This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon. 

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In the previous post, we looked at how an ancient Jewish wedding foreshadows the return of Christ for his bride. But not everyone enjoys the marriage supper of the Lamb, as Jesus illustrates in the parable of the wedding banquet:

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to summon those invited to the banquet, but they didn’t want to come. Again, he sent out other servants and said, ‘Tell those who are invited: See, I’ve prepared my dinner; my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

“But they paid no attention and went away, one to his own farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged, and he sent out his troops, killed those murderers, and burned down their city.

“Then he told his servants, ‘The banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go then to where the roads exit the city and invite everyone you find to the banquet.’ So those servants went out on the roads and gathered everyone they found, both evil and good. The wedding banquet was filled with guests. When the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed for a wedding. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.

“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

“For many are invited, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:1-14).

In the previous chapter (Matt. 21), we learn that Jesus has made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem and cleansed the temple complex, driving out those who were buying and selling. He has received the praise of children and cursed the barren fig tree. He has answered the Pharisees’ challenges to his authority and provided parables of the two sons and the vineyard owner to expose the Jewish leaders’ hardened hearts. Stung by Jesus’ rebuke, they look for a way to arrest him.

Now, as Matthew 22 begins and Jesus’ crucifixion draws near, he remains in the temple in the presence of the Pharisees and tells the parable of the wedding banquet.

The central theme of this parable is that Israel will be judged for its rejection of the Messiah. The kingdom of heaven has been opened to the Gentiles – a joyous event the Jews should have celebrated as friends of the king and his son, the bridegroom. Yet because the generation of Israelites witnessing Messiah’s appearance have rejected him, God’s wrath will fall upon them. 

The wedding banquet is likely an evening meal. For an event of this type, two invitations are sent. The first one invites chosen guests to attend – and who would refuse such an honor from the king? The second announces that all is ready. It provides further details, including the time at which guests are expected to arrive. In this parable, the king offers a third invitation – quite exceptional, revealing the king’s graciousness – but the invited guests respond by treating the king’s slaves cruelly, even killing them.

The banquet is a picture of the covenant fellowship between Christ (the king’s son) and the church (his bride). The Jews under the Old Covenant are the invited guests who disregard the Father’s invitation, treat his slaves (the prophets) viciously, and despise his Son. There’s also a sense in which this refers not only to Jews, but to all people and cultures that close their eyes to the light of the promised Messiah.

The king responds with rage to the mistreatment of his servants and the disregard for his son. So he marshals an army, destroys the murderous rebels, and burns down their city. This is Jesus’ prophecy of the judgment that befalls Israel in A.D. 70, when the Roman armies under Titus sack Jerusalem, completely destroy the temple, kill more than one million Jews, and scatter the rest of the Jewish nation. Jesus also speaks of this terrible day in Matthew 24:1-2.

Now, the king directs his servants to go where the roads exit the city and invite everyone they find to the banquet. In Luke’s account of this parable (Luke 14:16-24), he adds the word “hedges” or “lanes” (v. 23) to indicate the people to whom the apostles are sent – the poor, the outcast, and others outside the elite circle of the privileged and powerful. This verse points out the Jews’ final rejection of Christ and the calling of the Gentiles. 

So, the servants fill the banquet hall with “everyone they found, both good and evil” (Matt. 22:10), a picture of the visible, or professing church. Scripture is abundantly clear that not everyone who claims the name of Jesus truly knows him, despite appearances to the contrary (see Matt. 7:21-23). In the same way, the church throughout the present evil age consists of professors and possessors – those who profess to know Christ and those who truly have his Spirit within them as the distinguishing mark of true believers (Rom. 8:9).

Not dressed appropriately

Next, we come to the guest who is not dressed for a wedding (Matt. 22:11). In ancient times, kings and princes provided fresh clothing to their guests. Normally, these were long white robes. To refuse such gifts, or to appear at the banquet without them, was an expression of highest contempt for the host and his guests. 

It’s a perfect picture of hypocrites. They are in the church, enjoying its fellowship and benefitting from its ministries. They may speak the Son’s name, but they don’t know him, nor are they known by the Son. They bask in the glow of the redeemed, share a covenant meal with them, and rub shoulders with their leaders. They are offered the robe of Christ’s righteousness but prefer the filthy rags of their own deeds. They have no true regard for Jesus, except for how employing his name may advance their status among others. When pressed for a defense of their faith, they have none. 

The king confronts the guest in verse 12: “Friend [companion is a better term], how did you get in here without wedding clothes?” he asks. The man is speechless – “muzzled” or “gagged” in some translations. Just as the guest is silenced by his own conscience, the unbeliever stands before God one day “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). As a result, the king orders his guest to be bound hand and foot and thrown into “the outer darkness,” away from the fellowship of the wedding party, perhaps even into a dungeon. In a similar way, Christ casts unbelievers out of his kingdom into everlasting punishment on the day they are summoned before the great white throne (Rev. 20:11-15; cf. Matt. 7:21-23; 8:12; 25:30).

Finally, we come to the phrase Jesus uses often in the Gospels, “For many are invited [called], but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). This is an allusion to the Roman method of raising an army. All men are mustered, but only those fit for duty are chosen to serve. Many are invited to the wedding feast, but most ignore the invitation, make light of it, find themselves otherwise engaged in worldly matters, abuse the king’s messengers, or show up in the filthy rags of their own righteousness; a comparatively small number enter the kingdom through the narrow gate (Matt. 7:13-14).

To enter the fellowship of the king, we must make sure we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ – true possessors of the Holy Spirit and not merely professors of the faith. 

Celebration and banishment

In both parables – the parable of the ten virgins and the parable of the wedding feast – there is great celebration. There is ample food, drink, music, and fellowship. At the same time, there is despair outside the banquet hall. In Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins, the foolish virgins are unprepared, revealing they are uncommitted. The door is shut. The groom tells them he does not know them. They are barred from the festivities.

In the parable of the wedding banquet, the emphasis is not so much on preparation as it is on rejection. The invited guests refuse to come. And through their violent actions against the king’s servants, they demonstrate their hatred of the king and his family. These are the Jews under the Old Covenant, who initially say they’re all in (Exod. 19:8; 24:3) but consistently illustrate they have their own agenda. 

They are like the wicked in the days of Noah, who hear a message of repentance but reject it out of contempt for God. The one improperly dressed for the wedding feast comes for convenience and comfort, much like the crowds that follow Jesus – as long as he’s feeding them and wowing them with miracles (see John 6). But the poorly clothed man is utterly self-righteous and thus cast out of the banquet hall, and he joins the invited guests who never wanted to be there in the first place. 

The marriage supper of the Lamb is a time of great rejoicing. It’s also a time of great disappointment and despair. Those who enter the banquet hall and feast with the groom are those who are both humble and ready – humble, in that they know their invitation is offered in grace and the wedding garment donned in faith; ready, in that they are truly committed to the groom and seek nothing so much as the joy of hearing the shofar sound and the call, “Behold, the bridegroom comes!”

Coming for his bride

Jesus is indeed coming for his bride. And while the precise order of events is unclear, the unmistakable truths of these parables are not. Jesus is the bridegroom who has entered into a New Covenant with his bride. He has paid the dowry and secured our eternal lives. He has promised to return, and today he’s in heaven preparing a place for us. We don’t know when he’s coming for us, yet the bridegroom is delayed – and for good reason (2 Pet. 3:8-9). 

We are to be ready for his return at all times, demonstrating our devotion to him through faithful lives and the authentic endurance of hardship. When he comes, he’s coming suddenly and surprisingly, at which time there’s a separation between those who claim to know him and those who truly do know him. He takes his bride into heaven and there we feast at the marriage supper of the Lamb. 

Meanwhile, many who pretend to be followers of Christ are barred from admission, despite their protests. They have no one to blame but themselves, and their absence from the banquet hall in no way diminishes the joy of the Lamb, his bride, and his guests.

While the marriage supper of the Lamb is a joyous time of celebration for the church and her bridegroom, the second coming provides a different kind of supper for those who have rejected the bridegroom, as well as those who are unprepared for his coming – a funeral supper of dead flesh for the fowls of the earth:

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he called out in a loud voice, saying to all the birds flying high overhead, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of military commanders, the flesh of the mighty, the flesh of horses and of their riders, and the flesh of everyone, both free and slave, small and great….

The rest were killed with the sword that came from the mouth of the rider on the horse [Jesus], and all the birds ate their fill of their flesh (Rev. 19:17-18, 21).

Next: I Am Coming Soon