Matt 22:1–14 — The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

The Wedding Banquet

The context of this section of the Gospel of Matthew is one that we have been dwelling upon for the last few weeks, going back to the triumphal entry in Matthew chapter 21.

Jesus then enters Jerusalem and he goes straight to the temple, where he cleanses the temple and casts out the money changers and those who were selling pigeons. And he said, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers. And so there is this theme throughout this whole section of the temple. The temple is the theme of this whole section of the Gospel of Matthew.

But the temple is not simply a building made out of stones. The temple is a symbol that stands for the people of God. The people of God are God’s house. They are the ones who are to offer the praise and the worship that God desires from his people. But there is this amazing transition that is going on here in this story, in the transition from the old to the new.

The old temple, which is corrupt, that is under this leadership of the Jewish authorities who have turned it into a den of thieves and who are no longer truly honoring God the way that the temple was intended to do. and they are now being cast out, and God is gathering a new people, a new Israel, and creating a new temple that is formed upon Christ. Christ is the cornerstone, as Jesus himself says in the parable of the tenants. The stone that the builders rejected, verse 42, has become the cornerstone, and the Lord is building this new temple that is composed of both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus. Jesus, in this section of the Gospel of Matthew, tells three parables in order to illustrate and explain what is happening here, to show this transition from the death of Israel to the resurrection of Israel in Christ, from the judgment on the old temple to the building of the new temple that is founded upon Christ.

And the first parable that he tells is the parable of the two sons. Remember the two sons, the first son said he would not go out and work in the vineyard, but then afterward he changed his mind and he went. The other son said he would go, but in the end he did not go. And Jesus said, which of the two sons did the will of his father? And the Jewish authorities, the chief priests, and the elders of the people to whom Jesus is talking, they correctly identified the first son as the one who did the will of God.

And Jesus then says, truly I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes, the ones who initially said that they would not go and do God’s will, they are going into the kingdom of God before you. Whereas you, who claim to be doing God’s will, you are so focused upon your righteousness and keeping all of the details of the law, especially the purity requirements. You who said you would go, you have not, because you have not listened to the gospel. You have not believed in me as the Messiah. And so you are not doing the will of the Father. And so we see this transition, do not we? We see the transition between the old and the new. The old are the second son who would not go.

The new people of God that is being formed are the tax collectors, the sinners, the crowd from Galilee that is composed of the outcasts of Israel, the ones that do not seem like they have their act together, the ones that do not seem like they are righteous according to the standards of the Pharisees and the Jewish leadership, but they are the ones who are forming this new people of God, who are being built as living stones into this new temple that Christ is creating through his death and resurrection. The second parable is the parable of the tenants, and here Jesus alludes back to Isaiah chapter 5, where in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah uses this analogy of God planting his people as a vineyard in the land.

And he was seeking fruit from that vineyard, but the people of God did not produce the good fruit. And even though God sent servant after servant, prophet after prophet to come and to call God’s people to repentance and to greater faithfulness to him, yet they failed to do so. And finally, God sent his own son. That is the whole story of the gospels, right? That Jesus has now come as the son of God, as the Messiah.

And they not only rejected him, but they also plotted to kill him. And it even says there in verse 39, they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him, which of course is about to happen in just a few days. As we continue reading the story, you see how the Jewish leadership, the Jewish elders in the Sanhedrin, put Jesus on trial, they cast him out of the vineyard, they took him outside of the city walls, and they had him put to death using the Roman authorities as their instrument to do so.

And what does Jesus say? He says, when therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those wicked tenants? Amazingly, the Jewish leaders, they condemned themselves out of their own mouths, and they say, well, he will put those wretches to a miserable death, and he will let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons. And Jesus says, well, you said so yourself.

And Jesus then quotes from that amazing passage in Psalm 118, a messianic prophecy about Christ. Have you never read the scriptures? The stone that the builders, the builders being the Jewish authorities, the stone is Christ, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, Jesus says, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, the Jewish leaders, and it will be given to a people producing its fruits.

That people, of course, is the church composed of all, whether Jew or Gentile, who believe in Jesus, who acknowledge him as the Messiah. And we see the beginnings of that church right here in the story, because the crowd from Galilee is the crowd that hails Jesus as the Messiah, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. The blind and the lame who come and are healed by him in the temple, the children who are praising Jesus, this crowd of children and blind people and sinners, but who love the Lord Jesus Christ and who are acknowledging him as king. They are the beginnings of this new Israel, this new temple that God is building upon Christ the cornerstone.

We come now to the third parable, and that is today’s parable, and that is the parable of the wedding banquet. The parable of the wedding banquet is continuing this theme of showing the transition from the old Israel to the new, from the old temple to the new. But this time, we have a slightly different image or a slightly different metaphor for thinking about what is happening spiritually here through Christ and those who believe in him.

This time, we are looking at the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the kingdom that Jesus proclaims as a wedding banquet, or more accurately, as an invitation to come to a wedding banquet. Verse 1, chapter 22, verse 1, Jesus again spoke to them in parables saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. That is very significant that the gospel is being now described as an invitation to a wedding feast, a wedding banquet given by a king for his son. the fact that it is a wedding banquet that is given by the king makes this a very significant event. In fact, it makes it a politically significant event. Just looking at it from the terms of the idea that is being presented in the parable itself before we get to how it applies to Christ and the gospel.

In the parable itself, if a king is putting on a wedding banquet, then that is an important thing and everybody in his kingdom ought to pay attention, right? It is not just some ordinary person, some individual private citizen or maybe even a wealthy person putting on a banquet. This is the king putting on a wedding banquet.

And not only is it the king doing this, but he is doing it in honor of his son and his son’s wedding. That makes it even more politically charged, right? Because if you respond in the right way to this wedding invitation, that will show that you are giving your allegiance not only to the king, but to his son, who is the legitimate heir, who is going to become the king one day.

The Invitations

Attendance at this wedding banquet, therefore, is not optional. Attendance at this wedding banquet is not just some fun thing you could do on the weekend. This is an important thing, and how you respond to the invitation will determine whether you are loyal to the king and to his son or not. Conversely, to refuse the invitation would be what? If you refuse to come to this wedding banquet, And you say, well, I do not have time. I am kind of busy. I have other stuff to do. What are you doing if you do that?

If you refuse to come to the wedding banquet put on by the king in honor of his heir, who is about to receive the throne after him, that is tantamount to rebellion against the king, is not it? That explains verse 7 because verse 7 says that when the majority paid no attention and some even seized the servants who were sending out the invitation and killed them, it says in verse 7, the king was angry. What did he do? How did he view the non-response and non-attendance of the people? He viewed it as rebellion, because the king was angry and he sent his troops, and he destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

Of course, we will mention that in a minute, but that, of course, is pointing ahead to the destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus himself prophesies about in chapter 24. But the important thing here is to understand that this is a very important event. It has political significance, and therefore your response, attendance or non-attendance, also has political significance.

Now notice that there are three invitations or three calls to fulfill the invitation and to come to the wedding banquet. In verse three, it says, he sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. That is the first one. I believe that that refers to the Jewish people in Old Testament times. Then in verse four, we have the second one. Again, he sent other servants saying, tell those who are invited, see, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast. But they paid no attention.

I think this refers to the Jewish people in Jesus’ own day, and specifically to the Jewish leadership, to the majority of Israel, not the remnant of the Galilean crowd. They, of course, they are responding positively, but the majority of the nation of Israel, and especially the Jewish leadership, who not only were neglecting the call, but also were seizing the servants like John the Baptist, and about to do so with Jesus, treating them shamefully and killing them. So the first and second invitations then are focusing upon the gospel offer to the Jewish people in Old Testament times and then right up to the time of Jesus himself.

And that is confirmed by the fact that in verse 7 we have that allusion to the fact that the city of Jerusalem will be literally destroyed in AD 70, a mere 40 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. This is one of the clearest places in the teaching of Jesus where he speaks about the destruction of Jerusalem that happened in A.D. 70. Just a little footnote, though, on that point. There are some commentators and theologians who make a big deal out of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem in the year A.D. 70 when the Romans came under Vespasian, the emperor. and destroyed the city.

And they say that that is the main thing that biblical prophecy is all about. And they interpret the entire prophetic teaching of the Bible, including Jesus’ teaching in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, including most of the book of Revelation, as being about that. And I think that that is a little bit going too far.

There are these references to this event, and it is important, but it is not the fullness of everything that Jesus and the New Testament has to say about prophecy. And so it is very important not to overdo it and to make all of biblical prophecy simply about that one event that happened 2,000 years ago. That event, the destruction of Jerusalem, which literally happened in AD 70, is simply the beginnings of the fulfillment of God’s purposes for the world and for eschatology. And it does not exhaust everything that the New Testament has to say about eschatology. So it is important to keep that idea of the destruction of Jerusalem within limits as being an important but Not a major theme in the Bible. It is mentioned though here in this one verse. But then there is a third invitation.

Verses 8 through 10. Then he said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. And so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

The first two invitations refers to national Israel, both in Old Testament times, but also culminating in this generation that is living at the time of Jesus. This third invitation, though, is opening it up to a broader perspective, right? This third invitation is primarily to the remnant among Israel who are this ragtag group of the crowd from Galilee, the blind and the lame and the tax collectors and the sinners who do acknowledge Jesus. They are the ones who are just the hoi polloi, those out there in the roads who, they are not rich, they do not seem like they have their act together, but they are welcome to come in as well. But by extension, this crowd from Galilee, this crowd of sinners that is the remnant of Israel that acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah, is also the beginnings of a broader call that will eventually go out after Jesus rises from the dead, go out to all the Gentiles.

It is a very interesting thing, is not it, that the crowd from Galilee is viewed as if they are prototypical Gentiles. They are not Gentiles literally, they are actually Jewish people. But they are viewed like Gentiles, right? Because they are from the north, right? They are not from Jerusalem down in the south. That is where the real Jews are. They have a different accent. You know, they are not the most pious and godly Jews on earth. They are just sort of the regular people. but they are like the prototype of the Gentiles.

In fact, Matthew himself even explicitly makes that point. If you go back all the way to near the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew chapter four, do you remember this passage? When Jesus begins his ministry, it says, Matthew four, verse 12.

Now, when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. This is Jesus. He heard that John had been arrested, so now he is withdrawing into Galilee, and leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, one of the cities in Galilee by the shore of the Sea of Galilee, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people living in darkness have seen a great light, and so on. So already, Galilee is already presented as if it is like the beginnings of the Great Commission going out to the Gentiles. That is why after the death and resurrection of Jesus, what does Jesus say to the disciples? He says, you are going to meet me in Galilee. and they meet again in Galilee, and that is when he commissions them to go to the Gentiles and to preach the gospel to all the nations. So this remnant among Israel of the sinners and the tax collectors and the lame and the blind and the children who are not part of the mainstream Jewish establishment, who are not living around the temple in Jerusalem, who are simply these seeming Gentiles living in the north, they are the beginnings of this new Israel that God is creating. And of course, by extension, the Gentiles will also be included and grafted into the body of Christ. And God is going to bring about this new temple through the preaching of the gospel.

So the third invitation is to the Gentiles. That is why it says, go to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. And those servants went out into the roads, and they gathered all whom they found, anyone, without discriminating, without checking to see if they are good Jews or not, without checking to see if they are righteous or not, but simply all who were being brought in into the wedding hall. Invite as many as you find. and they gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. The gospel is freely offered to all, regardless of their condition or their worthiness. However, in verses 11 through 14, there is a warning, even to these Gentiles, whether they are the Galilee-type Gentiles or genuine Gentiles, there is this warning.

Verse 11, 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. What is this wedding garment?

It is kind of a mysterious thing in the text, right? All of a sudden, it is clearly emphasized, right? This is not one of those details, as I have mentioned before, in many of the parables of Jesus, there are little details that are just simply there to add color to the story, but do not necessarily have any spiritual meaning. But this one does, because it is emphasized, right? It is clearly emphasized. The wedding garment is something that you have to have. But what is it? What is the wedding garment? There are three different possibilities, and I think the third one is the best.

The Wedding Garment

The first possibility is that it refers to the necessity of sanctification, right? We believe theologically that we are justified by faith alone. That is that Christ credits his righteousness to us, and we receive that righteousness by faith alone. But then as a result of that, as a consequence of justification, we are called to holiness, to grow in obedience to the Lord. And so this is probably the majority view among most commentators that the wedding garment refers to that.

It refers to the necessity of sanctification, that you cannot just simply say, Lord, Lord, and expect that you can enter heaven unless you show by your fruits that your faith is genuine by bringing forth the works of obedience through progressive sanctification.

That would kind of make sense, right? Because you sort of picture in your mind that this ragtag group of people that were found on the roads, they were probably dressed pretty shabbily and their clothes were kind of soiled and dirty from living out in the roads, right? Kind of like homeless people. And so the call is, yes, you can come. Come as you are, the gospel is free, but you also need to work on cleaning your clothes and getting some fresh change of garments.

You cannot just come and wallow in your sin as a Christian. So it would be legitimate, and it is plausible, and it is probably the majority view that most commentators hold to, but I am not convinced that that is quite correct. That leads us then to option two. Maybe option two is better.

Option two would be that this is not referring to sanctification, the wedding garment is not the fruits of obedience that flow from faith, but rather it is justification, that the wedding garment is the righteousness of Christ that is clothed upon us by God’s grace.

That is a biblical metaphor. For example, in Isaiah 61, Verse 10, it talks about the robes of righteousness and the robes of salvation, that God has made his people clean. That is a legitimate biblical image to speak of our justification, of our standing before God, of the imputed righteousness of Christ as a wedding garment, a pure white robe that is placed upon us. But I am not sure that is quite what Matthew has in mind here or what Jesus has in mind in this parable.

One thing that you would expect, if it was referring to justification, is you would expect that in the story that the king, or maybe the servants, would actually give each person as they came in, would give them a fresh change of clothes. So they are going out to the highways and the byways, and they are saying, come on in to the feast, but then as they come up to the gate into the wedding hall, they say, hey, here is a change of clothes, put this on, this is a gift of righteousness for you.

That would make sense, right? But the text does not say that. The text does not mention anything about that. In fact, it almost seems to be that it was the person’s responsibility to change their clothes, right? And the fact that they did not is an indicator that something is wrong and that they are not genuinely able to be there at that banquet.

It seems to be a quality in the person. So then, does that bring us back to the first option, that it is talking about sanctification? No, I do not think so. I think that the third option is best. The wedding garment is faith. The wedding garment is faith. And think of it like this.

What you wear, if you have been invited to a great feast, an important feast, this is a feast put on by the king himself, the king of the realm. And it is not just put on by the king, it is put on by the king in honor of his son, who is the heir, who is going to take the king’s throne at some point. This is a wedding for the king’s son. What you wear in response to that invitation to that politically important event is an indicator of your attitude towards the king and his son.

Those who were called. when they went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both the good and the bad, if they simply came to the wedding banquet and sat down at the wedding feast without first going home to change their clothes, that would indicate what? It would indicate that they had a lack of faith, that they are simply going to the wedding banquet just because, well, maybe it is free food or something. They are just going to the wedding banquet just because, but they are not going in honor of the king, in honor of the king’s son. They are not going with a desire out of a heart that has been transformed to rejoice in the king and to rejoice in his son.

What you wear is an indicator of your heart. It shows active participation in the joy of the banquet. If they were called to come and then they said, oh yeah, this is great, I am going to go home, change my clothes, put on a fresh white garment, and come to this banquet in order to participate in this joyful occasion to feast with the king and his son and to rejoice in God, then that would indicate their faith. So I think that that is the third option, that the wedding garment is an indicator of their faith is the main point. So it really is about justification in the end. But it is focusing upon faith and joy in the banquet and wanting to participate in that which the banquet symbolizes.

Not just simply showing up and physically putting your body there in the chair, but going there to participate in the banquet and what it means. and what it signifies out of a heart that has been transformed. Which is perfect, right? It fits in perfectly with the whole context that we have seen.

Remember going back to Matthew 21 and that crowd of Galilean believers who are singing Hosanna to the Son of David. Remember even there in In Matthew 21 and verse 16, when the authorities, the Jewish authorities who are running the temple said, do you hear what these are saying? Do you hear what this crowd of children and tax collectors and Galileans are saying? They are saying, Hosanna to the son of David.

They are praising you as if you are God. And what does Jesus say? He says, yes. Yes, I know that. Have you never read? Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies. You have prepared praise. He is receiving the praise of the people because of their genuine love for him. And that is exactly what we see here in the parable of the wedding banquet. That you have changed your garments because you want to participate in this active way, in the joy of the banquet by worshiping Christ.

What is the doctrine of our text? The doctrine of our text is that it teaches us so much about the free offer of the gospel, does not it? Just beautiful, rich truths that we can draw out of this passage to help us understand the free offer of the gospel, or to use the language of the Canons of Dort, the indiscriminate offer of the gospel.

The Doctrine of the Parable

That is, it is offered indiscriminately to all. We do not go and try to hunt out, well, who do we think is elect? I will offer the gospel to that person. No, we just offer the gospel to everyone. And we leave it to God to change their hearts. If they are God’s elect, then they will come to faith in Christ. This parable of the wedding feast or the wedding banquet teaches us so much about the free or indiscriminate offer of the gospel.

First of all, it teaches us that the free offer of the gospel does not require any worthiness Remember, the text emphasizes the importance of worthiness. It says there in verse 8, But even though they were not worthy, he does not say, so go out and find some more people who are worthy. He says, go to the main roads and invite anyone you can find. And they went into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good.

The free offer of the gospel does not require any worthiness, except it does require faith. If you want to call that worthiness, right? It is not really worthiness. It is just simply faith. It is simply hearing that good news of the offer of the gospel and believing in it and receiving the gift, receiving the invitation with the empty hand of faith. One scholar wrote this. He said, neither being good nor being bad. is a qualification for being a guest.

All that is required is that willingness to honor the occasion and to rejoice with the king. That is what the changing of the wedding out of your old dirty clothes into the new wedding garment signifies. It signifies your willingness to honor the occasion, that you want to rejoice with the king. You are not just going to sit there and get the benefits for yourself, but you are there because you want to honor the king. and you want to rejoice with the king as he honors his son.

We are going to sing our response of faith in a moment, our song of reflection, I should say, in a moment, and it has this line in it. It says, come ye sinners, poor and wretched. Then it says, all the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him. Do not think you have to make yourself worthy to come to this banquet. The only fitness, the only worthiness, quote-unquote, if you could call it that, is that you feel your need of him and that you want to come and rejoice with the king. That is the first thing, the free offer of the gospel does not require any worthiness except faith.

But secondly, how sad it is that so many pay no attention. Yes, it is true that in our passage we do have some that pay attention in a negative way, the ones that seize the servants and treat them bad and kill them and so on. But there is also some in the story that just simply are indifferent, right? Look at verse five. They paid no attention, and they went off, one to his farm, another to his business. They are just indifferent. They are like, oh, okay, the king is having a banquet for his son. Eh, I do not really care, I am too busy. I have other concerns in life to worry about.

My farm, my business, and so on. The free offer of the gospel is a free offer, but it is also the offer of the king. And if we have an indifference to that, then that shows our complete lack of faith and our complete lack of delight in what the king is doing and his honor, his desire to honor his son. That is the second thing we learned about the free offer of the gospel.

It is a sad reality, but it is true, is not it? That so many people, we see them all around us in the world around us. They are just so busily pursuing their lives, their careers. their houses, their cars, and all the things of this world, all the passing things of this world, and they are just completely dead and completely indifferent to the things of Christ and the gospel.

It is such a sad thing, and the sad thing is that it can even happen within the visible church. That is why the story of this person who came in without the wedding garment is there. It is to remind us that even within the visible church, even in this new temple that God is creating, Right? There can be some who come without a wedding garment, that is without any genuine concern, without genuine faith. They are just there physically. They are the ones that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount who say, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? But I will say to you, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. I never had a relationship with you. That is the second thing we learn about the free offer of the gospel.

There is this negative side to it, how sad it is that so many people just simply pay no attention or simply indifferent to this amazing, glorious banquet that we are called to. But the third thing we learn from this parable of the wedding banquet is that the good news of the gospel is not simply You know, when we think about the gospel, it is not simply that you have sins and you are under God’s curse because of your sin, but here is a way to deal with your sin. Your sins are forgiven through Christ because of his work on the cross. It is not simply that. One way to think about the gospel from this story, from this parable, is that it is an invitation to a wedding feast.

And that kind of shifts the paradigm a little bit, does not it? Yes, we absolutely need that basic truth, the basic truth of the gospel that Christ became a curse for us so that we might receive the blessing. But if you only think in those terms, it can kind of become a little bit self-centered, right? Of just needing to get rid of my sin and needing to avoid going to hell, right? But there is more to it.

The gospel is this wonderful invitation to this wedding feast. I mean, just look at that verse there, the very last phrase or sentence of verse 4. It just very briefly states the gospel in this different way, in this positive form. The gospel is, come to the wedding feast. Come to the wedding feast. Come to this banquet that God is offering in honor of His beloved Son. This is a wedding banquet for the Son. It is all about celebrating the Son and rejoicing in all of His glory and all of His grace.

Is not that what heaven is going to be like? When we are all there in heaven after the resurrection of the dead and the day of judgment is over, and we are in heaven forever with the Lord, that is what heaven’s going to be. It is going to be this eternal banquet and feast in honor of Christ, and Christ is going to be the centerpiece of it all. the marriage supper of the Lamb, as it is referred to in the book of Revelation. That is what heaven will be.

The gospel is really not about you. Yes, wonderfully, it has tremendous news for you, that your sins are forgiven, that you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, that you are saved from the wrath of God because of the work of Christ. But really, the gospel is not about you, it is about Christ.

The invitation is not just simply to be physically present at the feast and sit down at the feast. The invitation, the gospel offer is to participate in the king’s joy at the marriage of his son. And that is what we are doing. Even now, before we get to heaven, even now, when we gather together with God’s people on the Lord’s day, we are rejoicing in Christ. We are feasting upon the riches of Christ. We are feasting upon this incredible banquet that has the most amazing food, the aged wines and the awesome meats. And it is all Christ himself and all of his benefits and all of his goodness and all of his glory. And we are rejoicing in him, rejoicing in his grace, rejoicing in his love, rejoicing in his cross, rejoicing in all that he has done for us.

So those are the three things that we learn. There are many others as well, but those are the three things that this passage helps us to see, different facets. You know how Jesus uses these different metaphors and analogies? We have seen the vine producing the fruit. We have seen the temple, which is living stones built upon the cornerstone. Now we have this other metaphor, and it gives us another perspective. It gives us another point of view, another facet of the good news of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ.

Let us rejoice in this wedding banquet by faith in Christ.