Parable Of The Marriage Feast
PARABLE OF THE MARRIAGE FEAST
MATTHEW 22:1-14
Only by Christ’s righteousness, made ours through faith in him, are we clothed properly.
This parable is superficially similar to the parable of the “great banquet” in Luke 14:16-24, but its meaning is closer to that of the vineyard in Matthew 21:33-43. The proclamation of the kingdom of heaven is compared to a royal command, sent out to people already invited in advance to a marriage feast at the palace, to come and take their places, since the feast was now about to begin. (Since no emphasis is laid on the king’s son in 22:2, he need not be allegorized as the Messiah.) The command, being unheeded, was repeated, but was received with deliberately offensive indifference—or worse, as when the servants who summoned the guests were beaten up or killed (cf. 21:35f.). The punishment of the murderers (cf. 21:41a) and burning of their city (recorded parenthetically in 22:7) point to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70; the first invited guests thus represent the religious establishment in Jerusalem. As in the parable of the vineyard the owner, after putting the first tenants to death, let out the vineyard to more trustworthy tenants, so the king here conscripts guests who had not been previously invited to come and fill the wedding hall and enjoy the feast. (The punitive action of 22:7 was not necessarily completed before the second lot of guests were gathered: otherwise the good things provided would have become cold and stale.) The second guests correspond to the “nation” of 21:43—the new society of Jewish and Gentile disciples to which the kingdom was to be transferred.
So far so good, but the appended incident (22:11-14) presents a problem. It probably prefigures the final judgment, when every man will be repaid “for what he has done” (16:27); the “wedding garment” is best understood as the way of life that shows the genuineness of the initial repentance (cf. 3:8; Revelation 19:8). For the man’s expulsion from the banqueting hall into the darkness outside cf. 8:12; 25:30. The problem lies in the difficulty of fitting some elements in the incident into the whole narrative, for which reason it has been thought that two originally separate parables have been telescoped here. The moral of 22:14 is not to be understood in the sense of “effectual calling” (cf. Romans 8:28-30); it simply means that not all to whom the invitation is extended enjoy the banquet (the blessings of the kingdom). When a limited number of vacancies must be filled, several candidates may be short-listed and called for interview, but not all of these are appointed.