Articles
Separating Wheat from the Chaff
A common metaphor of God’s judgment against His enemies comes from the agricultural fabric of ancient culture: the separation of wheat from chaff. As the prophet John prepares the way for Jesus he urges the people to repent of their sins for “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Mt 3:12). This figure may be lost on a post-industrial generation which only knows harvesting – if at all – as the work of massive climate-controlled combines with GPS navigation.
In the olden days harvesting was a process of cutting the grain with sickles, binding the stalks into bundles (sheaves), grinding or beating the sheaves on the threshing floor, then throwing the grain and chaff into the air to allow the wind to blow the chaff away. The heavier grains would fall upon the threshing floor – an area of hardened earth scraped flat – and then be swept up and ground into flour. In Jewish chronology this harvesting coincided with the Feast of Tabernacles in late summer, and it was a time of great joy and thanksgiving for the produce of the land.
Listen to Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great image that depicted the succession of world empires: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome: “Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth … And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever” (Dan 2:35, 44). Although these kingdoms historically would rise and fall in succession, they are portrayed in the vision as a singular monument to human power and godless government. In the days of the fourth kingdom inclusive of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon – the Roman Caesars – God would set up a spiritual kingdom that would supersede all the others and collapse the image into dust to be blown away on the wind.
But God doesn’t reserve this imagery for the heathen nations only; He says the same about His own disobedient people. Hosea warns idolatrous Israel, “Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud and like the early dew that passes away, like chaff blown off from a threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney” (13:3). These four metaphors describe the fragile, temporary existence of the nation which replaced Jehovah with idols.
But if both heathen nations and Israel itself were accountable for their sins, what would become of the generation which had the Messiah in their very midst yet rejected Him? John urges his generation to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Mt 3:8), warning them that “even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (3:10). Yes, the Messiah is coming to save, but in a change of metaphors He is also coming to winnow His people and gather the wheat into the barn. The chaff would be burned (3:12). Those who would behold with their own eyes the Son of God, who would see Him work miracles and hear His heavenly teaching and fail to understand who it was that was among them are chaff, fragments of grain stalks that had no use.
But the metaphor of separating the wheat from the chaff has other applications. This process is an ongoing feature of life, a constant need to discriminate between good and bad and reject the worthless chaff.
The Chaff of False Teaching. False teaching is never 100% error; it is often disguised by elements of truth that mask the poisonous content. For example, it appears that the Judaizers were correct on the majority of what they taught and practiced, but they went too far and demanded circumcision of Gentile converts. Yet Paul in various epistles urges Gentile Christians to “winnow” truth and error: “How is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain … Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage …” (Gal 3:10-11; 5:1).
There are mountainous piles of doctrinal chaff all around us today, from premillennial speculations to Calvinistic determinism; from Catholic traditions to Mormon fictions; from Joel Osteen’s gospel of health and wealth to Benny Hinn’s fake healings. Sadly, it takes a lot of winnowing to find the kernels of truth.
The Chaff of Divisive Brethren. “Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple” (Rom 16:17-18). There are those who like drama; some like power; there are those who like to gossip; some don’t like the local church leadership and/or the preacher. They sow seeds of discord, usually under a cloak of “concern for the truth,” and undiscerning congregations are plagued by them year after year because they are not winnowed out. To “note” such people requires judgment, and “avoiding” them is tantamount to letting them blow away on the wind. Christianity does not advocate allowing oneself (or a congregation) to be run over by bullies.
The Chaff of Chronic Sinners. “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner – not even to eat with such a person … Therefore, ‘put away from yourselves that wicked person’” (1 Cor 5:9-11, 13). Enabling sin is itself a sin, and it does not achieve the goal God has in mind for His people. Such judgments are not pleasant but necessary to safeguard truth and purity in the Lord’s church.
