In pointing forward to the ministry of Jesus, John the baptizer said that when Jesus would baptize the believers with the Holy Spirit and fire, He would remove the chaff.
PASSAGES
Chaff
Matthew 3:11-12
(11) I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
(12) Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Tares
Matthew 13:37-43
(37) He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
(38) The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
(39) The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
(40) As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
(41) The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
(42) And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
(43) Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
THE DIFFERENCE
Chaff
The Chaff is inherent to the wheat itself. It is the unusable cover of the wheat which is removed, after harvest and before it is gathered into the barn.
The chaff represents the unusable part of the human condition, with which we are born, but which needs to be removed in order to make us pure, and it is removed from believers, when we a baptized with the Holy Spirit, as they were on the day of Pentecost.
New believers are wheat, good grain (by the redemptive work of Christ), but we are all still corrupted by the continued presence of the sinful nature (old man, carnal mind, double mindedness, flesh, sin). God saves us so that we will be delivered from that predisposition to sin, Believers are purified when we are Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit. Remember, Peter said the Jewish believers on the Day of Pentecost, and subsequently, the Gentile believers, had their hearts "purified" when Peter preached to them, concerning the baptism with the Holy Spirit (Ac. 11:15-17).
Chaff is the remains of sin in the believer. Chaff is removed when we are Baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Tares
Tares are also known as "darnel" or false wheat or "bastard wheat." This grain resembles wheat and was indistinguishable from legitimate wheat, until near harvest time. This grain was not only useless, it was unfit for consumption. A person could sow the seed for darnel in a field, thus jeopardizing the productivity and ruining a man's crop. However, removing the darnel too soon could result in destroying good wheat.
Jesus uses tare to represent false believers. They look like, act like Christians, but they are not true believers.
The church has the responsibility to remove known sin and/or sinners, when there is an evident threat or corruption in the followers of Christ. However, there are some people in the church who are imitations, and they cannot be legitimately detected, or at least they cannot be justly condemned for outward sin. Rather than tearing up the church, the tares must be allowed to continue until they become self condemning or until the judgment of God comes.
Tares are well disguised hypocrites, living among believers, but beyond human judgment. While there is such a thing as church discipline, which might remove overt rebels from the local congregation (hopefully so they repent), we must not destroy a local body of believers by excommunicating or shunning Christians for every failure.
SATAN
Satan is the one who sows the tares (hypocrites) among the believers. Christians are not flawless in their judgment. Therefore there is the continuing problem of hypocrites in the church.
However, Satan will be bound during the Millennium, therefore there will not be any tares sown among the believers. Also, Jesus will be physically present and ruling in this world, therefore He will flawlessly oversee discipline and judgment during that time.
ANGELS
Ultimately, angels will gather the hypocrites and cast them into a fiery furnace, where there will be eternal torment.
THE RIGHTEOUS
The righteous are those who trust in Christ to save them from sin. This includes sin as an action and sin as a predisposed attitude.
Sinners are saved from their sins (actions) at the time of their justification. They continued to be covered by the atonement, as they walk in the light (1 Jn. 1:7). Believers are saved from their predisposition to sin (attitude) when their hearts are purified by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
However, cleansing only continues as believers walk in the light, as He is in the light.
Ultimately, believers will shine forth as the sun and will live and reign with Him forever.
