Walking With Christ

Matthew 22:11  But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.

Getting kicked out of a wedding ceremony seems a bit wrong to me.  It’s like the king was saying that only people who were dressed a certain way could ever be accepted.  This was after the people he had actually invited had all declined the invitation.  It seems to me that he would be far less choosy about what people wore if he really wanted people to attend his wedding.

Let’s step back and look at this parable (the parable of the wedding garment) closer and in full context.

The full parable, in brief, is that the king wanted to prepare a wedding banquet for his son.  He invited a select group of guests.  Every invited guest rejected the invitation, mostly by simply not showing up, but others proved to be unworthy through their treatment of others.  When the first invited guests rejected the invitation, the king sent troops to destroy their farms, cities, and towns.  Then he invited the entire rest of the kingdom, regardless of social status.

So, if the king invited all of the guests, literally the entire rest of the kingdom, why would he kick out this one person for not being dressed properly?  Doesn’t the king understand that some people are going to be too poor or unprepared for such an event?

It was customary in those days, and is still common today, for the wedding host to provide the garments that guests would wear to the wedding.  Today, it’s typically just the wedding party that is expected to wear predetermined clothes.  In those days, the invitation would include the clothes that were supposed to be worn.  This put all of the guests on even footing at the banquet to prevent any guests from attempting to outdo the host.  This tactic ensured that the bride and groom were the focus of the event instead of any self-important guest who was trying to show off their own wealth.

In this case, the king is God, the Father, who wants to put on a wedding banquet for His Son, Jesus, to wed His bride, the church.  The initial invitation was sent to the children of Israel, who rejected it.  The judgement on the first guests was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD.  The second group of invited guests are the gentiles.

So, what is the wedding garment?  In this case, the wedding garment is the righteousness of Jesus that is given  through faith in Christ (Isaiah 61:10, Revelation 19:8).  The man who tried to enter the ceremony without the wedding garment was trying to get into heaven without being clothed in Christ’s righteousness.  The outer darkness in verse 13 is the eternal separation from God showing that only accepting the invitation is not enough—one must be clothed in Christ’s righteousness.

We can get the invitation and agree to go, but never actually put on the wedding garment.