A Wedding Story

Jesus lived in difficult times among people who were spiritually blind and deaf. He preached about the kingdom of heaven, He performed miracles, but the people failed to perceive Him to be Israel’s long awaited Messiah. This sin would bring upon them certain divine judgment. Jesus then confronts them on this matter with the following story of a wedding banquet:

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.” ’ But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them. But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ ” (Matt. 22:2-13).

 The story is, of course, not about a literal wedding banquet. The landowner is God, and Jesus is the son. The wedding banquet is life in the kingdom of heaven. The tenants were those whose Hebrew forefathers entered into the land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The tenants were the Jewish people of Jesus’ day. God had created the heavens and the earth. He planted the Garden of Eden and created man in His image, both male and female, to be the gardeners. Although man sinned and was cast out of the Garden, God entered into a covenant relationship with Abraham to redeem the world. Thorough Abraham all nations would be blessed. Hosea prophesied, “When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son” (Hos. 11:1). When Israelites sinned, God sent prophets like Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many others to call them to repentance. Yet, sinners did not heed their message. God sent other messengers like John the Baptist, but the apostate people turned and killed him. It was this rejection of the truth that would be their undoing. Jesus wanted them to know that they had rejected God’s invitation to be part of His kingdom.

The king’s destruction of the city with fire is a veiled prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70.

The landowner’s extension of the wedding invitation to people far and wide is then the work of the church in evangelizing the world. God is calling people from all tribes, tongues, and nations to enter into a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. The followers of Christ make up the church, and the church is the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:22-33).

The story ends with a twist, as one guest is cast out for not being properly dressed. It was likely an insult to the master. Jesus takes the story in this direction to illustrate not all His followers stood with Him. Darrell Bock explains, “This is another example of the ‘odd man out’ in a parable. It represents the person who professes a relationship to Christ, gets close to him, but never really knows him. The prime example in Jesus’ ministry of such a figure is Judas, who, like the figure in the parable, will be addressed with the description of ‘friend’ at the betrayal (Matt. 22:12; 26:50)" [1].  Some years later, the apostle John would write to the churches, “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:18-19).

Christ’s words reverberate throughout all of history and they are as relevant today as back then. Many people hear the message of the kingdom, and simply pass on by. Some of them might even do violence against those sharing the Good News. There are also a good number of people who appear to follow Christ but are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Mormonism is a primary example. They might say, “I believe in God, and Jesus is my savior.” Yet, the Devil is in the details. Mormons often use Christian terminology with their own cultic redefinitions. What is being left out of the equation is the Mormon beliefs that there are many gods in the universe, that the Heavenly Father was once a man who became the God of this planet, that Jesus Christ is not only the spirit brother of Lucifer but also the child sired via sexual union between the Heavenly Father and the virgin Mary, and that Mormons devotes can through their efforts become gods of their own planets. These beliefs are antithetical to the essential doctrines of the historic Christian faith, and distinguish Mormonism from Christianity.

Those who embrace liberation theology fair no better. Interpreting the Bible through a lens that defines the human struggle in terms of class warfare (e.g. rich vs. poor, oppressor vs. oppressed, White vs. Black, etc.) along with some sort of utopian idea of redistribution of wealth and power for everyone to get their fair share, they miss the very heart of the Scripture’s message. It matters not whether one is rich or poor, slave or free, Jew or Gentile, male or female, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and those who find the kingdom of heaven, enter into the Door of Jesus Christ.

The wedding attendies are described as the elect. Jesus said, “Many are called but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). The elect are then revealed in their response to the evangelistic all and faithfulness to their God.

Notes:

1. Darrel Bock, Jesus According to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 328.