The Rightly-Guided Injil

Section 17: The meaning of the vision, and parables of the leaven and the tares

The Gospel According to Islam · Chapter 4, Preaching, Signs and the Disciples · Section 17

The meaning of the vision, and parables of the leaven and the tares. 23 verses.

17

1And as they went down the mountain, Jesus told to the disciples the meaning of all things they had seen, 2Saying, The priest like Elias who was walking before me was John the Baptist: 3For as the scribes say, Elias must come before the Messiah of Israel.1 4And as for the dark man with one blind eye who was walking with me, he was the Antichrist. 5People from many nations will follow him whilst they will believe that they follow me. 6And the Man like Moses whom ye saw walking behind us is that prophet who will come after me as light and mercy for all the nations.

7He will come with great power and glory and will put down the kings from their thrones and kingdoms because they do not praise the Lord nor thankfully acknowledge whence the kingdom was bestowed upon them. 8And he will destroy all those who set themselves up as gods besides the One True God, our Lord. 9Then Jesus told them a parable concerning the three messengers the disciples saw on the mountain, 10Saying, The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.2

11And concerning his own coming and the Antichrist, he spoke another parable and said, 12A man sowed good seed in his field; but when men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 13And when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also, so much so that the wheat was hard to see. 14So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? 15He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

16But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 17Let both grow together until the harvest: then I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together the tares and bind them in bundles and burn them.3 18After these things Jesus had made up his mind that he should go to Judea and resume his preaching. 19And when he had called unto him the people who believed in him, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me let him forsake all that he hath and follow me. 20Verily I say unto you, that there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom come with power.4

21When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. 22And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, there will be heat; and it cometh to pass. 23If ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, likewise discern ye this time.5

  1. Mark 9:11. ↩
  2. Matt. 13:33. ↩
  3. Matt. 13:24-30. “Good seed” represents the true teachings of Jesus and “tares” the confused doctrines others invented in his name under instigation from the devil, the “enemy.” The separation of the two would take place at the coming of the Antichrist and the return of Jesus. Indeed, the two latter events may be understood in terms of this separation of the “wheat” from the “tares.” The coming of the Antichrist may be understood as the manifestation of the falsehood, sown by the devil within the Christian tradition, in a completely naked form, without any cover from the Christian truth. This falsehood would be destroyed, or, using the language of the parable, the tares would be burnt. The reemergence of the pure truth revealed by Jesus after the destruction of the falsehood later mixed with it may then be understood as the Second Coming of Jesus. It seems that a process that will lead to these developments has already been set in motion by the modern critical studies of the New Testament. ↩
  4. Mark 8:34; 9:1; Matt. 16:28. The first Christians read the saying as a promise of his return within their own lifetime, and when the return did not come the tradition had to be reworked (cf. John 21:22-23). On the reading given here the kingdom that comes “with power” is the kingdom God gives to whom He wills (Qur’an 3:26), and some of those who stood there lived to see the beginning of what Jesus announced. The saying is not evidence that Jesus expected an earthly throne in his own lifetime, and the Qur’an gives him none. ↩
  5. Luke 12:54-56. ↩

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