Question Box

● The Man’s Salvation book (page 208, paragraph 8) and the October 1, 1975, Watchtower present different explanations as to who is represented by the “man” that planted the mustard grain. (Matt. 13:31, 32) Which is correct?

In the October 1, 1975, Watchtower, page 600, paragraph 22, we read: “Jesus Christ, with his prophetic foresight, could foreknow the outcome for the symbolic mustard grain that he planted in the first century.” So Jesus is to be considered as the planter referred to in this parable. An adjustment is being made in the printing of all future copies of the Man’s Salvation book to read in harmony with this viewpoint.

The reasoning followed by The Watchtower is consistent with what is found at Isaiah 5:2 and Jeremiah 2:21. There, Jehovah God’s experience with Israel was that he had planted Israel as a “choice red vine,” but Israel turned out to be a nation of “wild grapes” or, as Jeremiah says, a ‘degenerate, foreign vine.’ The parable, then, would indicate that Jesus foresaw a parallel experience between what happened to Israel and that in connection with the “kingdom of the heavens” referred to in the illustration. Hence, The Watchtower presents the corrected understanding that Jesus indeed is the planter of the mustard grain in the first century.