I have to disagree with Pope here. I think Jesus used those terms knowing full well their connotation. Wheat will NEVER be tares/weeds just like sheep will NEVER be goats. He used these metaphors to teach a great truth. He alone can sort out the wheat from the tares and knows His sheep from the herd mixed with goats. Those who belong to His family through faith in Christ are the wheat/sheep and those who reject the truth of the gospel are the tares/goats.
Now, a sheep can be raggedy, lazy and disobedient but he will always BE a sheep. Wheat can get rancid, moldy or stale but it is STILL wheat. A goat can be pretty, sweet natured and tame but he remains a goat. Jesus is teaching about eternal judgment and not how we can change our make up by our outward acts. Our eternal salvation is based upon what Christ has done for us and not what we do for Him. We receive the gift of eternal life by faith.
I think this is a good way to see it:
"A prince, while he is a little child, is presumably as willful and as ignorant as other little children. Sometimes he may be very obedient and teachable and affectionate, and then he is happy and approved. At other times he may be unruly, self-willed, and disobedient, and then he is unhappy, and perhaps is chastised—but he is just as much a prince on the one day as on the other. It may be hoped that, as time goes on, he will learn to bring himself into willing and affectionate subjection to every right way, and then he will be more princely, but not more really a prince. He was born a prince" (C.I. Scofield, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth).
“Wheat will NEVER be tares/weeds just like sheep will NEVER be goats. He used these metaphors to teach a great truth. He alone can sort out the wheat from the tares and knows His sheep from the herd mixed with goats. Those who belong to His family through faith in Christ are the wheat/sheep and those who reject the truth of the gospel are the tares/goats.”
Remember at the end of Matthew 13 when the disciples came to Jesus and asked for the parable of the tares in the wheat to be explained?
The earth is the field, Mankind are the good seeds, and satan planted the weeds.
Humans are not weeds. However, just as the weeds in a field can take the sunlight and nutrients from your good crop, the weeds can stunt the spiritual growth of humans. As a farmer, it is my experience that constantly pulling the weeds in my own garden or fields resulted in the highest yield of the best quality harvest.
Remember, the weeds Jesus spoke of cannot stand the sunlight. All we need to do is rise above the weeds and they will perish as we flourish in God’s Love while they perish..