Doctrine and Covenants 86

Doctrine and Covenants 86

Historical Context

In the waning months of 1832, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon continued to work on the new translation of the Bible. In his journal on December 6, 1832, Joseph wrote, “translating and received a Revelation explaining the Parable [of] the wheat and the tears [tares] &c.”1 Joseph had already worked through this parable more than a year earlier, but he returned to it at this time. The parable of the wheat and the tares in the King James Bible reads as follows:

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

So 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?

He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. (Matthew 13:24–30)

Somewhere in the translation process, Joseph and Sidney altered the order of the parable from “I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares” to “gather ye together first the wheat into my barn, and the tares are bound in bundles to be burned” (JST, Matthew 13:29).2

We do not know if this edit inspired section 86 or if it was the other way around. But this new order aligns more closely with earlier revelations given to Joseph Smith that revealed that the righteous would be gathered out from among the wicked before the destructions surrounding the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (see D&C 133:12–14). This revelation recontextualizes the parable of the wheat and the tares as an explanation of the Great Apostasy and the Restoration of the gospel in the latter days. This passage, along with the First Vision and section 1 of the Doctrine and Covenants, provides explanations from the Savior Himself about how the Apostasy took place and why there was a need for the gospel to be restored to the earth again.

See “Historical Introduction,” Revelation, 6 December 1832 [D&C 86].

Verse-by-Verse Commentary

D&C 86:1–3

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servants, concerning the parable of the wheat and of the tares:

2 Behold, verily I say, the field was the world, and the apostles were the sowers of the seed;

3 And after they have fallen asleep the great persecutor of the church, the apostate, the whore, even Babylon, that maketh all nations to drink of her cup, in whose hearts the enemy, even Satan, sitteth to reign—behold he soweth the tares; wherefore, the tares choke the wheat and drive the church into the wilderness.

When Jesus was asked why He spoke in parables, He told His apostles, “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Matthew 13:11–13). Parables are a way of opening gospel mysteries to those with the Spirit and keeping the mysteries of the kingdom of God closed to those who are not ready to receive them. In this revelation, the Savior interprets the parable of the wheat and the tares.

As the Lord explains, the field refers to the world, and the sowers represent the Apostles. In the original parable, the Savior identifies Himself as the sower. But by the end of His ministry, He gives the charge to His Apostles to “go ye therefore, and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19), enlisting them to serve as sowers as well. However, after the apostles had “fallen asleep,” or died, “the apostate, the whore, even Babylon” sowed tares. A tare is a kind of weed that looks like wheat in its early stages but ultimately chokes the wheat it grows around. In a revelation given just a few weeks later, Christ identifies the tares as “that great church, the mother of abominations, that made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, that persecuteth the saints of God, that shed their blood—she who sitteth upon many waters, and upon the isles of the sea” (D&C 88:94).

Beyond interpreting the parable, the Savior, more importantly, witnesses that the early Christian church apostatized. The true church of Jesus Christ was driven into the wilderness, causing the need for the Restoration of the gospel through the work of Joseph Smith and others called in the latter days.

D&C 86:4–7

4 But behold, in the last days, even now while the Lord is beginning to bring forth the word, and the blade is springing up and is yet tender—

5 Behold, verily I say unto you, the angels are crying unto the Lord day and night, who are ready and waiting to be sent forth to reap down the fields;

6 But the Lord saith unto them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also.

7 Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned.

With the Restoration of the true Church of Jesus Christ, there is new hope and a new harvest of wheat to be gathered. The “harvest” symbolizes the day of Christ’s return in glory to the earth. Until that day, God allows the wheat and tares to grow alongside each other. The Lord even goes so far as to say that if the tares were plucked up too soon, the wheat might be destroyed. Even the wicked (the tares) play a role in helping the righteous (the wheat) undergo the tests and trials they need to become purified and refined.

Given the foreknowledge of God, people sometimes ask why God allows wicked people to remain on the earth where they can harm or cause grief to the righteous. If God knows whom He will eventually exalt and whom He will not, why did He not just assign His children to their final places of glory without sending them to earth first? The answer is set forth in the explanation given of the parable. Tares must have the time to fully become tares, and wheat must to have the time to fully mature as wheat. The issue at hand is not God’s omniscience but the agency and accountability of mankind. God might know all things, but we do not. He allows us a chance to use our agency to develop and become what we choose to be: a purified person who is worthy of God’s kingdom or a person who chooses a different path outside of the Lord’s presence. The passage even suggests that the wheat need the tares to fully mature.

The time is drawing nearer when both the wheat and the tares must come to a full reckoning of what they really are. Speaking of the angels “crying . . . day and night” to be sent forth to reap, President Wilford Woodruff declared, “God has held the angels of destruction for many years, lest they should reap down the wheat with the tares. But I want to tell you now, that those angels have left the portals of heaven, and they stand over this people and this nation now, and are hovering over the earth waiting to pour out the judgments. And from this very day they shall be poured out. Calamities and troubles are increasing in the earth, and there is a meaning to these things. Remember this, and reflect upon these matters. If you do your duty, and I do my duty, we’ll have protection, and shall pass through the afflictions in peace and safety.”3

D&C 86:8–11

8 Therefore, thus saith the Lord unto you, with whom the priesthood hath continued through the lineage of your fathers—

9 For ye are lawful heirs, according to the flesh, and have been hid from the world with Christ in God—

10 Therefore your life and the priesthood have remained, and must needs remain through you and your lineage until the restoration of all things spoken by the mouths of all the holy prophets since the world began.

11 Therefore, blessed are ye if ye continue in my goodness, a light unto the Gentiles, and through this priesthood, a savior unto my people Israel. The Lord hath said it. Amen.

The final part of this revelation pivots from explaining the parable of the wheat and the tares to directly calling the descendants of the House of Israel to come forward and take part in the great and last Restoration. Shortly after he was ordained as the first patriarch of the Church, Joseph Smith Sr. pronounced the following blessings on his son Joseph: “I bless thee with the blessings of thy fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and even the blessings of thy father Joseph, the son of Jacob. Behold, he looked after his posterity in the last days, when they should be scattered and driven by the Gentiles, and wept before the Lord: he sought diligently to know from whence the son should come who should bring forth the word of the Lord, by which they might be enlightened, and brought back to the true fold.”4

Joseph Smith was just one of a multitude of descendants of the House of Israel whose lineage was preserved and kept hidden from the world so that he and others could play their part in restoring the covenants given to Israel. The descendants of Israel who honor their heritage and those who join Israel’s descendants by adoption will be the instruments God uses to set up his kingdom in the last days. There is no distinction in the blessings God gives to a person who is a literal descendant of Israel or to a person who adopted into Israel’s linage through the sacred covenants of the gospel. Later revelations given to Joseph Smith explain how members of the Church in the latter-days mirror the work of the Savior of all mankind by becoming saviors of their ancestors as well.

Footnotes

• 1. JS Journal, 1832–1834, p. 4, JSP.
• 2. Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds., Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts, 2004, 153–228.
• 3. Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, 1946, 229–30.
• 4. Blessing from Joseph Smith Sr., 9 December 1834, p. 3, JSP.