Matthew 22:1

Ch. Mat_22:1-14. The Parable of the Royal Marriage Feast. Peculiar to St Matthew

The parable recorded by St Luke (Luk_14:16-24), though similar to this in some respects, differs in its context and special teaching and in many details.

As of the other parables of the Passion, the primary intention of this regards the present and the immediate future. The parable falls into two divisions, (1) Mat_22:1-7; (2) Mat_22:8-14. In the first (1) the servants are John Baptist and the first disciples of Christ; the feast is the Kingdom of God, or the Christian Church; the invited guests, who refuse to come, are the Jews; the vengeance taken was literally fulfilled at the siege of Jerusalem, a. d. 70. (2) This division relates to the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. As in the Net (ch. Mat_13:47) or in the Corn-field (ch. Mat_13:24), worthy and unworthy are mingled until the King separates.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat_22:1-10

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son.

Making light of gospel invitations

I. When or how men slight the invitations of the gospel.

1. When they neglect the Word of God, which is full of them, and which authoritatively announces them to the world.

2. When they absent themselves from the sanctuary, when they are proclaimed by Gods own ambassadors.

3. When they fail to give heed to the Divine message, when it is personally and solemnly addressed to them.

4. When Sabbath after Sabbath they refuse to accept the invitation to come to the feast of love spread for them. No greater slight can be conceived when we consider-

(1) who gives the invitation;

(2) the character and condition of those to whom it is made;

(3) the honour and infinite good involved in the invitation.

II. The danger of slighting these invitations.

1. It cannot fail to provoke the anger of God. The king was wrath.

2. It inevitably forfeits all the blessings of Christs meditation and sacrifice.

3. It shuts the door of mercy against the sinner. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)

The marriage of the kings son

I. A monarchs celebration of an interesting event.

1. The king here referred to is evidently the Most High. The human kingship is really but a lower form of the heavenly.

2. The king had a son who had taken to himself a bride.

3. On the occasion of his marriage a splendid banquet was provided. Royal feasts are sumptuous and abundant.

II. The munificence despised by his ungrateful subjects.

1. The invitation he sent, and the way in which it was responded to.

2. The causes of their rejecting so kind an offer.

(1) Indisposition. They would not come.

(2) Love of the world. One to his farm, etc.

(3) Open malignity.

3. The consequences that ensued.

III. The royal bounty at length appreciated.

1. The messengers were entrusted with a fresh commission to a totally different class.

2. The response which their message received.

IV. The assembled company inspected, and the consequences that ensued.

1. The spectacle which was beheld: He saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment.

2. The question proposed.

3. The doom pronounced. (Expository Outlines.)

The royal marriage feast

Four different ways of treating Gods invitations in the gospel are here set before us.

1. We have it complacently ignored by those who went their ways to their farms and to their merchandise.

2. We have the gospel offer violently rejected. There is still a violent rejection of the gospel by open infidels.

3. The inconsistency and insolence of the man who professed to accept the invitation, and yet failed to comply with the conditions on which alone true acceptance of it was possible. He pushed into the festive hall without having on a wedding garment.

4. We have the gospel invitation sincerely and heartily accepted. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

The parable of the wedding feast

I. A magnificent banquet with A grand object in view. The person is Divine. The occasion a subject of delight to us personally; it is a marriage with our nature; not with angels. The royal descent of the Bridegroom. His character; His achievements.

II. Here is a gracious method of accomplishing the design.

1. A feast for joy;

2. A feast for fulness.

3. A feast for fellowship.

4. All the expense lies with Him.

5. How honourable is the gospel to those who receive it. A monarchs entertainment.

III. The serious hindrance.

1. They were disloyal.

2. They slighted the king.

IV. The gracious rejoinder, (C. H. Spurgeon.)

As dangerous to slight the gospel as to reject it

If I were in a boat on the river in the rapids, it would not be necessary, to insure my destruction, that I should enter into violent controversy with those who would urge me from the shore, to take heed and come to land: all I should have to do would be to shut my ears to their entreaty, and leave myself alone; the current would do the rest. Neglect of the gospel is thus just as perilous as the open rejection of it. Indeed, half the evils of our daily life in temporal things are caused by neglect; and countless are the souls who are lost for this same cause. Leave your farm for a little, then; let your merchandise alone for a season; settle first, and before all things else, what you will do with this invitation which God has given you to the gospel banquet: then, that accepted, your farm will become to you a section of Gods vineyard, and your business will be a means of glorifying Him. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

The wedding of the prince

I. The false hope indulged. The man without the wedding garment represents the person who believes that he is reconciled to God, who has not Gods righteousness. This hope may be designated

1. A self-righteous hope.

2. An impenitent hope.

II. The soul stripped of its hope and its pretensions.

1. Here is the dumbness of true conviction. No excuse.

2. The speechlessness of amazement. Amazed that all his efforts are of no avail.

3. The dumbness of awe and terror. He has met his Maker.

4. The speechlessness expresses despair.

Learn:

1. The first duty of every one is to determine what is a suitable preparation for heaven.

2. Sincere ignorance will save no man.

3. Now is the time for self-scrutiny. (E. N. Kirk, D. D.)

The king punishing his barbarous subjects

1. From the whole of our Saviours parables and predictions relative to the Jews, we may infer both His prophetic wisdom and singular humanity.

2. That the Jews were under a peculiar economy of Divine providence, and were more directly, immediately, and judicially rewarded with national prosperity, or punished with national calamity and ruin, in proportion to their piety and virtue, or impiety and wickedness, than any other nation.

3. That the spirit of pride, malice, and revenge, with which the Jews were possessed and instigated to their own destruction, is the worst that can possess the human breast, most injurious to society and pernicious to them who are actuated by it.

4. That we ought to congratulate ourselves, and be thankful to the providence of God that we live in an age and nation wherein this malignant spirit, which has been seen to prevail so much, and produce such terrible effects, not only amongst Jews, but Christians also, is happily abated, though not entirely extinguished. (S. Brown.)

Gospel feast

Doctrine-the gospel is a large feast, stored with all kinds of spiritual provision in it. Consider-

1. Wherein the resemblance of the gospel to a feast appears.

2. In what respect it is a large feast.

3. What things we have need of against this feast.

4. What is the bill of fare?

5. What excellent properties there are in the provisions of the great supper.

6. What suitableness from God appears in them to the case of man.

7. Why it is a feast with all things in it.

8. What hindrances do make it to many ineffectual. (Joseph Hussey.)

Gospel invitation

Doctrine-that God makes an invitation to sinners in the preaching of the gospel to come in to this feast.

(1) It was a gracious;

(2) a free;

(3) a sovereign;

(4) a clear;

(5) a commanding;

(6) an open;

(7) a large and comprehensive;

(8) a pressing and earnest;

(9) a seasonable;

(10) an effectual and saving invitation. (Joseph Hussey.)

Causes of refusal to accept Christ

1. Worldly cares, incumbrances, secular business, or the concernments of this life, in providing earthly things.

2. The riches, or love of wealth, or earthly honour.

3. But it appears that sensual satisfaction, or the inordinate love of pleasures, is that which hath the greatest power over men, and which drowns and swallows up the spirit and soul of mortals: for this sort says, they cannot come. (Benjamin Keach.)

The gospel banquet

History tells of a banquet given by Henry VIII. to the French ambassadors. The best cooks in all the land were engaged. Privateers went through all the country to gather all the costliest viands, and when the day arrived the guests were kept hunting in the park so that their appetites might be keen, and then, at the right moment, to the sound of the trumpeters, they entered the hall, and sat down to the table, agleam with imperial plate and ablush with the costliest wines, with gold candles with a hundred tapers as large as torches. But I have to tell you to-day of a more wonderful entertainment. The Lord Jesus Christ is the banqueter; the angels of God are the cup-bearers; pardon, and peace, and life, and heaven are the viands; palaces hung with gardens of eternal beauty are the banqueting place; the chalices of God are the plates; and I am one of His servants, and I come out with the invitation to all the people-a written invitation to every man, woman, and child in all this audience. (Dr. Talmage.)

Making light of the gospel call

A celebrated preacher of the seventeenth century in a sermon to a crowded audience, described the terrors of the Last Judgment with such eloquence, pathos, and force of action, that some of his audience not only burst into tears, but sent forth piercing cries, as if the Judge Himself had been present, and was about to pass upon them their final sentence. In the height of this commotion the preacher called upon them to dry their tears and cease their cries, as he was about to add something still more awful and astonishing than anything he had yet brought before them. Silence being obtained, he, with an agitated countenance and solemn voice, addressed them thus: In one quarter of an hour from this time the emotions which you have just now exhibited wilt be stifled; the remembrance of the fearful truths which excited them will vanish; you will return to your carnal occupations, or sinful pleasures, with your usual avidity, and you will treat all you have heard as a tale that is told! (Cheerer.)

Gods anger against those who refuse the gospel invitation

Another proof of the earnestness of God in His invitation is His wrath against the murderers who had refused it. You are not much offended at one who refuses an invitation you have given in jest, or, for forms sake, half hoping it would not be accepted. God is angry because you have treated in jest and made light of what has been most earnest to Him; because you have crossed Him in the sincerest purpose to bless you; because after He has at the greatest expense, not only of wealth and exertion, but of life, provided what He knows you need, you act towards Him as if He had done nothing that deserves the least consideration. This acceptance or rejection of Gods offers that we come and talk over, often as if the whole matter were in our hands, and we might deal with it as we arrange for a journey or an evenings amusement, is to God the most earnest matter. If God is in earnest about anything, it is about this; if the whole -force of His nature concentrates on any one matter it is on this; if anywhere the amplitude and intensity of Divine earnestness, to which the most impassioned human earnestness is as the idle vacant sighing of the summer air, if these are anywhere in action, it is in the tenderness and sincerity with which He invites you to Himself … To save sinners from destruction is His grand purpose, and success in other parts of His government does not repay Him for failure here. And to make light of such an earnestness as this, an earnestness so wise, so called for, so loving, pure, and long-suffering, so Divine, is terrible indeed. To have been the object of such earnest love, to have had all the Divine attributes and resources set in motion to secure my eternal bliss, and to know myself capable of making light of such earnestness as this, is surely to be in the most forlorn and abject condition that any creature can reach. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)

The gospel feast

I. The nature of gospel blessings.

1. They are of Gods own providing.

2. They are rich and valuable as Well as Divine.

3. These blessings are suitable.

4. They are abundant.

II. The invitation given to partake of these blessings.

1. A feast so rich is designed for numerous guests.

2. The gospel is made known to mankind.

3. This invitation is free and gracious.

4. It is earnest and authoritative.

III. The reception which the invitation meets with, and the folly, guilt, and danger of rejecting it.

1. The Jews to whom it was first sent refused to come.

2. Some make light of the gospel from the love of worldly pleasures.

3. That the generality of those who hear it make light of it is evident from their conduct.

4. The folly to prefer the world to God who is the Supreme Good.

5. The guilt of to-day is in proportion to the freeness and suitableness of the blessings offered.

6. The blessings of the gospel are as necessary to your present as to your future happiness. (R. Fletcher.)

The marriage

I. The history of the marriage.

1. The marriage purposed.

2. The preliminary arrangements.

3. The servants sent out.

4. The message.

5. The advent of the king.

6. The inspection.

II. Turn to Rev_19:1-21. In Mat_22:7 it is no longer a purpose, but an accomplishment. The marriage of the Lamb is come. In the parable we saw all things are ready, and the wedding garment was offered without money. Now in the Revelation we read, And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, etc. In the parable the servants were told to go and invite men (verse 9). Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. The King came to see the guests (verse 11). His eyes were as a flame of fire. (Capel Molyneux, B. A.)

The marriage of the kings son

I. The glorious banquet.

1. The giver of it. The great king. He had provided a banquet of beauty and wisdom in creation for the mind of man-of goodness in providence for the physical need of man. These did not supply the whole of mans need. Hence this feast of redeeming love. In giving it He was moved by love, wisdom, grace.

2. The occasion of it.

3. The chief parties in it. The Divine Father. The equally Divine Son, our Saviour. The Bride, the Church-all who, being penitent, truly believe.

4. The hallowed joy that marked it. The Church rejoicing in the love and grace of the heavenly Bridegroom.

5. The sanctified provisions of it-mercy, love, etc., etc.; abundant, suitable, seasonable, etc.

II. The wide invitation.

1. Proclaimed by many tongues.

2. Urged on all people.

3. Enforced by many arguments.

4. Accompanied with gifts. A dress for each to wear offered. A new heart, etc.

III. The personal inspection.

1. A royal inspection.

2. A general inspection.

3. A discriminating inspection. (J. C. Gray.)

The marriage of Christ to His Church

I. How this union takes place.

1. The first mover is Christ Himself; but by His sweet constraints we begin to love Him.

2. In the presence of witnesses the covenant of marriage must be ratified. Angels and the Church look on when Christ confesses you to be His.

II. The consequence.

1. Into Christ you have merged your property, right, name, being, and all.

2. They do wrong who weaken the bonds, chill the feelings, or lower the rule of married life.

3. As Christ has done so much for you, you must be faithful to Him. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

The royal banquet

I. Invitations of gospel repeatedly given. God calls

(1) in every stage of life;

(2)by many voices.

II. Provisions of gospel fully completed.

(1) Various;

(2) abundant.

III. Proffers of gospel basely rejected by-

(1) The proud;

(2)the worldly.

IV. Messengers of gospel cruelly treated.

(1) Unlawful seizure;

(2) cruel treatment;

(3) unnatural murder.

V. Rejectors of gospel justly punished. They-

(1) Excite Gods anger;

(2) provoke His vengeance;

(3) incur His punishment.

VI. Proclamation of gospel universally commanded. There are-

(1) No bounds fixed-highways;

(2) no conditions.

VII. Success of gospel ultimately certain.

VIII. Professors of gospel will be personally examined. (J. T. Woodhouse.)

Guests for the wedding-feast

Our Lord Jesus has espoused His Church, and there must be a feast at the wedding. A feast would be a failure if none came to it, and therefore the present need is that the wedding be furnished with guests.

I. The first invitation was a failure. This is seen in Jewish history. Among Gentiles, those to whom the gospel invitation specially comes are, as a rule, unwilling to accept it. Up to this hour, children of godly parents, and hearers of the word, many of them refuse the invitation for reasons of their own. The invitation was refused-

(1) Not because it involved suffering, for it was a wedding-feast to which they were bidden;

(2) nor because there were no adequate preparations-The wedding is ready;

(3) nor because the invitations were not delivered, or were misunderstood-they were bidden;

(4) but because they were not fit for the high joy;

(a) they were not loyal to their king;

(b) they were not attached to his royal son;

(c) they were not pleased with his noble marriage;

(d) they were wrapt up in self-interest;

(e) they were cruel to well-intentioned messengers;

(5) therefore they were punished with fire and sword. But love must reign; mercy must be glorious; Christ must reveal His grace; otherwise He has no joy of His union with mankind. Therefore-

II. The commission was enlarged.

1. Disappointment must arouse activity and enterprise Go ye.

2. Disappointment suggests change of sphere-Into the highways.

3. A keen invitation is to be tried - As many as ye shall find, bid.

4. A keen outlook is to be kept-As many as ye shall find.

5. Publicity is to be courted-Went out into the highways.

6. Small numbers, ones and twos, are to be pressed in.

III. The new mission was fulfilled.

1. The former servants who had escaped death went out again.

2. Other servants, who had not gone at first, entered zealously into the joyful but needful service.

3. They went in many directions-Into the highways.

4. They went out at once. Not an hour could be left unused.

5. They pointed all they met to one centre.

6. They welcomed all sorts of characters-As many as they found.

7. They found them willing to come. He who sent the messengers inclined the guests; none seem to have refused.

IV. The great design was accomplished.

1. The kings bounty was displayed before the world.

2. His provision was used. Think of grace and pardon unused.

3. The happiness of men was promoted; they feasted to the full.

4. The grateful praise was evoked. All the guests were joyful in their king, as they feasted at his table.

5. The marriage was graced.

6. The slight put upon the kings son by the churls who refused to come was more than removed.

7. The quality of the guests most fully displayed the wisdom, grace, and condescension of the Host. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 22:1. Jesus spake unto them again by parables — That is, spake with reference to what had just passed: for this parable is closely connected with that of the vineyard, delivered at the close of the preceding chapter. And as our Lord had in that foretold the approaching ruin of the Jewish place and nation, he goes on in this to vindicate God’s mercy and justice in the rejection of that people and the calling of the Gentiles; admonishing the latter, at the same time, of the necessity of holiness, and showing that if they remained destitute of it, they would meet with the same severity of judgment which had befallen the disobedient Jews.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tuesday of Passion Week.

§ 114. — PARABLE OF THE WEDDING OF THE KING’S SON, Mat_22:1-14.

At the close of the last chapter there seems to have been a suspension of the discourse of the Lord to the Pharisees, which he uttered in reply to their demand for his authority for his doings. They seem to have consulted as to the expediency of laying hands upon him. They conclude that this is not safe, and our Lord takes the occasion still farther to prosecute his answer to their question, or rather his discourse in consequence of that question.

In this parable our Lord illustrates the dealings of God with the Jews from the commencement to the time of the destruction of the Jewish state and church, 2-7; then he traces the vocation of the Gentiles until the judgment day, 8-10; and finally the condemnation in judgment of those who are clad, (like the Pharisees he disputes with,) not in the righteousness of Christ, but in their own, 11-14.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Mat_22:1. Answered.—What? Obviously the unspoken murderous hate, restrained by fear, which had been raised in the rulers’ minds and flashed in their eyes, and moved in their gestures (Maclaren). The use of this word would rather suggest the idea that some conversation not reported had intervened (Gibson).

Mat_22:3. Sent forth his servants.—It is still customary in the East, not only to give an invitation some time beforehand, but to send round servants at the proper time to inform the invited guests that all things are ready (Kitto). Cf. Est_6:14.

Mat_22:4. Dinner.—The introductory meal which opened the series of wedding feasts; an early meal toward mid-day, not the same as the δεῖπνον “supper” (Lange). Fatlings.—All the animals smaller than the oxen, that had been specially fed for the occasion (Morison).

Mat_22:5. His farm.—His own farm (R.V.). It was his own concerns, and not the gratification or honour of his sovereign, in which he was interested (Morison). Egoism (“suitas”), says Bengel.

Mat_22:7. Burned up their city.—As the Saviour’s mind was running on the thing signified, He parabolically supposes that the originally invited guests were the inhabitants of a certain city. He was thinking of Jerusalem, and parabolically predicted its destruction by the hands of the Romans (Morison).

Mat_22:9. The highways.—The partings of the highways (R.V.). Strictly, into the places where different roads branch off. The “servants” are the earliest Christian missionaries, who went in their journeys to such meeting-places of the nations as Rome, Antioch, and Corinth (Carr).

Mat_22:12. Friend.—See note on Mat_20:13.

Mat_22:13. Outer darkness.—See note on Mat_8:12.

Mat_22:14. For many are called, etc.—See Mat_20:16. The “calling” answers, both verbally and in substance, to the “bidding” or invitation of the parable. The “chosen” are those who both accept the invitation and comply with its condition; those who, in the one parable, work in the vineyard, and in the other, array themselves with the wedding garment of holiness. The “choice,” as far as the parable is concerned, appears as dependent upon the answer given to the calling (Plumptre).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_22:1-14

The calling of the Gentiles.—In this passage the same persons are addressed by the same Speaker in much the same way as before. Jesus “again” “answers” (Mat_22:1) the murderous thoughts of those who were before Him (Mat_21:46) by speaking to them in “parables”—in two (1–10, 11–14) at the least. In these He both takes up and follows up what He had previously said in three principal ways; showing us a picture:

1. Of a singularly rebellious people.

2. Of a singularly mixed assembly.

3. Of an absolutely indispensable requirement.

I. A singularly rebellious people.—This rebelliousness is exhibited, first, by the treatment, given by the people described, to the first message of their king. This message is one of special bounty and grace. The king is purposing to give a great banquet in celebration of the marriage of his son. He sends out his servants to proclaim this abroad, and invite his people to come. The interpretation put on a previous parable (Mat_21:45) teaches us to understand this of the giving of the law to Israel, and of the purport of that law as a means of preparing men for the then coming grace of the gospel (Gal_3:24, and references). In other words it was a preliminary “invitation” to Christ. How that invitation was received is told us here in very few words in the end of Mat_22:3; and is related at length in the long story of the murmurings of the wilderness, and of the consequent almost withdrawal, more than once, of the favour of God (Psa_95:8-11, and references); and is shown to us, yet further, in the sad retrospect of Rom_10:21. Up to the coming of Christ, indeed, this was the true attitude of Israel as a nation. They refused the preliminary message of God. The same attitude was shown still more in regard to the second message He sent. After a time—“again”—He sent forth “other servants” to Israel—other servants with a new message to tell, viz., not only as before to proclaim His purpose of giving a banquet, but to say, rather, that now the banquet was spread (Mat_22:4). This seems to refer to such passages as Mat_4:17; Act_3:22-26; Heb_7:19, etc. Also, the even worse reception given by them to this message, as shown partly by their giving preference to almost anything else (Mat_22:5), and partly by their putting to death the persons who brought it (Mat_22:6), seems to refer us for fulfilment to such passages as Joh_18:40; Act_22:22; Act_23:21, etc. While, finally, the awful result of this rejection and persecution of Christ and His Apostles, as described in Mat_22:7, seems to refer to that destruction of the “city” of Jerusalem and that utter “casting away” of Israel both as a nation and church which afterwards came to pass. Israel, in short, is thus shown to be “rebellious” till its “casting away.”

II. A singularly mixed assembly.—Something of this had been shown previously in that application of another parable which is given us in Mat_21:41-43. But several important additional particulars are vouchsafed in this place. We are not only told, e.g. that there shall be a fresh “nation” or gathering, in place of the old nation or congregation; but we are told, also, why it was that those first-invited guests had been rejected, viz., because they had shown themselves not “worthy” (Mat_22:8) of the invitation received. See Act_13:46. We are also shown whither the servants are bid to go to seek for fresh guests, viz., to the “highways” (Mat_22:9-10), or, in other words, to wherever men are most to be found (cf. Mat_28:19-20). Further, we are shown of what sorts the guests so collected will naturally turn out to be (Mat_22:10), viz., of those who were reckoned as “evil” (see Act_10:14; Act_10:28) as well as of those who were regarded as “good.” Lastly, we are shown yet both how numerous and how suitable would be the persons thus collected together. The “wedding” would be “furnished with guests.” There would be enough—enough of the proper sort—for the purpose in view! There would be a collection of guests representative (finally) of all parts of the world; a nation made up of all nations, partly in place of and partly in addition to the nation invited before (Gal_3:28; Gal_4:26; Rom_11:11; Rom_11:5). No more mingled no greater gathering could very well be (cf. Rev_7:9).

III. An indispensable requirement.—The mention of this grows immediately out of that spoken of last. In so “mixed” an assembly would every man present be of the right sort? Would there be none there to bring discredit on him who had invited them there? This is the point which the king is next described as looking into himself. “He came in to see the guests” (Mat_22:11). What is represented by this? We take it as representing the way in which He “whose eyes are as a flame of fire” is described in Revelation 2, 3 as examining the “churches” and those who compose them; and as showing us, therefore, that if there is no manner of scrutiny about men (Mat_22:9-10) before they are invited to partake of the fulness of the gospel, there is very much indeed, and that from the highest quarter, when they have professed to accept it. And we see in that mentioned next, therefore, the chief point on which this examination will turn. A wedding guest, in the nature of things, should be clad in wedding apparel. Especially is this the case where such apparel has been previously offered him (as is assumed by all here) by his host. This is that, therefore, for which above all that host will inquire, “How earnest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment?” This is that, also, for the absence of which no excuse can be offered on the one hand (end of Mat_22:12), and no punishment, on the other, be considered too harsh (Mat_22:13). “Take him away” from this light to where there is nothing but darkness! From this feast to where is nothing but sorrow! In such a condition, also—“bound hand and foot”—that he can never come back!

In regard to the warning to which this series of verses thus brings us at last, we may note, in conclusion:—

1. Its precise practical meaning.—The “wedding garment” is that, which, whatever its exact condition and texture (of which nothing is said), serves to distinguish those who are “wedding guests” from those who are not. It seems to represent, therefore, that “newness of life” (or true desire for it) which serves at least to distinguish the true guests of the kingdom as well from others as from themselves in the past. For a professed disciple not to “put on” this (Col_3:10; Col_3:12, etc.) is indeed to trifle with God!

2. Its abounding mercy.—Mercy in requiring from us this “newness of life.” We cannot have anything better (Rom_6:21-22). Mercy in offering it to us. We cannot otherwise have it at all.

3. Its deep solemnity.—Such is the profound deceitfulness as well of sin, as of the great deceiver, and of our own hearts, that there is nothing in which we are more likely to be deceived, or to fancy ourselves “chosen” where we have only been “called” (Mat_22:14). Let “him that thinketh he standeth”—on that very account—“take heed” all the more.

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat_22:1-14. Two ways of despising God’s feast.—

I. The judgment on those who refuse the offered joys of the kingdom.—In the previous parable the kingdom was presented on the side of duty and service. That is only half the truth, and the least joyful half.

1. So this parable dismisses all ideas of work, duty, service, requirement, and instead gives the emblem of a marriage feast as the picture of the kingdom.—It therein unites two familiar prophetic images for the Messianic times—those of a festival and of a marriage. How pathetic this designation of His kingdom is on Christ’s lips, when we remember how near His bitter agony He stood, and tasted its bitterness already!

2. The invitations of the king.—There had been an invitation before the point at which the parable begins, for the servants are sent to summon those who had already been “called.” That calling, which lies beyond the horizon of our parable, is the whole series of agencies in Old Testament times. So this parable begins almost where the former leaves off. They only slightly overlap.

3. The two classes of rejecters.

4. The fatal issue is presented, as in the former parable, in two parts: the destruction of the rebels, and the passing over of the kingdom to others. But the differences are noteworthy. Here we read that “the king was wroth.” The insult to a king is worse than the dishonesty to a landlord. The refusal of God’s proffered grace is even more certain to awake that awful reality, the wrath of God, than the failure to render the fruits of the good possessed. Love repelled and thrown back on itself cannot but become wrath.

5. The command to gather in others to fill the vacant places.

II. The judgment of the unworthy accepters of the invitation.—There are two ways of sinning against God’s merciful gift: the one is refusing to accept it; the other is taking it in outward seeming, but continuing in sin. The former was the sin of the Jews; the latter is the sin of nominal Christians. Note, that there is one man only without the dress needed. That may be an instance of the lenity of Christ’s charity, which hopeth all things; or it may rather be intended to suggest the keenness of the king’s glance, which, in all the crowded tables, picks out the one ragged losel who had found his way there—so individual is His knowledge, so impossible for us to hide in the crowd.—A. Maclaren, D.D.

Mat_22:1-10. The parable of the marriage feast.—

I. The undeserved goodness of the invitation.

II. The well-deserved severity of the exclusion.—Sir E. Bayley, Bart., B.D.

The royal marriage feast: the wedding guests.—

I. The marriage festival made by the king in honour of his son, points manifestly to redemption completed in the incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ. Banquets had before this period been provided by the King, and enjoyed by the favoured circle of His guests; much advantage was possessed by the Jews over the Gentiles in every way, but especially in that to them were committed the oracles of God. But the feast depicted in this parable was the last and best; it was the way of salvation in its completed state.

II. When the fulness of time had come, the Lord Himself undertaking the work, as well as assuming the form, of a servant, carried to the chosen people the message, “Come, for all things are now ready.” His immediate followers and their successors repeated and pressed the invitation. The servants when they went out with the commission of the king, did not announce the feast as a new thing, then for the first time made known; they spoke of it as that which was promised before, and actually offered them; they summoned those who had previously been fully informed that the feast was provided for their use. These favoured but unthankful people were not taken at their word; after the first refusal, another and more urgent invitation is sent. The successive reiterated mission of the servants to the class who were originally invited, may be understood to point to the ministry of the Lord and the Seventy until the time of the crucifixion, and the second mission of the Apostles after the Pentecost, and under the ministration of the Spirit.

III. Significant are the differences in the treatment which the message and the messengers received from different classes within the privileged circle of the first invited. We learn here the solemn lesson that though there is much diversity in the degrees of aggravation with which men accompany their rejection of the Saviour, all who do not receive Him perish in the same condemnation. At first, no distinction is made between class and class of unbelievers; of all, and of all alike, it is recorded, “they would not come.” But when the offer became more pressing and more searching, a difference began to appear, not as yet the difference between the believing and the unbelieving, but a difference in the manner of refusing, and in the degrees of courage or of cowardice that accompanied the act. The greater number treated the message lightly, and preferred their own business to the life eternal which was offered to them in Christ; while a portion, not content with spurning away the offer, persecuted to the death the ambassadors who bore it.

III. Although those privileged Hebrews rejected Him, Christ did not remain a king without subjects, a shepherd without a flock. In the exercise of the same sovereignty through which He chose Abraham at first, He passed over Abraham’s degenerate posterity, and called another family. This family was Abraham’s seed, not by natural generation, but in the regeneration through faith. Peter went to the house of Cornelius, and in that lane of the world’s great city found a whole household willing to follow him to the feast his royal Master had prepared. Soon thereafter Paul and Barnabas, Silas, Titus, Timothy, and others traversed the continents of Europe and Asia, bringing multitudes of neglected outcasts into the presence and the favour of the King. “They brought in good and bad.” This is a cardinal point in the method of Divine mercy, and therefore it is articulately inserted in the picture. The thought and the style of ordinary life are adopted in the parable, and every reader understands easily what is meant. The invitations of the gospel come to fallen human kind, and to all without respect either of persons or of characters.—W. Arnot, D.D.

Mat_22:5-6. Different treatment of the gospel message.—There are two different classes of unbelievers:—

1. The indifferent.

2. The absolutely hostile. Or:

1. Contemptuous scorners.

2. Bitter persecutors.—D. Brown, D.D.

Mat_22:7. Anger in God.—Our Lord’s parable has fulfilled itself again and again in history, and will fulfil itself as long as foolish and rebellious persons exist on earth. This is one of the laws of the kingdom of heaven. It must be so, for it arises by necessity out of the character of Christ, the King of heaven—infinite bounty and generosity; but if that bounty be despised and insulted, or still more, if it be outraged by wanton tyranny or cruelty, then—for the benefit of the rest of mankind—awful severity. So it is, and so it must be, simply because God is good. The king in the parable was very angry, as he had a right to be. Let us lay that to heart, and tremble, from the very worst of us all to the very best of us all. There is an anger in God. There is indignation in God. An awful thought, and yet a blessed thought. Under God’s anger or under God’s love we must be, whether we will or not. We cannot flee from His presence. We cannot go from His Spirit. If we are loving, and so rise up to heaven, God is there—in love. If we are cruel and wrathful, and so go down to hell, God is there also—in wrath. With the clean He will be clean; with the froward man He will be froward. On us, and us alone, it depends whether we shall live under God’s anger or live under God’s love.—C. Kingsley, M.A.

Mat_22:11-13. Profession tried.—

I. A visit.—“When the king came.”

II. A scrutiny.—“He saw a man.”

III. An interrogation.—“How earnest thou in?”

IV. Conviction.—“He was speech less.”

V. Bondage.—“Bind him hand and foot.”

VI. Exclusion.—“Cast him into outer darkness.”

VII. Torment.—“There shall be weeping,” etc.—W. W. Whythe.

The wedding garment.—Some customs and allusions connected with the scene remain obscure to us, after all that modern research has done to illustrate them, but the lesson which our Lord intended to teach stands relieved in clearest light and sharpest outline, like distant mountain tops when the sun has newly set behind them.

1. The wedding garment was something conspicuous and distinctive.

2. It was not a necessary part of a man’s clothing, but rather a significant badge of his loyalty.

3. The want of it was, and was understood to be, a decisive mark of disloyalty. The man who came to the feast without a wedding-garment endorsed substantially the act of those who had proudly refused to comply with the king’s invitation. It was the same heart-disobedience accompanied by a hypocrisy that would fain commit the sin and yet escape the consequences.

4. The question whether a wedding garment was proferred to every guest as he entered, out of the royal store, is attended with some difficulty. The preponderance of probability seems to lie with those who think that these decorations were freely distributed in the vestibule to every entrant, in some such way as certain badges are sometimes given to every one of a wedding-party amongst ourselves in the present day. But the point is not of primary importance. From what is tacitly assumed in the narrative it may be held as demonstrated alternatively, that either the king gave every guest the necessary garment, or it was such that every guest, even the poorest, could on the shortest warning easily obtain it for himself. Two silences become the two witnesses out of whose mouths the conclusion is established—the silence of the king as to the grounds of his sentence, and the silence of the culprit when judgment was pronounced. The judge does not give any reason why sentence should be executed, and the criminal does not give any reason why it should not. On both sides it is confessed and silently assumed that the guest had not, but might have had, the wedding-garment on. If there had been any hardship in the case, the king would have vindicated his own procedure, and the condemned guest would not have remained speechless when he heard his doom.—W. Arnot, D.D.

Mat_22:12. “I am too well dressed for that.”—At one of the Paris stations of the McAll Mission an aged woman who had learned by heart many of the hymns, and seemed to find all her delight in them, came to the meeting leaning on a crutch, and evidently very feeble. The subject of discourse that night was “Dress”—the robe of righteousness, the wedding garment. At the close she said to the preacher, “I believe this is my last visit to the hall; if I can never come again, you will know where I have gone. My infirmities increase rapidly.”—“I will come to see you,” said the preacher; “but if God called you meanwhile, have you any fear of appearing before Him?”—“Oh, no!” she replied, “I am too well dressed for that—too well dressed to dread the judgment. He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.”—Quiver.

Loyalty a question of will.—It was not the inherent worth of the material, but the meaning of the symbol that bulked in the estimation of both the entertainer and his guests. It may, from analogous cases, be shown to be probable that a loyal heart could have easily extemporised the appropriate symbol out of any material that lay next at hand. Where there is a will there is a way. Italian patriots, at the crisis of their conflict with multiform oppression, and while the strong yoke of the despot was still upon their necks, contrived to display their darling tricolour by a seemingly accidental arrangement of red, white, and green among the vegetables which they exhibited in the market or carried to their homes. Nay, more, the loyalty of a loyal man may, in certain circumstances, be more emphatically expressed by a rude, extemporaneous symbol, hastily constructed of intractable materials, than by the most elaborate and leisurely products of the needle or the loom. In such cases, the will of the man is everything; the wealth of the man nothing. The meanest rag suddenly thrown across the shoulders, arranged so as unequivocally to express the wearer’s faith may be a better evidence of loyalty than the richest silks of the East.—W. Arnot, D.D.

What does the “wedding-garment” signify?—I do not attach much value to the question which has been much canvassed here, whether the wedding garment specifically signifies Faith or Charity, whether it points to what the saved get from God, or what they do in His service. To wear the garment at the feast means that the wearer takes God’s way of salvation and not his own; to want it, means that the wanter takes his own way of salvation and not God’s. This is the conclusion of the whole matter. If you suppose that the garment means evangelical obedience, you must assume that faith in Christ is the root on which obedience grows; if, on the other hand, you suppose that the garment means faith in Christ, you must assume that it is a living, not a dead faith, a faith that will work by love and overcome the world.—Ibid.

The wedding garment.—This righteousness we so appropriate by faith as to make it ours, so that it becomes, in that singularly expressive term, our habit.—Archbishop Trench.

Royal wardrobes.—Horace tells of Lucullus (Epist.,

1. vi. 40), that he had not less than five thousand mantles in his wardrobe. Chardin says of the king of Persia that he gave away an infinite number of dresses. Dr. Owen says we have abundant evidence that kings wore provided with extensive wardrobes, from which each invited guest was furnished with a suitable garment.—P. Schaff, D.D.

Mat_22:14. The called and the chosen.—We have to do in the text not with an arbitrary call and an arbitrary choice, as if God called many in mockery, meaning to choose out of them only a few, and making His choice independently of any exertion of theirs. The picture is very different; it is a gracious call to us all to come and receive the blessing; it is a reluctant casting out the greatest part of us, because we would not render ourselves fit for it.

I. We have all been called, in a Christian sense.—We have been called to enter into Christ’s kingdom; we have been called to lead a life of holiness and happiness from this time forth even for ever.

II. Now, if this be the prize to which we are called, who are they who are also chosen to it?

1. In the first and most complete sense, no doubt, those who have entered into their rest; who are in no more danger, however slight; with whom the struggle is altogether past, the victory securely won.

2. Those who, having heard their call, have turned to obey it, and have gone on following it.

3. Those who, having found, in themselves the sin which did most easily beset them, have struggled with it, and wholly, or in a great measure, have overcome it.

III. What is the proportion between those who are chosen and those who are called only?—This I dare not answer; there is a good as well as an evil which is unseen by the world at large, unseen even by all but those who watch us most nearly and most narrowly. All we can say is, that there are too many who, we must fear, are not chosen; there are too few of whom we can feel sure that they are.—T. Arnold, D.D.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 22:1-14.

Marriage Of The King’s Son

This is found in Matt. only, but the first part resembles a parable given by Luke as spoken some time earlier. (Luk 14:16-24) Some critics at once assume that only one parable was given. But any man who ever went to and fro as a preacher will know that to repeat an illustration to a new audience with some modification is perfectly natural (compare at beginning of Matthew 5). So later in this same day, Mat 25:14 ff. will repeat Luk 19:11 ff. There are examples in the Talmud of a like repetition and reworking of an illustration by different Rabbis, and why not this be done by the same Rabbi? It has been held that a parable cannot have been spoken at this point, between the rise of the feelings described in Mat 21:45 f. and the consultation of Mat 22:15. But why not? It required only a few minutes. And Mat 21:46 is a general statement, covering much that followed.—The supposed Rabbinical parallels to this parable (Wünsche, Edersheim) are in fact so little like it as not to be worth stating. To derive illustration from a feast would be a matter of course.

Mat 22:1. Answered, not to anything that had been said, so far as we know, but responded to the feelings and wishes (Mat 21:45 f.) which he knew were entertained. And spake again by parables. Only one is given; there may have been others, or this may have been regarded as comprising two (Mat 22:2-10, Mat 22:11-13), or the plural may be (Goebel) only that of category, meaning that he spoke parabolically. This parable is not expressly applied, like the two foregoing, because the application is now sufficiently obvious, especially since Mat 21:43. Bruce: "The parable of the vine-dressers exposes Israel’s neglect of covenanted duty; this, her contempt of God’s grace. The two are mutually complementary, and present together a full view of Israel’s sin." For the term parable, and the general principles of interpretation, see on "Mat 13:3".

Mat 22:2 f. The kingdom of heaven, see on "Mat 3:2". Is like unto, see on "Mat 13:24". Unto a certain king, Note the leading differences between the present parable and that of Luk 14:16 ff. There it was simply ’a certain man, here it is a king; there merely a ’great supper’, here a marriage feast for the king’s son. There he sent once to summon the invited, here twice. There they made excuse; here they make light of it, and some shamefully treat and kill the king’s messengers, and the king destroys them and their city. Then in both parables other guests are invited wherever they can be picked up. It thus appears that this later parable brings out much more clearly the wickedness of the Jews in not simply rejecting God’s general invitations of love, but dishonouring his Son, and killing his servants; and that difference exactly suits the change of circumstances. Very naturally the parable in Luke is oftenest used in our pulpits, as it does not so distinctively relate to the conduct of the Jews. But this also, especially with the addition of Luk 14:11-13, is full of solemn instruction for all times. Made a marriage feast, Some render this simply ’a feast,’ because ’marriage,’ is used by the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew for ’feast’ in Est 1:5, compare Mat 9:22; and it may be added that Pesh. here translates back into the same word feast that is there employed in the Hebrew But as there is no other known example of such a use of gamos, it is better to understand it here in the literal and common sense, especially since ’for his son’ means the Messiah, (compare Mat 21:37) and the Messiah is elsewhere also represented as a bridegroom, (Mat 25:1, Mat 9:15; Joh 3:29; Rev 21:2, Rev 21:9; Eph 5:25-32) just as in the prophets Israel is often the spouse of Jehovah. The Greek word is here in the plural, (gamous), and so in Mat 9:8 and Mat 9:4, (and Luk 12:36) while it is singular in Mat 9:8, Mat 9:11 f. The plural of a word denoting a festival was often used to indicate its several parts or stages (Buttm. p. 28); compare our word nuptials. Wyclif here imitates the Greek plural, ’made weddings.’ In modern English we could say, ’made a wedding,’ but the singular is wanted for the Greek singular in Mat 9:8, and so ’made s marriage feast’ is our best translation. His servants, literally slaves (doulos), see on "Mat 8:6"and compare Mat 14:2, Mat 18:23, Mat 21:34. To call them that were bidden, literally,’ to call the called.’ The guests were invited in advance and then, being close together in a crowded Eastern city, and not generally supplied with convenient time-pieces, they were notified when the feast was ready. Compare Luk 14:17 Est 5:8, Est 6:14.

Mat 22:4. Again he sent forth other servants. The king kindly renews the summons, and remonstrates, urging that he has prepared a grand entertainment, and they really ought to come. So in the foregoing parable (Mat 21:36) the householder sent others and more in number. I have prepared, or, made ready, the same Greek root as ’ready’ just below. My dinner, ariston, found also in Luk 11:33, while deipnon, ’supper,’ is found in Mat 23:6 and often elsewhere in New Testament, and both occur together in Luk 14:12. The seems to have been usually taken about the middle of the forenoon, sometimes earlier or later; the deipnon at the close of the day, often after dark. Josephus ("Ant.," 5, 4, 2) supposes that Eglon’s guards (Jdg 3:24) were negligent about midday, "both because of the heat and because their attention was turned to dinner (ariston)" (ariston). This would indicate that in Josephus’ own time the ariston was sometimes taken as late as noon; on the other hand in Johm Luk 21:12, Luk 21:15 it is taken shortly after dawn. Vambery (in Morison) says of the Turks at the present time, "There are only two meals during the day, the smaller one between ten and eleven o’clock in the morning, and the second and larger one after sunset." Grimm, Plump., and others seem to be wrong in supposing that the Jews of our Lord’s time took a separate and slight meal on rising, as the later Greeks did, and some among the later Romans. There is no evidence that the Jews had more than the two meals. (See Smith’s "Dict.," Art. "Meals.") In the time of Elizabeth and King James, the principal meal in England was taken some time before noon, and called ’dinner,’ and the slighter meal taken at the close of the day was called ’supper.’ Accordingly in the early English versions aristonis rendered ’dinner,’ and deipnon ’supper,’ which conforms to the time of day, but quite misrepresents the real importance of the two meals. In modern city life the words breakfast and dinner, the former occurring at 9 to 12 o’clock, the latter at evening, would correspond quite closely toariston and deipnon in the New Testament, but it is too late to make a general change (see Rev. Ver. of Joh 21:12, Joh 21:15). The marriage feast mentioned in this parable is an ariston, curiously resembling the English "wedding-breakfast," while the feast of Luk 14:16 is a deipnon, as entertainments usually were. But here the feast is either protracted, or more likely delayed, until after night. (Mat 22:13.) As new guests had to be summoned and must have time to assume festive apparel, it might well be night before the festival was actually in progress, and the king entered. Or the ariston, on may have been intended as a preliminary banquet, while the marriage would occur at night. (Mat 25:6) In 1Co 11:20, "the Lord’s deipnon" seems to give the idea of a banquet to which the Lord invites. My oxen and my fatlings, beeves and fatted calves, as in 2Sa 6:13, 1Ki 1:9, where Adonijah made a royal feast. Come is the same strong and urgent word as in Mat 11:28.

Mat 22:5-7. They made light of it, a great insult to a king, whose invitation was the highest honour, and who was celebrating an occasion of peculiar interest. These showed contempt by going off to their every-day employments, and those that remained showed even murderous hatred, a spirit of rebellion against the king and his son. (Psa 2:2, Psa 2:12) One to his farm. His own farm, is the exact meaning of the Greek;[1] he was caring exclusively for his Own affairs. Another to his merchandise, his mercantile business. The remnant, rather, the rest, which is not only simpler but a more exact translation. Took, or, seized, a stronger term than in Mat 21:35, Mat 21:39. Entreated them spitefully. Shamefully (so Cranmer) is better than ’spitefully’; we might say simply ’insulted them.’ But the king was Wroth, a strong word. When.... heard thereof, is a spurious addition to the text. Sent forth his armies. Our word ’armies’ low always suggests a large number of soldiers, which is not true of the Greek word; Plump. Proposes ’troops.’ Destroyed those murderers. They were also rebels. Goebel: "The hitherto peaceful image of an invitation to a marriage feast is now changed into the warlike image of a military raid with fire and sword against murderous rebels." And burned up their city, which may be thought of as among the suburbs of the capital where the wedding feast occurred. There is no necessity for supposing that this order was carried out before the king sent forth to invite other guests. (Mat 22:8.) An autocratic sovereign had but to give the order, and could then turn his attention to other things.

[1] Winer, Buttm., Grimm, suppose that here and in Mat 25:14, and some other passages idios loses its proper sense, and means not ’his own,’ but simply his. But none of passages require this weakened sense, and therefore it is not Justified.

Mat 22:8-10. Into the highways.[1] Lit. the partings of the highways, colloq., ’the forks of the roads,’ where the roads leading out from the city separated each into two or more roads. There the country people coming in from different directions could all be seen and invited. Mat 22:10 has the simple term highways, which is enough without repeating the precise direction. It is surely over-refinement to say (Bishop Lightfoot on Revision), "In this change of expression we seem to see a reference to the imperfect work of the human agents as contrasted with the urgent and uncompromising terms of the command"; but certainly the two phrases ought to be kept distinct in the translation, which was not done by Tyndale and followers, and imperfectly done by Wyc. and Rheims. In Luk 14:21 ff. the messengers were sent first into the streets and lanes of the city, and afterwards into the roads outside; here only the latter are mentioned. Meyer oddly concludes that the capital was the city burned, and none but country people could now be invited; but ’their city’ (Mat 22:7), seems clearly to distinguish it from the city in which the king lived. As many as they found, both bad and good. They do not stop to discriminate as to social position or even moral character. This alludes to the fact that some very wicked persons would become Christians. The bad are mentioned first, so as to emphasize the king’s grace. And the wedding, or, according to the more probable Greek text, the bridal-hall[2] was furnished, filled, the literal and exact meaning, with guests, with persons reclining, viz., at table. See on "Mat 8:11".

[1] The term rendered ’partings’ is not found elsewhere in the New Testament The frequent Septuagint sense of ’outlet’ would answer here, if the expression were "diexodous of the streets," but not when it is "of the roads." Is there any clear instance of hodos, ’way,’ ’road,’ being applied to the street of a city? The preposition dia here has its frequent force (in compound words) of division, from the primary sense of ’between.’ Many have been misled, here and elsewhere, by supposing that dia must necessarily mean ’through.’

[2] In à B (first hand) L the word is not gamos ’wedding,’ but numphon, a rare word, meaning the place where the bride is, and found elsewhere only in the sense ’bride-chamber’ (Mat 9:15; Tob 6:14, Tob 6:17). The obvious inappropriateness of that sense here would account for the change to gamos (from Mat 22:8), while we could not explain the introduction of a word apparently so unsuitable. Etymologically it could easily signify ’bridal hall,’ the place of the wedding banquet, and so be entirely appropriate. Yet the mere fact that ’was filled,’ suggests a room (compare Luk 14:23) would not account for a change from the sufficiently suitable term to an apparently quite unsuitable word. Tischendorf, Westcott Hort, and Weiss read numphon, and Treg. (who had not placed it in his margin.)

The meaning of the parable up to this point is plain. The benefits and delights of the Messianic reign are represented under the image of a marriage feast in honour of God’s Son. The Jewish people had long before been invited to enjoy the feast. God had sent his servants the prophets from time to time (we may include John the Baptist), to call them to the wedding. But many had been utterly indifferent, caring only for their worldly pursuits; and some had insulted and slain his messengers. These murderers God will most severely punish. Then his servants will go forth and bring in, no longer the chosen people originally indicated, but Gentiles, including some very wicked persons, and these will form the honoured guests. If the destroyed city of Mat 8:7 be supposed to point specially to the destruction of Jerusalem, then we may understand that the new messengers of Mat 8:8 are the apostles, sent forth to the Gentiles. They began before Jerusalem was destroyed, But not before its destruction had been foretold as inevitable and near at hand. (Mat 23:38, Mat 24:15 ff.) The very Greek phrase ’not worthy’ of Mat 8:8 is applied by Paul to the Jews in Act 13:46, and rendered ’unworthy.’ Thus neglect and outrage on the part of the Jewish nation will not prevent the Messiah from having a people, (Joh 6:37) nor mankind from enjoying the Messianic benefits, the feast of salvation. This parable, therefore, repeats the idea of the foregoing that the Jews will be severely punished for slighting and slaying God’s messengers, but brings out more fully the thought that others will enjoy the benefits they have lost. (Compare Mat 21:41 with Mat 21:7-10) Jesus here still looks sadly at the past and present, but also looks hopefully to the future.

Mat 22:11-13 present a new feature of the parable, having nothing like it in Luk 14:16-24. Luk 14:10 makes the transition from the main parable to this further lesson, as is shown (Goebel) by the phrase ’those servants,’ whereas ’the servants’ would have been natural in a mere conclusion of the foregoing narrative. The king’s directions were carried out, and the bridal hall filled with persons reclining at the banquet; but they were not all suffered to enjoy the feast. When the king came in to see the guests, rather behold, not simply ’to see,’ But to look at them as a pleasing spectacle. (Mat 6:1, Mat 11:7) This is not the forenoon meal originally intended or begun with, for it is now night. (Mat 22:13.) A man. He represents a principle (Bruce), and therefore a class; compare the one slothful servant in Mat 25:24. Had not on a wedding garment, a dress suitable for attending a wedding. We do not know of any specific wedding dress, as distinguished from that appropriate to other festive occasions; But the guests must come properly arrayed. Oriental monarchs now frequently present some elegant article of apparel to a visitor; and hence it has been widely supposed by commentators that in this case the king had furnished suitable apparel, and this man had refused or neglected to put it on. But the evidence furnished for such a custom (e. g., by Trench) is not adequate; and if the supposition be here made, it must be grounded on the necessity of the case. There is, however, no intimation that the man was poor. This is not a charitable feast to the poor, (Luk 14:13) but a grand entertainment in honour of the king’s son. A forenoon banquet was originally proposed and it is now night, so that there has been ample time for preparation. We may then suppose either that the man ought not to have come in at all if unable to dress himself properly, or that he might have sought help from the king under the peculiar circumstances if he had felt a proper anxiety to be attired worthily of the occasion. At any rate, his presence without proper dress was tacitly admitted by himself to be quite inexcusable, and was regarded by the king as a flagrant insult, deserving the severest punishment. No light is gained by supposing a reference to Zep 1:6 f., where the imagery is quite differently used. Friend, see on "Mat 20:13". And he was speechless. This shows that he felt himself to be entirely without excuse; he fully knew what was proper, and it was not beyond his reach. Our pulpit interpretation had better hold fast to this fact and not distract attention by discussing the question whether wedding garments were furnished. Said to the servants, the attendants (diakonois, see on "Mat 8:6"), including others besides his slaves (Mat 22:3, Mat 22:6); Rheims ’waiters.’ Bind him hand and foot, and cast him. The inserted words take him away and, are wanting in the best manuscripts and nearly all early versions, and though really useless the phrase is not objectionable, so that it is clearly an addition of the copyists. The binding would prevent his return to the bridal hall, and would leave him in the darkness. Into (the) outer darkness (see on "Mat 8:12"), which would be oppressively dark by the contrast of the brilliantly lighted palace.

What now is the application? Those who repent and propose to be subjects of the Messianic reign must become righteous in character and life or they cannot enjoy its benefits. (Mat 5:20 Heb 12:14) It is not enough for a man to place himself in outward relation to the kingdom; he must also develop the corresponding character and conduct. There have always been persons who desired the temporal and eternal advantages which Christianity offers, without caring to be and to do what it requires. Those who accept God’s bounty in the gospel, the salvation that is not by works but according to his mercy, must "be careful to maintain good works"; (Tit 3:4-8) otherwise they insult God, and disgrace the feast of salvation, and will not be allowed to share it—yea, will be severely punished. The lesson here taught is thus seen to be of the greatest importance. But to bring in the Pauline conception of imputed righteousness, and understand the parable to teach that we must "put on the wedding-garment of Christ’s righteousness," is altogether out of place, and turns attention away from the real lesson.

To leave no doubt as to what is meant by ’the outer darkness,’ our Lord adds, there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth (see on "Mat 8:12"), the well known signs of wretchedness in Gehenna, the place of eternal punishment. (Mat 13:42, Mat 25:30, Mat 25:46, compare on Mat 5:22) This clause cannot be taken as spoken by the king, and is easily understood as an addition made by our Lord, like that which immediately follows.

Mat 22:14. For many are called, but few are chosen. This is a general fact added as accounting for the particular fact described in the parable (notice ’for’). Many are called to share the Messianic benefits, but few are selected actually to attain them: a large portion of the called utterly refusing to accept, and some even of those who profess acceptance not developing the corresponding character and life. This selection of the actually saved may be looked at from two sides. From the divine side, we see that the Scriptures teach an eternal election of men to eternal life, simply out of God’s good pleasure. From the human side, we see that those persons attain the blessings of salvation through Christ who accept the gospel invitation and obey the gospel commandments. It is doubtful whether our minds can combine both sides in a single view, but we must not for that reason deny either of them to be true. This sentence is unwarrantably borrowed by many documents (and the common text) as an addition to Mat 20:16.

Homiletical And Practical

Mat 22:5."They made light of it." (1) Many men acknowledge no obligation to honour the Son of God. (2) They take no pleasure in contemplating his character and showing him respect. (3) They are engrossed with their own worldly possessions and pursuits, and care for nothing that he offers. (4) They thus deprive themselves of the highest benefit, and offer him the grossest insult.

Mat 22:7. Henry: "Christ will have a kingdom in the world, though many reject the grace and resist the power of that kingdom."

Mat 22:8. God’s forbearance and wrath. (1) He is not repelled by refusal, but kindly urges the invitation, Mat 22:4. (2) He chastises those who insult him and outrage his messengers, Mat 22:7. (3) He condescends to call many whom the world would have thought unfit for such an honour, Mat 22:8-10. (4) He punishes those who pretend to accept his invitation, but dishonour him by utter inconsistency, Mat 22:11-13.

Mat 22:12. Chrys.: "Reverence the love of him who called you, and let no one continue to have filthy garments, but let each of you busy himself about the clothing of your soul "

Mat 22:14. The called and the chosen. (1) The many are called in good faith, and it is their own fault if they do not have part in the feast. (2) There are various reasons why so large a number of the called fail. (a) Some turn away in contemptuous neglect, through worldly engrossment, Mat 22:5. (b) Some hate him who calls and outrage even those who bring the call, Mat 22:6. (c) Some profess to accept it, but take no pains to have the corresponding character and conduct, Mat 22:11 f. (3) The few who are chosen give proof of it by accepting the call and behaving accordingly. (4) These enjoy the feast of salvation, gladly honour the Son of God, and humbly ascribe all to sovereign grace. Jerome: "He sums up all these Parables in a brief sentence, to the effect that in working the vineyard, and in building the house, and in the marriage feast, not the beginning but the end is the great matter."

John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (American Baptist Publication Society, 1886) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10. The Parable of the Marriage Feast.

The King’s Answers and His Question.

CHAPTER 22

1. The Parable of the Marriage Feast. (Mat 22:1-14.)

2. The Herodians Answered. (Mat 22:15-22.)

3. The Sadducees Answered.(Mat 22:23-33.)

4. The Pharisees Answered.(Mat 22:34-40.)

5. The Unanswered Question.(Mat 22:41-46.)

A third parable follows immediately. They would have laid their hands upon Him, after that searching second parable had been uttered by the Lord, but His hour was not yet. Once more He flashes forth His truth and reveals events to come.

“And Jesus answering spoke to them again in parables, and said, The Kingdom of the heavens has become like a king, who made a wedding feast for his son, and sent his bondmen to call the persons invited to the wedding feast, and they would not come. Again he sent other bondmen, saying, Say to the persons invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fatted beasts are killed, and all things are ready; come to the wedding feast. But they made light of it, and went, one to his own land, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laying hold of his bondmen, ill-treated and slew them. And when the King heard of it he was wroth, and having sent his forces, destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he says to his bondmen, The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy; go therefore into the thoroughfares of the highways, and as many as ye shall find invite to the wedding feast. And those bondmen went out into the highways and brought together all as many as they found, both evil and good; and the wedding feast was furnished with guests. And the King having gone in to see the guests, beheld there a man not clothed with a wedding garment. And he says to him, Friend, how camest thou in here not having a wedding garment? But he was speechless. Then said the King to the servants, Bind him feet and hands and take him away, and cast him out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called ones, but few chosen ones” (Mat 22:1-14).

The dispensational character of this parable is very marked. It is ushered in with the familiar words found alone in this Gospel. “The Kingdom of the heavens is like,” or as it ought to be, “has become like.” No doubt it is the same parable as in Luke, chapter 14:16-24; only here the Holy Spirit makes prominent the dispensational features, which are not mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, because they do not belong there. The marriage feast which the King makes for his son and to which he invites guests typifies the gracious offer of God to give joy, comfort and blessings to those whom he wishes to partake of it. It is for the Son, in honor of the Son, that the feast is made. Of the Bride, who of course belongs also to the marriage feast, nothing is said. This parable foreshadows a great deal more than the other two parables in the previous chapter. It goes beyond the cross, for the offer is made not only to Israel but also to the Gentiles. The Kingdom was offered to the nation; had the Jews repented, there would have been a marriage feast for them, a feast of fat things, as promised by the prophets. God’s mercy would have been manifested upon them. The invitation contained in the third verse was given in the preaching of the Kingdom before the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Between the third and fourth verses these great events, as well as the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, must be placed. The preaching of the Kingdom with its gracious blessings stopped, as we learned in the study of this Gospel, with the twelfth chapter. In the thirteenth chapter the Lord teaches the mysteries of the Kingdom, that which takes place during this present dispensation. Now, in the fourth verse we read of a second invitation. When was this second invitation given to the invited guests, that is to Israel? Not before the Cross, but immediately after, with the Holy Spirit come down from Heaven. These servants were to tell them which were bidden, that all things are ready. The work of redemption accomplished, God in His infinite mercy gives another call and now He can say that indeed all is ready, even for the people who had rejected the Son of His love and had crucified Him. The opening chapters of the Book of Acts give us the history of this invitation. There we find the record of the second call to Israel.

The preaching of the Kingdom is resumed for a brief period and with this preaching is the promise of forgiveness of sins and the times of refreshing and restitution. The invitation, which went forth after the Lord had taken His place at the right hand of the Majesty on high, is clearly stated by Peter in the third chapter of Acts. “Repent, therefore, and be converted, for the blotting out of your sins, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and He may send Jesus Christ, who was foreordained for you, whom heaven indeed must receive till the times of restoration of all things, of which God has spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets since time began” (Act 3:19-21).

No Gentile heard this message, nor was it meant for a Gentile; it was exclusively addressed to Jerusalem. It is a mistake to teach otherwise. The times of restoration or restitution of all things, refer us to that which is promised to Israel when converted, with the Kingdom restored. To use this passage, as it is done so often, as an argument for that wicked doctrine, the restitution of all things, including the unsaved, is fundamentally wrong. Most of the soul-destroying errors taught in these last days spring from a wrong division of the Word of Truth. If this new invitation had been accepted by the Jews, then the Lord would have returned and the restoration of all things, spoken by the prophets and promised to His earthly people, would have come to pass. But the call was not heeded; the restoration of all things, promised to Israel, has been postponed.

Of this refusal to accept this gracious invitation to come to the marriage feast we read in this parable in the fifth and sixth verses. They made light of it, they ignored the offer and occupied themselves with earthly things, such as merchandise. They did the same, what Judah had done after he had with his brethren sold Joseph, he turned a merchant (Gen 38:1-30). But simple rejection of the gracious offer is not all, “the rest (the leaders of the people) laying hold of his bondmen, ill-treated and slew them.” The Book of Acts show how literally these words of the Lord were fulfilled. The climax was the stoning of Stephen.

And after this rejected second offer to the bidden guests, the Jews, comes the punishment sent upon them by God. Their city is destroyed, burned by fire, and these evil men, who are now called murderers, suffer the judgment as well. The Roman army came against Jerusalem, the city is burned; that awful judgment the Lord had predicted when He beheld the city, fell upon Jerusalem and the nation was dispersed. Again we say, what a literal fulfilment! This ends God’s dealing with Israel as a nation for the present age. He will deal with them again ere long; but nationally they are set aside during this age, which, however, does not mean that the individual Jew could not hear and accept the offer of Grace.

Now follows something new. It corresponds to that of which we read in the parable of the sower in Mat 13:1-58, “the sower went out to sow.” It is now outside of Israel nationally that the Grace of God is offered and the invitation to the wedding feast is given. The servants go out into the highways and give the invitation and bring together all as many as they found, both evil and good, so that the wedding feast was furnished.

It is clear that this going forth of the servants stands for the Gospel call going out to the Gentiles. “By their fall salvation is come to the Gentiles” as the Holy Spirit later testifies through Paul, is taught by the Lord Himself in this parable.

Something follows, which is often misapplied. All the confusion about the wedding garment springs from the wrong conception of the parable, in giving it a church application and putting the scene into Heaven. However, the church is here not at all in view. It is, as in Mat 13:1-58, the Kingdom of the heavens, the professing sphere of Christendom. The Lord shows that this sphere where His Name is professed and His gracious Gospel invitation is heard, is in a mixed condition. It is composed of professors and possessors. The call goes forth, many hear and follow the call, but not all believe with the heart unto salvation. The man without the wedding garment is the representative of this class and a large class it is. This is evident from the words with which our Lord closes the parable, “For many are called, but few chosen.” The many which are called are all those who heard the call and made an outward profession, without having accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. The wedding garment is the same as the “best robe” which by the Father was put upon the prodigal. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the wedding garment and all who are mere professors of Christ, without having put on the Lord Jesus Christ, will share the fate of this man in the parable. They will be cast into the outer darkness. Awful fate for every one who has not Christ to cover him in the presence of a holy and righteous God. However man may cover himself, however moral and cultured he may be, or religious and philanthropic, if he has not put on Christ he is naked and his place will be where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth forever. We only wish to add that the scene of viewing the guests must not be put in heaven. None but those who are Christ’s, saved and in possession of eternal life, will be in heaven, and none of those can nor ever will be cast out. It refers to the same time as Mat 13:40-43. Nor does the Lord teach the last things here, how judgment is to take place, where and in what order. In a general way He teaches this as a warning that though His invitation goes forth and many hear, yet not all will be chosen and that simply because they refuse to accept the gift of God -- the wedding garment, which alone fits us to be in the presence of the King.

The wonderful parable had been uttered; the fearful doom of Jerusalem and its evil leaders predicted; once more the Pharisees are silent in the presence of the King. Their hearts and moral condition had been uncovered, but determined to refuse the light which shone upon them, their darkness became greater than before. We see them withdrawing from His presence. They had nothing to say to Him; no answer to give; no confession to make. Led by their evil hearts, under the control of Satan they turned their backs upon the Lord. Light refused becomes darkness. “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.” This is a solemn word, especially in our day. Light received, truth revealed and not acted upon and followed, results in darkness in our days.

We see now the Pharisees in desperate council against the Lord. “Then went the Pharisees and held council how they might ensnare Him in speaking” (Mat 22:15). This was their only weapon now. They tried to find a way to ensnare Him, and having defeated Him, they intended to publish their victory abroad and find cause to accuse Him and reject Him. The second half of this chapter is occupied with the record of these attempts. The three great factions, Pharisees, Herodians and Sadducees combine in this. Ritualists, Worldlings and Rationalists make common cause to defeat the Lord. Though so essentially different, they unite in this one thing, the rejection of the Lord. It is not better in our day. First came the Pharisees and sent their disciples with the Herodians to Him. After He had answered their very subtle question the Sadducees appeared; they also have to return completely silenced. Then comes a great lawyer of the Pharisees and he tempts and once more the Lord wins the victory. Three times the Devil tempted the Lord and three times the Lord is tempted by the leaders of the people. No doubt the Pharisees, Herodians and Sadducees were but the instruments of that evil being. Then the Lord turns questioner. He only needs to put one question. They cannot answer Him. Not a word could they say nor did any one dare from that day to ask Him another question. After this the King takes the place of the Judge and pronounces judgment upon the corrupt ecclesiastical leaders.

But let us look briefly at the account of the temptings. “And they sent out to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth, and carest not for any one, for Thou regardest not men’s persons; tell us therefore what Thou thinkest: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? But Jesus, knowing their wickedness, said, Why tempt ye me, hypocrites? Show me the money of the tribute. And they presented unto Him a denarius. And He says to them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say to Him, Caesar’s. Then He says to them: Pay then what is Caesar’s to Caesar and what is God’s to God. And when they heard Him they wondered and left Him and went away” (Mat 22:16-22).

With what cunning.and flattery they had approached Him. For once they spoke the truth when they had declared, “Thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth.” But He knew them, He read their thoughts and sinister purpose.

The temptation was a very subtle one. The Pharisees had no doubt planned it all amongst themselves and had brought the Herodians along as witnesses to take down His answer. The Herodians were mean, low Jews, who favored the political rule and Roman authority and that, no doubt, for selfish reasons. Had the Lord answered the question in the negative and had He forbidden to give tribute to Caesar, these Herodians with the Pharisees (whom the Herodians must have hated) would certainly have accused the Lord as being a conspirator against the Roman government. Had the Lord answered the question in the affirmative and demanded that Caesar should receive tribute, the Pharisees would have claimed that He could not be the Messiah of Israel, inasmuch as He taught subjection under a Gentile King. “There was a strong party in the land, with which, not only politically but religiously, many of the noblest spirits would sympathize, which maintained, that to pay the tribute money to Caesar was virtually to own his royal authority, and so to disown that of Jehovah, who alone was Israel ‘s King. They argued that all the miseries of the land and the people were due to this national unfaithfulness.” (Edersheim.)

To the Pharisees it must have seemed as if for the Lord there could be no escape. Their astonishment when He answered the question, in His heavenly wisdom, shows that they had not anticipated any defeat at all.

They had to show Him the tribute money and on it appeared the image and superscription of Caesar. They had to make the declaration whose image it was. And in His answer He tells them plainly that not only should that be given to Caesar which is Caesar’s, but unto God that which is God’s. How was it that the people had to give at all tribute to Caesar? Did God mean that His people should be under Gentile rule and power? What had put them there? If they had given to God that which is God’s they would never have had to pay tribute to Caesar. Now that they had put themselves by their sin and apostasy in that condition they were to render that to Caesar which belongs to him and to God what is His. This surely was a divine answer such as only the Lord Himself could give. They could give no answer. They wondered and went away.

The Sadducees appear next upon the scene. These deniers of the resurrection come with a temptation of their own. “On the same day there came unto Him Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, and they asked Him saying, Teacher, Moses said, if a man die, not having children, that his brother should marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brothers, and the first having married died, and not having seed left his wife to his brother. In like manner also the second and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection therefore of which of the seven shall she be wife, for all had her?”

This attempt is as blunt as the other was subtle. The Sadducees denied both the resurrection and the existence of angels; it was not at all believed by them what they had asked. There was also a sneer at the Pharisees in their words. The question is based on the divine law as given through Moses in the book of Deuteronomy Mat 25:5, etc.). However, the law in this respect was far from being practiced in those days, and the interpreters of this law had put all kinds of limitations upon it. There may, of course, be a case possible like the one recited by the Sadducees, but it is unlikely that it was a real case they laid before Him; it was no doubt gotten up for the occasion. Ignorance, unbelief and sarcasm prompted this question. And what did He answer? He lays bare both their ignorance of the Scripture and the power of God. “And Jesus answering said to them, Ye err not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Mat 22:29). They did not believe in the Scriptures as the God breathed Word; they were the “Higher Critics” of their day. But the Lord does not try to prove to them the validity of the Scriptures, but tells them that they are ignorant. Then He continues, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as angels of God in heaven.” In a few words the Lord affirms the truth of resurrection, the existence of angels, which they denied, and shows that their carnal imaginations were but the result of their carnal hearts. The body of humiliation will not be continued in resurrection and earthly relations such as marrying and giving in marriage will cease there. The Lord of course does not teach about resurrection itself in this passage. His purpose is to answer the Sadducees with their foolish question. What He had stated about the state of resurrection was generally believed by the Jews living at that time. The rabbis declared, as learned from talmudical literature, “that in the world to come there would be neither eating nor drinking, fruitfulness nor increase, business nor envy, hatred nor strife, but that the righteous would sit with crowns on their heads and feast on the splendor of the Shekinah.”

He has still an additional word to say about resurrection, which is convincing proof that there will be a resurrection. “But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude heard it they were astonished at His doctrine” (Mat 22:30-32). God calls Himself by the name of these three men (Exo 3:1-22), and as He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living, therefore a resurrection must take place. There was nothing left for the Sadducees then but to withdraw.

Once more the Pharisees appear. “But the Pharisees, having heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, were gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, demanded, tempting Him, and saying, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law, And He said to him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy understanding. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law and the prophets hang” (Mat 22:34-40). There were various disputations among the Jewish scribes, the lawyers, about the greatest commandment, but the Lord does not enter into these at all. Once more His answer manifests perfect wisdom and according to the record given in the Gospel of Mark the lawyer was greatly moved by this answer. The Lord told him, “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God “ (Mar 12:34). However, the questioner did not realize that He who stood before him in that hour was Jehovah Himself, the giver of the law.

After this the hopelessness of their case is apparent. They gathered together in a group, but none can suggest a new question, another temptation. All their attempts had proven futile. The Lord now approaches them. He has a question for them. The question of the Messiah, His personality, was never touched upon by the Pharisees and it was after all the most important. The Lord has a question for them about Himself, and, unlike the Pharisees, he uses the Scripture, quoting from His own Word. “And the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus demanded of them, saying, What think ye concerning the Christ? Whose Son is He? They say to Him, David’s. He says to them, How, then, does David in Spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on my right hand until I put thine enemies under thy feet? If, therefore, David call Him Lord, How is He His son? And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did any one dare from that day to question Him any more” (Mat 22:41-46).

It is from the 110th Psalm the Lord draws His question. This Psalm is one of the great messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. It is very prominent in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where it is quoted a number of times as being fulfilled in Him, who is now the man of glory, seated at the right hand of the majesty on high, waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. This will be done when He comes again. In sending Him, the First begotten, into the world, God will put down all his enemies. It is almost impossible to believe that, with the evidences from Scripture, such as the word of our Lord and the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the Epistle to the Hebrews, certain men who call themselves “scholars” and assume the place of “critics” can deny the 110th Psalm was composed by David and that the Psalm has any messianic reference at all. This surely is wicked unbelief, as pronounced, perhaps more so, than the unbelief of the Pharisees.

Well, the Pharisees here answer that Messiah is to be the Son of David. They were professed teachers of Israel and still they did not understand the Scriptures. The question the Lord now puts to them, David calling Him who is to be a son of his, Lord, that is Jehovah, they could not, perhaps would not, answer. The passage teaches clearly who Messiah is. He is Jehovah incarnate, the Son of David and David’s Lord. And the interrogator is He. His Davidic descent could not be denied; that He has a legal title to the throne of David is clearly proven by the genealogy. In His ministry throughout these years, He had manifested Himself in His mighty works as Jehovah. They could give Him no answer. Solemn moment it was. No answer! No repentance! They are silenced, and when they open their lips again it is to cry “Crucify Him!” The end is now coming on rapidly. In the next chapter He speaks as Judge pronouncing His judgment upon the leaders of the nation.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 18

THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING’S SON

Mat 22:1-14. “And Jesus, responding, again spoke to them in parables, saying: The kingdom of the heavens is like unto a kingly man, who made a marriage for his son.” We are betrothed to Christ in regeneration and married in sanctification. Luxuriant festivals have in all ages been customary at weddings, and especially in the Old World, where they constrain every one who even happens to come in to eat with them. I called to see a sick American friend, at a Moslem house in Jerusalem, during the time of a wedding festival, which had been protracted, the nuptials having been celebrated a few days previously, but the music and festivity still continuing. Stranger as I was, from this far-off land, they constrained me to eat. When the soul passes out of Satan’s dreary starvation country into the kingdom of God, a wonderful time of spiritual festivity follows. Hence God’s wedding festival has really been in progress about six thousand years, Abel, Seth, Enoch, and Noah being honored guests. While it is a blessed experimental fact that this wedding festival has been running in all ages, the Excarnate Christ being on the earth from the beginning, yet the incarnation of Jesus gave a grand and glorious ovation and culmination to this wedding festival, to which isolated references are frequently made by way of pre-eminence.

“And he sent his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding, and they were not willing to come.” The patriarchs and prophets, from Abel down, had been calling the people to this wedding. Eventually John the Baptist came, the last and the greatest of the prophets, to invite those who had been called by all of his predecessors to come at once to the wedding festival, as the King’s Son had already come on the earth, and the time had arrived for all the guests to enjoy the royal banquet of the heavenly nuptials.

“Again he sent other servants, saying, Say to those who have been called, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings have been slain, and all things are ready; come to the wedding.” John the Baptist and his disciples gave them the first call. Jesus not only called them Himself, but He sent out the twelve apostles, to go two by two throughout the whole country and invite them; and also the seventy evangelists, commissioned and restricted to Israel, besides the innumerable volunteers who, in homes, social circles, business places, and along the thoroughfares, had been calling them now three years. Hence the Jews were abundantly notified, and really left without excuse.

“And they, being careless, went away, the one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. But the rest, taking his servants, insulted and slew them.” Do you not remember how the apostles, during the Pentecostal revival, preached all day on the streets and spent the ensuing night in jail? At a very early day, James, the brother of John, was martyred right there in Jerusalem. Stephen leading the way — O how the bloody tide did flow under the leadership of Saul the persecutor! Hence this was literally verified, some of the Jews treating the call with utter indifference, and others becoming demoniacally mad and killing them without mercy, beginning with Jesus, and going on, determined to exterminate the Nazarene heresy in blood.

“And the king, hearing, was angry, and sending forth his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city” That was literally fulfilled in the Roman wars, A. D. 66-73, deluging the whole country in Jewish blood, and culminating in the destruction of the city, leaving it a heap of ruins, without an inhabitant during the next fifty years, when the Emperor Adrian founded a Roman colony on the site, naming it Ella Capitolina, as there was no Jerusalem. It had been destroyed, and remained in oblivion till the conversion of Constantine, A. D. 325, who rebuilt and restored the name Jerusalem.

“Then he says to his servants, The marriage is ready, and those who have been called are not worthy. Therefore go ye into the highways, and as many as you may find, call to the wedding. And those servants, going out along the way, led in all so many as they found, both bad and good. And the marriage was filled with guests.” Here you see the call of the Gentiles, and we are at! so glad that we ever heard that call, and found our way into the marriage festival. Rest assured, we are delighted with it. I heard the call and responded fifty years ago, and the festival is far better now than ever. You see here a strange statement, that they brought in all indiscriminately, the bad and the good. How shall we understand that strange statement? “Good” is here used simply in a moral, practical, worldly sense; while “bad” is antithetical, and means the rough, dissipated, reckless, hard cases i.e., outbreaking sinners. Now, there is every encouragement for that class, because they are mentioned before the flood, showing up a broad, open door and a world-wide welcome for the worst reprobates that ever trod the globe. Though I was one of the “good,” my life when a sinner being morally irreproachable, yet I needed salvation just as much as the vilest debauchee that ever walked the earth. It is hard to tell which of these classes is the more hopeful and the easier saved, as there is nothing hard with God. The great trouble with the good is self-righteousness. Who knows but this fair, hypocritical garment of self-righteousness, hiding beneath it the very virus of hell, is as abominable in the sight of God as the blackest debaucheries, the most revolting blasphemy, and even theft and murder? The truth of it is, the whole world, out of Christ, are exposed to wrath and hell regardless of moral character or Church membership, these frequently being used by Satan to hoodwink the poor devotee, till he can dump him headlong into the bottomless pit.

“The king having come in to look upon his guests, saw there a man not having on the wedding garment. And he says to him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment? And he was dumb. Then the king said to the servants, Binding him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few elected.” This scene of the drama is profoundly significant and momentously interesting, developing a phase characteristic of spiritual wedlock which should bring us all low down in the dust of humiliation, crying unto God for that deep illumination of the Holy Spirit, which is our only fortification against the appalling catastrophe which overtook this man in that final ordeal, when the last opportunity having fled, emendation was utterly impossible, doom and damnation opening wide the yawning vortex of the bottomless pit. How awful to be hurled from the celestial portals into the regions of irremediable woe! Now, what is the wedding garment? It is none other than the snowy-white, spotless robe, washed and perfectly purified in the blood of Calvary’s Lamb. It is the righteousness of Christ, the robe of holiness, which the loving Father had the angels bring to clothe the prodigal son, preparatory for the salutations and congratulations which awaited him in the royal festival which followed. We see that this man had heard the gospel call, and had come along with the guests; but was never elected. Consequently the woeful discomfiture in the end supervened. “Chosen,” in E. V., is too weak a translation of eklektoi, “elected.” Peter says, “Elect through the sanctification of the Spirit.” Hence, you see, we are elected, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, having been nominated in conversion. No wonder Peter exhorts us to strive with all diligence to make our calling and election sure.

If we should meet the sad fate of the above guest, who was cast out into endless perdition because he there appeared without a wedding garment, infinitely better for us that we had never been born. Rely upon it, entire sanctification is this wedding garment, as we are betrothed to Christ in justification, but married to him in sanctification. All the guests collectively constitute the Bride, the Church. Since you have heard the gospel call, by the living ministry and the Holy Spirit, let it be the great enterprise of probationary life to make your calling and election sure, and settle the matter beyond all defalcation, lest you incur the sad fate of the guest without the wedding garment.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Subdivision 3. (Mat 22:1-14.)

The marriage of the King’s Son.

The parable of the marriage of the king’s son is a parable of the Kingdom of heaven. Its subject, therefore, is not the response of Israel to God as under the law, or even to Christ come unto His own, as in that of the husbandmen. Responsibility as to the vineyard is no more in question; but as to the offer of grace made to them in the gospel after the Cross, and when the Spirit of God was in marvellous grace testifying through the apostles that upon their repentance there would still be for them the blotting out of their sins and the coming of times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, whom, though rejected, God would again send to them.* Not till after the definite rejection of this offer by Israel, does the message of the gospel go out to the Gentiles, as in the parable, which goes on to the end of this also, when the man that has not on a wedding garment is cast out. In this, too, the rejection of grace is figured, though here in one who might seem to have accepted it.

{* Act 3:19-21. The Revised Version has here set right the strange error of the common one, which has "when the times of refreshing shall come," instead of "so that the times of refreshing may come."}

(1) We find the same parable in the gospel of Luke (Luk 14:16-24), but in briefer form, and without the dispensational character which is so manifest and appropriate in Matthew. In Luke it is simply a man who makes a feast: here it is the marriage-feast of a king’s son. Marriage was in the Old Testament a familiar figure of covenant relationship between the people and their God; here with the Son of God - Messiah. The bride does not, however, come into the scene, but only those invited to the marriage, the joys and blessings of union being symbolized as a feast. The Jews are the already invited guests, but not till after atonement had been made in the sacrifice of the Cross could the message go forth, "I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my failings are killed, and all things are now ready: come unto the marriage." Nothing is said of what the Cross is on the human side of it we have only the result in divine grace; and that is "tidings of joy which shall be unto all people."

(2) The messengers go out with this, but only to find how little it is this to those to whom it is sent. Only the general result as to Israel is given; and this is rejection whether it be manifest simply in making light of it and going off to other things, or in harsher treatment of the messengers, even to putting them to death. This brings sure retribution: "the king sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city." Israel is thus for the time being set aside, - left without priest or altar or sacrifice, as it is this day.

(3) But divine goodness will not be frustrated in this way; and through Israel’s fall salvation comes to the Gentiles. The invited guests were not worthy: the servants of the king are sent out therefore into the public thoroughfares to invite all without restriction of any kind - the universal call of the gospel now. "Bad and good" are welcome alike: salvation is needed by the best, sufficient for the worst. The response is still not universal as the call is; but the vacant seats are nevertheless filled: the wedding is furnished with guests.

(4) But this, alas, is not yet the whole account. The Kingdom, as we have seen; in all these parabolic representations of it, in which the "mysteries" of it are told out, - the Kingdom while the King is absent and the administration in the hands of men - is in a mixed condition; the false found with the true; and needs in consequence that purging which when the King comes to take it into His own hands, it will surely receive. The gathering of the guests is on earth ideally, where of course, alone the confusion is, but even this is not stated, nor have we here any prophetic outline of final events. It is the awful fact alone that is put before us of what the end will reveal as to a class of which the man without a marriage garment is simply the representation. The coming of the King reveals them: a class which, with whatever profession; have not Christ, the precious gift of God’s grace, and who alone is title and fitness for the eternal joy.

Whether the garment was a gift or not, and what it stands for, have been variously disputed. The circumstances of the case are sufficient proof that the multitude of invited could not be expected to have or to provide for themselves what would suit a royal feast. While the spiritual meaning can only be made clear by the language of the gospel as we find it elsewhere. The "robe of righteousness" (Isa 61:10) with which God covers His people, and which, though it be put upon a prodigal, is the "best robe" in the Father’s house, is only susceptible of the most evangelic meaning. Christ is alone "made unto us righteousness" (1Co 1:30), and as with the first God-given covering for the nakedness of sinful man, death it is that in His wonderful way has furnished it. That He is God’s free gift to all who will receive Him, will strike dumb every one who appears at last before God without this.

(5) Judgment follows. The refuser of Christ is really outside all the light of God by that very fact. He is but sent to his own place in the darkness outside the rejoicing in the house of God. There the awful sting of remorse must follow him: there is the weeping and gnashing of teeth."

The last dread words here multiply this one man into a multitude indeed: "for many are called, but few chosen."

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

22:1-14 In this parable, Israel, having repeatedly rejected God’s word in the past, rejects the Messiah and is judged as a result. In Israel’s place, God raised up the church (16:17-19; 21:43), of which righteousness is also expected (Rom 11:11-24).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Mat 22:1. Ἀποκριθεὶς, answering) Not only he who has been questioned, but he also to whom a reason for speaking has been given, may rightly be said to answer.—πάλιν, again) construe this word with ἐν παραβολαῖς, in parables, i.e. with the design of putting forth more.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat_22:1. Καὶ ἀποκρ. ὁ Ἰης. πάλιν εἶπεν, κ.τ.λ.] In the full consciousness of His mission and His own superiority, Jesus replied (ἀποκρ., see note on Mat_11:25) to their hostile ζητεῖν, which only fear of the people kept in check, by adding another parabolic address (ἐν παραβ. plural of the category). Olshausen and Keim are not justified in doubting this connection on the ground that Mat_21:45 f. is, as they suppose, the formal conclusion. The parable as given in Luk_14:16 ff. is not a Pauline modification of the one before us (Baur, Hilgenfeld), but is rather to be regarded as representing an imperfect version of it which had found its way into the document consulted by Luke. Others are of opinion that the parable in Luk_14:16 ff. is the more original of the two, and that here it is interwoven with another (Mat_22:8 ff.), the introduction to which, however, has disappeared, and that, in the process, still a third feature (Mat_22:6-7) has been added from the parable which precedes (Ewald, Schneckenburger, de Wette, Strauss, Weizsäcker, Keim, Scholten). But coming as it does after the remark of Mat_21:45 f., a somewhat copious parable such as that before us, so far from being a mere heaping of passage upon passage, is intended to serve as a forcible concluding address directed against His obdurate enemies,an address, too, which does not interrupt the connection, since it was delivered before those for whom it was intended had had time to withdraw (Mat_22:15). As, in presence of such obduracy, thoughts of the divine love and of the divine wrath could not but crowd into the mind of Jesus; so, on the other hand, there could not fail to be something corresponding to this in their parabolic utterance.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 22:1-14 . The royal wedding . This parable is peculiar to Mt., and while in some respects very suitable to the situation, may not unreasonably be suspected to owe its place here to the evangelist’s habit of grouping kindred matter. The second part of the parable referring to the man without a wedding robe has no connection with the present situation, or with the Pharisees who are supposed to be addressed. Another question has been much discussed, viz. , whether this parable was spoken by Jesus at all on any occasion, the idea of many critics being that it is a parable of Christ’s reconstructed by the evangelist or some other person, so as to make it cover the sin and fate of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, and the Divine demand tor righteousness in all recipients of His grace. The resemblance between this parable and that of the Supper , in Luk 14:16-24 , is obvious. Assuming that Jesus uttered a parable of this type, the question arises: which of the two forms given by Mt. and Lk. comes nearer to the original? The general verdict is in favour of Luke’s. As to the question of the authenticity of Mt.’s parable, the mere fact that the two parables have a common theme and many features similar is no proof that both could not proceed from Jesus. Why should not the later parable be the same theme handled by the same Artist with variations so as to make it serve a different while connected purpose, the earlier being a parable of Grace , the later a parable of Judgment upon grace despised or abused? If the didactic aim of the two parables was as just indicated, the method of variation was preferable to the use of two parables totally unconnected. “What is common gives emphasis to what is peculiar, and bids us mark what it is that is judged” ( The Parabolic Teaching of Christ , p. 463). The main objections to the authenticity of the parable are its allegorical character, and its too distinct anticipation of history. The former objection rests on the assumption that Jesus uttered no parables of the allegorical type. On this, vide remarks on the parable of the Sower , chap. 13.

Mat 22:1 . ἐν παραβολαῖς , the plural does not imply more than one parable, but merely indicates the style of address = parabolically.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1–14. THE PARABLE OF THE ROYAL MARRIAGE FEAST

Peculiar to St Matthew

The parable recorded by St Luke (Luk 14:16-24), though similar to this in some respects, differs in its context and special teaching and in many details.

As of the other parables of the Passion, the primary intention of this regards the present and the immediate future. The parable falls into two divisions, (1) Mat 22:1-7; (2) Mat 22:8-14. In the first (1) the servants are John Baptist and the first disciples of Christ; the feast is the Kingdom of God, or the Christian Church; the invited guests, who refuse to come, are the Jews; the vengeance taken was literally fulfilled at the siege of Jerusalem, A.D. 70. (2) This division relates to the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. As in the Net (ch. Mat 13:47) or in the Corn-field (ch. Mat 13:24), worthy and unworthy are mingled until the King separates.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chap.

22:1-14.] Parable of the marriage of the King’s Son. Peculiar to Matthew. A parable resembling this in several particulars occurs in Luk 14:15-24, yet we must not hastily set it down as the same. Many circumstances are entirely different: the locality and occasion of delivery different, and in both cases stated with precision. And the difference in the style of the parables is correspondent to the two periods of their utterance. That in Luke is delivered earlier in our Lord’s ministry, when the enmity of the Pharisees had yet not fully manifested itself: the refusal of the guests is more courteous, their only penalty, exclusion;—here they maltreat the servants, and are utterly destroyed. This binds the parable in close connexion with that of the wicked husbandmen in the last chapter, and with this period of our Lord’s course.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(E)

22:1. And Jesus answered again, and spake in parables to them, saving,

(L)

1-10. So far the editor has adapted a Logian “kingdom” parable to his context. In the original parable the story of a king who made a marriage feast and invited guests who were indifferent to the invitation, was used to describe the reception accorded to the good news of the coming kingdom of the heavens. By inserting vv. 6-7 the editor has adapted this, and brought it into line with Mark’s parable of the Husbandmen, and the preceding parable of the Two Sons. The Jewish nation in the person of its rulers had refused to listen to God’s call to repentance (21:32), had rejected the Messiah (v. 39), and had neglected the summons to the marriage feast (22:5). Consequently, judgement upon them was at hand. Another people would receive their privileges (21:43, 22:10), whilst the Jewish metropolis, and with it the Jewish polity, would be destroyed, 22:7. The next four verses seem to be the closing paragraph of another parable. They are hardly suitable here as a conclusion of vv. 1-10, because the people invited in from the streets could hardly be expected to have provided themselves with festal attire. The parable to which 11-14 originally belonged no doubt spoke of an interval between the invitation and the feast, during which the guests were expected to make suitable preparations.

Such a parable is attributed to Jochanan ben Zaccai in B. Shabbath 153a, and to Judah ha Nasi in Midr. Koh 98 (Wünsche, p. 122). A king invited his servants to a feast, but gave them no fixed time for the meal. The wise attired themselves fittingly, and waited at the palace door. The foolish went away to their work. Suddenly the king issued his summons. The wise came in their festal robes, and the foolish in their working clothes. These were made to stand and watch the wise enjoying the meal. Luk 14:15-24 has a parable of similar outline to Mat 22:1-10. But the language and details are quite different. The two Evangelists clearly are not borrowing from the same written source.

(L)

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Not all of the whole company of them that are called by the voice of the Gospel are the true Church before God: for the most part of them had rather follow the commodities of this life: and some do most cruelly persecute those that call them: but they are the true Church, which obey when they are called, such as for the most part they are, whom the world despiseth.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

CHAPTER XXII.

The parable of the marriage of a king's son, 1-14.

The Pharisees and Herodians question him concerning the

lawfulness of paying tribute to Caesar, 15-22.

The Sadducees question him concerning the resurrection, 23-33.

A lawyer questions him concerning the greatest commandment in

the law, 34-40.

He asks them their opinion of the Christ, and confounds them,

41-46.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXII.

Verse 2. The kingdom of heaven] In Bereshith Rabba, sect. 62. fol. 60, there is a parable very similar to this, and another still more so in Sohar. Levit. fol. 40. But these rabbinical parables are vastly ennobled by passing through the hands of our Lord. It appears from Luke, Lu 14:15; c., that it was at an entertainment that this parable was originally spoken. It was a constant practice of our Lord to take the subjects of his discourses from the persons present, or from the circumstances of times, persons, and places. See Mt 16:6 Joh 4:7-10; Joh 6:26-27; Joh 7:37. A preacher that can do so can never be at a loss for text or sermon.

A marriage for his son] A marriage feast, so the word γαμους properly means. Or a feast of inauguration, when his son was put in possession of the government, and thus he and his new subjects became married together. See 1Kg 1:5-9; 1Kg 1:19; 1Kg 1:25, c., where such a feast is mentioned.

From this parable it appears plain,

1. That the KING means the great God.

2. His SON, the Lord Jesus.

3. The MARRIAGE, his incarnation, or espousing human nature, by taking it into union with himself.

4. The MARRIAGE FEAST, the economy of the Gospel, during which men are invited to partake of the blessings purchased by, and consequent on, the incarnation and death of our blessed Lord.

5. By those who HAD BEEN bidden, or invited, Mt 22:3, are meant the Jews in general, who had this union of Christ with human nature, and his sacrifice for sin, pointed out by various rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices under the law and who, by all the prophets, had been constantly invited to believe in and receive the promised Messiah.

6. By the SERVANTS, we are to understand the first preachers of the Gospel, proclaiming salvation to the Jews. JOHN the Baptist and the seventy disciples (Lu 10:1,) may be here particularly intended.

7. By the OTHER SERVANTS, Mt 22:4, the apostles seem to be meant, who, though they were to preach the Gospel to the whole world, yet were to begin at JERUSALEM (Lu 24:47) with the first offers of mercy.

8. By their making light of it, c., Mt 22:5, is pointed out their neglect of this salvation, and their preferring secular enjoyments, c., to the kingdom of Christ.

9. By injuriously using some, and slaying others, of his servants, Mt 22:6, is pointed out the persecution raised against the apostles by the Jews, in which some of them were martyred

. 10. By sending forth his troops, Mt 22:7, is meant the commission given to the Romans against Judea and, burning up their city, the total destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the son of Vespasian, which happened about forty-one years after.

On this parable it is necessary to remark,

1.That man was made at first in union with God.

2. That sin entered in, and separated between God and man.

3. That as there can be no holiness but in union with God, and no heaven without holiness, therefore he provided a way to reconcile and reunite man to himself.

4. This was effected by Christ's uniting himself to human nature, and giving his Spirit to those who believe.

5. That as the marriage union is the closest, the most intimate, solemn, and excellent, of all the connections formed among mortals, and that they who are thus united in the Lord are one flesh so that mystical union which is formed between God and the soul through Jesus Christ, by the Eternal Spirit, is the closest, most intimate, solemn, and excellent, that can be conceived; for he who is thus joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

6. This contract is made freely: no man can be forced to it, for it is a union of will to will, heart to heart; and it is by willing and consenting that we come unto God through his Son.

7. That if this marriage do not take place here, an eternal separation from God, and from the glory of his power, shall be the fearful consequence.

8. That there are three states in which men run the risk of living without God and losing their souls.

1st. That of a soft, idle, voluptuous life, wherein a man thinks of nothing but quietly to enjoy life, conveniences, riches, private pleasures, and public diversions. They made light of it.

2dly. That of a man wholly taken up with agricultural or commercial employments, in which the love of riches, and application to the means of acquiring them, generally stifle all thoughts of salvation. One went to his own field, and another to his traffic.

3dly. That of a man who is openly unjust, violent, and outrageously wicked, who is a sinner by profession, and not only neglects his salvation, but injuriously treats all those who bring him the Gospel of reconciliation. Seizing his servants, they treated them injuriously, &c.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

XXII.

(1) And Jesus answered.—The word implies a connection of some kind with what has gone before. The parable was an answer, if not to spoken words, to the thoughts that were stirring in the minds of those who listened.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,

Ver. 1. Spake unto them again] That by one discourse he might peg in another. He had but a while to be with men, and see how he bestirs him! Natural motion is more swift and violent toward the end of it. It was as pleasant to Christ to seek men’s salvation as it is to the devil to seek their destruction; who therefore doth his utmost, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time, Rev 12:12, his malevolence is motive to his diligence.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Jesus answered and spake unto them again in parables - See the notes at Mat 13:3. That is, he answered or made reply to the Pharisees, who had been enraged at him for what he had already spoken to them, Mat 21:45-46. He made a still further statement, to show how the gospel would be received and treated by them. The real answer here, as is frequently the case in the New Testament, refers to what was passing in the mind, or to the conduct of those who were addressed, not to what they said.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Jesus answered, and spoke to them again in parables, and concludes his discourse with again describing, 1st. the reprobation of the Jews; 2d. the calling of the Gentiles to the true faith; and 3d. the final judgment of both the one and the other. In this parable of the marriage feast, says St. John Chrysostom, our Saviour again declares to the Jews their reprobation, and the vocation of the Gentiles, their great ingratitude, and his tender solicitude for them. For he did not send them a single invitation only; he repeatedly invited them. Say, says he, to the invited; and afterwards, call the invited; thus evincing the greatness of their obstinacy, in resisting all the calls and pressing invitations of the Almighty. (Hom. lxx.) --- This parable is certainly not the same as that mentioned in St. Luke xiv. 16, as every one that will be at the pains to examine and compare all the circumstances of each, will easily discover, though they are very much alike. (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Luke hath this parable, Mat 14:16-24, which hath made divers interpreters think that Matthew hath put it out of its due order; for Luke reports it as spoken long before, and that not in the temple, but at a Pharisee’s house where he was at dinner, and upon occasion of one of them saying, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. But I know no reason why we may not allow our Saviour to have used the same parable twice, in two differing companies, and upon two different occasions, especially considering there are remarkable differences in Luke’s and Matthew’s relation. I shall therefore leave the consideration of Luke’s relation till I come to that chapter in his Gospel, where I shall meet with it in course, and consider only what Matthew saith. We must remember this is a parable, not an historical narration. The first verse tells us,

And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables: he answered, that is, he began a discourse, so the word very often signifies. Our Saviour hath neither given us any particular explication of this parable, nor any proparabola, or epiparabola, any sentence before or after the parable, guiding us as to the explication, except only that short sentence, Mat 22:14,

For many are called, but few are chosen; which rather guides us in the explication of the four latter verses than of the whole parable: yet it is not hard for us to find out our Saviour’s scope in this parable. It seemeth to be double:

1. To inform those to whom he spake of the destruction suddenly coming upon the Jews, for their rejection of the gospel, and of the calling of the Gentiles.

2. To let us know, that neither Amongst the Jews nor Gentiles all should be saved whom God called by the external ministration of the gospel; but those alone who, belonging to the election of grace, should be found in the day of judgment having on the wedding garment.

So then, the kingdom of heaven here signifies, the way or equity of God in the dispensation of the gospel, or the administration of things in order to the kingdom of glory. The king here mentioned must be he who is the King of kings. The marriage for his son, is the exhibition of the covenant of grace; which whosoever layeth hold on, Isa 56:4, is by faith united to Christ; which union is often expressed in holy writ under the notion of a marriage, Psa 45:10,11; Eph 5:23, &c.: or their union with him in glory, Rev 19:9. The persons bidden were the Jews. The servants that called them to the wedding, were those that were faithful amongst their ordinary teachers, or the prophets, such as Isaiah and the rest, whom they refused to hearken unto. The other servants might signify John the Baptist, and the twelve, and others sent out by Christ, to tell them that Christ was now come, there wanted nothing but their coming to him and receiving of him. Their making light of it, going one to his farm, another to his merchandise, and others taking the servants, entreating them spitefully, and slaying them, signifies the Jews’ general refusal of the gospel, and the particular rage and malice of some of them, shown in their abusing of the Lord’s prophets and messengers, and which he knew some of them would further show against Stephen and James. The king’s sending forth his armies, and slaying the murderers, signified the coming of the Roman armies, and their utter destroying Jerusalem. The sending of the servants into the highways, and inviting all those whom they found to the wedding, signified the apostles going to the Gentiles, and preaching the gospel to all nations; which much enlarged the territories of the church, gathering in many who professed to accept of Christ, but not all in truth and sincerity. The king’s coming to see his guests, signifieth Christ’s coming at the day of the last judgment, with his fan in his hand, throughly to purge his floor. His finding one without his wedding garment, signifieth his finding many hypocrites at the day of judgment. The guests at weddings were either wont to put on their best clothes, (as we usually do), or a particular garment which was then in use, and was worn by those who were invited to weddings. By the

wedding garment here is meant Christ, Rom 13:14, who is at this feast both the bridegroom, and the meat at the feast, and the wedding garment also, in divers respects. It is but an idle dispute, whether faith is meant, or love: neither the one nor the other separately, but faith that worketh by love; whatsoever God requireth of us, that we may be made meet for the kingdom of God: without faith and holiness none can see God. His being

speechless signifies, that those who have lived under the proffers of grace and salvation, and have rejected them, neither believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, nor bringing forth fruits of holiness, will be without excuse at the day of judgment. And the king’s commanding his servants to

bind him hand and foot, & c., signifieth that all such persons as live within the church, under the means of grace, yet die impenitent and unbelievers, having not by a true faith received Christ as their Saviour, and brought forth the fruits of true repentance and holiness, shall get nothing by their being within the church and externally called, but shall be thrown into hell as well as others, the pains of which are here expressed by binding hand and foot, lying in outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth; as in other places by a worm that shall never die, and a fire that shall never go out; all metaphorical expressions, signifying the vexations and intolerable punishment of the damned in hell.

For (saith our Saviour) many are called, but few are chosen. We met with this expression before, Mat 20:16, where the sense of it was not so obvious as it is here. Some by it here understand, a choice unto life eternal; nor without reason, if that be understood by the marriage supper, as it is Rev 19:9; and it appears to be partly at least the sense of it here, in that the person without the wedding garment is doomed to eternal misery. If we by the marriage supper understand a union with Christ here, or the benefits flowing from that, we must by chosen here understand effectually called, being made partakers of that special distinguishing grace which bringeth salvation. The gospel is preached to many whom God doth not favour with his special grace, so as they receive it, convert, and are saved. The former part of this parable doth hint us the reason why the Jews rejected the offers of grace and salvation made to them, viz. the power that the temptations from the world, of pleasure, profit, and honour, had upon them. As the latter part also showeth us the true reason why any are saved to be from the free grace of God, viz. because they are chosen, chosen to eternal life, and particularly favoured to be made partakers of his special and, distinguishing grace.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Parables of the Marriage of the King's Son and the Wedding Garment

1-14. Marriage of the King's Son (peculiar to St. Matthew). Jesus concludes His discourse by reiterating in still clearer and stronger language the teaching of the last parable, viz. His Divine Sonship, the impending destruction of Jerusalem, the rejection of the Jews, and the call of the Gentiles. He concludes with a warning to the Gentiles not to abuse the mercy about to be extended to them, by appearing at the feast (i.e. becoming Christians) without the garment of repentance and pureness of living.

This parable is probably quite distinct from that of the Great Supper (Luk_14:16). The latter says nothing of the wedding garment, of the fall of Jerusalem, or of the Sonship of Christ. Its occasion, moreover, was entirely different, and, from its contents, it was obviously spoken before the hostility between Christ and the Pharisees had reached its height.

1. And Jesus answered] viz. their attempt to seize Him, Mat_21:46, by another parable.

2. A certain king] i.e. God. A marriage] RV 'a marriage feast,' which would last seven or fourteen day (Gen_29:27; Jdg_14:12; Tob_8:19). The marriage is between Christ and His Church (Rev_21:2; 2Co_11:2; Isa_54:5, etc.), which begins here, but is perfected in the world to come. For Jewish ideas as to the Messiah's great feast, see on Mat_8:11.

3. His servants] i.e. Moses and the prophets, and especially the Baptist, the last and greatest prophet of the old dispensation. Them that were bidden] i.e. the Jews.

4, Other servants] i.e. the Apostles. The repetition of the invitation was a Jewish custom. 'What' (said the rabbis) 'was the boast of the men of Jerusalem? Not one of them went to a banquet, unless he were twice invited.' 6, The remnant] are the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, who were the chief persecutors of the apostles (Act_5:40; Act_7:58; Act_12:2; Act_14:5, etc.), as distinguished from the nation generally, which only 'made light of 'the Apostles' message.

7. His armies] 'The armies of the Romans, who, under Vespasian and Titus, slew these murderers, and burnt their city, Jerusalem.'

8. Then saith he] Not indicating that no Gentile converts were to be made before that date, but that from that time 'the fulness of the Gentiles' would begin (Rom_11:25).

9. Into the highways] RV 'the partings of the highways.' More probably it means the places where the roads from the country enter a city, and so by metaphor, Gentile territory (Grimm). So also Euthymius: 'He calls the cities and villages of the Gentiles the outlets of the highways, signifying the forlorn state of the Gentiles.'

To feast the poor was quite common. The Talmud says, 'It was a custom among rich men to invite poor travellers to feasts.'

10. Both bad and good] Signifying, as in the parable of the net, that the Church is to consist of good and evil, and that the entrance into it is not to be denied to any but scandalous sinners.

11. To see (RV 'behold') the guests] The scene changes to the last judgment, when the fitness of the guests to be there will be the subject of a solemn scrutiny. Theophylact well says, 'The entrance to the marriage feast is without scrutiny, for by grace alone were we all called, both good and bad. But the subsequent life of those who have entered in, will not be without scrutiny, but the King will make a most exact scrutiny of those who after their entry into the faith, shall be found with filthy garments. Let us therefore tremble, reflecting that unless a man live a pure life, faith by itself is of no avail, for not only is he cast out of the marriage feast, but is cast into the fire.' A wedding garment] Eastern etiquette is strict, and to appear without the festive garment that custom prescribes, would be a serious offence. Since the judgment is according to works, the wedding garment is not faith, or imputed righteousness, but a holy life.

13. The servants] RM 'ministers,' i.e. the angels.

14. Cp. Mat_20:16. Some think that this indicates that only a few of all mankind will be finally saved, but Theophylact is probably right in saying that it refers to the Jews of our Lord's time, all of whom were called, but few were chosen, because few accepted the invitation. The 'calling' must be carefully distinguished from the 'choosing.' The calling is the act of God, and does not depend on human will; but whether a man is finally chosen or not, depends upon his own conduct after his call.

15-22. The tribute money (Mar_12:13; Luk_20:20). The Sanhedrin, not having the power of life and death, tried to entrap Jesus into an answer which might be made an excuse for handing Him over to Pilate on a charge of rebellion and treason. The Pharisees, who concocted the plot, did not appear in it openly, but sent their disciples, and the Herodians, who, from hostility to Jesus, were quite willing to join in the attempt to destroy Him.

16. Herodians] i.e. partisans of the dynasty of the Herods. They supported the Roman domination.

17. Is it lawful?] The party of the Zealots, founded by Judas of Galilee, held that, Israel being a theocracy, and God the only King, it was unlawful to pay tribute to any foreign power, The Pharisees asked whether Christ agreed with Judas. The hypocrisy of the question appears in this, that the Pharisees at heart agreed with Judas, yet they were plotting to put Jesus to death on a charge of supporting his policy. Tribute] see on Mat_17:25.

19. A penny] see on Mat_18:28. It was a Roman coin, and the Jewish schools held it for a maxim that he whose coin was in circulation was king. The rabbis said, 'Wheresoever the money of any king is current, there the inhabitants acknowledge that king for their lord.' So in the Talmud, Abigail refuses to recognise David as king, saying, 'The money of our Lord Saul as yet is current.'

20. Whose.. image?] The rabbis objected to human figures on coins as savouring of idolatry. Edersheim says, 'Neither Herod nor Herod Antipas had any image on their coins. This must therefore have been either a foreign one (Roman), or else one of the Tetrarch Philip, who exceptionally had the image of Tiberius on his coins'. See Edersheim, 'Life,' App. II.

21. Render therefore unto Caesar] A pregnant saying, destroying the basis of Jewish nationalism, and defining the relation of Church and State for all time. A brief exposition must suffice. Christ showed, (1) His sympathy with imperialism, as opposed to national and racial particularism. Intending Himself to found a universal Church, He openly showed His sympathy with the great and beneficent empire which broke down the barriers of national hatred and prejudice, established universal peace, and ensured the diffusion of culture, knowledge, and useful arts; (2) that submission and loyalty to civil power is a duty binding on the conscience. Christ says not only 'Give,' but 'Render,' signifying that submission is due; (3) that nevertheless there are limits to the obedience due to the civil power. When Caesar asks not for tribute, but for worship, as actually happened at this time, he is to be resisted; if the State prescribes the religious worship of its subjects, obedience is not due; (4) that consequently Church and State are not one thing, but two, each with its peculiar powers given by God, and that all attempts to amalgamate them, or to subject the one to the other, are wrong; (5) that religious persecution is unlawful. The State has no authority to enforce any particular religion within its borders, and the Church has no authority to use the sword of the magistrate in its behalf.

23-33. The Sadducees and the Resurrection (Mar_12:18; Luk_20:27). A less dangerous interview than the preceding. The Sadducees sought to bring Jesus into contempt and ridicule with the multitude by asking Him a question which they thought He could not answer.

23. Sadducees] see on Mat_3:7. Shall marry his wife] see Deu_25:5. The Levirate marriage was falling into disuse at this time. The Mishna (200 a.d.) recommends that the eus torn should no longer be observed.

28. Whose wife shall she be?] Two errors underlay the question: (1) That in the resurrection men will rise to a natural life; (2) that the Law will continue in force. The sceptical Sadducees naturally represented the doctrine of the Resurrection in its most ridiculous form.

There was some division of opinion among the rabbis as to whether resurrection would be to a natural or to a supernatural (spiritual) life. A few took the spiritual view, e.g. Rabbi Raf is reported to have often said, 'In the world to come they shall neither eat, nor drink, nor beget children, nor trade. There is neither envy nor strife, but the just shall sit with crowns on their heads, and shall enjoy the splendour of the Divine Majesty.' But the majority inclined to a materialistic view of the resurrection. The pre-Christian book of Enoch says that the righteous after the resurrection shall live so long that they shall beget thousands. The received doctrine is laid down by Rabbi Saadia, who says, 'As the son of the widow of Sarepton, and the son of the Shunamite, ate and drank, and doubtless married wives, so shall it be in the resurrection'; and by Maimonides, who says, 'Men after the resurrection will use meat and drink, and will beget children, because since the Wise Architect makes nothing in vain, it follows of necessity that the members of the body are not useless, but fulfil their functions.' The point raised by the Sadducees was often debated by the Jewish doctors, who decided that 'a woman who married two husbands in this world is restored to the first in the next.'

30. The angels] Jesus takes the opportunity of rebuking the Sadducees' disbelief in angels (Act_23:8).

32. I am the God of Abraham] Exo_3:6. The proof of the resurrection is taken from the Law, not because the Sadducees rejected the Prophets and Hagiographa, of which there is no certain proof, but because to every Jew the Law was of higher authority than any other part of the canon. Theophylact says, 'He said not “I was,” but “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” For though they are dead, yet they live through the hope of the resurrection. Here the Lord opposes the heresy of the Sadducees, saying, “God is not the God of the dead, i.e. of men who have altogether perished, but of the living, i.e. of those who have immortal souls, and though they are now dead will rise again.”' Strictly speaking, the argument of Jesus is an argument for human immortality, but to Jewish minds the idea of immortality necessarily carried with it the idea of a resurrection.

34-40. The great commandment of the Law (Mar_12:28). Considering that this question was asked by an individual Pharisee, that there is nothing ensnaring in it, and that Jesus commended His questioner, saying, 'Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God' (Mk), it is probable that this was not a temptation, but a test, an honest appeal for information on the part of one who had heard His last answer with admiration. St. Luke records a somewhat similar incident in another connexion (Luk_10:25). Some regard it as another version of this incident.

35. A lawyer] i.e. a scribe, or rabbi.

Tempting him] i.e. proving Him, testing His penetration and knowledge of the Law by a hard question.

36. Which is the great commandment?] A question debated by the Jewish schools. The best Jewish opinion coincided with our Lord's. Philo, our Lord's contemporary, says, 'To speak briefly, of the innumerable detailed exhortations and commandments, the two which in the most general manner sum up the whole, are the duties of piety and holiness towards God, and of lovingkindness and justice towards man. Each of these is sub-divided into various special duties, all of them praiseworthy': see on Mat_7:12. The first commandment is Deu_6:5, the second Lev_19:18. The former formed part of the prayers of the phylacteries, daily recited by every Jew: see on Mat_23:6. Both are somewhat freely quoted according to the LXX.

37. Heart.. soul.. mind] i.e. all one's powers. 'Heart' in Hebrew is the inward man, sometimes the understanding; 'soul' is life, often, but not always, physical life; 'mind' is nearly the same as reason, or rational soul. It must here be understood as embracing spirit, i.e. the religious faculty.

41-46. The title Son of David (Mar_12:35; Luk_20:41). A saying of Jesus from the oldest tradition, of great doctrinal importance. He declares Himself dissatisfied with the honourable title of Son of David, because He is in reality also David's Lord. By applying Psalms 110 to Himself He claims, (1) a seat at God's right hand; (2) lordship over all the human race; (3) an eternal priesthood and empire: 'Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.'

41. Jesus asked them] Having repelled the attack of the Pharisees, Jesus takes the offensive, and demonstrates that they are wrong to regard the Messiah as a mere man.

43. David] The question has been raised whether our Lord here definitely decides the Davidic authorship of Psalms 110. Probably not. His object is to show that the Pharisees' low view of the Messiah is inconsistent with their own premises, not to teach the true authorship of the Psalm.

44. The Lord (i.e. God) said unto my Lord] i.e. to David's Lord, the Messiah, Psa_110:1. The Jews fully accepted the Messianic interpretation of this Psalm. Babbi Joden said, 'In the time to come the Holy and Blessed God will place King Messiah at His right hand, according to Psalms 110'

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 1-14. Parable of the marriage of the kings son. (Peculiar to St. Matthew)

Jesus answered and spake unto them. After they had heard our Lord"s words at the end of the last chapter, the Pharisees, according to St. Mark, "left him, and went their way," so that this parable was spoken in the audience of the disciples and the attendant multitude alone, without the former disturbing element. This fact may account for its exhibiting certain merciful and gracious features, setting forth the privilege rather than the duty of obeying the gospel call. The term "answered" often does not signify a reply given to some distinct question, but is equivalent to "took occasion to observe". (comp. Mat_11:25, etc.) Here the occasion was the insidious schemes of his enemies. Again. With reference to the two parables in the preceding chapter. Parables. The plural denotes the class to which the discourse belongs; or it may refer to the many parabolic details contained herein. Only one parable follows. This bears great resemblance to the parable of the great supper (Luke 14), which, however, was spoken at an earlier period, in another locality, and with a different object, and disagrees in many details, especially in the absence of the wedding garment. Christ, doubtless, often repeated his parables with variations in particulars to suit time, audiences, and circumstances.

Vers. 1-14. The parable of the marriage feast.

I THE FIRST INVITATION.

1. The King. This parable resembles the parable of the great supper in Lu 14; but it was delivered at a different time, under different circumstances. It differs also in its ending and in many of its details. It cannot possibly be, as some have thought, a mere variation of that parable. The King is God the Father, the Lord God omnipotent. He made a marriage for his Son. The marriage is the union between Christ and his Church the union described by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians; (Eph_5:23-27) the union which is to reach its perfect consummation and bliss in God"s eternal and everlasting glory. (Rev_19:7-9 Rev_21:9, Rev_21:10) The bride is the Church, regarded in its ideal character, as one, holy, catholic, apostolic. The invited. guests are those who have been called into the Church, taken individually. So in Revelation 21, the holy city, regarded as a whole, is the bride, the Lamb"s wife; while in ver. 27, individual saints, they which are written in the Lamb"s book of life, are described as entering into it. The King made the marriage. The choice of the Church lies in the eternal purpose of God, the election of God the Father. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." He determined, in his gracious love, to sanctify our human nature, by uniting it to the Divine nature in the Person of his only begotten Son. The Son of God loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church. The parable describes the preparations for the marriage; not the glorious marriage supper of the Lamb, when the bride shall have made herself ready, arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For that marriage supper is the blissful consummation of the mystical union of the bride with the heavenly Bridegroom; all who are admitted there are blessed. The marriage feast of the parable is the kingdom of heaven which the Lord came to establish upon earth; the Church, his bride, is not yet in the full sense ready; she has not yet been transfigured by his grace into the likeness of the heavenly Bridegroom; her robes are not yet whiter than snow, made white in the blood of the Lamb. But she is even now his chosen bride, though she needs purification and sanctification. The great Catholic Church, the whole congregation of Christian people upon earth, is the figure, the beginning, of the congregation of the redeemed in heaven. The privileges offered to the faithful are spiritual communion with Christ through the gift of the Holy Spirit, access to our Father in heaven through the atonement once made upon the cross, the blessed sacrament in which all true believers are strengthened and refreshed with heavenly food; all these are a foretaste of that great marriage supper which the Lord is preparing in heaven for those who are being sanctified by his Holy Spirit upon earth.

2. His servants. The King sent forth his servants to call them which were bidden (as Esther sent the chamberlain to bring Haman to the banquet to which she had invited him the day before); but they would not come. The servants were John the Baptist, the twelve, the seventy. They called the Jews, God"s chosen people, bidden long ago, to receive the salvation, the full gospel privileges of which all the prophets had spoken. The Lord himself called them. "If any man thirst," he said, "let him come unto me, and drink;" "He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." But, alas! they would not come. "Ye wilt not come to me," he said in his Divine sorrow, "that ye might have life." Again the King sent other servants. He did not at once reject his ancient people for their stubbornness and disobedience. He sent again, and now the message was more urgent: "I have prepared my dinner it was not the supper, deipnon ; but the midday meal, ariston , which would mark the beginning of the marriage festivities: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready." The other servants were the apostles and evangelists sent forth to preach after the great Day of Pentecost. Now the Sacrifice had been offered, the Victim had been slain. The eternal purpose of God had been fulfilled in that one sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. All things were now ready. These other servants preached first to the Jews; but still, as a people, they would not come. They made light of the gracious invitation; some, heedless and thoughtless, went their ways, caring only for the present life, its business or its pleasures. One went to his field: he was a man of landed property; he had all that he wanted. Another went to his merchandise: he was absorbed in the pursuit of gain; he had no time, no thoughts for other things. Both neglected the King"s invitation: they had no desire for the royal banquet. Others, more zealous and more violent, because they were zealous for their own exclusive privileges, not for the honour and glory of God, persecuted and slew the servants of the King the holy Martyr Stephen, the Apostle St. James, and many other saints of God.

3. The wrath of the King. The King marked these wicked deeds. There was no need that others should repeat them to him (the words, "when he beard thereof," seem not to be genuine); he knoweth all things. He was wroth. Those wicked men had despised his grace and bounty; they had slain his messengers. He bore with them in his long suffering mercy till their iniquity was full. Then he sent forth his armies; he destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. The Lord saw again in prophetic vision that awful visitation over which he had wept when he looked upon Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives: "They shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee." Then he spoke in Divine pity and sorrow, now in the tones of awful justice. It must be so; they are hardened in their wilful unbelief; they will add sin to sin; the dreadful day must come. The wrath of the King is fearful exceedingly; the terror of the Lord is overwhelming. Let us listen to the gentle calling of his grace while there is time.

II THE SECOND INVITATION.

1. The message. Again the King sent forth his servants. The marriage feast was ready; the fountain was opened for sin and for uncleanness; the living Bread which came down from heaven was offered to men; all were invited to take of the water of life freely. They which had been bidden were not worthy. They judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life. (Act_13:46) The King bade his servants go into the highways, and call all, without distinction, as many as they should find: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

2. The obedience of the servants. They did according to the bidding of the King; they went into the highways, and gathered together as many as they found. The apostles and evangelists preached everywhere, whithersoever they could go; they gathered together a great company from all parts of the world. And now the wedding was furnished with guests, the halls of the palace were filled. For the messengers had worked hard, and had brought all who would come, without distinction of race, or social position, or education, or even of moral character; bad and good alike were invited, not only the righteous, but publicans and sinners also. The good (in the human sense of the word) would become better; the bad might, by the gift of grace, be cleansed and converted and saved. All alike were called to the dinner; that is, to the blessings and privileges of the gospel, which are an antepast of the full joy of heaven.

III THE WEDDING GARMENT.

1. The King"s question. The King"s house was full; the guests were already at the festal board (tounouv). The King came in to see them. His eye ranged through that great assembly. He saw all every one. There was one who had not on a wedding garment. He had been brought from the highways; he had come just as he was; with clothes, perhaps, worn and ragged, soiled and filthy. How was it? The other guests were all suitably attired. They too had been gathered from the highways; there were high and low, good and bad, among them. But whatever they were when they were bidden, whatever was their condition then, all had wedding garments now. This one alone was "clothed with filthy garments," like Joshua the high priest when he stood before the angel; (Zec_3:3) but he was not now, like Joshua, clothed with change of raiment. The King"s eye found him out. He could not be hid, though, we may well believe, he sought to escape that piercing look. "Friend," the King said, (the word does not imply intimacy and affection, but only knowledge and acquaintance; it is used in the rebuke of the discontented husbandmen, Mat_20:13, and by our Lord to Judas, Mat_26:50) "how earnest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?" The question is gently expressed, but the negative particle used (mh ecwn) seems to appeal to the man"s consciousness; it seems to imply that he was aware of his condition, and knew that he was transgressing the rules of decorum. He was speechless; he could find no answer, no excuse. It may be that festal garments for all the guests were provided by the bounty of the King; this unhappy man had contemptuously rejected the offered gift; he had preferred his own mean and sordid raiment; he appeared at the King"s board just as he had come from the highway, with no change, no preparation. Certainly, he had taken no pains to provide himself with suitable attire; plainly, he might have done so; all the other guests were clad in wedding robes; why was he in this unseemly garb? He could find no excuse; he could not plead want of time; the rest had found time. He could not plead ignorance; the others knew how the robes were to be procured. He could not plead poverty; the bounty of the King was inexhaustible. His presence in that guise was an insult to the King, a dishonour to the high festival to which he had been invited. He was unworthy of a place among the chosen guests. The wedding garment is the righteousness of saints; (Rev_19:8) "but we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags". (Isa_64:6) Yet, thank God, we may find a place among the guests of the King, for Jesus Christ our Lord "is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." We must "put on the Lord Jesus Christ". (Rom_13:14) We must appear before the King, "not having our own righteousness, which is of the Law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." The robe of righteousness is ours, and yet not ours. It is the righteousness of saints, because it has been given to them. "To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen". (Rev_19:8) The King giveth the fair garments freely in his large and generous bounty. But that righteousness was not of nature; they were born in sin. It was not gained by any works of theirs; by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God. (Rom_3:20) It is a gift; it cometh of grace, the grace of God, "who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not." We must seek it of him, for without that robe of righteousness we cannot sit among the guests at the marriage feast.

2. The King"s sentence. The King made no further inquiries; he read the heart of the miserable man; he knew his history. He pronounced at once the awful sentence: "Then said the King to the servants." These servants (diakonoi) are not the same as the servants (douloi) who were sent forth to call the guests. They were Christ"s apostles and evangelists; these are the angels of judgment, who "shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity". (Mat_13:41) They were bidden to bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness. The time for repentance was past; he might have procured the wedding garment; he had taken no pains to obtain it; he had not even asked for it; nay, we must believe he had rejected it when it was offered him out of the bounty of the King. Now it was too late; he was helpless; bound hand and foot, he could not seek it now. And without that wedding garment there was no place for him in the palace of the King. He must be cast out into the outer darkness; that outer darkness thrice mentioned in this Gospel of St. Matthew, (see Mat_8:12 and Mat_25:30) and always with the solemn addition, "There shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth." Out of the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness; away from the joy and gladness, away from the presence of the King, away from the happy guests; into that place of remorse and misery where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth; bitter remorse for the past, and, alas! no hope for the future. Bound hand and foot as he now is, through his own contempt of the great King, he cannot attain unto that holiness without which (let us well ponder the awful words) no man shall see the Lord.

3. The conclusion of the parable. "For many are called, but few are chosen." The words have a more awful meaning here than they can have in Mat_20:16, if, indeed, they are genuine in that place. In Mt 20 all receive the reward; the concluding words seem to point to the few who are chosen for the highest places in the kingdom of God. Here the distinction is plainly between the saved and the lost. Many were called to the marriage; few only came; of those few one was cast out, even as the traitor Judas, though one of the twelve apostles of the Lord, went to his own place. So now there are many open sinners, many more utterly apathetic and indifferent, and, alas! even among those who outwardly obey the calling, who come to church, and use the appointed means of grace, even among those who come to the holy table of the Lord, there are (we fear, in sadness and perplexity) not a few who have not given their hearts unto the Lord, who have not that white raiment (Rev_3:18) which may be bought of him without money and without price. In the parable only one of those who obeyed the calling is cast out. It is a parable of the long suffering mercy of our God. The King sends again and again. He is not willing that any should perish. But it is a parable also of his all-seeing justice. His eye searches out that one unworthy guest among the crowd. He knows the sins, the negligences, the unbelief of each individual member of his Church. None can stand before his face without that holiness which is so great, so precious, so awful a thing, which so few of us can dare to say or think that we have. He bids us buy the white raiment of him; let us come and buy, counting all things else as dross, that we may "put on the Lord Jesus Christ," and be clothed with that humility, that charity, which are woven into the white robe of his righteousness. Few are chosen. They who choose God for their portion on earth are chosen by him to be with him in heaven. Our choice of him proves that his choice has rested upon us. He first called us. Let us give diligence to make our calling and election sure.

LESSONS.

1. It is God himself who calls us; to refuse that gracious calling must be fearful guilt.

2. The privileges of the Church will not avail without holiness of heart and life.

3. Think of that weeping and gnashing of teeth; and pray and strive and hunger after righteousness.

HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Vers. 1-14. The marriage feast.

The opening of this parable reminds us of the feast of wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. (Pro_9:1-5) But there is an advance beyond the Old Testament ideas. Now the interest is no longer centred in the abstraction "wisdom," but the king and his son, representing God and Jesus Christ, make the feast one of supreme importance. So much the greater, then, must be the folly of those who decline to attend.

I THE ROYAL PREPARATIONS. Much must be done to provide so great and sumptuous a feast as shall be fit for the wedding of a king"s son. But all these elaborate preparations have been completed. Much was needed to make ready the gospel and its privileges, the new Christian blessings, the festival of the marriage of the Lamb with his bride the Church. But God has made all ready; he has provided the Bread of life and all the bounties of the gospel. They have been produced at the greatest possible cost, and now they are spread out in readiness for the guests. We have not to manufacture our own highest blessings; God offers them freely to us. We have not to wait for them; they are all ready in this happy Christian era.

II THE SHAMEFUL REFUSALS. Those first invited refuse to come. Their conduct, is scandalous, and that for several reasons.

1. The feast was important. It was for the wedding of a king"s son. The king was the host, and a king"s invitation is a command. Yet the guests made light of it. They who reject the gospel reject the gift of God, and insult him.

2. The guests had previously consented to come. This is plainly implied, because the message sent to them is merely a reminder that all is now ready. So was it with the Jews. So is it with those who once showed interest in Christ and have since grown cold.

3. There was no valid excuse for refusal. The men went their ways, one to his farm and another to his merchandise. There is no good excuse for the rejection of the gospel of Christ. Too often the most commonplace worldly interests are preferred to it.

4. The messengers were cruelly maltreated. A certain irritation arising from a consciousness of being in the wrong makes people angry with those who would lead them into the right way.

III THE GUESTS FROM THE HIGHWAYS. The king must have his feast stocked with guests, if only with tramps and beggars. This suggests to us a desire on the part of God to find those on whom he can bestow his kindness. It is as though he were possessed with social sympathies and could not endure to be alone in his joy. Thus we see the best of all reasons for accepting his grace. There can be no doubt that he will welcome all who come, because he hungers for souls. Observe further:

1. The rejection of Christ by the Jews led to the opening of the kingdom to the Gentiles. This would have happened in any case, but the conduct of the Jews expedited and facilitated the process. (e.g. see Act_13:46)

2. It is not man"s desert, but God"s loving kindness, that invites to the gospel feast.

IV THE WEDDING, GARMENT. The dramatic incident with which the parable closes gives us a shock of surprise. Here is an additional, most important lesson. All kinds of people are invited, and some are in a very unfit state to appear at the wedding feast. But the king provides a seemly garment, that the dingy dress of everyday life may not mar the beauty of the festival. God invites all sorts and conditions of men to the feast of the gospel, and even the very lowest may come at once. But God provides them a new character. If a man will not take this, if he seeks the privileges of the gospel, but will not submit to its changing influence on his character, he must be cast forth. He can come just as he is; but he must not remain just as he is, especially as God provides for him a better way of life. W.F.A.

HOMILIES BY MARCUS DODS Vers. 1-13. Excuses.

I One of the commonest excuses which men make to themselves for not accepting God"s salvation is THE DESIRE TO MAKE SOME KIND OF PREPARATION FOR COMING TO CHRIST, "How can I come, who have no conviction of sin, no deep repentance, no earnestness?" But uniformly in God"s Word salvation is offered to men as they are. Now" is God"s accepted time. And the reason is obvious. The salvation offered in Christ is the one thing that can make us any better. We have no hope of getting better feelings, more spiritual desires, a deep and genuine repentance, until we accept Christ. He is exalted to give repentance, and you cannot have it without him. This hard impenitent heart, this unconcern about God, is precisely what identifies you as the person for whom salvation is urgently needed and to whom it is offered. "I came not to call the righteous," etc. God"s command is on you now, and bids you accept Christ. No preparation is required. Sin is the preparation for salvation. Christ does not say, "Come with sufficient earnestness, and I will save you," but "Come, and I will give you all you need.

II But possibly you say, "I CAN"T REPENT IN MY OWN STRENGTH; I CAN"T BELIEVE IN MY OWN STRENGTH; I AM WAITING FOR THE SPIRIT, WITHOUT WHOSE AID I CANNOT COME TO CHRIST." Certainly this is true; but are you more ready for good than the Spirit is? Is it not rather true that he has been waiting for you, working in you? He who gives the command to come gives also the strength to obey it. The man with the withered hand might with truth have said, "I cannot," when bidden to stretch out his hand; but he believed and obeyed. "The Father"s commandment is life everlasting." The Father is willing you should be saved, the Son is willing, the Spirit is willing. May not Christ be justified in saying to you, as he did to others, "Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life"?

III Another common excuse is that PROFESSING CHRISTIANS ARE NO BETTER THAN MANY WHO MAKE NO PROFESSION. But the presence of what is counterfeit in religion or in anything else should only make us careful that we receive the real thing and not the spurious. No man refuses his week"s wage because his fellow workman has received a bad shilling. It matters not to you what other men have made of religion; each man must give account of himself to God. And those persons of whom you speak so bitterly are not more bound to set you an example than you are to set them. The fact that you make no profession saves you indeed from the faults of professing Christians, but condemns you with a special guilt, "He that believeth not is condemned already," etc. The sins of others cannot save you from this great condemnation.

IV A man sometimes pleads that RELIGION IS A VERY SERIOUS MATTER, AND THAT HE HAS NOT TIME TO DETERMINE WHAT ATTITUDE HE SHOULD TAKE UP WITH REGARD TO IT. If this is true, it ought not to be so. Time has no right to cheat a man out of eternity. If there be any truth in what Christ says, you are spending your strength for naught and in vain. Whatever you are giving yourself to, God"s judgment about man"s work remains, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." Until this be done, all your activity is like the hard running of a messenger who has left his message behind him; the harder he runs the further back he has to go before he can be of any use. What is the use of all your toil if you are not at one with God, if you are not obeying his commands?

V There are those who sincerely grieve that THESE DIFFICULTIES STAND IN THEIR WAY, BUT YET THERE THEY ARE, AND WHAT CAN THEY SAY? But he who determines to have all his difficulties solved before he takes the practical step of choosing Christ as his Saviour, inverts the right order of procedure, inverts God"s order; for his law is, "If any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." Do you see your way to attain holiness without the Spirit and the other aids God offers? or, if you do not, how do you propose to justify yourself in living on without asking God for these aids?

It may be that for some such reasons as these you may be declining to make a profession which you ought to make. But is there really any need to bring further light or even persuasion to bear on you? Are you not already convinced that the thing for you now is distinctly to close with Christ as your Lord and Saviour? There is always danger in delay; you cannot tell What influences you may shortly come under which will quite turn your mind away from serious and earnest dealing with Christ. But apart from the danger, your first question ought to be in this as in all other matters, "Is it my duty to delay? What ought I now to do? D.

HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD Vers. 1-14. The invitations of the gospel.

The priests and elders having left in a rage, (see Mar_12:12) Jesus continued his discourse, addressing the people. This parable brings before us the invitation of the gospel, first to the Jew, and then also to the Gentile. Consider

I THE INVITATION SPECIAL TO THE JEW.

1. The blessings of the gospel are presented under the similitude of a marriage feast.

(1) Under this similitude also the blessings of the everlasting covenant are presented in the prophets. (see Son_5:1 Isa_62:5) Marriage is the highest emblem of that union which constitutes heaven. There goodness and truth in perfection are united. Heaven must be in a man before a man can be in heaven.

(2) The feast is royal. It is made by the King, viz. of the heavens; for the kingdom of the heavens is the subject of the parable. If a royal banquet in this world is the occasion of a nation"s joy, the banquet of the King of heaven is a joy to the great universe.

(3) It is the marriage feast for the King"s Son. Christ is the Bridegroom. The Church is the bride. The season of the banquet is the gospel day, commencing upon thin earth but ending in the heavens. (see Mat_9:15 2Co_11:2 Eph_5:32 Rev_19:7-9)

2. Prophets and apostles are the King"s messengers.

(1) They are called his "bond servants." Bond service to God is the noblest freedom. The more absolute this service, the more glorious the freedom.

(2) They came to those who were bidden. The Jews were the people elected from among the nations to be the people of the covenant, and every way specially the favoured of the Lord. To them also the gospel came in the first instance.

(3) The old prophets made the gospel law to emanate from Jerusalem. (see Isa_2:3 Jer_31:31-34) The message of John Baptist and of the seventy disciples was to them that "the kingdom of the heavens was at hand." The commission to the apostles after the Day of Pentecost was, "Tell them that are bidden, Behold, I have made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready.

(4) They came to the bidden with entreaty. They urged the will of God, the need of man, the richness of the bounty, the quality of the guests, the blessedness inconceivable to follow.

3. But the favoured people proved themselves unworthy.

(1) For they "made light" of the invitation. "Considerations which should have the mightiest power upon the spirits of men may still signify less and less, when those to whom they come continue long under the gospel and the gospel is hidden to them. "If you cannot speak to me of something greater than heaven and hell, eternal blessedness and eternal misery, you move not me; for these things I have heard of and made light of long ago (Howe). The soft, idle, voluptuous people, who think only of quietly enjoying life, conveniences, riches, private pleasures, and public diversions, make light of the gospel invitation.

(2) "They went their ways, one to his own farm," equivalent to "immovable goods," viz. deluded by a false security; "another to his merchandise," equivalent to "movable goods," viz. lured by desire of gain. "His farm," equivalent to "what he has;" "his merchandise," equivalent to "what he desires to have." How many perish by misusing lawful things!

(3) "And the rest laid hold on his servants, and entreated them shamefully, and killed them." These are the openly unjust and violent, the outrageously wicked, sinners by profession.

(4) Note: Worthiness consists in accepting the gospel invitation; unworthiness, in refusing it. (see Act_13:46) He only is worthy to be a disciple who is willing to lift the cross. (see Mat_10:37, Mat_10:38)

4. They are punished accordingly.

(1) The murderers were destroyed. The Romans were God"s armies sent in his wrath to destroy them. The Assyrian armies were the rod of his anger against Ephraim. (see Isa_10:5) The Medes and Persians were the armies of God"s wrath against Babylon. (see Isa_13:4, Isa_13:5) The angels of famine, pestilence, and war are his armies which he sent against Israel by the Romans. (cf. 1Ki_22:19)

(2) Their city was burnt. What an anticipation of the destruction of Jerusalem is here! (cf. Eze_16:41 Luk_13:33, Luk_13:34)

II THE INVITATION GENERAL TO THE WORLD.

1. The messengers are the same.

(1) The prophets anticipated the calling of the Gentiles. (cf. Deu_32:21 Rom_10:19 Isa_65:1 Rom_10:20 Hos_2:23 Rom_9:26)

(2) The apostles, accordingly, when the Jews refused their invitation, carried the gospel to the Gentiles. (cf. Rom_11:11, 12 Eph_3:8) These were the people found by the King"s messengers in the "partings of the highways" (ver. 9).

(3) Divine benevolence is even enlarged by human perversity. "Where sin abounded grace doth superabound.

2. But they had better success.

(1) All sorts, "bad and good," were invited, and all sorts came in. As an invitation to a king"s banquet would astonish a wayfarer, so did the invitation of the gospel come as a surprise to the Gentiles. (see Act_17:19, 20 Rom_10:20)

(2) The visible Church is a mixture of hypocrites and unbelievers in amongst the genuine saints. It is the floor where the bad and good wheats are mingled. (Mat_3:12) It is the field where the bastard wheat and true grain grow together. (Mat_13:26, Mat_13:27) The net which collects bad fish and good. (Mat_13:48) The house in which the wise and, foolish are found. (Mat_25:1) The fold in which are the sheep and the goats. (Mat_25:33)

(3) For this imperfect state of things there is no present help. The minister"s commission is to call all. The King alone can infallibly distinguish between the bad and the good.

3. A royal inspection will determine the true.

(1) The King will behold the guests. This survey will take place at the last judgment. God takes particular notice of those who profess his religion. (see Son_7:12 Rev_2:1, Rev_2:2) Those who are worthy he will then approve and welcome.

(2) He will see who has not on the festal garment. The garment which distinguishes the good is worn upon the heart. It is therefore invisible to the minister, but visible to the King. As the festal robe constituted meetness for the feast, so is the garment here spoken of the complete meetness for heaven. The "fine linen is the righteousness of the saints," so imputed and imparted; for unless imparted as well as imputed the wearers could not be "saints" or holy ones.

(3) He will search the reasons: "Friend, how camest thou in hither?" etc. (ver. 12). Why art thou willing to receive the King"s bounty, but not to comply with the King"s conditions? Garments are provided. Not to wear one is a mark of contempt towards the King. The filthy rags of self-righteousness cannot be tolerated in heaven.

(4) The most presumptuous will be speechless in the presence of the King. Into speechlessness must all objections to the gospel be ultimately resolved.

4. Fearful will be the punishment of the wicked.

(1) "Bind him hand and foot." Restraint will be laid upon the works and ways of sinners in perdition. Satan also will be bound with a great chain in the bottomless pit. It is punishment to the wicked to be restrained from doing mischief.

(2) "Cast him out into the outer darkness." From the brilliantly lighted banqueting hall. What a contrast from the brightness of heaven"s glory to the darkness of bell"s misery! Joy and pride converted into sorrow and shame.

(3) "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Useless regrets; remorse; despair.

(4) "Many are called, but few chosen." Many hear; few believe. Many are in the visible Churches, few of them at the same time in the invisible Church. You are among the many called: are you also among the few chosen? Exclusion is for neglect. J.A.M.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jesus answering, spake - That is, spake with reference to what had just past.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The Parable of the Marriage Feast.

v. 1. And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,

v. 2. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,

v. 3. and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding; and they would not come.

v. 4. Again he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fat-lings are killed, and all things are ready; come unto the marriage.

A vivid description of the elaborate preparations for an Oriental wedding-feast, to point a moral in the matter of the kingdom of God. For Christ always had a definite purpose in telling His parables, in most cases to teach the proper qualification for becoming a member of His great kingdom. "Learn first of all that the kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of Christ, our Lord, where the Word and faith are present. In this kingdom we have the life in hope and are, according to the Word and faith, pure from sins and free from death and hell, though we are still retarded by this old hull and lazy flesh. The hull is not yet torn away, the flesh is not yet removed; that is still to be done, then there will be for us nothing but life, righteousness, and salvation. " In its external form, in its appearance in this world, this kingdom is like unto a man that was a great king, a mighty ruler, who prepared a marriage-feast for his son. Such a wedding-festival was not an affair of an hour or two, but often lasted for days, Jdg 14:17. At the appointed time, servants were sent out to announce that fact to those that had received an invitation, probably the princes, the rich and powerful people of the kingdom. This second calling seems to agree exactly with Eastern custom, Est 6:14. The result, whether by common consent or by individual meanness, was a flat refusal. But the king was patient. He sent other servants with a more urgent message for the invited guests. They are given the very words to commend the feast, to stimulate desire for its offering. The attention of the invited guests should be called to the fact that the midday meal, with which the festivities began, was even now fully ready for them. The oxen and the fatted rams had been slaughtered and cooked, nothing of the usual delights of the table was missing. The wealth of the king had overlooked nothing in the endeavor to honor both himself and his guests.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 22:2

The marriage of Christ is the mystery of the Church, and it belongs to the initiated. To those who stand in the outer circle of thought it is a word and a fable. To those who are within it is the simplest and the grandest of all possible realities.

I. Consider how this union, of which all marriage is the intended allegory, actually takes place between Him and us. The first mover is, as it ought to be, the Lord Jesus Christ. The wife does not seek her husband, but the husband seeks his wife. Gradually, by His own sweet constraints, and the outgoings of His Spirit to Us, we begin to love Him. And then come the early betrothals of a heart made willing—the moving of holy desires and of sacred yearnings. And then the contract—that indissoluble contract which is between Christ and the believer, strong as adamant.

II. Note the conditions of the union. In the presence of witnesses the covenant of marriage must be ratified. And so here angels and the Church look on when Christ, before the whole universe, confesses you, and will confess you, to be His for ever. And you, on your part, must confess Him before Christians, before the world, before angels, before all men. The mutual confession is the basis of the stipulation.

III. And with common consent it must be. Free as the wind was His choice of you; absolute and explicit must be your surrender to Him. No compulsion, no outside circumstances, no secondary motive will avail. It must be your own independent, unbiassed will, the full accord of your whole heart. It is a compact of perfect affection, absolute duty, untiring allegiance. The soul of all attachment to you is Christ. It is a relation of the most exquisite fondness, but it is a relation of the most unqualified obedience.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 9th series, p. 193.

Mat 22:2-7

Our Lord’s parable has fulfilled itself again and again in history, and will fulfil itself as long as foolish and rebellious persons exist on earth. This is one of the laws of the kingdom of Heaven. It must be so, for it arises by necessity out of the character of Christ, the King of Heaven—infinite bounty and generosity; but if that bounty be despised and insulted, or still more, if it be outraged by wanton tyranny or cruelty, then—for the benefit of the rest of mankind—awful severity. So it is, and so it must be, simply because God is good.

I. The king in the parable was very angry, as he had a right to be. Let us lay that to heart, and tremble, from the very worst of us all to the very best of us all. There is an anger in God. There is indignation in God. An awful thought, and yet a blessed thought. Under God’s anger, or under God’s love, we must be, whether we will or not. We cannot flee from His presence. We cannot go from His Spirit. If we are loving, and so rise up to heaven, God is there—in love. If we are cruel and wrathful, and so go down to hell, God is there also—in wrath. With the clean He will be clean; with the froward man He will be froward. On us, and us alone, it depends whether we shall live under God’s anger or live under God’s love.

II. We pride ourselves on our superior light and our improved civilization, and look down on the old Roman Catholic missionaries, who converted our forefathers from heathendom in the middle ages. These men made mistakes, and often worse than mistakes, for they were but men. But if they had not had a deep and sound belief that they were in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Heaven—and that they and all men must obey the laws of the kingdom of Heaven; and that the first law of it was that wrong-doing would be punished, and right-doing rewarded in this life every day, and all day long, as sure as Christ, the living Lord, reigned in righteousness over all the earth: if they had not believed that and acted on it, we should probably have been heathen at this day. Let us lay this to heart with seriousness and godly fear. For so we shall look up with reverence, and yet with hope, to Christ the ascended King, to whom all power is given in heaven and earth.

C. Kingsley, All Saints’ Day and other Sermons, p. 274.

References: Mat 22:2.—F. D. Maurice, Sermons in Country Churches, p. 62. Mat 22:2, Mat 22:3.—C. Girdlestone, A Course of Sermons, vol. ii., p. 411; R. Heber, Parish Sermons, vol. ii., p. 235. Mat 22:2-4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 975. Mat 22:3.—J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve, p. 265. Mat 22:4.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 208. Mat 22:5.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., No. 98. Mat 22:8.—H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 1st series, p. 245. Mat 22:8-10.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts, p. 47. Mat 22:10.—E. H. Bradby, Sermons at Haileybury, p. 85.

Mat 22:11-12

The Guest without the Wedding Garment.

I. The service of Christ requires qualifications. Many may be attracted to the service who shrink from obtaining these necessary qualifications. Yet they may for a long time pass muster, and they may even bring themselves to believe that they have a right to pass muster. Their conceptions of the qualifications required may be utterly inadequate, till a light suddenly flashes in on their conscience, to convict, to expose, and to condemn. Now what do we mean by the expression "not having a wedding garment?" What is the kind of disqualification which is here indicated? There is but one qualification for the presence of Christ—faith in Christ. We must honestly wish to be Christ’s servants. We must trust to His love and power to make us so.

II. Note the danger of appearing in Christ’s presence without the true qualification. Faith in Christ has been presented to us not as a cold dogma, not as a badge of party, not as the devout but somewhat effeminate antagonist to an honest and calumniated reason; but as the guiding rule of lives which we are sure must be pleasing to God. If we have not gathered from the Bible the true nature of that wedding garment in which the redeemed of Christ must appear before their Master it is our own neglect. We, too, shall inevitably be speechless when the question is put to us: How camest thou in hither? We are not tempted to be unbelievers; or rather, that is not the main temptation of our day: we are tempted to be dishonest Christians; we are tempted to let our Christianity influence everything—our tastes, our prejudices, our professions— everything but our hearts. But it is on these that Christ looks. He sees at a glance whether they are cold or warm.

H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, 1st series, p. 387.

References: Mat 22:11, Mat 22:12.—D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3,209; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 241. Mat 22:11-13.—E. Cooper, Practical Sermons, vol. iii., p. 262. Mat 22:11-14.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 976. Mat 22:12.—J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church, 2nd series, p. 303.

Mat 22:14

We have to do in the text not with an arbitrary call and an arbitrary choice, as if God called many in mockery, meaning to choose out of them only a few, and making His choice independently of any exertion of theirs. The picture is very different; it is a gracious call to us all to come and receive the blessing; it is a reluctant casting out the greatest part of us, because we would not render ourselves fit for it.

I. We have all been called, in a Christian sense, inasmuch as we have all been introduced into Christ’s Church by Baptism; and a very large proportion of us have been called again at our Confirmation. We have been thus called to enter into Christ’s kingdom; we have been called to lead a life of holiness and happiness from this time forth even for ever.

II. Now, if this be the prize to which we are called, who are they who are also chosen to it? (1) In the first and most complete sense, no doubt, those who have entered into their rest; who are in no more danger, however slight; with whom the struggle is altogether past, the victory securely won. (2) Those we may call chosen who, having heard their call, have turned to obey it, and have gone on following it. (3) Those are chosen who, having found in themselves the sin which did most easily beset them, have struggled with it, and wholly, or in a great measure, have overcome it.

III. What is the proportion between those who are chosen and those who are called only? This I dare not answer; there is a good as well as an evil which is unseen by the world at large, unseen even by all but those who watch us most nearly and most narrowly. All we can say is, that there are too many who, we must fear, are not chosen; there are too few of whom we can feel sure that they are.

T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 101.

References: Mat 22:14.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Waterside Mission Sermons, vol. ii., No. 18. Mat 22:15-22.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 468. Mat 22:15-46.—Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. iii., p. 131. Mat 22:16.—W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 458. Mat 22:16-22.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 336. Mat 22:20.—A. Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, p. 133. Mat 22:20, Mat 22:21.—A. P. Stanley, Church Sermons, vol. i., p. 10.

Mat 22:21

Sacrifice to Cæsar or to God.

I. The only Cæsar which we have to fear nowadays is called Public Opinion—the huge, anonymous idol which we ourselves help to make, and then tremble before the creation of our own cowardice; whereas, if we will but face him, in the fear of God and the faith of Christ, determined to say the thing which is true, and do the thing which is right, we shall find the modern Cæsar but a phantom of our own imagination—a tyrant, indeed, as long as he is feared, but a coward as soon as he is defied. To that Cæsar let us never bow the knee. Render to him all that he deserves—the homage of common courtesy, common respectability, common charity—not in reverence for his wisdom and strength, but in pity for his ignorance and weakness. But render always to God the things which are God’s. That duty lies on us as on all mankind still, from our cradle to our grave, and after that through all eternity. Let us go back, or rather, let us go home to the eternal laws of God, which were ages before we were born, and will be ages after we are dead—to the everlasting rock on which we all stand, which is the will and mind of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to whom all power is given (as He said Himself) in heaven and in earth.

II. There are three sacrifices which every man, woman, and child can offer, and should offer, however lowly, however uneducated in what the world calls education nowadays. Of these sacrifices our Lord Himself said: The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. Now, what are these spiritual sacrifices? (1) First and foremost, surely, the sacrifice of repentance, of which it is written: "The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." (2) Next, the sacrifice of thankfulness, of which it is written: "I will offer to Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord." (3) Lastly, the sacrifice of righteousness, of which it is written: "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."

C. Kingsley, All Saints’ Day and Other Sermons, p. 378.

I. These words have two aspects, as they had, we must believe, two purposes. In the first place, they were an answer to the Herodians and Pharisees, and their question had not been an honest one. The answer was an escape from a skilfully laid trap—a path formed where his enemies fondly hoped that all pathway was cut off. But there must be another aspect also. It cannot have been related by the Evangelists among the great sayings of that most solemn week as an instance only of adroitness in baffling human wit and malignity. It was an answer, in the first place, to a question asked with a malicious purpose. But that question might have been asked, would be asked in after days, in some form or other, by humble souls eager for guidance in real difficulties. The answer must have been meant for them too.

II. Should they give tribute to Cæsar or not? The world as they lived in it was in the hands of heathen rulers, who had crucified the Lord of Glory, and who despised or persecuted His disciples. How were Christians to live with such a society? Were they to submit to such rulers? And submitting, were they to do so cheerfully, or under protest? Christ’s answer may seem to us hardly to solve such difficulties. It is an answer which has been often misunderstood, and even made to teach the lesson which it was meant to unteach. The difficulty may seem to us in any particular case to be precisely the one which it does not meet—the question: What is Cæsar’s and What is God’s? The answer does not meet the difficulty directly, yet it takes its sting from it. The sting of the question lies in the false views which men have taken of the meaning of our Lord’s words—as though He had meant to distinguish two provinces, two claims—to set them as rivals, fronting one another, limited by one another. The point of our Lord’s answer was to heal and reconcile. It was possible, it was a duty, to satisfy both. What is Cæsar’s really is what God has given to Cæsar; and in satisfying that claim to the very fullest extent we are satisfying, so far, that larger claim which exists on all our heart and life.

E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 262.

References: Mat 22:21.—C. Girdlestone, Twenty Parochial Sermons, 1st series, p. 171; H. G. Robinson, Man in the Image of God, p. 127; R. Heber, Parish Sermons, vol. ii., p. 367; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 430; H. N. Grimley, Tremadoc Sermons, p. 206; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 2nd series, p. 46; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 295. Mat 22:29-32.—J. J. Murphy, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 102. Mat 22:30.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 842; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., 4th series, p. 551; 5th series, p. 75, Mat 22:32.—J. N. Norton, Old Paths, p. 468. Mat 22:34-40.—H. W. Beecher, Sermons (1870), p. 426. Mat 22:34-46.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 351; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 156. Mat 22:35-40.—S. Cox, Expositions, vol. iv., p. 88.

Mat 22:36

Consider the law of love as a natural force of humanity. It will help us to understand this principle if we first distinguish it from some other principles of our nature.

I. It is to be distinguished from the principle of will, and in some regards is indeed to be opposed to it. The human life and the law of human life must give us personality in man, but also a being of God. The law must give us distinction, without the isolation in which human life is impossible. And the law must give us union, for which all human life is a craving, without the confusion from which it shrinks. All human lives that are following the law of will, of self, of individualism, are breaking life’s true law, and missing life’s true aim.

II. The law of love is to be distinguished from the principle of knowledge. Knowledge is not a primary fact, and can never become an ultimate law of life. "Knowledge shall vanish away, but love never faileth."

III. The law of love is wholly opposed to the spirit of fear. Fear is not natural to man. Fear only came to man when tempted by knowledge. He transgressed the obedience of love, and having transgressed he hid himself from the presence of God. And Adam represents us all. We hide from God because we have sinned. When we kneel at the foot of the Cross, and feel that because God loves us we must love God, we learn again the law of life, the law of being: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy mind, and all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself." That is the law of God—an unbroken actual principle. It is the law of your being. Are you living it? You cannot rest without it. You cannot, because it is the law of your being; God has made you to love Him, to have communion with Him. And in that perfect communion the law of God is not broken, and that law is, that with all your heart, with all your being, with all the powers that you have, shall you love God. Then reason shall be linked to heaven, and affection linked to heaven, and conscience linked to heaven, and idea, and imagination, and all the powers of mind and soul linked to heaven by the eternal principle of love.

Archdeacon Watkins, Cambridge Review, Nov. 26th, 1884.

References: Mat 22:36, Mat 22:37.—H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2,450. Mat 22:36-38, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 232. Mat 22:36-40.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 220; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 116; see also Sermons, 4th series, p. 205.

Mat 22:37

The Mind’s Love for God.

I. Is it not manifestly true that besides the love of the senses, and the love of the heart, and the love of the soul, and the love of the strength, there is also a love of the mind, without whose entrance into the completeness of the loving man’s relation to the object of his love his love is not complete? Is your greatest friend contented with your love before you have come to love him with all your mind? Everywhere we find our assurances that the mind has its affections and enthusiasms, that the intellect is no cold-hearted monster who only thinks and judges, but that it glows with love, not merely perceiving, but delighted to perceive, the beauty of the things with which it has to do.

II. Christ bids His disciples to love God with all their minds. Is there not something sublimely beautiful and touching in this demand of God that the noblest part of His children’s nature should come to Him? "Understand me," he seems to cry, "I am not wholly loved by you unless your understanding is searching out after My truth, and with all your powers of thoughtfulness and study you are trying to find out all you can about My nature and My ways."

III. There are ignorant saints who come very near to God, and live in the rich sunlight of His love, but none the less for that is their ignorance a detraction from their sainthood. There are mystics who, seeing how God outgoes human knowledge, choose to assume that God is not a subject of human knowledge at all. Such mystics may mount to sublime heights of unreasoning contemplation, but there is an uncompleteness in their love, because they rob one part of their nature of all share in their approach to God. Love God with all your mind, because your mind, like all the rest of you, belongs to Him; and it is not right that you should give Him only a part to whom belongs the whole. Give your intelligence to God. Know all you can about Him. In spite of all disappointment and weakness, insist on seeing all you can see now through the glass darkly, so that hereafter you may be ready when the time for seeing face to face shall come.

Phillips Brooks, Sermons in English Churches, p. 22.

The Beatific Vision.

I. Our feeling of the beauty of goodness comes, as St. John tells us, from Christ, the Light who is the life of men, and lights every man who comes into the world; and that light in our hearts, which makes us see, and admire, and love what is good, is none other than Christ Himself shining in our hearts, and showing to us His own likeness and the beauty thereof. But if we stop there, if we only admire what is good, without trying to copy it, we shall lose that light. Our corrupt and diseased nature will quench that heavenly spark in us more and more till it dies out—as God forbid that it should die out in any of us.

II. It is but a faint notion, no doubt, that the best men can have of God’s goodness, so dull has sin made our hearts and brains; but let us comfort ourselves with this thought—that the more we learn to love what is good, the more we accustom ourselves to think of good people and good things, and to ask ourselves why and how this action and that is good, the more shall we be able to see the goodness of God. And to see that, even for a moment, is worth all sights in earth or heaven. Worth all sights, indeed. No wonder that the saints of old called it the "Beatific Vision," that is, the sight which makes a man utterly blessed; namely, to see, if but for a moment, with his mind’s eye what God is like, and behold He is utterly good. No wonder that they said with St. Peter, when he saw our Lord’s glory: "Lord, it is good for us to be here;" and felt like men gazing upon some glorious picture or magnificent show, off which they cannot take their eyes, and which makes them forget for the time all besides in heaven and earth. And it was good for them to be there; but not too long. Man was sent into the world not merely to see, but to do; and the more he sees, the more he is bound to go and do accordingly. St. Augustine, though he would gladly have lived and died doing nothing but fixing his soul’s eye steadily on the glory of God’s goodness, had to come down from the mount and work, and preach, and teach, and wear himself out in daily drudging for that God whom he learnt to serve, even when he could not adore Him in the press of business, and the bustle of a rotten and dying world.

C. Kingsley, The Good News of God, p. 1.

Mat 22:37-38

There are two reasons why men do not love God. For one of them there are great excuses; for the other there is no excuse whatsoever.

I. In the first place, too many find it difficult to love God, because they have not been taught that God is lovable, and worthy of their love. They have been taught dark and hard doctrines, which have made them afraid of God. They have been taught—too many are taught still—not merely that God will punish the wicked, but that God will punish nine-tenths, or ninety-nine hundredths, of the human race. That He will send to endless torments not merely sinners who have rebelled against what they knew was right, and His command; who have stained themselves with crimes, who wilfully injured their fellow-creatures: but that He will do the same by little children, by innocent young girls; by honourable, respectable, moral men and women; because they are not what is called sensibly converted, or else what is called orthodox. Often—strongest notion of all—they have been taught that, though God intends to punish them, they must still love Him, or they will be punished—as if such a notion, so far from drawing them to God, could do anything but drive them from Him. Our love must be called out by God’s love. If we are to love God, it must be because He has first loved us. If we really believed that God who made heaven and earth was even now calling to each and every one of us, and beseeching us, by the sacrifice of His well beloved Son, crucified for us, "My son, give Me thine heart," we could not help giving up our hearts to Him.

II. Provided—and there is that second reason why people do not love God, in which I said there was no excuse—provided only that we wish to be good, and to obey God. If we do not wish to do what God commands we shall never love God. It must be so. There can be no real love of God which is not based upon the love of virtue and goodness, upon what our Lord calls a hunger and thirst after righteousness. "If ye love Me, keep My commandments" is our Lord’s own rule and text.

C. Kingsley, The Water of Life, p. 214.

References: Mat 22:37.—H. N. Grimley, Tremadoc Sermons, p. 212; C. Taylor, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. vi., p. 363; S. Macnaughton, Real Religion and Real Life, p. 85; E. Bersier, Sermons 2nd series, p. 176. Mat 22:37-40.—H. W. Beecher. Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 229; see also Plymouth Pulpit, 10th series, p. 7. Mat 22:39.—G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons, p. 189; C. Kingsley, The Good News of God, p. 41.

Mat 22:42

I. Some people do not think much about Him any way. Their minds are pre-occupied; they think of something else.

II. Some do think, and now it is of much importance that we inquire what they think. (1) There is a historic ideal of Christ. It admits all the facts of His biography. I do not think it helps one’s salvation, or cleanses his nature, any more than did the love and longing of the Ancient Britons who believed that Arthur had achieved matchless excellence, and who fondly anticipated his return one time to gather his knights anew at the remembered Round Table. (2) There is also a theologic ideal of Christ. Such a conception, when left alone, is only enough to render an individual a mere polemic, or disputant. A cold and cheerless dogmatism is the result. (3) There is a poetic ideal of Christ. It is not so much Jesus Christ that these enthusiasts love as the imaginative picture of Christ which they invest with all that their hearts admire. (4) There is an evangelic ideal of Christ. The result here is a career. The man sees the one peerless life in the New Testament moving before him; he has no wish more pervading and swaying than simply to become like it, and plant his own feet in the prints of the beloved Master’s.

III. Ideals control life. Some say it makes no difference what a man believes if he is only sincere in his faith. Alas! it makes all the difference in the world. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he; character decides destiny too. So the more sincere one is, if he be in error, the worse it is for him. "What think ye of Christ?" Observe that by-and-bye this great question of the ages will be reversed; and then it will be of the highest moment to ask: What does Christ think of me?

C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts, p. 206.

References: Mat 22:42.—G. Calthrop, Pulpit Recollections, p. 101; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 105; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 366; Ibid., Sermons, vol. xix., No. 1,093. Mat 23:5.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 158. Mat 23:8.—J. H. Thom, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ, p. 199; F. W. Aveling, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 385. Mat 23:8-10.—A. Harnack, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 322. Mat 23:8-12.—A. Scott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 116; Contemporary Pulpit, vol. x., p. 184. Mat 23:12.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 10; B. F. Westcott, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 461. Mat 23:15.—Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 323; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India, p. 114.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The design and scope of this parable of the marriage supper, is to set forth that gracious offer of mercy and salvation, which was made by God in and through the preaching of the gospel to the church of the Jews.

The gospel is here compared to a feast, because in a feast there is plenty, variety, and dainties. Also to a marriage-feast, being full of joy, delight, and pleasure. And to a marriage-feast made by a king, as being full of state, magnificence, and grandeur. To this marriage-feast, or gospel-supper, Almighty God invited the church of the Jews; and the servants sent forth to invite them, were the prophets and apostles in general, and John the Baptist in particular, whom they entreated spitefully, and slew.

The making light of the invitation, signifies the generality of Jews’ refusal and careless contempt of the offers of grace in the gospel. By the armies which God sent forth to destroy those murderers, are meant the Roman soldiers, who spoiled and laid waste the city of Jerusalem, and were the severe executioners of God’s wrath and judgment upon the wicked Jews. The highways signify the despised Gentiles, who upon the Jews’ refusal were invited to this supper, and prevailed with to come in.

The king’s coming in to see his guests, denotes that inspection which Christ makes into his church in the times of the gospel.

By the man without the wedding garment, understand such as are destitute of true grace and real holiness, both in heart and life. In the examination of him, Christ says, Friend, how comest thou in hither? not, Friends, why came ye along with him?

Teaching us, that if unholy persons will press in to the Lord’s supper, the sin is theirs; but if we come not, because they will come, the sin is ours. The presence of an unholy person at the Lord’s table, ought not to discourage us from our duty, or cause us to turn our back upon that ordinance. The command to bind the unqualified person hand and foot, and to cast him into outer darkness, plainly intimates, that the condition of such persons as live under the light, and enjoy the liberty of the gospel, but walk not answerably to their profession, is deplorably sad and doleful: they do not only incur damnation, but no damnation like it. Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness.

From the whole, note, 1. That the gospel, for its freeness and fulness, for its varieties and delicacies, is like a marriage-supper.

2. That gospel-invitations are mightily disesteemed.

3. That the preference which the world has in man’s esteem is a great cause of the gospel’s contempt. They went one to his farm, and another to his merchandise.

4. That such as are careless in the day of grace, shall undoubtedly be speechless in the day of judgment.

5. That Christ takes a more particular notice of every guest that cometh to his royal supper, than any of his ministers do take, or can take. There was but one person without the wedding garment, and he falls under the eye and view of Christ.

6. That it is not sufficient that we come, but clothed we must be before we come, if ever we expect a gracious welcome to Christ’s supper; clothed with sincerity, clothed with humility; clothed with love and charity; if we be not thus clothed, we shall appear naked to our shame, and hear that dreadful charge, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

See Luk 14:17.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CVIII. D. Marriage of the King's Son].

CVIII. IN REPLY TO THE QUESTIONS AS TO HIS AUTHORITY, JESUS GIVES THE THIRD GREAT GROUP OF PARABLES. (In the Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30.) Subdivision D. PARABLE OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. aMATT. XXII. 1-14.

a1 And Jesus answered and spake again in parables unto them, saying, 2 The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain king, who made a marriage feast for his son, 3 and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the marriage feast: and they would not come. 4 Again he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them that are bidden, Behold, I have made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage feast. 5 But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his merchandise; 6 and the rest laid hold on his servants, and treated them shamefully, and killed them. 7 But the king was wroth; and he sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they that were bidden were not worthy. 9 Go ye therefore unto the partings of the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage feast. 10 And those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was filled with guests. [This parable is very [595] much like the one given in Luke xiv. 16-24--see Mat_22:14] who had not on a wedding-garment: 12 and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding-garment? And he was speechless. [We are of the opinion that the king furnished upper garments to his guests. But the antiquity of this custom is disputed. See Meyer, Lange and Trench, etc. in loco. However, the fact is immaterial, for the man was speechless--without excuse--which shows that he could have had a garment from some source had he chosen to wear it.] 13 Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot [the phrase suggests the impossibility of escaping from divine judgment], and cast him out into the outer darkness [the outdoor darkness: wedding feasts were usually held at night]; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. 14 For many are called, but few chosen. [Many guests are invited, but few are accepted; because some neglect and despise the invitation, and others cast dishonor upon the one who invites, by the self-willed and irreverent way in which they accept his invitation. In this parable the first parties invited represent the Jews; the city of murderers is Jerusalem; the persons called from the highways are the Gentiles; the entrance of the king is the coming of the Lord to final judgment; and [596] the man without the wedding-garment is anyone who will be found in the church without a suitable character. The character of Christ is our wedding-garment, and all the regenerated must wear it-- Eph_4:24, Col_3:10, Gal_3:27, Joh_3:5, Rev_19:8, Rev_19:9.]

* NOTE.--I regard this parable as a remodeling of the parable given by Luke, the changes being made to suit the changed relation between Jesus and his auditors. In the parable in Luke, God is represented as one who invites us as a friend, and whose invitation is simply disregarded. Since the speaking of that parable, the situation had become more tense and the relations more strained, and hence the parable takes on a more severe form. The host is not to be disregarded, for he is a king, and the supper is not to be despised, for it is a marriage supper. The invitation, therefore, savors of commandment, and while some still continue to treat it with indifference, others feel the constraint of the invitation and reject it in a spirit of rebellion which manifests itself in violence toward the king's servants. The king, in turn, is moved by this to retaliate, and visits upon the offenders an overwhelming judgment.--P. Y. P.

[FFG 595-597]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Matthew Chapter 22

In chapter 22, their conduct with respect to the invitations of grace is presented in its turn. The parable is therefore a similitude of the kingdom of heaven. The purpose of God is to honour His Son by celebrating His marriage. First of all the Jews, already invited, are bidden to the marriage feast. They would not come. This was done during Christ’s lifetime. Afterwards, all things being ready, He again sends forth messengers to induce them to come. This is the mission of the apostles to the nation, when the work of redemption had been accomplished. They either despise the message or slay the messengers. [64] The result is the destruction of those wicked men and of their city. This is the destruction that fell upon Jerusalem. On their rejection of the invitation, the destitute, the Gentiles, those who were outside, are brought in to the feast, and the wedding is furnished with guests. Another thing is now presented. It is true, that we have seen the judgment of Jerusalem in this parable, but, as it is a similitude of the kingdom, we have the judgment of that which is within the kingdom also. There must be fitness for the occasion. For a wedding feast there must be a wedding garment. If Christ is to be glorified, everything must be according to His glory. There may be an outward entrance into the kingdom, a profession of Christianity; but he who is not clothed with that which appertains to the feast will be cast out. We must be clothed with Christ Himself. On the other hand, all is prepared-nothing is required. It was not the guest’s part to bring anything; the King provided all. But we must be imbued with the spirit of that which is done. If there is any thought of what was suitable to a wedding feast, the need of a wedding garment to appear in would surely be felt: if not, the honour of the King’s Son has been forgotten. The heart was a stranger to it; the man himself shall become so by the judgment of the King when He takes cognizance of the guests who have come in.

Thus also grace has been shewn to Israel, and they are judged for refusing the invitation of the great King to the marriage of His Son. And then the abuse of this grace by those who appear to accept it is also judged. The bringing in of the Gentiles is declared.

Here concludes the history of the judgment of Israel in general, and of the character which the kingdom would assume.

After this (Mat 22:15, et seq.) the different classes of the Jews come forward, each in turn. First, the Pharisees and the Herodians (that is, those who favoured the authority of the Romans, and those who were opposed to it) seek to entangle Jesus in His talk. The blessed Lord answers them with that perfect wisdom that ever displayed itself in all He said and all He did. On their part, it was pure wickedness manifesting a total want of conscience. It was their own sin that had brought them under the Roman yoke-a position contrary indeed to that which should have belonged to the people of God on earth. Apparently therefore Christ must either become an object of suspicion to the authorities, or renounce His claim to be the Messiah and consequently the Deliverer. Who had occasioned this dilemma? It was the fruit of their own sins. The Lord shews them that they had themselves accepted the yoke. The money bore the mark of this: let them render it then to those unto whom it belonged, and let them also-which they were not doing-render unto God the things that were God’s. He leaves them under the yoke which they were obliged to confess they had accepted. He reminds them of the rights of God; which they had forgotten. Such might moreover have been Israel’s state according to the establishment of power in Nebuchadnezzar, as a “spreading vine of low stature.”

The Sadducees come next before Him, and question Him as to the resurrection, thinking to prove its absurdity. Thus, as the condition of the nation had been exhibited in His discourse with the Pharisees, the unbelief of the Sadducees is displayed here. They thought only of the things of this world, seeking to deny the existence of another. But whatever the state of degradation and subjection into which the people had fallen, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, changed not. The promises made to the fathers remained sure, and the fathers were living to enjoy these promises hereafter. It was the word and the power of God which were in question. The Lord maintains them with power and evidence. The Sadducees were silenced.

The lawyers, struck with His reply, ask a question, which gives the Lord occasion to extract from the whole law, that which, in the sight of God, is its essence, presenting thus its perfection, and that which-by whatever means it may be reached-forms the happiness of those that walk in it. Grace alone rises higher.

Here their questioning ceases. All is judged, all is brought to light with respect to the position of the people, and the sects of Israel; and the Lord has laid before them the perfect thoughts of God respecting them, whether on the subject of their condition, of His promises, or of the substance of the law.

It was now the Lord’s turn to propose His question in order to bring out His own position. He asks the Pharisees to reconcile the title of Son of David with that of Lord which David himself gave Him, and that in connection with the ascension of this same Christ to sit at the right hand of God until God had made all His enemies His footstool, and established His throne in Zion. Now this was the whole of Christ’s position at that moment. They were unable to answer Him, and no man durst ask Him any more questions. In fact, to understand that Psalm, would have been to understand all the ways of God with respect to His Son at the time they were going to reject Him. This necessarily closed these discourses by shewing the true position of Christ, who, although the Son of David, must ascend on high to receive the kingdom, and, while waiting for it, sit at the right hand of God according to the rights of His glorious Person-David’s Lord, as well as David’s Son.

There is another point of interest to be remarked here. In these interviews and these discourses with the different classes of the Jews, the Lord brings out the condition of the Jews on all sides with respect to their relations with God, and then the position which He took Himself. He first shews their national position towards God, as under responsibility to Him, according to natural conscience and the privileges belonging to them. The result would be their cutting off, and the bringing in of others into the Lord’s vineyard. This is Mat 21:28-46. He then exhibits their condition with regard to the grace of the kingdom, and the introduction of Gentile sinners. Here also the result is the cutting off and the destruction of the city. [65] Afterwards the Herodians and the Pharisees, the friends of the Romans and their enemies, the pretended friends of God, bring out the true position of the Jews with respect to the imperial power of the Gentiles and to God. In His interview with the Sadducees, He shews the certainty of the promises made to the fathers, and the relationship in which God stood to them in respect of life and resurrection. After this He puts the real meaning of the law before the scribes; and then the position which He took, Himself the Son of David, according to Psa 110:1-7, which was linked with His rejection by the leaders of the nation who stood around Him.

Footnotes for Matthew Chapter 22

64: Contempt and violence are the two forms of the rejection of the testimony of God, and of the true witness. They hate the one and love the other, or cleave to the one and despise the other.

65: Observe here, that from Mat 21:28 to the end, we have the responsibility of the nation looked at as in possession of their original privileges, according to which they ought to have borne fruit. Not having done so, another is put in their place. This was not the cause of the judgment which was, and yet is in a more terrible way to be, executed on Jerusalem, and which even then accomplished the destruction of the city. The death of Jesus, the last of those who had been sent to look for fruit, brings judgment on His murderers (Mat 21:33-41). The destruction of Jerusalem is the consequence of the rejection of the testimony to the kingdom sent to call them in grace. In the first case, the judgment was upon the husbandmen-the scribes, and chief priests, and leaders of the people. The judgment executed on account of the rejection of the testimony to the kingdom goes much farther (see Mat 22:7). Some despise the message, others ill-treat the messengers; and, grace being thus rejected, the city is burned up, and its inhabitants cut off. Compare Mat 23:36, and see the historical prophecy in Luk 21:1-38. The distinction is maintained in all three gospels.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. Jesus answered and spoke unto them again. Compare 13:15–24. Mark states (12:12) that after the parable of the wicked husbandmen, the rulers “left him and went their way;” hence this parable (peculiar to Matthew) was not spoken directly to the rulers.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

To rebuke the religious leaders and to illustrate their unbelief, Jesus tells a parable about a marriage feast. (See: Parables)

to them

"to the people"

The kingdom of heaven is like

This is the beginning of a parable. See how you translated this in Matthew 13:24.

those who had been invited

This can be stated in active form. AT: "the people the king had invited" (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

Jesus

parable

kingdom of God

king

feast

servant

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.