Matthew 22:3-7
Those Invited to a Wedding
With the following parable, the Lord reacted on His rejection, which He brought to light in the previous parable. In this reaction His grace is expressed. Despite His rejection, He still offers His grace in the invitation to come to the wedding. If they accept the invitation of the gospel, they come under the rule of heaven after the national collapse proposed in the preceding parable has taken place.It is again a parable, but now in connection with the kingdom of heaven. That distinguishes this parable from the two previous. Those were about the righteous claims the Lord Jesus has on Israel on the basis of what He has confided to them and their response to it. This is about something new, the wedding. With this parable He brings again to light why He came. As in the previous parable, there is mention of a son, this time a son of a king.The Lord introduces this parable with the words: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to.” This means that He does not announce the kingdom of heaven in its original form. This is no longer possible because of His rejection. By talking about a wedding, He emphasizes the joy that is connected to someone accepting the invitation and attending. In this parable an invitation is issued. The slaves are not ordered to go into the vineyard and work, but to call: “Come to the wedding feast.” There is not demanding, but giving. The slaves are the disciples whom the Lord has sent out. The guests are first and foremost the Jews, the people of God. But the people don’t want to come, they reject the invitation. However, Christ is full of grace and sends out a second invitation to the same group of particularly privileged persons, the guests. He now instructs His slaves not only to invite, but also to present the attractiveness of the party in the invitation. It is all ready for the guests. They just need to come. He does everything He can to get the guests to the party. The spiritual meaning is that everything is ready through the sacrifice of Christ. This was not yet the case for the first call. The fulfilment of the second invitation can be seen in the first chapters of Acts. This second invitation is made by the apostles when the work of redemption is completed.But the guests show no interest. The cause is different. There is one group that is too busy with its own possessions, another group is busy with its business. There is also a group among the guests that react differently. When they receive the invitation, they flare up in anger. This has to do with their pride in their national religion from which they derive their importance. They answered the invitation by mistreating and killing the messengers.It should come as no surprise that the king cannot let these reactions to his invitation go unpunished. In the year AD 70 God allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed by the Romans as “his armies”.
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