The Wedding Feast Parable

In Matthew 22:1-14, Jesus told a parable about a king who throws a magnificent party on the occasion of his son’s wedding. On the day of the feast, he sends his slaves to remind the invited guests that it’s time to come enjoy what he has prepared. But they refuse. He sends more slaves, who proclaim how wonderful this feast will be. But the guests still refuse to come, and some even mistreat and kill the messengers. Outraged, the king sends his army to kill those murderers.

Then the king sends his slaves out to gather anyone they can find to fill the dinner hall for the feast. But when the king enters, he finds one man who is not dressed in wedding clothes. And when confronted about it, the man is speechless. So the king orders that he be bound and thrown into “the outer darkness,” where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Weeping refers to sorrow, and gnashing of teeth reflects anger.)

In the first part of this parable, the king is God, the son is Jesus, and the invited guests are the Jewish leaders and the Jewish nation. Their refusal to come to the king’s banquet symbolizes their rejection of Jesus, the Christ. (“Christ” is Greek for “the anointed one,” and corresponds to the Hebrew term, “Messiah.”) The slaves probably symbolize God’s prophets, including John the Baptist, while the murderers’ destruction forecasts the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D.

In the second part of the parable, the gathering of people off the streets to fill the banquet hall clearly symbolizes the extension of God’s message and grace to Gentiles. But what about the man without wedding clothes?

First, there is no hint in the parable that the man was unable to acquire or afford proper wedding clothes. This part of the parable may have in mind the custom of the time for a king to provide suitable clothing to anyone who was summoned or invited to appear before the king. In any event, the man’s failure to wear the proper clothing seems to have been a choice he made. What then could he symbolize?

The best explanation I have seen is that this man symbolizes a person who seeks to please God by relying on their own righteousness, rather than relying on God’s grace through faith in Christ. Since none of us can ever be good enough to earn God’s favor or approval, the man’s reliance on his own righteousness doesn’t work.

Jesus ends the parable by saying, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” In other words, many will hear the gospel, but not many will respond to it. I hope you are one of those who does.

For more about faith, click here. For more on God’s grace, click here.