Chapter 24—Without a Wedding Garment
This chapter is based on
Matthew 22:1-14
.
The parable of the wedding garment opens before us a lesson of
the highest consequence. By the marriage is represented the union of
humanity with divinity; the wedding garment represents the charac-
ter which all must possess who shall be accounted fit guests for the
wedding.
In this parable, as in that of the great supper, are illustrated the
gospel invitation, its rejection by the Jewish people, and the call of
mercy to the Gentiles. But on the part of those who reject the invita-
tion, this parable brings to view a deeper insult and a more dreadful
punishment. The call to the feast is a king’s invitation. It proceeds
from one who is vested with power to command. It confers high honor.
Yet the honor is unappreciated. The king’s authority is despised. While
the householder’s invitation was regarded with indifference, the king’s
is met with insult and murder. They treated his servants with scorn,
despitefully using them and slaying them.
The householder, on seeing his invitation slighted, declared that
none of the men who are bidden should taste of his supper. But for
those who had done despite to the king, more than exclusion from
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his presence and his table is decreed. “He sent forth his armies, and
destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.”
In both parables the feast is provided with guests, but the second
shows that there is a preparation to be made by all who attend the feast.
Those who neglect this preparation are cast out. “The king came in
to see the guests,” and “saw there a man which had not on a wedding
garment; and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not
having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the
king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and
cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.”
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