In the parable of the field recorded in Matthew chapter 13, Jesus describes how, after sowing good seed, the owner’s servants found his field infested with weeds. When asked how this could happen, the owner replied that an enemy had done it. When asked if the workers should pull up the weeds, the owner answered,

“No, … because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn” (vv. 29, 30 NIV84).

The field represents the church. The good seed producing fruitful plants represents those converted to Christ—members of the church who produce fruits of righteousness because they have been reborn in heart by the Holy Spirit to have the selfless life of Christ in them.

The weeds represent the agents of Satan who are also members of the church, but these members have not been reborn in heart. These are members who attest to the doctrines, the fundamental beliefs, but do so motivated by their old, fallen, corrupt, selfish, fear-based heart. In other words, they still live and operate from the spirit of fear inherited from Adam.

These church members who are unconverted in heart are also represented by the five foolish virgins in the parable of Matthew 25. Like the wise virgins, the foolish virgins also had lamps, representing the Bible, but they did not have any oil in them. The foolish virgins, church members, don’t have the indwelling Holy Spirit animating them with the life of Jesus; they do not have the motivating spirit of love and trust built upon truth. While they attest to the right doctrines, just like the Pharisees who crucified Christ did, they do so from the motivation of fear, which leads to a legal religious theology, one of laws and law enforcement, when the reality is that salvation is about actual recreation, regeneration, and renewal of heart and mind by receiving a new life—the life of Christ.

Thus, the difference between the two groups is not how they appear on the outside, but what motivates them on the inside. This is why Jesus said to the religious leaders in His day,

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness (Matthew 23:27, 28 NIV84).

These religious leaders, members of God’s authorized church, had the right doctrines, rituals, ceremonies, and Bible, but they had the wrong spirit.

The saved are those who have been reborn with a new spirit to love God and others more than self. They have the Holy Spirit living within them, empowering them with the Spirit of Christ. They no longer live controlled by the spirit of fear but of power and love and sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). But the agents of Satan are motivated by and act upon the spirit of fear; therefore, they interfere with the work of Christ but thinking they are following Him.

Unconverted Disciples

Jesus’ own disciples, before they were converted in spirit, before they were reborn, before they died to their old life of fear, sought to do what they thought would help Jesus—but, instead, they worked against Him. For example, when a Samaritan village rejected Jesus, the disciples asked if they should call fire down on the people. But Jesus said,

You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them (Luke 9:55, 56 NKJV, emphasis mine).

They were following Jesus, yes, but with an unrenewed spirit. They were still seeking to do right from the empowerment of the spirit of fear and selfishness. This is the human struggle—conflict between the old spirit of fear and selfishness that interferes with the work of Jesus, even in those who claim to be working for Jesus. This is most clearly seen in the encounter between Jesus and Peter when Jesus explains His mission and plan to the disciples:

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:21–25 NIV84, emphasis mine).

The disciples were following Jesus, but they were still doing so with their inherent spirit of fear and selfishness. They had not yet fully surrendered their natural fear-driven life inherited from Adam. They had not yet been reborn. And until they were, their actions, despite being done with a desire to help Jesus, actually undermined His kingdom, interfered with His work, and obstructed their own salvation.

In fact, their actions advanced Satan’s agenda so significantly that Jesus explicitly attributed Peter’s words to Satan. It was only when they died to self, surrendered their lives of fear and selfishness, and were reborn by the Spirit of love and trust that they became empowered to do the work of God and advance God’s kingdom.

Two Congregations, One Church

Within the church, the wheat and the weeds grow together, representing the truly converted and the unconverted. Superficially, these two groups appear identical:

• Both groups have publicly professed their faith in Jesus, declaring their acceptance of Him as their Savior.
• Both groups have undergone water baptism (or whatever other ceremony their organization requires).
• Both groups claim to believe the same doctrines, pay tithe, give offerings, attend church, dress appropriately, care for their bodies (spirit temple), and work to share the gospel—some as laymen, others as church employees, pastors, conference leaders, etc.
• Both groups participate in communion.
• Both groups study the Bible and claim it as their basis of faith.
• And both long for Jesus’ soon return.

But they are not the same. Only the wise, only the wheat, only those who have been born again and are animated by the Spirit of Christ are saved, are on God’s team, are able to advance the gospel.

The foolish, those with the Bible (lamp) but without the Spirit of Jesus (oil), work against Christ, interfere with the plan of salvation, and take a false gospel to the world—not necessarily false doctrines but a false gospel, because they set the doctrines in the false setting of a spirit of fear and selfishness, which always uses imposed law and some form of legal salvation.

The false gospel focuses on behavior, law-breaking, and law-enforcement. It seeks to get rewards for oneself and punishment for one’s enemies. It would call fire down on people who don’t accept its “truth.” This dark gospel would use the power of the state to enforce religious laws (Saul of Tarsus, Dark Ages church). It is the dark gospel of the god of darkness, who is the source of inflicted punishment and pain—the one who holds the power of death that Jesus came to destroy (Hebrews 2:14).

The church on Earth at the time of Jesus’ second coming will be filled with both wheat and tares. Externally, they look the same; internally, they are not. The wise are animated and motivated by the Spirit of love and trust, having been reborn with Spirit of Christ, while the foolish practice the same religion, use the same Bible, teach the same doctrines, but they have no oil; they are devoid of the Holy Spirit, they have not been reborn; therefore, all they are doing they do from their natural spirit of fear and selfishness, which results in a legal religion that operates upon the systems of this world, and they teach a god who functions like they do, a god who operates with imposed rules and external enforcement to punish sin-crimes.

The apostle Paul describes this difference with the metaphor of circumcision. The unconverted, those driven by fear and the need to protect self, focus upon external rules, laws, behaviors, while the righteous, the saved, experience the reality—a change of heart—that the behavior was merely pointing toward. As Paul describes,

The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker. A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code (Romans 2:27–29 NIV84).

What makes the false gospel and the agents of Satan so hard to identify is that the false gospel uses the same words as the true gospel, and it is often promoted with the exact same doctrines, the same fundamental beliefs, as the true gospel.

The key to identifying the false gospel is the false imposed law under which it attempts to advance, which is motivated by the spirit of fear with which we have all been born.

Born Unconverted

The Bible teaches that when Adam sinned, he corrupted his own nature and infected himself with a spirit of fear and selfishness; ever since, every person is born infected with that same corrupted spirit of fear and selfishness (Psalm 51:5; 2 Timothy 1:7).

We all come into the world animated by the spirit, the life, that Adam corrupted, a spirit of fear. Our natural, carnal self is fearful, insecure, needy, and distrusting, and we immediately begin searching for and forming attachments to whatever we can find that will make us feel safe, that will take away our fear.

All children, therefore, naturally seek to connect and form secure attachments with their parents. If the parents are godly, then the parents will be altruistic, reliable, consistent, and trustworthy; such loving and reliable actions mitigate and reduce, but do not cure or remove, the spirit of fear with which we are born.

We see this at work in the small child playing peacefully on the beach near their parents. But if the child loses sight of the parent, they are immediately overcome by fear. Where did that fear come from? It was always there; they were born with it, but the loving attachment to trustworthy parents mitigates it, allowing for healthy development.

As the child grows, the godly parents will seek to lead them to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, in which the child surrenders their life, their spirit of fear and selfishness, and are reborn to receive a new life, the life of Christ, via the indwelling Holy Spirit, which animates, motivates, the child with a new life, energy, spirit of love and trust.

From that moment, the new life of love and trust, represented by the seed in Jesus’ parable (Luke 8:4–15), either grows to bring forth a bountiful harvest of fruits of the Spirit, or it withers and dies, depending on the choices of the child—to actively stay connected with Jesus and live a life animated by love and trust (branch connected to the Vine; John 15:4–6), or to choose, instead, to live animated by fear and selfishness despite outward claims of belief in Jesus.

Fear Seeks Comfort by Any Means

If the growing individual does not surrender their life of fear and selfishness to Jesus and receive, via the Holy Spirit, the new life of love and trust, then the spirit of fear will cause them to choose all kinds of self-soothing, comfort, security-seeking actions to mitigate the constant fear, insecurity, guilt, and shame that their spirit of fear causes.

Some will leave Christianity and go into worldliness, seeking to comfort themselves through material gain, fame, power, thrills, relationships, social media “likes,” substances, and many other objectively harmful, yet momentarily pleasurable, experiences.

Others will seek to comfort their souls through various religions, mysticism, Eastern meditation, cults, or other organizations, longing for peace, identity, purpose, and validation to offset their inherent fear, doubt, and insecurity.

Still others, who do not surrender their fear-driven spirit to Christ and experience a genuine rebirth with a new spirit of love and trust, become church members and seek to resolve their inherent fear and selfishness through legalized religion, religious behavior, organizational affiliation, adherence to rituals, or belief in specific doctrines. In Matthew 7:21, Jesus describes these “Christian weeds” as workers of iniquity.

The spirit of fear inherited from Adam causes the mind to turn toward self, toward survival, toward doing what is necessary to protect and save self. Adam and Eve ran and hid from God, sewed fig-leafed garments, and cast blame away from self onto others.

The spirit of fear and selfishness leads not to self-sacrifice to bless others, but toward any means of making oneself feel safe. Inevitably, the fear-based systems of this world always end up using external power to dominate and control others, and it is always done through made-up laws and law-enforcement. These made-up laws may not be through a formal government, or written code; they may be gang rules, cult leader edicts, cultural taboos, or religious regulations—but they are all made-up rules that require external enforcement. Their intention is to force conformity so that those in charge can feel good about themselves, so that the unrighteous can hide from their own conscience, their own fear, insecurity, guilt, and shame.

Imposed-Law Systems

While God is the Creator and His laws are the design protocols He built reality and life to function upon, Lucifer, as a creature, is the originator of imposed law, of made-up rules. At the beginning of his rebellion in heaven, the evil one sought to advance his kingdom through artificial rules asserted through mere claim:

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit (Isaiah 14:12–15 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Lucifer, a created being, denied reality, rejected his own nature, and attempted to use the method of claims, declarations, assertions, to exalt himself by artificial, made-up status into authority over others, not because he inherently had a superior position, but by fiat, by rule, by imposition—in other words, by imposed law.

This is how all the kingdoms of this sinful world operate! Rulers use imposed law to assert their dominance to rule over the masses and exploit them for their own power and benefit—especially through the infliction of punishments on those who don’t comply. Power in Satan’s kingdom is used to punish those who don’t conform.

Contrast this with God:

Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death (Philippians 2:5–8 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Jesus naturally, by nature, by the reality that He is God, a divine being—not a created being, not a creature—has supremacy. This is reality, not mere assertion or claim, not made-up rules. He is the Creator, the builder of reality, but how does He govern? Not by imposition of made-up laws that require enforcement through punishment. His laws are the laws of reality, design laws built into the fabric of everything. These are the laws of love, truth, freedom, mathematics, physics, the laws of health, and the moral laws. He made all things and sustains all things (John 1:2; Hebrews 1:3).

And how does Jesus use His power? He serves others!

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him (John 13:3–5 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Does Jesus use His authority over all things and external power to impose laws and inflict punishments? No! He lives in harmony with love, truth, and freedom, sacrificing Himself in love to reveal truth and destroy the infection of fear and selfishness that brings death, so that we may be won back to love and trust.

Imposed-Law Religion: Feels Safe But Inflames Fear

But Satan deceives. He inflames the spirit of fear and selfishness and leads people to seek to find security, safety, validation, not in being reborn with a new life, the life of Christ, but in law, which actually prevents salvation.

The false legal theologies replace trust in Jesus, a trust that results in surrender of one’s life to be reborn, with trust in legal payments, appeasements, and various legal mechanisms to protect them from legal punishment. Thus, they feel secure in claiming Jesus as their legal substitute but remain unconverted, fearful, trapped in this legal system with a god who is the source of inflicted death.

This false legal theology is such a diabolical twist, because these fear-based individuals long to be free from fear while the very doctrine they cling to in order to make themselves feel safe, and which they claim saves them, in reality perpetuates their fear (fear of punishment, fear of sins not being erased from the books, fear of standing before God without an intercessor, fear of forgetting to confess a sin, etc.) and undermines trust in God, teaching others He is the source of pain, suffering, and death that He inflicts for so-called justice. Thus, they cling to their spirit of fear, hiding behind the legal mechanisms of their false legal religion. They are not reborn, renewed, and they don’t actually know Jesus.

Such individuals will find security, a sense of safety, in being members of the “right” church, participating in the “right” ceremonies, believing the “right” doctrines, and practicing the “right” religious activities (Sabbath, tithing, etc.).

The Weeds Resist the Light

Anything that threatens their legal understanding inflames fear, anxiety, and distress, which typically results in a hostile response to defend their belief—to eliminate the threat to their security. As Jesus said,

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed (John 3:19, 20 NIV84).

The weeds in the church actively work to shut out the advancing light. The religious leaders in Christ’s day opposed the Savior and the apostles; the church leaders in the Dark Ages opposed the Reformers; likewise, the church leaders today who cling to the lie that God’s law functions like human law and insist on a legal religion with a god who is the source of death also oppose the advancing light.

In the Seventh-day Adventist Church, it was her very leaders who, at the 1888 General Conference, rejected the advancing light that God’s law is design law. And it is those who cling to this same lie today who continue to obstruct the final message of mercy that is to go to the world. (For a deeper dive into this see our magazine The Lie that Deceived Angels, Infects Christianity, and Delays the Second Coming of Christ).

The message for this time in history is the truth about God, which requires us to return to worshiping Him as Creator, which requires us to reject the imposed-law lie and realize that all of God’s laws are design laws. We must realize that when Adam and Eve sinned, they did not cause a legal problem, but a lethal problem. They broke trust with God and corrupted themselves with fear and selfishness, and ever since, we are all born with a spirit of fear, which is a terminal sin condition that is out of harmony with God and will result in death unless replaced with the Spirit of life. (For a deeper dive into the special message for this time see our magazine The Final Message of Mercy to the World: The Three Angels).

But God loved us too much to let us die, so He sent His Son to “take away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Jesus did not come to take the punishment of God for sin, but to remove the sin itself, the spirit of fear and selfishness that animates humans and corrupts all we do, and replace it with His sinless spirit of love and trust. And He did this! If we want to have life, to be saved, we must be reborn with His Spirit of love and trust. And this occurs through the truth, which destroys lies and wins us to trust (faith). This is reality—we are actually reborn with a new life energy, the life of Christ (Galatians 2:20). (For a deeper dive into why Jesus had to die for our salvation and imputed and imparted righteousness see our magazine Salvation and You: What It Really Means to Be Saved).

Being reborn with the Spirit of Christ, and placing God supreme in our hearts, does not free us from our duties in life, but rather, it is the only means whereby we are enabled and strengthened to fulfill those duties in truth. Parents who are reborn with the Spirit of Christ will be ever more capable, focused, energized, motivated, and enabled to fulfill their godly calling to parent their children. People who are reborn with the Spirit of Christ are enabled to be the most loving, loyal, attentive, nurturing, and healthy spouses, neighbors, and friends; and they will thrive, mature, grow, and experience the deepest love and peace possible on Earth.

So I challenge you, if you haven’t already done so, to surrender yourself to Jesus, be reborn by His Spirit of love and trust, and become one of His faithful friends, wheat bringing forth fruit for His kingdom, a wise virgin with His Spirit enlightening and empowering your lamp to shine the light of truth to others. Reject the lies of the weeds in the church—the fear-based legal theologies that seek to control. Do love the weeds, those who are trapped in cycles of fear, law, and legal theologies, but do not trust them and do not surrender your heart, mind, or soul to them. Pray for them, witness the truth to them, but keep your eyes on Christ and share the truth about Him, our Creator God of love.