In our introduction to this study, we unpacked what a parable is and how important the context of a passage is in understanding and applying it. We also identified that the main point addressed by Jesus’ parable found in (Matthew 22:1-14) is the mandatory prerequisite for entrance into the (v.2) “kingdom of heaven.”
Key to the understanding the parable is what seems to be the summary of the parable found in (v.14):
“For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Before I unpack that pivotal and (in my mind) often misunderstood verse lets consider the parable in context.
In the parable which Jesus told, the King, representative of God sent his servants out (v.3) “to call those who were invited to the wedding;” twice he sent them “and they were not willing to come.” Instead those invited disregarded, literally they (v.5) “made light of” the kings summoning them to come, shamefully or “spitefully” (v.6) treating the servants the king sent and ultimately killing them. In response to their constant rejection the king (v.7), “sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.”
Jesus’ parable is not merely a story meant to illustrate a point, but biblical and historical allusions to God’s consistent effort to reach the Jewish people through the Old testament prophets as well as prophecy concerning His efforts to reach them through His Son Jesus Christ and the disciples He selected to reach out to those same people in the New Testament. All of them were sent by God to call people to God; both they and their message was rejected time and time again by a majority of the Jewish people and the messengers themselves, including the Lord Jesus Christ were killed only Jesus Christ to this day has risen again. God’s wrath on the nation for its disregard of His gracious invitation and the shameful treatment and murder of His messengers was poured out in AD 70 when the Romans razed Jerusalem and burned the temple to the ground. But neither the King of Christ’s parable nor the God of heaven and earth (whom the king of the story represents) was done.
The king sent his servants out one more time to invite (v.9) as many as they could find “to the wedding” and they (v.10) “gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
Who and of what sort of character were those invited guests labeled either “bad and good – were they unrighteous or righteous people?
Actually, the primary audience that Jesus was addressing consisted of self-righteous men – pharisees, chief priests and elders of Israel. The three parables found from (Matt.21:23-22:46) were spoken directly to these men – religious leaders who had rejected Jesus as Messiah and ignored the Holy Spirit concerning both their sins and their need of redemption. These, in my mind are numbered among the “bad” guests populating the wedding hall. But the fact is that by human standards some people are good – they are kind, giving, empathetic and compassionate towards others and some are bad – greedy, self-centered and self-serving; by God’s standards, no one is good. Jesus Himself, when one called Him a good teacher responded: “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.” (Matthew 19:17) In reality we all fall under the assessment of Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah 64:6):
“But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
What you and I need to understand here is that the “bad and good” people who filled the hall for the feast is a reference to you, me and every other human being past, present and future. We read in (2 Peter 3:9) that “the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that ALL should come to repentance.”
Look again at (v.14) of our parable, “Many are called…” That word called is translated from the GK word klētŏs which means invited. Jesus came “to save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21); His people is an immediate reference to the children of Israel – the people of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob thus “the many” who are called is first a reference to the children of Israel. But they refused to come, the Apostle Paul said of them in (Romans 11:11-12):
“I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!”
Because of their rejection of the invitation, “the many” of (v.14) refers to all of us – every man, woman and child from every nation, race, tongue and tribe – both Jew and gentile; both the bad as well as the good – we have all been invited.
More on that next time….
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