Job 28-30, Matthew 22, Psalm 22: 1-11
Matthew 22: 11-14 (ESV)
“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw
there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did
you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the
king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the
outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”
I’ve always found verses 11 through 14 from Matthew 22 hard
to understand until I read several Bible commentaries on these verses. Jesus told
this parable about the kingdom of heaven to the chief priests and elders who
came to him as he was teaching. This parable is about a King who arranged a
marriage for his son and invited several people as guests to the party. The guest
in this section of the parable had been invited to the wedding, but he was not
wearing wedding garments. The man had been invited, but he did not bother to change
his clothes to wear garments that were expected to be worn at a wedding. The
Bible commentarians wrote that the man was invited, but he did not honor the King’s
son by changing into the appropriate garments. The guest showed no love for the
king or the son by bothering to even change his clothes. So the King had the guest bound and cast into darkness.
The guest in the parable had found faith to believe in God, but he remained
unchanged by this faith and by Jesus Christ. When we are unchanged by our faith
and our relationship with Jesus Christ, we will suffer and not get into the kingdom
of heaven. Christ finished the parable by saying “many are are called, but few
are chosen” to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We can have the experience of being
saved and invited into a relationship with God and Jesus Christ, but if our
behavior is not changed by our faith or our relationship with Christ then God
will not choose us to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. I love this interpretation
of these verses because they make it imperative that a person of faith must
demonstrate their faith in their behavior, and if you cannot do that then you
will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
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