“Wheat” and “Weeds”

To find the answers, let us carefully consider what Jesus Christ himself said would happen. You may be surprised to learn that Jesus expected his congregation to disappear from view and that he would allow such a sad situation to continue for centuries.

Identifying his congregation with “the kingdom of the heavens,” he said: “The kingdom of the heavens has become like a man that sowed fine seed in his field. While men were sleeping, his enemy came and oversowed weeds in among the wheat, and left. When the blade sprouted and produced fruit, then the weeds appeared also. So the slaves of the householder came up and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow fine seed in your field? How, then, does it come to have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy, a man, did this.’ They said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go out and collect them?’ He said, ‘No; that by no chance, while collecting the weeds, you uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the harvest season I will tell the reapers, First collect the weeds and bind them in bundles to burn them up, then go to gathering the wheat into my storehouse.’”—Matthew 13:24-30.

Jesus explained that he was “the sower.” “The fine seed” pictured his genuine disciples. His “enemy” was Satan the Devil. “The weeds” were counterfeit Christians who infiltrated the early Christian congregation. He said that he would let “the wheat” and “the weeds” grow together until “the harvest,” which would come at “a conclusion of a system of things.” (Matthew 13:37-43) What did all of this mean?

The Christian Congregation Corrupted

Soon after the death of the apostles, apostate teachers from within the congregation began to take control of it. They spoke “twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves.” (Acts 20:29, 30) As a result, many Christians ‘fell away from the faith.’ They were “turned aside to false stories.”—1 Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Timothy 4:3, 4.

By the fourth century C.E., says The New Dictionary of Theology, “Catholic Christianity had become the official . . . religion of the Roman Empire.” There was a “coalescence of ecclesial and civil society”—a merging of Church and State that was diametrically opposed to the beliefs of the early Christians. (John 17:16; James 4:4) The same source states that in time, the whole structure and nature of the church, as well as many of its fundamental beliefs, was changed radically “under the influence of a curious and thoroughly unhealthy combination of O[ld] T[estament] and neoplatonic models.” As predicted by Jesus Christ, his genuine disciples were hidden from sight as counterfeit Christians flourished.

Jesus’ listeners knew how difficult it was to tell genuine wheat from weeds, such as poisonous bearded darnel, which during the growing season has an appearance much like that of wheat. So Jesus was illustrating that for a while, it would be difficult to distinguish true Christians from the counterfeit variety. This does not mean that the Christian congregation ceased to exist, for Jesus promised to continue to guide his spiritual brothers “all the days until the conclusion of the system of things.” (Matthew 28:20) Jesus said that the wheat would continue to grow. Even so, through the ages, genuine Christians—individually or in groups—no doubt did their best to adhere to Christ’s teachings. But they no longer made up a clearly identifiable, visible body, or organization. They were certainly not identical with the visible apostate religious system that throughout history brought nothing but disgrace and dishonor to the name of Jesus Christ.—2 Peter 2:1, 2.