The nobleman who goes into a far country to receive a kingdom is Christ. The "enemies" of Christ are also described as "his citizens" which must apply to the Jews who rejected him for they are the only group of people who can be described as citizens not having accepted Christ for they were born part of the polity of Israel or the Kingdom of God. (See Nazareth Revisited, pages 264-267, and The Story Of The Bible, Vol. 11, pages 6-11.)

- Romans 5:10 "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."

- Romans 11:28 "As concerning the gospel, they (the Jews) are enemies for your sakes (the Gentiles): but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father's sake."

- Phil. 3:18 "For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:"

- Col. 1:21 "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled"

- James 4:4 "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world (kosmos) is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world (kosmos) is the enemy of God."

Thus from the above passages two things become clear about who the enemy of Christ is; namely,

1. Sin-in-the-flesh, and

2. The leaders of the Jews who were dominated by sin-in-the-flesh.

Does this accord with Christ's explanation of who the enemy is? It most certainly does for in verse 39 he says that "the enemy that sowed them is the diabolos." This explanation is very interesting in light of what Christ said about them upon the return of the seventy from their mission he had assigned them. On that occasion Christ said in Luke 10:18, "And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Bro. H.P. Mansfield in The Story Of The Bible, Vol. 10, page 47 has the following to say about this passage:

The answer is suggested by the context, for three verses earlier he had spoken of Capernaum being "exalted to heaven" but resisting his teaching. The Jewish leaders, therefore, constituted the satan, or adversary, to which he referred. They were ejected from their positions of authority in A.D. 70, when the Jewish State was overthrown; and this became typical of what will happen to those Gentiles in authority today.

This explanation is also in harmony with who the devil or satan was who tempted Christ in Matthew 4 and Luke 4.

At this point it is well worth reading what Bro. John Thomas has to say in The Last Days of Judah's Commonwealth, page 18, and Bro. Robert Roberts has to say in Nazareth Revisited, page 222.

Jesus, styled the Son of Man, came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and to them only-Matthew 15:24. They, in their Mosaical organization, constituted the field, or kosmos in which he sowed the seed, or gospel of the kingdom (Matt. 13:18-23), which, received into honest and good hearts, became the good seed of verse 38. 'The good seed are (or represent) the children of the kingdom.' There are two classes of "children of the kingdom"- "Israel after the flesh," who reject Jesus (see Matthew 8:12); and Israel, native and adopted, who receive him, and his teaching, styled by Paul, "the Israel of God." "The tares are the children of the evil thing"-those "cursed children" of whom Peter speaks. "The enemy that sowed them is the seducer;" or, as Peter and James define it, "the lusts of the flesh," by, or through which men are enticed (2 Peter 2:18; James 1:14-15). The flesh, which is Sin's Flesh, is "the enemy," or enmity against God and His law (Romans 8:7), and the Seducer which causes men to transgress, or put themselves across the line, or on the wrong side of things forbidden.

When Jesus said to the Jews, in the words of the English version, "Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do" (John 8:44), it was equivalent to saying, "Ye are born of the flesh, and the lusts of the flesh ye will do." The flesh is "the evil thing" in the English version of the parable of the tares, styled "the wicked one." It is that by which all offences come; as is clear from the world's history, and the words of Jesus, who exclaimed, "Woe to the world because of enticements: for necessity is that enticements arise; but woe to that man by whom the enticement (or scandal) is introduced!"

The enemy, the devil, consisting of the authorities of the nation, who everywhere stealthily neutralized the teaching of Christ, disseminating evil doctrines, and scattering wide their sympathizers and disciples, who drew away the people, and multiplied their own number greatly by the energy of their operations and the popularity of their influence.