Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about what the early Christians believed about the Kingdom parables of Jesus. And actually, I want to begin by thanking one of our listeners, Chris, for suggesting this topic. Actually, many of the titles that I do messages on are topics that have been suggested by our listeners and readers, so we do appreciate when you pass that input onto us.
We can't do every topic that people suggest, but I would estimate that over the past five years, probably half of the messages I've recorded have been on topics suggested to us by our listeners. Now, why I'd never considered doing a message on what the early Christians believed about the Kingdom parables of Jesus is that, to me, they've always seemed quite self-explanatory.
In fact, when I read the early Christian writings for the first time, I found that how they understood the Kingdom parables is exactly how I was understanding them. So I never gave too much thought to the subject. However, I was reading them with a blank slate. I had left the sect that I'd grown up in, Jehovah's Witnesses, and in particular had rejected their interpretation of the Kingdom parables, and I had not totally bought into what Luther and the theologians of the Reformation had said about these parables.
I was just applying a common sense interpretation. I mean, when you read Jesus, his message is pretty clear. He repeats the same themes over and over again, and they're right there in his many parables about the Kingdom. But what I've realized over the years is that most Christians, not necessarily due to any fault of their own, they don't have the luxury of reading these parables with a blank slate.
They've already been indoctrinated on what Christianity is supposed to be teaching, and so they try to make Jesus' parables fit the theology of their church or to fit the situation of their church, and they're indoctrinated with this through Sunday school lessons and sermons and things like that. Now, I'm going to tell you at the outset that what Jesus taught in his Kingdom parables does not fit Reformation theology at all.
So Christians who have imbibed Luther's teachings invariably find that they have to twist and bend Jesus' parables to make them fit the teachings of their church. They can't just use a common sense understanding of his parables. And so they come up with explanations of his Kingdom parables that are very different from how the early Christians understood these parables. More importantly, they come up with explanations that don't fit the rest of Jesus' teachings at all.
What I mean by that is that somebody reading the four Gospels with a blank slate, who has not been indoctrinated in any way, is just picking up the Bible and reading it for the first time, I will have to say that they would never come up with the standard evangelical or reformed interpretations of these parables, nor would they come up with the interpretations of Jehovah's Witnesses and many other groups. Okay, with that forewarning, now let's get into a discussion of his parables.
What I find is that there are three basic themes that you find in his Kingdom parables. I don't mean that each Kingdom parable has all three of these themes in it. I'm meaning when you organize his parables, you can pretty well categorize them that they would fall under one or more of these themes. The first theme is that his Kingdom was going to grow very large and fill the earth. Number two, that many people who initially get into his Kingdom here on earth will be rejected in the end.
And then the third theme, which basically is the natural conclusion of the second theme, is that during the time before Christ returns, his Kingdom here on the earth is going to have a mixture of both good and bad together. Okay, let's start with the first theme we see in some of Jesus' Kingdom parables, and that is that his Kingdom would grow large and fill the earth. And the two parables that bring this out are the one about the mustard seed and the leaven. They're both in Matthew 13.
Beginning with verse 31, we read, "The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds, but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches." Another parable he spoke to them, "The Kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened." Now, it would seem like the understanding of those two parables would
be rather straightforward.
What would anyone think who was hearing Jesus say them? I mean, when I read them, it's pretty clear his Kingdom was going to grow and become quite big. Both of them say the same thing, one that it would be like a start off tiny, like a mustard seed, and grow big into almost a tree. And the other one, it's like leaven. Again, you put a tiny amount of leaven in a batch of dough, and yet that leaven works, and pretty well the whole batch of dough is fermented.
Likewise, his Kingdom would be small, and yet it would flow throughout the entire earth and would affect all of mankind. Now, as straightforward as those parables are, Jehovah's Witnesses had a real problem with them because it didn't fit their model. See, I mean, they just started in around 1870. So their model was that as soon as the apostles died, Christianity withered and died away, and then it came to life again nearly 1900 years later. So what do you do with these two parables?
Well, they said the mustard seed is talking about the counterfeit Kingdom of God. This is Christendom, the churches like the Roman Catholic, etc. Yes, they got big and filled the earth, and the birds nesting in them, that represents the demons. And what about the leaven? Well, they said, see, he said the Kingdom of heaven would be like a batch of dough that someone put leaven in. Leaven represents sin, and so he was saying his Kingdom would be corrupted by sin and false doctrine.
Well, those explanations really bothered me because they went against common sense number one. Number two, Jesus never said anything about a counterfeit Kingdom of heaven. He only talked about one Kingdom. Number three, in the parable of the leaven, he didn't say the Kingdom was like dough or meal that had become leavened. He said the Kingdom was like the leaven. So they were totally reversing what he said.
So I was not surprised when I read the early Christian writings and found they understood it just as I think anyone would reading it with a blank slate. Clement of Alexandria wrote, "The growth of the word increased to such a great size that the tree which sprang from it filled the world. This is the Church of Christ established over the whole earth. The birds of the air dwelled in the tree's branches.
These birds are the divine angels and lofty souls." So they understood it as a good thing that the Kingdom would grow and spread. And already by Clement's day, and he wrote this about the year 197, that the Kingdom had spread throughout nearly the whole known earth around the Mediterranean world. In fact, in a work written at the same time as Clement's, Tertullian said this to the Romans. He said, "Day after day, indeed, you groan over the increasing number of Christians.
Your constant cry is that the state is beset by us. You groan that Christians are in your fields, your camps, and in your islands. You grieve over it as a calamity that each sex, every age, in short, every rank, is passing over from you to us. I know very well with what answer you usually counter the argument from our rapid increase.
You say that something should not be hastily accounted as a good thing simply because it converts a great number of persons." In another work addressed to the Romans, Tertullian said, "Upon whom else have the universal nations believed but upon the Christ who has already come? For whom have the nations believed? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, those who inhabit Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, and all other nations.
By this date, the name of Christ has reached the manifold confines of the Moors, all the limits of Spain, the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans but subjugated to Christ. Furthermore, there are Germans, Scythians, and persons of many remote nations and provinces and islands, many to us unknown and which we can scarcely enumerate. In all these places, the name of Christ who has already come reigns.
Christ's name is extending everywhere, believed everywhere, worshiped by all the above enumerated nations, and is reigning everywhere." So this prophecy that Jesus made in the parable of the mustard seed and the leaven was already being fulfilled just 100 years after the death of the apostle John, that the Kingdom gospel had already reached all of the nations that the people in the Mediterranean world knew anything about. And these were Kingdom Christians.
This was still a very pure church preaching a Kingdom gospel. And of course, we know that since then his Kingdom message has reached every corner of the globe, nations that people who lived in the Roman Empire didn't know anything about, continents that they didn't even know anything about, that Jesus' prophecy has come true just as he predicted. And he had said, "This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." That's Matthew 24:14.
Now, at first glance, those parables of the mustard seed and leaven might seem to present a problem because they talk about his Kingdom filling the whole earth, and yet Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that the road that leads to eternal life would be a narrow way that few would find. So how do we reconcile those two things? Well, Jesus made it very clear in the majority of his parables dealing with the Kingdom.
In these parables, he shows that many who initially get into the Kingdom here on the earth are going to be rejected in the end. So in the end, it's going to be a narrow way, but before then, it will be much broader. A lot of people will come in only to be rejected. Some of the Kingdom parables that have this theme are the parable of the sower of seeds, the wedding feast, the five foolish and five wise virgins, the parable of the faithful and wise servant, and the parable of the talents.
In each of those, there are people who are in the Kingdom and yet in the end are rejected. Now, the big question that concerns us that affects our lives is why are those people rejected? See, this is where the reformers want to come up with some very fancy interpretations of Jesus' parables that don't follow common sense logic because the natural understanding of his parables directly contradicts the teachings of Martin Luther.
So rather than making their teachings fit Jesus, they try to make his parables fit their doctrines. And yet, for someone who's really seeking the truth, it's not very hard to see past this facade and this dishonesty because Jesus did give us three parables that talk about people being in his Kingdom and being rejected. And in those three parables, he makes it crystal clear why they are being rejected.
You see, reformed theology would want to say, "Well, those people are rejected because they were never truly saved in the first place," or "They're rejected because they were trusting in their own righteousness and not in accepting Jesus' righteousness being imputed to them or something like that," things that Jesus never talked about. But it's a little hard. I mean, you can do it. You can twist any verse to mean anything, but it's a little hard doing it. The twisting, I think, is more obvious.
When we look at the parable of the vine and the vine dresser or husbandman, this is in John 15:1-11. Jesus says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. As the Father loved me, I also have loved you.
Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." Now, in my opinion, next to the Sermon on the Mount, this is probably one of the most important passages of the New Testament because in it, Jesus makes it so plain what Kingdom life is all about and what will affect our ultimate salvation. And he shows in this parable that there are two parts of salvation. The first part is getting on the vine.
Now, he doesn't go into any detail in this passage, but other things that he says show that it's fairly easy to get on the vine. It takes faith, repentance and faith, I should probably say. We don't have to be good enough first. We don't have to earn our right to be on the vine. It's certainly a matter of grace, but it does require repentance and faith on our part. But then the second part of salvation is we must abide in Christ, that is, having a living relationship with him and be bearing Kingdom fruit.
Now, he doesn't go into a lot of detail about fruit, although other parts of the Bible do talk about the fruit of the Spirit and that, but he does say this: in order to abide in Jesus' love, to abide on the vine, we have to keep his commandments. So those who say that obedience to Christ plays no role in salvation are teaching a false gospel. The problem is they think of salvation as a one-time event.
You know, a lot of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox people have the same misunderstanding except from the exact opposite perspective. The evangelicals look only at the part of salvation, the first part of getting on the vine. They recognize that we are saved now, that as Christians, we should be able to say, "Yes, I am saved," meaning we are on the vine. We aren't still out there in the world. We are a citizen of God's Kingdom right now.
Most Catholics, they think of salvation only the future part of, "When I die, will I go to heaven?" So they miss out on this understanding of the first part of salvation. Unfortunately, the evangelicals think that that's all it is. Once you got on the vine, then you're guaranteed heaven. And so both sides are equally wrong. I frankly don't know which one is more dangerous. They both are causing a lot of people to lose their eternal life. Yes, we have been saved.
It was by faith and grace alone, but we must be bearing fruit. We must have a living, obedient, love, faith relationship with Jesus Christ, or we will be cut off of the vine. Now, he gave this very same theme in the Sermon on the Mount where he said the conclusion, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.' Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall." Now, here, once again, we don't have to guess what does it mean building on the rock. He tells us explicitly.
He says, "Everyone who hears the sayings of mine, hears my teaching and does them, will be likened to the man building on the rock." Well, see, that doesn't fit Reformation theology. So what evangelicals have to come up with is saying, "Oh, see, he's talking about people who were never saved," or, "Uh, these people who were saying, 'Lord, Lord.'" See, they were trusting in their own righteousness. They were trusting in their, uh, miraculous gifts rather than trusting in Jesus alone for their salvation.
But see, Jesus doesn't even mention anything in his discussion about theology, about what you believe. He says he will declare to them, "I don't know you. I never knew you." Why? He says, "Because you are those who practice lawlessness." He's talking about how we live, not some theological belief.
He doesn't say, "Because you were never saved to begin with." He says, "Because you practice lawlessness." Now, it's very interesting that he uses that expression because that is precisely what the reformers taught, that as Christians, we are not under any law. And what do you call that? Lawlessness. There is no law. Now, there are plenty of evangelical Christians, plenty of people who hold to Reformation theology who live godly lives. I'm not saying because you hold that theology, that makes you a lawless person.
Again, it's not the theology that's going to be the litmus test, but our theology can throw us a curve. If we imagine that we have heaven all sewn up because we said a prayer and invited Jesus in our heart and then lived no differently than the world, we are going to have a shock on Judgment Day, which is what Jesus indicates.
These people thought they had it all sewn up, and they were shocked to hear Jesus say, "I don't even know you." Now, let's take a third parable of Jesus where again he explicitly tells us what he's talking about so there's no room for fanciful interpretations. And that's in Matthew 25, the parable of separating the sheep and the goats. Now, I'm not going to read the entire passage there.
I would encourage you to do so if you haven't read it recently, but I'll begin with verse 33 where he said, "And he will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right hand, 'Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me.
I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger or take you in or naked and clothe you?
Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?' And the king will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.'" And then, as you know, the goats are rejected because they did not do these things. Theology never even comes up in the discussion. He never brings up, "You never were really saved." He says nothing about that.
He says, "What you did with your life." Now, I'm not saying that we don't need to get on that vine. However, I do think that sometimes people get on the vine through maybe ways that we don't recognize, not through the conventional means. But the important thing is the fruit. Were they producing Kingdom fruit? Did they love their fellow man? Did they care for the poor?
Okay, so in these three parables, the parable of the vine and the vine dresser, the parable of the house built on the rock versus the house built on the sand, and then the parable of the sheep and the goats, in these three, he expressly tells us that it's based on what we do. Are we living by his teachings or are we not? Now, again, I am aware of all kinds of fanciful interpretations people can put on these parables to try to make it fit their theology. And if you want to play those kinds of games, fine.
You can do that with every single verse of the Bible. But if you want the truth, read God's word for how a simple person who lived in the first century, who had no formal schooling, how would he understand these plain parables? And if you have any doubt whether you're understanding them the way any plain person would, look at how the early Christians understood them, the Christians who lived a generation or two right after the apostles.
Okay, now having seen those three parables where Jesus explains explicitly why people will be accepted or rejected, now let's look at some of the other Kingdom parables. The parable of the sower of seed, this is from Matthew 13, verses 18 through 23, where Jesus said, "Therefore, hear the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.
This is he who receives seed by the wayside." I'm here reading the explanation just for the sake of time. I think you've heard the parable portion of it. He continues, "But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.
Now, he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who receives seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." As you can see, the exact same message that's in all of these other parables. Nowhere in there does he say, "Well, some of these people were saved.
Some thought they were saved, but really weren't. Some were trusting in their own righteousness, while others were only trusting in the imputed righteousness of Christ." He says none of those things. He says, "Well, with one of them, they never understood it. It never took root." But the others, he said, they did receive it. But look at the problems. When tribulation or persecution arose, some fell out. Others, materialism, concerns of this world choked out the word.
But then he said, "Others bore fruit." So he goes right back to the parable of the vine and the vine dresser, of bearing fruit. If we get caught up in the concerns of this world, or if we deny Christ during persecution, or we just have a lot of problems in life and we drop out, see, we're the ones who are branches who are cut off of the vine. But he said, "Others bore good fruit. They never lost hold of it. Not only did it take root, but it stayed there. They endured.
But some of them, even though they believed, they didn't have endurance." So it is, just as Jesus said in Matthew 24:13, "He who endures to the end is the one who will be saved." He's using saved in the future sense. Like I say, there's the past phase of our salvation, and there's a future phase of it. Now, let's move on to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. This is from Matthew 25, the same chapter where we read about the parable of the sheep and the goats.
And here Jesus said, "Then the Kingdom of Heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now, five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight, a cry was heard, 'Behold, the bridegroom is coming.
Go out to meet him.' Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise answered, saying, 'No, lest there should not be enough for us and you. But go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves.' And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut.
Afterward, the other virgins came also, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us.' But he answered and said, 'Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.'" Now, in this parable, he gives no clue as to what the oil represents, what did the five wise virgins have that the five foolish did not have, which makes it easy for every church to plug in their own particular teachings into it and say, "Aha, this represents the oil.
It means you spoke in tongues, or it means that you held to a theology of imputed righteousness from Christ, or whatever." The problem is Jesus didn't teach in a vacuum. He already gave us these other parables that are very similar of some who are accepted and some who are rejected. And in all of the ones where he explained, it's always involving how we live. Are we living by his teachings, by his commandments?
So there's no basis for taking the parable of the virgins and sticking something else in there that he's never talked about. And so naturally, the early Christians understood this like they did the others, that he was talking about those who were godly and those who weren't, those who were producing Kingdom fruit and those who weren't. Origen writes, "The simple language of the Holy Scriptures has led the honest readers of them to be filled with the divine Spirit.
And this light is nourished within them by the oil that in a certain parable is said to have preserved the light of the torches of the five wise virgins." So he's saying, "Okay, these are people who are filled with the Holy Spirit, who are abiding in the Spirit." Okay, and we already know from Jesus' parable how we abide in his love.
Methodius wrote, "Now five of them were prudent and wise, but five were foolish and unwise, for they did not have enough foresight to fill their vessels with oil, remaining destitute of righteousness." So he understood it in light of the other parables. Okay, these ones were ungodly. They weren't living by Jesus' teachings. They were not holy.
He writes again, "The virgins standing outside the chamber wail and mournfully lament with bitter tears and deep moans that their lamps have gone out, for they have failed to enter into the chamber of joy in time. Turning from the sacred way of life, these unhappy ones have neglected to prepare enough oil for the path of life. Carrying lamps whose bright light is dead, they groan from the inward recesses of their mind." So you see, they didn't have this abiding relationship with Christ.
And the only way we can have that abiding relationship is if we keep his commandments. Again, we're not talking about people being lone rangers and doing it alone. I'm going to just go out and be a good person. Jesus had said, "Without me, you can do nothing." So we need the Holy Spirit. We need the new birth, and we need this abiding relationship with Christ. But it has to produce fruit. There has to be godly fruit that is obvious to everyone around us. I'll read one more passage from the early Christians.
This is from the Apostolic Constitutions, where we read, "Prepare your works for your exit and provide all things beforehand in the field. Otherwise, some of the things necessary for your journey will be lacking, just as the oil of holiness was deficient in the five foolish virgins mentioned in the gospel. For because of their having extinguished their lamps of divine knowledge, they were shut out of the bridal chamber.
Accordingly, he who values the security of his soul will take care to be out of danger by keeping free from sin. In that manner, he can preserve the advantage to himself of his former good works." So belief isn't a one-time thing. Being godly for one year isn't going to be enough. It has to endure. There has to be enough oil in our lamps. And we're not going to have enough unless we have an abiding relationship so that we're filled with the Holy Spirit.
Now let's look at the parable of the faithful and wise servant. Here Jesus said, "Who then is a faithful and wise servant whom his master made ruler over his household to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods.
But if that evil servant says in his heart, 'My master is delaying his coming,' and begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So again, the same theme that in his kingdom, these are not people outside the kingdom, these are his own stewards, his servants, that some will be found doing the work that Jesus gave them to do, and others will be beating their fellow servants, persecuting them, and also eating and drinking with the drunkards, living a loose life. So one type of servant will be praised when Christ returns. The other is going to find himself in serious trouble.
Now let's move down to the parable of the wedding garment. Now, I think you all know the beginning. The king invited various people, and they refused to come. And then I'll pick up from there. It says, "Then he said to his servants," this is Matthew 22:8, "The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.
Therefore, go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding." So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, "Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?" And he was speechless.
Then the king said to the servants, "Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen." So nobody can say they weren't forewarned. I mean, Jesus has given us parable after parable with the same theme that many who initially come into the kingdom here on the earth are going to be rejected in the end. Now, again, people have all kinds of fun with this wedding garment. What does it represent?
Jesus didn't explain. And so they're able to fit their own peculiar teachings in there. Of course, followers of the Reformer say, "Oh, that wedding garment, that means the imputed righteousness of Christ if you don't have that." Except Jesus never talked about any such thing. I mean, how could it mean something to his listeners when he never talked about such a thing? In fact, he indicated the meaning because he said that the ones filling in the wedding hall, the banquet, would be both good and bad.
So it's very understandable that the early Christians understood the wedding garment to represent godly deeds, holiness. For example, Irenaeus wrote, "He also made it clear that after our calling, we should also be adorned with works of righteousness so that the Spirit of God may rest upon us, for this is the wedding garment." And again, Irenaeus wrote, "If, however, you will not believe in him and you flee from his hands, the cause of imperfection will be in you, for you did not obey.
The cause is not in him who called you, for he commissioned ones to call people to the marriage. However, those who did not obey him deprived themselves of the royal supper." Clement of Alexandria, writing about the year 195, said, "It is here that the preparation for entrance to the marriage to which we are invited must be accomplished.
The person who has been made ready to enter will say, 'My joy is now fulfilled.' However, the unadorned and unsightly person will hear, 'Friend, how did you come in here without having a wedding garment?'" Tertullian, writing about the year 210, said, "Even in the gospel, the wedding garment may be regarded as the sanctity of the flesh." And again, he said, "The person who is not clothed at the marriage feast in the garment of good works will have to be bound hand and foot." Again, two more quotations from
Tertullian.
He said, "Christ saw that most, after attaining unto salvation, would be lost again through soiling the wedding dress. And such a person will recline on that couch from which those who are unworthily clad will be lifted by the jailers and cast out into darkness." I mean, can't you see the parallel between the parable of the wedding garment and the parable of the vine and the vine dresser? The exact same thing. People get on the vine, but if they don't bear fruit, then they are cut off.
And Jesus said, "If you want to abide with me, you must obey my commandments." Finally, Origen wrote, "The soul that is neither holy nor blameless because of wickedness is not part of the church that Christ builds upon the rock. But if anyone wishes to embarrass us in regard to these things because of the great majority of those of the church who are thought to believe, it must be said to him that many are called, but few chosen.
Many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in and will not be able." He's quoting there from Jesus. Origen continues, "You will understand that this refers to those who boast that they are of the church, but who live weakly and contrary to the word." So again, how absurd it is to teach that once you get on the vine, once you get into the wedding feast, then you have everything locked up and you are assured of heaven, when Jesus, in so many parables, tells us it works just the opposite.
That getting in assures you of nothing. It's just the starting point. You have to live in an obedient love-faith relationship with him. Now, if all of this sounds foreign to you, what these early Christians are saying, I'd have to say it's because you've been listening more to the Reformers than to Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus is quite clear. In fact, just to drive the point home, Jesus told us how it's going to work in the resurrection.
He said, "The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation." You see, he doesn't talk anything about those who were saved and weren't saved, or those who accepted my righteousness, or those who trusted in their own works versus those who trusted only in me. No, he says those who did good versus those who have done evil. That's what Jesus preached.
You know, if I dared to preach what Jesus just said in most so-called Bible-believing churches today, I would be called a heretic. People would think that I was ignorant of the most basic doctrines of Scripture. You're going to be resurrected to life because you did good, resurrected to condemnation because you did evil. No, it has nothing to do with that, we've all been told. But the problem isn't that I'm ignorant or that the early Christians were ignorant.
The problem is that our theologians have convinced most of us that we can't believe the plain words of Jesus Christ. But Jesus is contradicting what Paul said in Romans. You might be thinking, "I've addressed that question in detail in a series of messages I gave a few years ago entitled, 'How do we harmonize Paul and James?'" And as that message explains, it's really a matter of harmonizing both Paul and James with Jesus. I encourage you to listen to those messages if this issue is still not clear in your mind.
But in the meantime, let me say, look at the context of Galatians and Romans. Paul there is addressing the issue of whether or not Gentiles had to live by the law of Moses in order to be saved. I mean, that is set out crystal clearly in both of those letters.
And Paul says, "We're not saved by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ." He is not addressing an issue of Christians trying to save themselves by good works and saying, "No, there's nothing you can do to further your salvation, just have faith alone." Never, ever does Paul say that obedience to Christ is not essential to salvation. Now, let's move to the third theme I mentioned at the beginning that many of Jesus's kingdom parables teach us.
And it's actually a corollary of principle number two that we've been talking about, that just because people are in the kingdom now doesn't mean they're going to stay there at the end. So the corollary of that is that during the time that we live in, before Christ's return, his kingdom is going to have a mixture of both good and bad in it. For example, let's look at the parable of the wheat and the weeds. In this parable, Jesus relates how a certain man went out and sowed good seed in a field.
But then when he slept, an enemy came and sowed tares or weed seeds in his field. And as a result, the wheat and the weeds grew up together. Okay, after giving the parable, Jesus then explained to his disciples what the parable meant. And this is what he said, "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil.
The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father.
He who has ears, let him hear." Now, again, I think the explanation of that is quite clear, that anyone reading it without preconceptions would see that in his kingdom, which is expressed largely through the church in our day, there are going to be both wheat and weeds together. And we aren't going to always be able to tell who really is wheat and who are weeds. At the end, when Jesus returns, his angels are going to pull out those who offend. And he says that these are those who practice lawlessness.
Heard that same expression in the Sermon on the Mount. So he doesn't say he's going to pick out those who were really saved versus those who thought they were saved and they weren't. He didn't say anything about that. He says he's going to pull out those who practice lawlessness, those who think that Jesus's commandments are suggestions, are recommendations, rather than laws that we live by if we want to be eternal citizens of his kingdom.
Now, some churches have a problem with this parable of the wheat and weeds, like Jehovah's Witnesses did and many Anabaptists, because it talks about wheat and weeds together. And both Jehovah's Witnesses and Anabaptists practice strict church discipline. So they have trouble believing that in the church there can be good and bad seed, wheat and weeds together. So the Anabaptists say, "Well, he said that the field is the world.
So all he's saying is that Christians and non-Christians live together in this world, that Christians don't go off to an island by themselves or something." And I think Jehovah's Witnesses say, "Oh, see, this shows there's two kingdoms, a counterfeit kingdom full of weeds and a true kingdom full of wheat," which is obviously not what Jesus said.
The problem with the Anabaptist explanation, that on the surface might seem to make sense, that we live together with people in this world, is that in the parable, it was the sons of the kingdom who were sown first. And then it was later that Satan sowed these wicked seeds. But see, that's not how it worked in the world. The world was already here when Jesus came preaching, when he announced the coming of his kingdom. The weeds of this world were already there.
So that doesn't make sense then to say, "Oh, he sowed these seeds and then Satan came along and sowed wicked people in the world." Like for a time there, you had a world of nothing but kingdom Christians. See, that doesn't fit the facts. As we're going to see in a moment, it's not how the early church understood it either. The problem is focusing on that word, world. He said, "The field is the world." Now, of course, Jesus didn't teach in English. His sayings are written down to us in Koine Greek.
And the word there that's translated in our Bible's world is the Greek word, kosmos. Now, as I've mentioned in a book I recently wrote entitled, "Will the Theologians Please Sit Down," the problem with ancient Greek is that virtually every word had multiple meanings. And so this creates a lot of ambiguity. The word, kosmos, would be a perfect example. It can mean the world in the sense of the earth, or it can mean the world of mankind, or it can mean that portion of mankind outside of the kingdom of God.
But there are other meanings. It can mean the order of things. It can mean government. It can mean the totality of things. It can mean world order. It can mean ornament, or it can even mean decoration. In fact, ornament or decoration actually were the original meanings of the word, kosmos. So how did the early Christians understand what Jesus was saying? Well, of course, they were faced with the same problem as we, that kosmos can mean different things.
And not everybody interpreted this parable the same, but I think I could safely say 90% were all on the same page, and they understood kosmos to refer to the church. Here are some examples. Origen wrote, "On the question of what is meant in Scripture by the word, kosmos, I think it's proper to repeat this.
I'm aware that a certain scholar understands by kosmos the church alone, for the church is the adornment of the world and is said to be the light of the world." See, they're viewing kosmos as that basic meaning of adornment. Commodianus, writing in the early 200s, said, "The seed of the tares stand mingled in the church.
The husbandman separates all those collected tares." Cyprian, writing about the year 250, said, "Although there seem to be tares in the church, yet neither our faith nor our love should be hindered. Just because we see that there are tares in the church, we ourselves should not withdraw from the church. Rather, we only should labor that we may be wheat.
In that manner, when the wheat begin to be gathered into the Lord's barns, we may receive fruit for our labor." So yes, it bothered Christians that there were those in the church who obviously didn't have a living relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, the third-century church in general was a church that practiced strict church discipline. I mean, they put out idolaters and adulterers and drunkards and things like that.
But they didn't put out people just because they weren't wholly surrendered to Christ, because they were worldly in their thinking and perhaps their dress or something like that. Now, I think the time came when it was time for Christians to leave the institutional church once it became joined with the state and therefore thoroughly corrupted. But in Cyprian's day, I think his advice was good. It's not time to leave. We aren't going to ever have a perfect church. Focus on your being wheat.
Don't worry so much about the weeds. Worry about your being found to be wheat when Christ returns. Now, why the Anabaptists came up with this explanation of, "Well, this is talking about Christians and people of the world living together here on the earth," is because the Roman Catholic Church had taken this parable to an extreme to ignore the fact that there were gross sinners in the church, wicked people, people who had blood on their hands, kings and queens who were open adulterers and adulteresses.
They needed to be put out of the church, and the church would use the argument, "Well, see, it says the wheat and the tares grow up together." Well, that doesn't contradict what Jesus said in Matthew 18 about if your brother sins, you go and talk to him about it. And in the end, if he doesn't listen to the church, then he's to be put out. So the Anabaptists were right in objecting to that misuse of this parable, but we shouldn't change what Jesus said because somebody has misused it.
The point still remains, no matter what we do, in the end, we still have a church, and I'm talking about the entire body of Christians throughout the earth. It's a mixture of wheat and weeds. It's a banquet feast that, as Jesus said, "Many are called, but few are chosen." In our congregations, we need to exercise the biblical discipline set forth in the New Testament, but it doesn't change the fact that we cannot create a church worldwide that's going to be only wheat.
And we shouldn't imagine that only our church or our kind of Christian are the only Christians on earth because everybody else are weeds. The two are mixed together, and at this stage, as Jesus said, we can't accurately judge who is wheat and who are weeds. We can in certain situations, but not as a general thing. The final kingdom parable I want to talk about is the parable of the dragnet found in Matthew 13, verses 47 through 50.
Here Jesus said, "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which when it was full, they drew to shore, and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire.
There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth." So again, the exact same message that his kingdom here on earth, before he returns, is going to have good and wicked mixed in together. And in this parable, we can't get around it by saying, "Well, he said the field is the world." Here he said the dragnet is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is like a dragnet that's pulling in good and bad together.
Origen wrote about this parable, "Some persons desire that before the end of the age and before the angels come to remove the wicked from among the righteous, there should not be evil persons of every kind in the dragnet. However, such a person seems not to have understood the scripture, for he desires the impossible. Therefore, let us not be surprised if before the removing of the wicked from among the righteous by the angels, we see our gatherings filled with wicked people.
Let us hope that the number of those who will be cast into the furnace of fire will not be greater than the righteous." Now, he wasn't saying that was the situation in his day, which was around the year 250. He's saying this might be the case before it's all over. And I would say today that probably is the case, that the greater number of people who claim to be Christians are going to be classified with the wicked who will be cast out.
Now, the point of these two parables, the wheat and the weeds and the clean and bad fish, good and bad fish, is not that we should be lax in church discipline. I mean, that's the position the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox, and nearly all conventional churches today take, and they're dead wrong. Rather, the point is that we shouldn't be discouraged when we look at the state of things and see so many bad fish, so to speak, in the churches.
Jesus said it would be this way, so we can rejoice in the fulfillment of his prophecy. It has all come about just like he said it would 2000 years ago. Another lesson we should learn is that we need to be cautious in trying to create perfectionist churches where we do our utmost to keep out any weeds, any bad fish. Now, indeed, we should put people out of the church who are guilty of the sins that Paul enumerates in 1 Corinthians 5, 11, and 12.
He says, "I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person." So we are supposed to have discipline in our churches and put people out who fit those descriptions. However, nowhere did Jesus give us authority to create a "perfect church" by excluding wheat along with the weeds, excluding good fish along with the bad.
Jesus told us that he's going to take care of the weeds. He's going to take care of the bad fish when he returns. Again, there is a difference between legitimate church discipline and being perfectionists going beyond what the scriptures say. In conclusion, let's talk for just a minute about what the kingdom parables of Jesus mean for us. I mean, I'm not giving this message as a history lesson about what the early Christians believed. No, the kingdom parables of Jesus are a wake-up call to today's church.
Evangelical Christians imagine that because they invited Jesus into their heart, because they said a sinner's prayer years and years ago, that they've got a sure ticket to heaven that can't be canceled. So many of them think they can just ignore Jesus's commandments. They can treat them like they were suggestions, and they're putting their eternal life in jeopardy. Liberal Christians think that Jesus is going to accept just about everyone into heaven when he expressly tells us he's not.
In Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox churches, the people there imagine that if they go to church regularly, they partake of the sacraments, and they pray to Mary and the saints and live a relatively "good life" that heaven awaits them. All of these people imagine that they can inherit the kingdom of God and receive eternal life without an obedient love-faith relationship with Jesus Christ. And it is going to be just as Jesus said on Judgment Day.
There's going to be all of these people who will be weeping and gnashing their teeth because they were so certain that they had heaven locked up. They're not going to believe their ears when they find out they've been rejected. And yet, they have no excuse. They've ignored the very words of Jesus Christ all of these years. I want to close with the counsel that the Apostle John gave to Christians shortly before he died. His words are just as relevant today as they were 1900 years ago.
He said, this is 1 John 2, verses 3 through 6. "Now by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He who says, 'I know him,' and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked."