The King Confronts the Guest Without a Wedding GarmentBible World
22:8Matthew 22:8
Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.
The wedding being ready means the gospel feast stands fully prepared and provided at infinite cost, with all things now ready for guests to come and partake. Those first bidden who were not worthy are the Jewish people, God's chosen people first invited to the feast, who had every privilege and opportunity of the richest banquet ever presented. They were counted unworthy because they refused the repeated calls of the king, treated the invitation lightly with trivial excuses, and turned aside to farms and merchandise and worldly gain. Their rejection went further to scorn and violence against the messengers, and in rejecting God's Son they divorced themselves from God and decided their own destiny. Therefore the king sent his armies to destroy those murderers and burn up their city in the fate of Jerusalem, and turned the call to the highways and hedges to the Gentiles and to every class, that the wedding might be furnished with guests. Being invited does not itself make a person fit to attend, for worthiness requires having on the wedding garment, which is Christ's righteousness alone, freely proffered and imputed through justification by faith, shown in loyalty and perfect obedience to all God's commandments.
Wedding Ready and Provided
The wedding being ready means the feast stands fully prepared and provided, with all things now ready for guests to come and partake. The provision remains ready even after those first bidden prove unworthy by refusal, and it was made at infinite cost. The king's dealing is to send invitations, then a final call that all things are now ready, then servants to invite personally so the call is fully understood. When that general invitation is refused he directs his servants to go into the highways to bid as many as they find, so that the wedding is furnished with guests, both bad and good.
That readiness was accomplished because God sent His Son to die, so that through faith in Him people become one with God. As Sin-bearer Christ opened the way to eternal life at the ransom of His own precious blood, providing redemption and the rich repast of truth for the world. He has prepared a banquet of peace and happiness and joy and repose from the din and confusion of earth, a banquet already ready to satisfy every human want. The invitation is His offered grace and bestowed love, rich and full, bidding souls to come and partake.
The wedding is the gospel feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb when Christ will receive the faithful into the mansions prepared for them. It presents the marriage of humanity with divinity, and the gospel covenant is like a marriage. The call Come declares acceptance of Christ as personal Saviour, and only those who accept can do Him honor. The feast represents pardon and removal of sin through freely offered grace, and receiving and practicing God's Word prepares for fellowship.
In the order of the parable the wedding is placed after the investigative judgment.
First Invited Guests
Those first counted unworthy were the Jewish people, God's chosen people first invited to the gospel feast. They had consented to come and had accepted the invitation, and they possessed every privilege and opportunity of the richest banquet ever presented. The feast stood ready for them, yet they refused the king's invitation and thereby proved unworthy, so the call then passed into the highways to others and the gospel went to the Gentiles.
They are also described as the higher classes, the chosen people, the princes of the land, and the great and worldly-wise men of earth. The first invitation represents the churches having the privilege of knowing Bible truth. Those in the highways to whom the call afterward goes also include people in the highways of life, the higher classes whom few can reach for association.
The king dealt with them by repeated calls, first sending general invitations to those who thought themselves worthy to be bidden. Then came the final call that all things are now ready with the provision fully prepared, yet those first bidden refused to come. After that refusal servants were sent to invite them personally so they would fully understand the invitation, yet still they with one consent refused and made excuse.
Reasons Counted Unworthy
The wedding was ready, but those first bidden were counted unworthy because they refused the invitation when everything was prepared. The king's call carried authority and honor, yet they despised it, treated it lightly, made light of it as unworthy of notice, and offered trivial and contemptible excuses instead of coming. Their unworthiness lay not in lack of invitation but in failure to heed it and come.
Their refusal came through preoccupation with worldly gain and temporal business, going to farms and merchandise, to buying and selling and planting and building, and turning to social attractions and worldly pleasures. They prided themselves on buying and selling to get gain and thought they could not afford to lose any worldly advantage to enjoy the feast. For the great and worldly-wise men this present world was their god, so they listened to the foe, adopted his varied excuses, and refused the heavenly benefits. In this they left eternity out of the reckoning and showed insufficient respect for the master of the feast, preferring their own concerns to honoring him.
They went further than neglect to scorn and violence against the messengers, mistreating them, entreating them spitefully and killing them. They hated the truth that reproved their sins and hated arguments from the Scriptures which they could not meet. Their rejection was thus accompanied by contempt and persecution that brought the king's wrath beyond mere exclusion.
As a nation they divorced themselves from God and decided their own destiny by rejecting His only begotten Son. Their unworthiness was refusing the garment of Christ's righteousness, which forever separated them from God. They had consented to come and had every privilege and opportunity of the richest banquet ever presented, yet made themselves unworthy by that refusal.
Those bidden are not worthy because they will not answer when Christ bids souls to the feast with the banquet already ready to satisfy every want. He offers rich and full grace and bestowed love and waits for a response, and the issue rests wholly with themselves. God cannot work for the soul that does not respond, though every heart can and may respond if it will, and a heart yearning for God recognizes His voice. The invitation is met when decision and whole-hearted seeking begin.
Judgment and Further Invitation
The king's wrath against the rejecters did not stop at barring them from his presence and table, but moved to active judgment when he sent his armies to destroy those murderers and burn up their cities. That destruction was more than exclusion from the feast, for contempt for the authority and honor of the call and violence against the messengers brought retribution upon the murderers and their cities. The burning of the city is the fate of Jerusalem for rejecting God's only means to save them, carried out when the Romans were permitted to destroy the fated city.
Because the first bidden refused, the king turned from them and sent his servants into the highways and hedges to bid as many as they should find, so that the wedding would be furnished with guests. Those gathered in from the highways were both bad and good, people not so absorbed in business and worldly work as the first invited had been. The call to the highways is the gospel going to the Gentiles after the first invitation was refused. It is an invitation without restriction to people of every class, including men of the world rich and poor who must be taken hold of and brought in, including the formerly enslaved people of the South, so that God's house may be filled.
Those who receive the message and reject it have no second invitation after probation closes, with no later call or intermediate opportunity to come. Turning to lesser interests on trivial excuses leads to exclusion when the door is shut, and seeking admission afterward comes too late. By that refusal the choice fixes destiny, while those who are faithful and keep God's commandments have the promised right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city.
What Makes Guests Worthy
An invitation alone does not make anyone fit to attend or to enter God's presence, for every guest must pass the scrutiny of the great King and meet the standard of character required to be counted fit. The wedding presents the marriage of humanity with divinity, and worthiness means obeying the King's requirements and putting on the wedding garment, with character revealed by what is done. Guests must be ready before probation closes when the King comes, lest they be found at the feast without the garment. The warning of unworthiness is illustrated both by the rejection of those who refuse God's provision and by the exclusion of the guest who dishonored his gracious invitation by trusting his own defiled clothing.
Worthiness requires having on the wedding garment, which is Christ's righteousness, the robe woven in the loom of heaven, spotless as the pure white lily, freely proffered as the richest gift that can be bestowed on mortal man. The feast represents pardon and removal of sin through freely offered grace, and the wedding is ready in the richest blessings from heaven proffered through justification by faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ. Accepting that righteousness is defined in the sixth chapter of John as a lesson of the highest consequence to be studied carefully, and securing it requires giving it whole attention.
No garment of one's own gives a position of honor at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and salvation is not because of superior intellect or refinement of ideas but through the grace of God. Guests must come clothed in Christ's righteousness rather than in the spirit of the world, for the natural, carnal person cannot rightly value or receive the spiritual things of God, and clinging to the old citizen's dress instead of accepting the dress prepared by Jesus Christ leaves the bidden unworthy. When eyes are fixed on Jesus and His unsurpassed purity and excellence, each sees his own weakness and poverty and defects, lost and hopeless, clad in garments of self-righteousness like every other sinner. Each must accept Christ's robe alone as a personal Saviour, for the imputed righteousness of Christ alone can make the sons and daughters of Adam members of the family in heaven, while entering in one's own citizen's garments dishonors the One who invited and prepared the spotless robe.
Putting on that garment means accepting the truth as it is in Jesus, the white linen of a clean, pure character, which declares acceptance of Christ as personal Saviour and shows His church married to Christ as His bride. It means no longer living the old citizen life lived in ignorance, with changed speech and conversation in altogether another line, so that faith stands not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. The worthy, the elect predestinated from the foundation of the world, are all who will come to the heavenly banquet, return to loyalty and perfect obedience to all God's commandments, and become a peculiar people to the praise of His grace, power, and wisdom. Receiving Christ means yielding to God and obeying His commandments, and those who truly accept Him wear the wedding garment of His righteousness.
Righteousness is right-doing, and all will be judged by their deeds, with works showing whether faith is genuine. The genuine evidence of conversion is keeping His commandments, dwelling in Him and He in us by the Spirit given, knowing Him by obedience, with Christ revealed in works of righteousness. It is not enough to believe that Jesus is not an impostor, that the religion of the Bible is true, that the name of Jesus is the only name by which man may be saved, to believe the theory of truth, to profess faith in Christ, or to have a name on the church roll, for without inward transformation profession amounts to nothing. Those invited who know Bible truth but do not put it into practice, serve faithfully, or use their entrusted abilities are accountable for that neglect, and nominal acceptance without a life of service leaves them unprepared for the wedding supper. Many who profess to have accepted the invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb remain unworthy because they have a form of godliness but do not manifest in life and practice the inward workings of the Holy Spirit, being seemingly active and ready with counsel not always imparted from above, and needing to search their hearts and come into humble, sacred nearness to God with the meekness of Christ. Knowing the truth and agreeing with it are not enough, for those who will not obey and accept the invitation lack genuine faith and remain apart from Christ, the source of spiritual life, whereas real faith works by love and purifies the soul.
Coming without the garment is hearing and professing the truth but remaining unchanged in habit and practice, for belief about Christ is not enough unless Christ is received as a personal Saviour and brought into daily life where truth purifies and transforms. Those bidden are not worthy when they profess to believe yet remain unsanctified, carrying self with no room for Christ and without reformation of heart, talking the Word all over the world while keeping Christ out of the heart and keeping truth in the outer court. They are only hearers of the Word and not doers guided by the living oracles, treating the work of the Holy Spirit as strange, and cherishing hereditary and cultivated traits that misrepresent Christ. Unworthiness is presumption about eternal interests, measuring character by one's own ideas instead of God's standard, continuing in sin, failing to take a firm stand for Christ in surrendering to God what is already His, and clinging to self-will rather than Christ's humility and dependence on God. A person's unholy conduct and impurity leave them unfit for the supper unless character is washed in the Lamb's blood, and those who leave sins unconfessed and unrepented come without the garment, since repentance and confession are necessary to receive forgiveness and cleansing and to have Christ abide in the soul.
The feast represents a lifetime of accepting God's invitation and developing a character fit for His kingdom, continuing into eternity. Those who accept the invitation do not live to please themselves or absorb means to flatter vanity but work as Christ worked. Both by the message they bear and by the garment they wear they testify to His death and convey to others the invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb, since Christ's atoning death prepared the feast, providing redemption and the rich repast of truth for the world.
Proclaiming the Invitation Today
The marriage supper is the final call to the world in view of Christ's soon coming, and many places have not yet heard it, so those called to proclaim it must carry the invitation to them. The time is short and everyone must now be prepared, which means accepting the robe of Christ's righteousness and having His peace so as not to be found without the wedding garment. Souls are to be urged to come and all who are willing gathered in, while the truth is not lowered to gain converts but people are called upward to the standard of God's law. Workers are to keep proclaiming it and press forward, expecting people in Cooranbong and nearby places to accept it.
The invitation must be earnestly carried personally to people in every station, including teachers, ministers, and others in influential positions, and if they refuse the messengers have done their duty by telling the Master. Those in the highways represent the higher classes, people in the highways of life, and reaching them is difficult because few can obtain association with them. It is to reach all classes in the highways, including people of high standing, the wealthy, men in business and trust, and men of inventive, scientific and organizing powers who are needed as managers, leaders and financiers. It is to be carried graciously to people in high places, giving them a fair chance to hear and weigh the truth.
Their status does not place them beyond God's power to convert and use them, and influential and wealthy people who are spiritually hungry are called to repent and prepare for immortal life. Those in high standing who receive the truth can use their influence and connections to help others hear it. The gospel feast is meant for people of every class, including the formerly enslaved people of the South, whom Christian workers should have invited and served.
Christ bids souls in Battle Creek to the marriage feast and sets before them in His Word a banquet that will satisfy every want, waiting for their response while the issue rests wholly with themselves. The invitation is met when decision and effort to seek Him with all the heart commence in every family, and then He will give an outpouring of His Spirit as on the Day of Pentecost. The warning calls people to prepare to enter the wedding so that God's house may be filled, and those who are faithful and do God's commandments have the promised right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city.
The feast is prepared through Christ's atoning death, and those who receive its truth are to wear the robe of His righteousness and carry the invitation to others through devoted service. Those who receive the call are to seek to bring others to it, and as they share the light they have received they grow fitted for service and trial, obey the truth, and bring their lives into subjection to Christ. The verse warns against slothful, half-hearted preparation for eternal life, for turning to lesser interests leads to exclusion when the door is shut and seeking admission afterward comes too late, and self-justification with promises to become diligent later cannot provide the wedding garment which is Christ's righteousness.
Many who profess to have accepted the invitation remain unworthy because they have not on the garment, having a form of godliness without manifesting in life and practice the inward working of the Holy Spirit. They are seemingly active in the Lord's service and always ready to give counsel on how His work should be carried forward, but their counsel is not always imparted from above, so they need to search their own hearts thoroughly and arouse themselves to come into humble, sacred nearness to God with the meekness of Christ. The wedding God prepared by sending His Son to die so that through faith in Him people become one with God is ready for all, with the promises not made to a few and no walls built to keep any living soul from salvation. The bidden who are worthy, the elect predestinated from the foundation of the world, are all who will come to the heavenly banquet, accept Christ as personal Saviour, return to loyalty and perfect obedience to all God's commandments, and become a peculiar people to the praise and glory of His grace, power and wisdom.
The call to the supper stands joined to the warning about the man found there without the wedding garment, a truth to be heard with earnest interest as a repast. Those first invited were unworthy because they refused the invitation and would not taste the supper, so the invitation was then to go to others, and ultimately to all people without restriction. Receiving Christ means yielding to God and obeying His commandments, and those who truly accept Him wear the wedding garment of His righteousness, developing through a lifetime of accepting God's invitation a character fit for His kingdom, continuing into eternity. The wedding-garment parable raises the question of who they represent and whether anyone could be taken to heaven by mistake and then cast back to earth.
The wedding being ready means the gospel feast stands fully prepared and provided at infinite cost, with all things now ready for guests to come and partake. Those first bidden who were not worthy are the Jewish people, God's chosen people first invited to the feast, who had every privilege and opportunity of the richest banquet ever presented. They were counted unworthy because they refused the repeated calls of the king, treated the invitation lightly with trivial excuses, and turned aside to farms and merchandise and worldly gain. Their rejection went further to scorn and violence against the messengers, and in rejecting God's Son they divorced themselves from God and decided their own destiny. Therefore the king sent his armies to destroy those murderers and burn up their city in the fate of Jerusalem, and turned the call to the highways and hedges to the Gentiles and to every class, that the wedding might be furnished with guests. Being invited does not itself make a person fit to attend, for worthiness requires having on the wedding garment, which is Christ's righteousness alone, freely proffered and imputed through justification by faith, shown in loyalty and perfect obedience to all God's commandments.
Wedding Ready and Provided
The wedding being ready means the feast stands fully prepared and provided, with all things now ready for guests to come and partake. The provision remains ready even after those first bidden prove unworthy by refusal, and it was made at infinite cost. The king's dealing is to send invitations, then a final call that all things are now ready, then servants to invite personally so the call is fully understood. When that general invitation is refused he directs his servants to go into the highways to bid as many as they find, so that the wedding is furnished with guests, both bad and good.
That readiness was accomplished because God sent His Son to die, so that through faith in Him people become one with God. As Sin-bearer Christ opened the way to eternal life at the ransom of His own precious blood, providing redemption and the rich repast of truth for the world. He has prepared a banquet of peace and happiness and joy and repose from the din and confusion of earth, a banquet already ready to satisfy every human want. The invitation is His offered grace and bestowed love, rich and full, bidding souls to come and partake.
The wedding is the gospel feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb when Christ will receive the faithful into the mansions prepared for them. It presents the marriage of humanity with divinity, and the gospel covenant is like a marriage. The call Come declares acceptance of Christ as personal Saviour, and only those who accept can do Him honor. The feast represents pardon and removal of sin through freely offered grace, and receiving and practicing God's Word prepares for fellowship.
In the order of the parable the wedding is placed after the investigative judgment.
First Invited Guests
Those first counted unworthy were the Jewish people, God's chosen people first invited to the gospel feast. They had consented to come and had accepted the invitation, and they possessed every privilege and opportunity of the richest banquet ever presented. The feast stood ready for them, yet they refused the king's invitation and thereby proved unworthy, so the call then passed into the highways to others and the gospel went to the Gentiles.
They are also described as the higher classes, the chosen people, the princes of the land, and the great and worldly-wise men of earth. The first invitation represents the churches having the privilege of knowing Bible truth. Those in the highways to whom the call afterward goes also include people in the highways of life, the higher classes whom few can reach for association.
The king dealt with them by repeated calls, first sending general invitations to those who thought themselves worthy to be bidden. Then came the final call that all things are now ready with the provision fully prepared, yet those first bidden refused to come. After that refusal servants were sent to invite them personally so they would fully understand the invitation, yet still they with one consent refused and made excuse.
Reasons Counted Unworthy
The wedding was ready, but those first bidden were counted unworthy because they refused the invitation when everything was prepared. The king's call carried authority and honor, yet they despised it, treated it lightly, made light of it as unworthy of notice, and offered trivial and contemptible excuses instead of coming. Their unworthiness lay not in lack of invitation but in failure to heed it and come.
Their refusal came through preoccupation with worldly gain and temporal business, going to farms and merchandise, to buying and selling and planting and building, and turning to social attractions and worldly pleasures. They prided themselves on buying and selling to get gain and thought they could not afford to lose any worldly advantage to enjoy the feast. For the great and worldly-wise men this present world was their god, so they listened to the foe, adopted his varied excuses, and refused the heavenly benefits. In this they left eternity out of the reckoning and showed insufficient respect for the master of the feast, preferring their own concerns to honoring him.
They went further than neglect to scorn and violence against the messengers, mistreating them, entreating them spitefully and killing them. They hated the truth that reproved their sins and hated arguments from the Scriptures which they could not meet. Their rejection was thus accompanied by contempt and persecution that brought the king's wrath beyond mere exclusion.
As a nation they divorced themselves from God and decided their own destiny by rejecting His only begotten Son. Their unworthiness was refusing the garment of Christ's righteousness, which forever separated them from God. They had consented to come and had every privilege and opportunity of the richest banquet ever presented, yet made themselves unworthy by that refusal.
Those bidden are not worthy because they will not answer when Christ bids souls to the feast with the banquet already ready to satisfy every want. He offers rich and full grace and bestowed love and waits for a response, and the issue rests wholly with themselves. God cannot work for the soul that does not respond, though every heart can and may respond if it will, and a heart yearning for God recognizes His voice. The invitation is met when decision and whole-hearted seeking begin.
Judgment and Further Invitation
The king's wrath against the rejecters did not stop at barring them from his presence and table, but moved to active judgment when he sent his armies to destroy those murderers and burn up their cities. That destruction was more than exclusion from the feast, for contempt for the authority and honor of the call and violence against the messengers brought retribution upon the murderers and their cities. The burning of the city is the fate of Jerusalem for rejecting God's only means to save them, carried out when the Romans were permitted to destroy the fated city.
Because the first bidden refused, the king turned from them and sent his servants into the highways and hedges to bid as many as they should find, so that the wedding would be furnished with guests. Those gathered in from the highways were both bad and good, people not so absorbed in business and worldly work as the first invited had been. The call to the highways is the gospel going to the Gentiles after the first invitation was refused. It is an invitation without restriction to people of every class, including men of the world rich and poor who must be taken hold of and brought in, including the formerly enslaved people of the South, so that God's house may be filled.
Those who receive the message and reject it have no second invitation after probation closes, with no later call or intermediate opportunity to come. Turning to lesser interests on trivial excuses leads to exclusion when the door is shut, and seeking admission afterward comes too late. By that refusal the choice fixes destiny, while those who are faithful and keep God's commandments have the promised right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city.
What Makes Guests Worthy
An invitation alone does not make anyone fit to attend or to enter God's presence, for every guest must pass the scrutiny of the great King and meet the standard of character required to be counted fit. The wedding presents the marriage of humanity with divinity, and worthiness means obeying the King's requirements and putting on the wedding garment, with character revealed by what is done. Guests must be ready before probation closes when the King comes, lest they be found at the feast without the garment. The warning of unworthiness is illustrated both by the rejection of those who refuse God's provision and by the exclusion of the guest who dishonored his gracious invitation by trusting his own defiled clothing.
Worthiness requires having on the wedding garment, which is Christ's righteousness, the robe woven in the loom of heaven, spotless as the pure white lily, freely proffered as the richest gift that can be bestowed on mortal man. The feast represents pardon and removal of sin through freely offered grace, and the wedding is ready in the richest blessings from heaven proffered through justification by faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ. Accepting that righteousness is defined in the sixth chapter of John as a lesson of the highest consequence to be studied carefully, and securing it requires giving it whole attention.
No garment of one's own gives a position of honor at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and salvation is not because of superior intellect or refinement of ideas but through the grace of God. Guests must come clothed in Christ's righteousness rather than in the spirit of the world, for the natural, carnal person cannot rightly value or receive the spiritual things of God, and clinging to the old citizen's dress instead of accepting the dress prepared by Jesus Christ leaves the bidden unworthy. When eyes are fixed on Jesus and His unsurpassed purity and excellence, each sees his own weakness and poverty and defects, lost and hopeless, clad in garments of self-righteousness like every other sinner. Each must accept Christ's robe alone as a personal Saviour, for the imputed righteousness of Christ alone can make the sons and daughters of Adam members of the family in heaven, while entering in one's own citizen's garments dishonors the One who invited and prepared the spotless robe.
Putting on that garment means accepting the truth as it is in Jesus, the white linen of a clean, pure character, which declares acceptance of Christ as personal Saviour and shows His church married to Christ as His bride. It means no longer living the old citizen life lived in ignorance, with changed speech and conversation in altogether another line, so that faith stands not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. The worthy, the elect predestinated from the foundation of the world, are all who will come to the heavenly banquet, return to loyalty and perfect obedience to all God's commandments, and become a peculiar people to the praise of His grace, power, and wisdom. Receiving Christ means yielding to God and obeying His commandments, and those who truly accept Him wear the wedding garment of His righteousness.
Righteousness is right-doing, and all will be judged by their deeds, with works showing whether faith is genuine. The genuine evidence of conversion is keeping His commandments, dwelling in Him and He in us by the Spirit given, knowing Him by obedience, with Christ revealed in works of righteousness. It is not enough to believe that Jesus is not an impostor, that the religion of the Bible is true, that the name of Jesus is the only name by which man may be saved, to believe the theory of truth, to profess faith in Christ, or to have a name on the church roll, for without inward transformation profession amounts to nothing. Those invited who know Bible truth but do not put it into practice, serve faithfully, or use their entrusted abilities are accountable for that neglect, and nominal acceptance without a life of service leaves them unprepared for the wedding supper. Many who profess to have accepted the invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb remain unworthy because they have a form of godliness but do not manifest in life and practice the inward workings of the Holy Spirit, being seemingly active and ready with counsel not always imparted from above, and needing to search their hearts and come into humble, sacred nearness to God with the meekness of Christ. Knowing the truth and agreeing with it are not enough, for those who will not obey and accept the invitation lack genuine faith and remain apart from Christ, the source of spiritual life, whereas real faith works by love and purifies the soul.
Coming without the garment is hearing and professing the truth but remaining unchanged in habit and practice, for belief about Christ is not enough unless Christ is received as a personal Saviour and brought into daily life where truth purifies and transforms. Those bidden are not worthy when they profess to believe yet remain unsanctified, carrying self with no room for Christ and without reformation of heart, talking the Word all over the world while keeping Christ out of the heart and keeping truth in the outer court. They are only hearers of the Word and not doers guided by the living oracles, treating the work of the Holy Spirit as strange, and cherishing hereditary and cultivated traits that misrepresent Christ. Unworthiness is presumption about eternal interests, measuring character by one's own ideas instead of God's standard, continuing in sin, failing to take a firm stand for Christ in surrendering to God what is already His, and clinging to self-will rather than Christ's humility and dependence on God. A person's unholy conduct and impurity leave them unfit for the supper unless character is washed in the Lamb's blood, and those who leave sins unconfessed and unrepented come without the garment, since repentance and confession are necessary to receive forgiveness and cleansing and to have Christ abide in the soul.
The feast represents a lifetime of accepting God's invitation and developing a character fit for His kingdom, continuing into eternity. Those who accept the invitation do not live to please themselves or absorb means to flatter vanity but work as Christ worked. Both by the message they bear and by the garment they wear they testify to His death and convey to others the invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb, since Christ's atoning death prepared the feast, providing redemption and the rich repast of truth for the world.
Proclaiming the Invitation Today
The marriage supper is the final call to the world in view of Christ's soon coming, and many places have not yet heard it, so those called to proclaim it must carry the invitation to them. The time is short and everyone must now be prepared, which means accepting the robe of Christ's righteousness and having His peace so as not to be found without the wedding garment. Souls are to be urged to come and all who are willing gathered in, while the truth is not lowered to gain converts but people are called upward to the standard of God's law. Workers are to keep proclaiming it and press forward, expecting people in Cooranbong and nearby places to accept it.
The invitation must be earnestly carried personally to people in every station, including teachers, ministers, and others in influential positions, and if they refuse the messengers have done their duty by telling the Master. Those in the highways represent the higher classes, people in the highways of life, and reaching them is difficult because few can obtain association with them. It is to reach all classes in the highways, including people of high standing, the wealthy, men in business and trust, and men of inventive, scientific and organizing powers who are needed as managers, leaders and financiers. It is to be carried graciously to people in high places, giving them a fair chance to hear and weigh the truth.
Their status does not place them beyond God's power to convert and use them, and influential and wealthy people who are spiritually hungry are called to repent and prepare for immortal life. Those in high standing who receive the truth can use their influence and connections to help others hear it. The gospel feast is meant for people of every class, including the formerly enslaved people of the South, whom Christian workers should have invited and served.
Christ bids souls in Battle Creek to the marriage feast and sets before them in His Word a banquet that will satisfy every want, waiting for their response while the issue rests wholly with themselves. The invitation is met when decision and effort to seek Him with all the heart commence in every family, and then He will give an outpouring of His Spirit as on the Day of Pentecost. The warning calls people to prepare to enter the wedding so that God's house may be filled, and those who are faithful and do God's commandments have the promised right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city.
The feast is prepared through Christ's atoning death, and those who receive its truth are to wear the robe of His righteousness and carry the invitation to others through devoted service. Those who receive the call are to seek to bring others to it, and as they share the light they have received they grow fitted for service and trial, obey the truth, and bring their lives into subjection to Christ. The verse warns against slothful, half-hearted preparation for eternal life, for turning to lesser interests leads to exclusion when the door is shut and seeking admission afterward comes too late, and self-justification with promises to become diligent later cannot provide the wedding garment which is Christ's righteousness.
Many who profess to have accepted the invitation remain unworthy because they have not on the garment, having a form of godliness without manifesting in life and practice the inward working of the Holy Spirit. They are seemingly active in the Lord's service and always ready to give counsel on how His work should be carried forward, but their counsel is not always imparted from above, so they need to search their own hearts thoroughly and arouse themselves to come into humble, sacred nearness to God with the meekness of Christ. The wedding God prepared by sending His Son to die so that through faith in Him people become one with God is ready for all, with the promises not made to a few and no walls built to keep any living soul from salvation. The bidden who are worthy, the elect predestinated from the foundation of the world, are all who will come to the heavenly banquet, accept Christ as personal Saviour, return to loyalty and perfect obedience to all God's commandments, and become a peculiar people to the praise and glory of His grace, power and wisdom.
The call to the supper stands joined to the warning about the man found there without the wedding garment, a truth to be heard with earnest interest as a repast. Those first invited were unworthy because they refused the invitation and would not taste the supper, so the invitation was then to go to others, and ultimately to all people without restriction. Receiving Christ means yielding to God and obeying His commandments, and those who truly accept Him wear the wedding garment of His righteousness, developing through a lifetime of accepting God's invitation a character fit for His kingdom, continuing into eternity. The wedding-garment parable raises the question of who they represent and whether anyone could be taken to heaven by mistake and then cast back to earth.