Ephesians 5.15–21 + Matthew 22.1–14
Twentieth Sunday After Trinity
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
In this Sunday’s parable Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a king who arranged a wedding feast for his son. When the time arrived to celebrate the wedding, the king sent out his servants to call those whom he had previously invited. But they were not willing to come. The king genuinely wanted these people to come to the wedding, so he sent out other servants and instructed the servants, “Tell those who are invited, ‘See, I have prepared by dinner; my oxen and fattened cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” But those who were invited will not have anything to do with the feast. They made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. They despised the king’s feast and his gracious invitation. They thought more of the things of daily life than they did this feast. The rest, however, seized the king’s servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. Some think little of the invitation and the one who made it. Others hate the invitation, the feast, and the king, so they treat his servants with force, with spite, and kill them. They shot the messenger. When the king heard of all this, he was furious. He sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. The king had earnestly invited them to enjoy the wedding. By rejecting the feast and the gracious invitation they judged themselves unworthy of being citizens of the kingdom and were given the reward of rebellion.
The king is known chiefly for showing mercy and wants people to enjoy the feast He has graciously prepared, so he says to his servants, “The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.” The king tells his servants to into all the world, and they do. The servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad—those who do not live upright lives—and good—those who live decently. The servants invite all the people, and the wedding hall is filled. But not all who are at the wedding truly partaking of it. The king sees a guest without a wedding garment. The wedding garment was provided by the king upon entry to the feast. The fact that this man is not wearing it is a sign of rebelliousness and disobedience. When the king approached the man and asks him why he is improperly attired, he was speechless. He receives a similar judgment to those who were initially. He is bound hand and foot, taken away, and cast into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus then tells us the point of the parable: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” Many are called the wedding feast. Few are chosen to partake in it.
Jesus is teaching the article of the we call predestination, or eternal election. This parable is how Jesus wants us to view our eternal election. Typically, people will start any thinking about predestination from God’s point of view, that God, from eternity, chose some to be saved eternally. Beginning here, however, usually lead to all sorts of questions which Scripture does not answer and assertions that Scripture does not make. Human reason, peering into what God has not revealed, imagines, “If God predestined some to salvation, He must have predestined the rest to eternal wrath.” But Scripture does not say this. Human reason then says, “Well, if God has predestined some to salvation, but God is not the author of evil, He must have simply passed over the rest, leaving them the eternal punishment they deserved.” Others will reason that there must be a cause in the people themselves, so that the elect would use “free will” to choose to belief, while the reprobate would use their free will to reject faith in Christ. But Scripture says that the Holy Spirit creates faith, so our initial belief in the gospel is not an exercise of any spiritual free will. Even when we say that God elected those whom He foresaw would believe by His Holy Spirit, that still does not penetrate the darkness that shrouds that which God has not revealed to us in Scripture.
When we approach predestination from the perspective of God’s hidden will and with human reason, predestination is easily viewed falsely and usually in ways that lead to uncertainty and even despair. But if we think about predestination like Jesus teaches us to in this parable, then we find ourselves on surer footing and can even joy in it. How does this parable teach predestination? The king is God the Father. The wedding for His Son is the incarnation. God unites His Son with human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He lives a perfect life, earning perfect righteousness in God’s sight. He dies innocently to atone for the world’s sins, earning perfect forgiveness for all sins. This is the feast God prepares. He invited the Jews through Moses and the prophets, and finally through Christ’s apostles. But when most of the Jews rejected the invitation of the gospel, God sent the Roman army to burn their city—Jerusalem—to the ground. He sent His servants—the apostles and those who follow in them in the ministry—to go into all the world and bring the good and the bad—those who the world considers good people and those whom the world considers bad people—into church where they enjoy the blessings of the wedding feast. But to enjoy the wedding and remain in it for eternity, the wedding garment must be worn. The wedding garment is Christ Himself, whom we put on in Holy Baptism and faith, clothing ourselves with His righteousness. Those who outwardly belong to the church but do not have faith in their hearts are not wearing the wedding garment, so on the last day, Christ will have them bound, taken away, and thrown in the outer darkness of hell.
What does this parable tell us about our eternal election? God has prepared Christ and His blessings for you to feast on. He calls all people—the good and bad—by the gospel, and earnestly desires that all men be saved. By the working of the Holy Spirit, you have believed that invitation and been clothed with the wedding garment of Christ’s righteousness. Now, stay clothed. God promises to strengthen, increase, and support to the end the good work which He has begun in you, if you adhere to God’s word, pray diligently, abide in God’s grace, and faithfully use the gifts He has given you. When you live as one who is baptized, who hears God’s word and takes it to heart, applying it yourself, prays, and lives in love, you can be certain that you are among the elect. The elect says, “I am baptized, and I am, by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, living in my baptism, daily repenting, daily trusting Christ, and daily striving to live in love.” This is how you are diligent to make your call and election sure” (2 Peter 1:10), not to God, but to yourself. Since he who endures to the end shall be saved, we wear the wedding garment every day, enjoying all the blessings God gives to us by faith in the wedding of Christ’s incarnation, suffering, and death, so that whenever our Lord calls us from this vale of tears, He may find us wearing His righteousness.
The parable also serves to warn us. Not all people accept the gospel’s call, just as most of the Jews did not accept the apostles’ invitation. In every period of history, there are many who reject the invitation, despising it, hating it, even persecuting its true messengers. But Jesus also wants to warn us against hypocrisy, against accepting the gospel’s invitation only to take off the wedding garment by willful sinning, imaging that faith can coexist with the desire to sin, or by thinking little of it, not hearing the word, and applying it to oneself. The one who does these things may still outwardly belong to the church, he may visibly participate, but without the wedding garment of faith in Christ—unless there is repentance and reclothing oneself with Christ—the outer darkness awaits. By this, our Lord warns us against hypocrisy, so that we truly wear the wedding garment of faith in Christ, and if we have perchance cast it off, that we return to it by repentance.
Approaching presentation as Jesus does, it is a comforting doctrine. God has prepared salvation for us by grace alone. He has called by His gospel through His servants. He has provided us with the robe of His righteousness. He has given us His Holy Spirit so that we might, with new wills and new minds, continually heed the gospel’s invitation and wear Christ. Ogling at eternity will not bring you this comfort, only questions God does not answer in Scripture, and with that, uncertainty, and doubt, which are not of the gospel. Only in approaching predestination as Jesus teaches us to, continually wearing the wedding garment, can we rejoice that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, and predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will (Eph 1:4-5). Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
