Matthew 22:8-14 (NIV) “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
Since the chief priests , elders, and Pharisees did not see fit to come to the wedding feast, they will ultimately be destroyed, along with their city, Jerusalem. But God will not be foiled. The wedding feast will be well-attended, although not by those who had initially been invited.
The king’s instruction was to bring in anyone they could find, even if it meant seeking them out on the street corners. This far-reaching invitation, to the good as well as to the bad, foreshadows the huge expansion of the Church, even among the gentiles. This expansion reached the religious, that is true. But it also extended the invitation of eternal life to sinners, who repented, were transformed, and who came in in droves.
The man without wedding clothes has puzzled many, but the truth shown here is actually simple. Since this is a king’s wedding banquet, and since all of the guests were simple people, not the elite that were originally invited, the king had to ensure that each person, as they entered the gate, received appropriate wedding garments to put on. These garments symbolize salvation and righteousness. The man who is without wedding clothes had to have come in some other way than through the gate – perhaps climbing a wall, or sneaking in through a side entrance. The clothes proved legitimacy, and the lack of them proved him to be an illegitimate guest.
This man symbolizes those who try to get into the kingdom of God in ways other than Jesus, the only gate (see John 10:7-10). Only those who come in through Him will be clothed with the salvation and righteousness that equips them for the wedding feast. Those who try to get in using their own good deeds, or legalistic self-righteousness, like the Pharisees, will find themselves unclothed under the all-seeing eye of God, and their end will be in the outer darkness, tormented forever. Though many are called, only those who humble themselves and come in through the True Gate will receive a welcome to the feast.
Father, this puts many things into perspective, including Jesus’ insistence that He is the only way (John 14:6). If we don’t come in through Him, we are illegitimate guests, and will be found out and expelled. Thank You for providing for us this way to come to You. Amen.