and the tares as unbelievers during the church age. But is that what the Lord had in mind?
While the Lord was speaking prophetically, He was not speaking prophetically about the Church. He was talking about Israel.
His point was that in Israel there were “sons of the kingdom” and “sons of the wicked one.” Rather than pulling out all the unbelievers from Israel during the first century—or even at some point before the end of the age—the Lord was going to allow them to exist among the believing remnant until “the time of the harvest” (Matt 13:30).
When is the time of the harvest? It has not occurred yet. It will occur at the end of the Tribulation.
The Lord said, “First gather the tares and bind them in bundles and burn them.” He added, “But gather the wheat into my barn.”
During the second half of the Tribulation, all unbelieving Jews will either come to faith or die. Adult Jews who do not come to faith in Christ will be gathered, bound, and burned. The wheat will survive the Tribulation and go into the Millennium (the barn).
The term Christian is often used loosely today. But did you know that there were no Christians before the birth of the Church in Acts 2? Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, and Elisha were not Christians and never will be.
John the Baptist wasn’t a Christian and never will be.
Jews who come to faith in Christ during the Tribulation will not be Christians. They will be born-again Jews.
Christians are those who believed in Christ for everlasting life and were alive during the church age, that is, between AD 33, when the Church was born, and the time of the Rapture, when the Church will be taken out of the world.
The “sons of the kingdom” are not Christians. They will be believing Jews during the Tribulation.
The “sons of the wicked one” are not false Christians in local churches. They will be unbelieving Jews who die during the Tribulation.
Can we apply this to local churches and to true and false Christians? I do not see how you can do that without distorting what the Lord said. He wasn’t talking about the Rapture when He spoke of gathering the wheat into the barn. He was talking about gathering believing Jews to Israel at the end of the age.
There are, of course, many who profess to believe in Jesus who are not born again. A huge percentage of people in Christianity do not believe Jesus’ promise of everlasting life that can never be lost. But this parable is not about Christians as opposed to false professors during the church age.
The proper way to apply this parable is to pray for the peace of Israel and pray for the final ingathering. Pray for the soon regeneration of untold millions of Jews during the Tribulation. Never forget that Israel is God’s chosen people, and they will soon take their rightful places as sons of the kingdom in the Millennium.
Keep grace in focus and you’ll avoid imposing your theology upon the Scriptures.
