Angels Will Eliminate All Hypocrites

This judgement upon the hypocritical servant leads us to one further important conclusion in connection with the events that will lead up to the judgement seat of Christ.

Before the true Christians are admitted to the place of Christ’s judgement seat, all hypocrites and false Christians will first be separated out from among God’s believing people and will receive the judgement due to them for their hypocrisy and falsehood.

This judgement of hypocrites is described in two parables concerning the kingdom of heaven (see Matt. 13). These two parables are the parable of the wheat and the tares and the parable of the dragnet cast into the sea.

In the first of the two parables the servants ask the owner of the field if they should attempt to pull up the tares.

“But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.’” (Matt. 13:29)

This indicates that it would have been very hard for the servants to distinguish the tares from the wheat. Obviously this would not be true if the tares represented people who had not made any profession of faith in Christ. Jesus goes on to give a full interpretation of the whole parable.

“He answered and said to them: ‘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 to hear, let him hear!’” (Matt. 13:37-43)

Jesus identifies the tares as “the sons of the wicked one.” Their presence in the field is no accident. They have been deliberately sown among the wheat by the devil. In other words, it is part of Satan’s strategy to plant hypocrites among the true Christians. It is one way in which he seeks to discredit the testimony of the Church.

Jesus goes on to say that, in the judgement at the end of this age, the angels will first gather out all false Christians from among the true and cast them into a place of fire, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. After this has been done, “then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” In other words, the false Christians will first be separated out and cast into a place of fiery judgement. After that, the true Christians will be manifested in their resurrection glory.