Jesus sent the crowds away and went into the house. And his disciples came to him saying, «Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field». He answered them, «The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world; the good seed are the people of the Kingdom; the weeds are those who follow the evil one. The enemy who sows them is the devil; the harvest is the end of time and the workers are the angels.
»Just as the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so will it be at the end of time. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom all that is scandalous and all who do evil. And these will be thrown in the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. If you have ears, then hear».
Source: http://evangeli.net/gospel/
Analysis
Today's passage seems to be Jesus' personal explanation on the parable of the weeds and the wheat, yet of course, even Jesus' interpretations can still be interpreted. As such, since I have talked about the parable itself before, we will only talk about the meaning of the interpretation and whether it lines up with our interpretation and understanding. Now most of what Jesus said does line up with our past interpretation. And while we did say that the field represents humanity, technically humanity can be equated with the world. However this is not the actual problem with Jesus' interpretation.
It is true that the harvest is a metaphor for judgement day, however, what are angels? And what is it between Jesus and constantly condemning the sinful to their deaths? Did He not die for them especially? And Jesus was explicit in this passage, saying that He will be the judge and He will decide who gets to live and who gets to die. Well then, perhaps we can try to unravel this mess, one by one.
Demons are spirits that are incredibly depraved or very deep in the sinful condition, however are angels spirits that are incredibly enlightened? Regardless of the angels, what of the judgement day? Let us review the truth and the possible alternatives here. We know that God is the whole of existence and thus it would be illogical that God would discard part of Themselves to oblivion. While Jesus' words implies that sinful people will die, we too know that death is the logical consequence of sin, attachment leads to further attachment until a state of complete depravity. As such, I have another explanation.
Jesus in the judgement day may only be acting as someone who will show the path and thus automatically declare who is sinful because it shows what kind of acts are sinful and what acts are neutral or perhaps virtuous. This is equivalent to Jesus condemning them to death, though Jesus did not require to condemn or curse sinful people, as they are already on their death sentence since they sinned. As such, Jesus may simply be saying it weirdly, however this does not solve the problem, and it again boils down to angels.
The passage clearly states that the angels will weed out the evil ones and be the condemners to death, yet this again makes no sense at all. Even if we assume angels here to refer to incredibly virtuous and free spirits, and perhaps they are Jesus' agents, it still makes no sense. As it would seem to mean that these spirits would literally take evil humans and throw them to hell. All of this seems very mythological and weird, and it really is out of character for Jesus to say this, so is this really it? Perhaps it is, unless we try to compare this with the entire world.
Who in this entire earth is genuinely sinless? Or perhaps, who in this world even cares about the truth? Most who claim to are usually just masking their own desires in the name of the truth, what about people who genuinely look for the truth? I believe there are very few of them. As such, are we to believe that Jesus would condemn most of existence to hell? Does that not make sense? Certainly it does not. However, we must understand that Jesus only spoke of what will happen, but He never confirmed that it will happen exactly as He said. Not only that, the concept of judgement day directly contradicts His role in the world.
Why did Jesus came for the first time? Was it to spread the seeds of the Gospel? That was part of His task, but not the primary task in actuality. As such, what is His true goal on earth? Why did He came in flesh and blood as a servant? The answer is simple, it is to die, to die and thus save every human being from death. Instead of us going to the furnace, it is Jesus who opted to take our place and thus He is the one who burns, He is the who weeps, and He is the one who gnashes their teeth. As such, we know that the judgement day will happen, where the kingdom will be brought forth and realized, but instead of the weeds being thrown out, it is the sower Himself who sacrificed Himself, to save us, the weeds. So, why does Jesus kept saying about Him being a judge?
We know very well that no one will be sent to hell in judgement day, because Jesus paid the bail for us, and He's the one going to hell so we don't, but why does He like to say the opposite? The answer may be found in the context of His situation. First, He is human, and thus may be limited in some aspects and thus say nonsensical things. Or more sensible view is that since Jesus have not died in the context of this passage, He would be much more doubtful and fearful of death itself. As such, it may be possible that Jesus wishes to die first, but later on cut off the broken parts of God, and then reattach Himself to God, thus creating another scapegoat. However, we all know that Jesus eventually scrapped this idea, and decided to take on the full weight Himself. As such, that is all I have to say for now, have a nice day and see you tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment