In Matthew 22:1-14 Jesus tells the parable of the Prince’s wedding party. What is missing from the story is the bride. Revelation 19:1-9 offers the Apostle John’s elaboration on the parable, and makes it clear the bride is actually all of the righteous guests who come to the wedding wearing the white robe of righteousness.  The robe is given to them by grace and consists of their righteous works–it is 100% of God and 100% from them.¹ But let me return to my point: the bride is the guests. The king is giving his son a kingdom of people willing to accept the invitation to trust and obey.²

Among those who did not want to come to the wedding, the leaders of one town, full of hubris, mistreated shamefully the king’s slaves who invited them. They then murdered those slaves. They were themselves executed and their entire city burned to the ground. This detail of the parable calls to mind the archetypal city of Sodom. Within Matthew’s Gospel, Christ has already mentioned Sodom in 10:15; 11:23,24.

Note the grace of our heavenly King when he addresses as “friend” the proud man who is not wearing a white robe. This address occurs twice else in Matthew, all apparently connected:

1. In the parable of the workers hired early, mid-day and late to work in the vineyard (Matthew 20:13), the master addresses as “friend” the spokesman of those hired first who worked hard all day and resented the master’s gracious generosity to those just recently hired.
2. Here in Matthew 22:12 “friend” emphasizes the grace with which the king has invited all of these strangers great and small, wealthy and homeless, and speaks to all of them, addressing them as “friend.” The king first gives this man the benefit of the doubt and an opportunity to explain himself.
3. Finally, in Matthew 26:50 Jesus addresses Judas as “friend” when Judas brings the soldiers to arrest him. Jesus graciously offers to Judas one more chance to repent of his betrayal, reminding Judas he has come to betray a friend.

The fact that the man in 22:13 is speechless implies his guilt is clear. In my experience, members of eastern Mediterranean cultures always have a comeback. Yes, I’m perpetuating a fun stereotype, but if the culture 2,000 years ago was anything like in my experience, arguing is the way my wife’s family shows love. Right or wrong, they are rarely (never?) speechless. In this case, the man’s arrogance is evident to all. So the king orders the man tied up and thrown out into the night, despite the man’s now verbal reaction.

I imagine the translation “outer darkness” has been retained by many translations into English because it sounds spooky, ominous. In fact there is nothing necessitated beyond the banquet occurring late enough that it is already dark and the man is thrown out anyway, despite the presumed dangers of being alone out in the dark, not to mention bound feet and hands and thus needing to call for assistance and not knowing who might come and what advantage they might take. The king concludes (according to most translations these are the king’s words, rather than Christ’s commentary thereupon): “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth by this man who strolled in here so arrogantly in his own finery and couldn’t come up with an excuse when I gave him the chance. He’s going to be pissed, but he and the others I originally invited have proven themselves unworthy to be citizens in my son’s kingdom, and the sound of their jealous groans and insincere pleadings is to be expected and ignored by myself and my son as part of the responsibility of ruling wisely.”

So, Christ concludes, many are called by few are chosen. All the nation of Israel has been called–throughout its history–to live as God’s sons and daughters, a kingdom of priests serving as images of God to the nations. They were, as a nation, “elect,” the “chosen people.” They were offered great and precious promises in mighty constitutional covenants under which they could thrive with the Most High Creator and Provider as their king. But most individuals broke those covenants, with the result that comparatively few, a remnant, along with the gentiles of other nations who feared the Heavenly King as well, have been chosen on the basis of their righteous humble submission to enjoy the banquet and have their names entered on the citizenship role of the Kingdom of His Dear Son.

Those who passively chose not to come, and those who actively rebelled, demonstrated they were unworthy of even having been invited. The king’s judgment to his servants that they were unworthy comes after their behaviors disqualified them (22:8). They made themselves unworthy after repeated gracious invitations. In reality, this is not a call to perfection. The Pharisees and religious leaders whom Christ addresses as the main focus of his parables have literally been breaking the Ten Commandments. They choose not to care for their aging parents by labeling their wealth “corban.” They commit adultery and bring the woman to Christ for stoning while leaving the one of their number who was with her to run off free. In murdering the prophets and seeking some way to murder Jesus, they break the Ten Commandments as well. In all these ways they are committing the sin of idolatry, breaking the first commandment of the Ten.

MORALS: DON’T BE AN ARROGANT LEGALISTIC RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALIST. OBEY THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. KISS THE SON, LEST HE BE ANGRY.

1. Compare G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC), c. 1999, p. 942 ↩︎
2. Compare Beale, p. 945 ↩︎