6. Warren W. Wiersbe, Meet Yourself in the Parables (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1979), 27.
Jesus Illustrates His Gospel
years attempting to argue that the shallow soil or weedy soil represent true believers, albeit unproductive ones. For example, Zane Hodges writes, "From the roadside — and from the roadside alone — the Word of God had been retrieved. By the Saviour's own explicit observation this retrieval was for the purpose that salvation might not occur. Here, but here alone, Satan had triumphed completely. . . . The inference from this was plain. Into all of the remaining hearts, whatever the character of their soil, new life had come."5
That misses the point completely. The seed in the parable is not symbolic of eternal life; it is the message of the gospel. The sprouting of the seed in the shallow soil and the weedy soil simply means that the Word had been received and begun to operate, not that eternal life had been conferred. Warren Wiersbe understands the issue clearly: "It is important to note that none of these first three hearts [the soil by the wayside, the shallow soil, and the weedy soil] underwent salvation. The proof of salvation is not listening to the Word, or having a quick emotional response to the Word, or even cultivating the Word so that it grows in a life. The proof of salvation is fruit, for as Christ said, 'Ye shall know them by their fruits' (Matt. 7:16)."6
Indeed, fruit is the ultimate test of true salvation. In the harvest, weedy soil is no better than the hard road or shallow ground. All are worthless. Seed sown there is wasted, and the ground is fit for nothing except burning (cf. Heb. 6:8). It cannot picture salvation.
Notice that not all the good ground is equally productive. Some bears quantities of a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold. Not every Chris tian will always bear as much fruit as he or she ought to or could. But each one is fruitful to some degree. Chris tians are sometimes disobedient, and of course they still sin. But ultimately, believers are identifiable by their fruit. Whether it is a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold, the spiritual fruit of true believers sets them apart from the hard dirt of the road or the uselessness of a weed patch. Their fruit comes in varying amounts — some are more fruitful than others — but all are fruitful. It is that fruit-bearing capability that makes the good soil stand out clearly from the rocky, thorny, and barren earth.
As sowers, we are called to broadcast the seed of the unadulterated gospel, even if some of it falls on unprepared soil. There will always be wayside soil, shallow soil, and weedy soil, but there will also always be good soil that will bring forth crops thirty-, sixty-, or a hundredfold. That prepared soil needs only to have the right seed thrown on it.
5. Zane C. Hodges, Th e Hungry Inherit (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1980), 68 – 69, emphasis added. 6. Warren W. Wiersbe, Meet Yourself in the Parables (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1979), 27.