Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
Let both grow together (that is, in the visible Church) until the harvest - until the one have ripened for full salvation, the other for destruction.
[The harvest is the end of the world (verse 39), х sunteleia (G4930) tou (G3588) aioonos (G165)] - the period of Christ's second coming, and of the judicial separation of the righteous and the wicked. Until then, no attempt is to be made to effect such separation. But to stretch this so far as to justify allowing openly scandalous persons to remain in the communion of the Church, is to wrest the teaching of this parable to other than its proper design, and go in the teeth of apostolic injunctions (1 Corinthians 5:1-13).
And in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers. And the reapers are the angels. But whose angels are they? "The Son of man shall send forth HIS angels" (Matthew 13:41). Compare 1 Peter 3:22 - "Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him."
Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them ("in the fire", Matthew 13:40 ) but gather the wheat into my barn. Christ, as the Judge, will separate the two classes (as in Matthew 25:32). It will be observed that the tares are burned before the wheat is housed; in the exposition of the parable (Matthew 13:41; Matthew 13:43) the same order is observed; and the same in Matthew 25:46 - as if, in some literal sense, "with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked" (Psalms 91:8).
Third and Fourth Parables, or Second Pair: THE MUSTARD SEED and THE LEAVEN (Matthew 13:31-33). The subject of both these parables as of the first pair, is the same, but under a slight diversity of aspect: namely,
THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM, FROM THE SMALLEST BEGINNINGS TO ULTIMATE UNIVERSALITY