The created world is rightly viewed as something that should bring profit, profit to God, a harvest of good things. This is illustrated in the parable in terms of a crop producing a good harvest. God did not create the world to be an unprofitable void. He created it with a harvest in mind.
The presence of evil is a mystery in a world made by God, and it is an offence to heaven. Heaven is zealous for the glory of God, and sensitive to anything that would take away from his honour and praise. He is worshipped as the God who is good in himself, and who can make nothing that is not also good. The angels, represented by the servants, are certain that God made all things good in the beginning; the creation was good, and it was unmixed good. Nothing evil was there at the start, and nothing evil could come from what was made, while the will of God continued to be done. The existence of evil in the world therefore needs a clear explanation and the servants do not yet have one. Tares can only come from an evil agent, but who is it, and when did he do his work? Heaven is represented as puzzled by the existence of evil without God’s explanation, and mankind is also puzzled, though in his case evil is much closer to home. He sees evil not only outside of him but within him. Where did that come from if he was made in the image of God?
The pressure of this enigma has driven the human mind to invent explanations that are confused and far from true. Man denies the existence of evil or imagines that it is as eternal as good. He thinks of two equally ultimate and eternal entities of good and evil. But these explanations offer no resolution to the problem, for there is no reason why the future should not continue to be like the past forever – good and evil indefinitely opposing each other, without either defeating the other. How different is the Bible’s teaching! Scripture alone gives a true account of why evil in present in a world created by God. It was not there from the beginning, for God made only what is good; evil came as a result of the fall. It originated with Satan’s rebellion, which God allowed for his own purposes, to expose the nature of evil in contrast to his own goodness. It entered into the world through Adam, in disobedience to God’s commandment, and it changed the nature of all human beings, a change which the Lord also reflected in the visible creation around him. This was done to show the sinfulness of sin, and to provide a theatre for the grace of God in Christ Jesus to be expressed to the praise of his glory.