A kingdom in a man

The parable of the tares shows a use of language that does not fit our understanding of meanings. The sons of the kingdom should be persons, flesh and blood sons. The sons of the evil one should also be persons, flesh and blood sons. Yet our normal use of the language does not fit how Scripture sometimes uses this term.

"Now there came a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came in among them." Job 1:6

The sons of God did not have flesh and blood; they were spirits, for God is a spirit. What is born of a spirit is spirit. The sons of a spiritual kingdom are spiritual sons; the sons of a evil spirit are also spiritual sons.

The wheat comes from the word of the kingdom of God; it is growth of something spiritual in a human. In the same way, the tares come from the lies of the evil one; it is the growth of something evil spiritually in a human.

The story of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4 illustrates this understanding of something growing in a human. The king of the New Babylonian Empire had a dream that terrified him; he sought an interpretation from his counselors, but no meaning was offered. He called for Daniel, who he knew understood dreams and mysteries. When Daniel heard the dream, he told him the meaning. In a year, the dream was fulfilled.

The dream and its fulfillment give an example of how God views a man.

The dream was of a great tree, visible throughout the earth. All of the animals of the earth gathered to it, and found food and shelter in it. But in the dream, an angel called out from heaven to chop down the tree, cut off its branches, scatter them. Yet the angel said to leave the stump in the ground. The angel said that his heart should be changed to the heart of a beast.

Daniel explained that the tree that he saw in the dream was him.

"...it is you, O king; for you have become great and grown strong, and your greatness has become great and reached to the sky and your dominion to the end of the earth." Daniel 4:22

The tree was Nebuchadnezzar, but in the account that follows, when he spoke to exalt himself a year later, the man Nebuchadnezzar lost his mind. He became like a beast, eating grass, living away from man. The man Nebuchadnezzar in our use of the word was still there; his body was alive. All that we physically recognize as human was there, except the mind.

Daniel heard the dream, and concluded that since the stump was left in the ground, his kingdom was assured to Nebuchadnezzar after the seven years. The stump of the great tree was part of his kingdom; most was cut down, but the stump and roots remained.

In this dream, the part that we would call "human" would be the dirt, and only the dirt. The great tree was a kingdom that had grown great.

In the same way, the parable of the tares is using this view of a man; it is using the same view as the parable of the sower. Men are the dirt of the field. The sons of the kingdom are spiritual sons that grow in the dirt; the sons of the evil one are spiritual sons that also grow in the same dirt.

Kingdoms can take root in a man and grow.