Matthew 13:47

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was filled, they drew up on the beach; and they sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but the bad they cast away. So shall it be in the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the righteous, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

VII. The Parable of the Net That Was Cast into the Sea:

This is another of the parables Jesus explained, and again, not one analogy but many are noted:

The sea is the world.

The net is the church.

The enclosed fish of "every kind" are members of the church.

The good fish are the truly spiritual children of their Father.

The bad fish are like the tares, sons of the evil one.

The fact that both kinds are in the net shows the proximity of the good and bad in the kingdom, who are all accounted by men to be "in" it, but some of whom are wicked.

The beach represents the end of time.

The net's being "filled" shows that God will attain his full purpose in the redemption of men.

The sorting of the fish represents the judgment of the last day. The sorters are the angels.

The casting away of the bad is the casting of the wicked into hell.

The gathering into vessels represents the salvation of the godly.

The vessels represent heaven.

There is a subtle change of emphasis in the parable in which the fishermen, who may be understood to be the Lord's disciples of all ages, draw the net upon the beach; and yet, it is not THEY but the angels who are said to sever the wicked from the just. That is why no definite mention of the fishermen is made in the parable, indicating that those elements of a narrative which are not stressed by Christ are to be construed as serving no analogy.

One overwhelmingly important deduction to be obtained from this remarkable parable is seen in the fact that no fishes were taken into the vessels that had not first been captured in the net. In the large analogy of the sea as the world, the net as the church, and the vessels as heaven, it is thus quite plain that Christ intended to teach that membership in the church is prerequisite to entry into the eternal kingdom in heaven. God's church, or kingdom, is the appointed way of gathering from the great seas of human population the number of the redeemed. Furthermore, not all so-called Christians will be saved. A great many are in the net, "the church," who must be accounted as "bad," and who shall suffer eternal banishment from the face of the Father.

First glance may leave the impression that this parable covers the same ground as that of the tares, but there are marked differences. The emphasis on that one is upon the present intermixture in the church, and in this one upon the certainty of the final separation of the righteous and the wicked. The emphasis in the former is upon "who" will make the separation, and in this one upon the "certainty" of that separation. In both cases, it is clear that angels, not men, shall effect the separation.

Both in this and in that of the tares is stressed the puzzling containment within the church herself of both good and bad elements. This ought not, however, to appear overly strange to students of the word of God, because: (1) there was a Ham in the ark; (2) a Judas among the Twelve; (3) a man of sin in the temple of God; (4) a mystery Babylon within the historical perimeter of the church; (5) Esau contended with Jacob in the very womb of Rebekah; and, as in her case, the church may often cry, "Why am I thus?" (Genesis 25:22). The parable of the drag net is Christ's pledge that, whatever doubts and perplexities may arise from this mixture of good and bad in the church, there will at last occur the thorough and dramatic separation of the one from the other, and that it will be accomplished by beings most eminently qualified to do it, namely, by the angels of God.