exhibited simultaneously at Athens when Paul preached there: "Some
mocked, others said, We will hear thee again of this matter....
Howbeit, certain men clave unto him and believed" (Acts
xvii. 32-34).
To all the multitude in the middle the word of a merciful and faithful
God proclaims, In order to be saved, it is necessary that you should
arise, and turn to the right hand, and join the company there who have
gladly welcomed the Son of God as their Saviour; but, correspondingly,
in order to be lost, it is not necessary that you should arise from your
state of indifference, and join the scoffer's ranks. To be saved you
must flee to the refuge; but to be lost, it is enough that you remain
where you are.
In the Theocracy, the Hebrew nation were the hereditary nobles. It is
said of them in the Scriptures that they are a people near unto God
(Ps. cxlviii. 14). They enjoyed a right of entry into the king's presence.
Having, in virtue of their birth-right, a perennial invitation to the
royal festivals, they needed only a message as a matter of course,
demanding their presence when the feast was prepared. The Gospel of
grace complete in Christ is obviously the feast to which the house of
Israel were in the fulness of time specially summoned. When they refused
to come to the banquet, the Provider was displeased, but not put about:
the Omniscient knows his way. He never permits his purposes to be
thwarted: He makes the wrath of man to praise himself, and the remainder
of that wrath he restrains.
In the beginning of human life and of God's moral government on earth,
the enemy seemed to triumph. Creation was thrown out of joint; the being
made in God's image was defiled by sin. But although the garden of Eden
was emptied, God was not left without a witness in the world: sin
abounded, but grace did much more abound. In like manner, at a later
stage of the divine administration when the favoured vine became barren,
another was brought out of Egypt and planted in its stead. When Israel
rejected Christ, God rejected Israel, and called another people to be
his own. "We have Abraham to our father," said the Jewish leaders to the
Baptist when his lessons began to gall them, "We have Abraham to our
father," meaning thereby to intimate that they alone were the chosen
people, and that failing them God would have no children on the earth.
How did John answer this boast? "Think not to say within yourselves, We
have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you that God is able of these
stones to raise up children unto Abraham" (Matt. iii. 9, 10).
Although those privileged Hebrews rejected him, Christ did not remain a
king without subjects, a shepherd without a flock. In the exercise of
the same sovereignty through which he chose Abraham at first, he passed
over Abraham's degenerate posterity and called another family. This
family was Abraham's seed, not by natural generation, but in the
regeneration through faith. Of these stones he raised up children to
Abraham, when the natural children of the family had through unbelief
shut themselves out. "Go to the highways:" Christ commanded his
apostles to begin at Jerusalem indeed, but he did not enjoin,--did not
permit them to continue holding out their hands to a disobedient and
gainsaying people; the alternative was embodied in their commission, If
the Jews do not receive you, go to the Gentiles.
It becomes us to stand in awe before these deep things of God: their
fall became our rising. In the channel through which a running stream is
directed upon a mill wheel the same turning of a valve that shuts the
water out of one course throws it into another, that had previously been
dry; thus the Jews by rejecting the counsel of God shut themselves out,
and at the same moment opened a way whereby mercy might flow to us who
were afar off.
The servants went out and did as they were bidden. Peter went to the
house of Cornelius, and in that lane of the world's great city found a
whole household willing to follow him to the feast his royal master had
prepared. Soon thereafter Paul and Barnabas, Silas, Titus, Timothy, and
others traversed the continents of Europe and Asia, bringing multitudes
of neglected outcasts into the presence and the favour of the king.
"They brought in good and bad." This is a cardinal point in the method
of divine mercy, and therefore it is articulately inserted in the
picture. The scene is taken from life in the world; the conceptions
accordingly, and the phraseology correspond with the circumstances. In
society at large, and in every section of society such as the rich or
the poor, two classes are found distinguished by their moral character,
and in ordinary language designated the good and the bad. The thought
and the style of ordinary life are adopted in the parable, and every
reader understands easily what is meant. Every great community has its
virtuous poor and its vicious poor. The invitations of the Gospel come
to fallen human kind, and to all without respect either of persons or of
characters. Apart from Christ and prior to regeneration the distinction
between bad and good is only an earthly thing: in God's sight and in
prospect of the judgment, there is none good, no not one. There are not
two roads from earth to heaven: there is only one gate open, and by it
all the saved enter. It is not the man's goodness that recommends him to
God's favour: the worst is welcome through the blood of Christ, and the
best is rejected if he approach by any other way. Nor does it follow
thence that the Judge is indifferent to righteousness; that which the
unreconciled offer to him as righteousness is in his sight sin; and the
fact of offering it as a ground of justification aggravates the
offerer's guilt.
PART II.--THE WEDDING GARMENT.
We have here two parables in one. In their union and relations they
resemble the two seed-stones which are sometimes found within one fruit,
attached to each other, and wrapped in the same envelope, but possessing
each its own separate organization, and its own independent germ of
life. The parable of the prepared, offered, and rejected feast, and the
parable of the wedding garment, although actually united in the Lord's
ministry and the evangelic record, are in their own nature distinct,
whether you consider the secular scenes delineated or the spiritual
lessons which they convey.
When the wedding was furnished with guests the king came in to see them.
The representation is in strict accordance with the relations of the
parties and the customs of society both in ancient and modern times.
When a citizen entertains his equals he must himself be first in the
festal hall to welcome the guests as they successively arrive; but when
a sovereign invites subjects to his palace he appears among them only
when the company have all assembled.
The instant that he entered the festive hall the king saw there a man
who had not on a wedding-garment. Although this is the turning point of
the parable, it is represented with extreme brevity. The great central
facts are recorded with the utmost distinctness, but all the surrounding
circumstances are in silence assumed: no explanation is given, and the
reason doubtless is that no explanation is needed. Some customs and
allusions connected with the scene remain obscure to us, after all that
modern research has done to illustrate them, but the lesson which our
Lord intended to teach stands relieved in clearest light and sharpest
outline, like distant mountain tops when the sun has newly set behind
them. Some points regarding which we might desire information are left
in the shade, but in as far as the story is necessary to unfold and
perpetuate the spiritual lesson, it is accompanied with no doubt and
with very little difficulty.
1. The wedding garment was something conspicuous and distinctive. As
soon as the king entered the room he detected the single man who wanted
it in a great company of guests.
2. It was not a necessary part of a man's clothing, but rather a
significant badge of his loyalty. The primary use of the symbol was
neither to keep the wearer warm nor to make him elegant, but to manifest
his faithfulness.
3. The want of it was, and was understood to be, a decisive mark of
disloyalty. The man who came to the feast without a wedding-garment
endorsed substantially the act of those who had proudly refused to
comply with the king's invitation. It was the same heart-disobedience
accompanied by a hypocrisy that would fain commit the sin and yet escape
the consequences.
4. The question whether a wedding-garment was proffered to every guest
as he entered, out of the royal store, is attended with some difficulty.
The preponderance of probability seems to lie with those who think that
these decorations were freely distributed in the vestibule to every
entrant, in some such way as certain badges are sometimes given to every
one of a wedding party amongst ourselves in the present day. But the
point is not of primary importance. From what is tacitly assumed in the
narrative it may be held as demonstrated alternatively that either the
king gave every guest the necessary garment, or it was such that every
guest, even the poorest, could on the shortest warning easily obtain it
for himself. Two silences become the two witnesses out of whose mouths
this conclusion is established,--the silence of the king as to the
grounds of his sentence, and the silence of the culprit when judgment
was pronounced. The judge does not give any reason why sentence should
be executed, and the criminal does not give any reason why it should
not. On both sides it is confessed and silently assumed that the guest
had not, but might have had, the wedding-garment on. If there had been
any hardship in the case the king would have vindicated his own
procedure, and the condemned guest would not have remained speechless
when he heard his doom.[47]
[47] "It should be assumed that the guests were not instantly
hurried into the festal hall, but that an opportunity was afforded
to them of changing their dress. This, however, is not expressly
asserted in the narrative, but may be gathered from the term [Greek:
ephimôthê] (he was speechless) in ver. 12; and must be understood on
this account also, that, otherwise the sentence in ver. 13 would
stand exposed to the charge of injustice."--_Storr, de parabolis
Christi_, p. 113.
From the circumstances in which that motley company was collected and
introduced into the palace, we may safely conclude that no kind of
clothing, however torn and mean, would have been counted a
disqualification. Over the whole surface of the scene is spread the
proof that nothing in the character or condition of the attire which a
street porter or a field labourer might happen to wear, when he was
intercepted on the highway by the king's messengers, and hurried away to
the palace without an opportunity of visiting his own home, could
possibly have been a ground of exclusion. When such persons in such
circumstances were invited to the banquet, assuredly the king was
prepared to welcome them, as far as dress was concerned, precisely as
his servants had found them. No man forfeited his place at that table on
account of any defect in the quality or condition of the clothing which
he wore when he unexpectedly met the messengers and was suddenly hurried
away to the feast. Thus far, treading on firm ground, we tread surely.
Alike from the facts of the case, from the analogy of others, and from
the corresponding spiritual lesson as elsewhere declared in Scripture,
we conclude with confidence that the wedding garment was a well
understood distinctive badge, expressive generally of loyalty, and
specifically constituting and declaring the wearer's fitness for sitting
as a guest at the marriage supper of the king's son. In appearance it
must have been conspicuous; but its value may not have been great. It
was not the inherent worth of the material but the meaning of the symbol
that bulked in the estimation of both the entertainer and his guests. It
may from analogous cases be shown to be probable that a loyal heart
could have easily extemporized the appropriate symbol out of any
material that lay next at hand. Where there is a will there is a way.
Italian patriots at the crisis of their conflict with multiform
oppression, and while the strong yoke of the despot was still upon their
necks, contrived to display their darling tricolor by a seemingly
accidental arrangement of red, white, and green among the vegetables
which they exhibited in the market or carried to their homes. Nay more,
the loyalty of a loyal man may in certain circumstances be more
emphatically expressed by a rude, extemporaneous symbol, hastily
constructed of intractable materials, than by the most elaborate
and leisurely products of the needle or the loom. In such cases, the
will of the man is everything; the wealth of the man nothing. The
meanest rag suddenly thrown across the shoulders, arranged so as
unequivocally to express the wearer's faith may be a better evidence of
loyalty than the richest silks of the East.[48]
[48] A custom connected with funerals, which prevails in some
districts of England, if not in all, approaches closely in some of
its essential features to that which occupies the most conspicuous
place in this parable. A scarf of black silk, large, conspicuous,
and expensive, yet constituting no part of the proper garments of
the wearer, is given by the person who invites, and worn by every
one who accepts the invitation. A single person without the badge in
the procession would be instantly detected, and the omission would,
in the circumstances, be taken as proof of disrespect.
* * * * *
Let us now endeavour to appreciate and express the spiritual lesson.
True to nature on the earthly sphere the parable represents the
invitation, the assembling of the guests, and the entrance of the king,
as three several and successive acts; but in the processes of the
spiritual kingdom these three operations advance simultaneously. Some
are in the act of hearing the invitation,--some are accepting it and
going to the feast,--some are sitting at the table under the inspection
of the king,--all at the same moment. The process is like the habit of
some species of fruit trees, on which flowers, green berries, and ripe
fruit may be seen at the same time; the flowers of this season become
the green berries of the next, and the green berries of this season
become the ripened fruit of the next; and thus a constant succession is
maintained. In like manner, as the generations pass, all the processes
of Christ's kingdom are simultaneously carried forward.
The guests who have come at the call of the servants, and taken their
places at the table of the king, are those who hear the Gospel and fall
in with its terms,--who adopt Christ's name and enrol themselves among
his people,--who hope in his mercy and commemorate his death. Herein
they are broadly distinguished from those who made light of the message,
and those who persecuted the messengers; but it is not yet certain
whether they are forgiven and renewed. The profession which they have
made distinguishes them from those Jews who refused the invitation, and
those Gentiles who have not yet heard it; but among those who thus far
comply with the call, another distinction must still be made. That
goodly heap must be tossed up and winnowed yet again, that the chaff may
be driven before the wind, and only the wheat gathered into the
husbandman's garner.
As in the parable, we are not informed what were the shape, size,
colour, or material of the wedding garment, but only that it was
necessary that every guest should wear it; so we do not find here any
specific doctrinal instruction as to the method of redemption and the
decisive characteristics of believers. We learn from the parable that
every sinner must simply comply with God's terms in order that he may be
saved; and elsewhere in Scripture we are fully taught what these terms
are. An abundant answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?"
is recorded by the Spirit: the only point regarding it which this
parable teaches, is that a sinner must abandon his own method, and fall
in with Christ's. The meaning of the man who sat at the feast without a
wedding garment seems to have been, "I am my own master, and I shall
work my own way to heaven:" the meaning of the men who meekly wore it
was, "We are not our own; we are bought with a price; our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags, but the Lord is our righteousness."
Thus the lesson of the parable concentrates itself at last upon a point;
but that point is the turning-point of life or death to men. Is any one
disposed to complain that it stakes all upon an opinion? It does, and
why not? One man's opinion is that his own righteousness, especially
when he has gotten time to improve it, may be safely presented in the
judgment, and ought to satisfy the judge. Another man counts all his
efforts vile, as lacking the vital element of love, and at God's command
places his trust wholly in Christ his substitute: the first does deepest
dishonour, the second gives highest glory to God. A man's opinion on a
trifling subject, may be of trifling import; but a man's opinion--his
mind on how he may be just with God, is the greatest and most pregnant
fact in creation. Opinion here is nothing less and nothing else than the
attitude of a fallen creature towards his Maker and Judge: one opinion
is the alienated heart of a rebel, another is the glad trustfulness of a
dear child.
If the head of a Hebrew family, on the dread night of the Exodus, had
said within himself, What shall I gain by sprinkling a lamb's blood upon
my door-posts? Or, if a conspicuous mark be necessary, may not the blood
of this animal suffice, that was killed for the use of my family in the
ordinary way? If moved by some self-confident speculations regarding the
constancy of nature, he had entered through the portals of the twilight
into that awful night, he would have perished while his neighbours were
preserved: not that a lamb's blood had power to save, but because this
man refused to take God's way of being saved, and trusted in his
own.[49]
[49] I do not attach much value to the question which has been much
canvassed here, whether the wedding garment specifically signifies
Faith or Charity,--whether it points to what the saved get from God,
or what they do in his service. To wear the garment at the feast
means that the wearer takes God's way of salvation and not his own;
to want it, means that the wanter takes his own way of salvation and
not God's. This is the conclusion of the whole matter. If you
suppose that the garment means evangelical obedience, you must
assume that faith in Christ is the root on which obedience grows;
if, on the other hand, you suppose that the garment means faith in
Christ, you must assume that it is a living not a dead faith,--a
faith that will work by love and overcome the world.
The rest may be expressed in few words. He saw there a man which had not
on a wedding garment. Here, first of all, it is not intimated that
ordinarily there is only one hypocrite in a large company of professors:
it is no part of the Lord's design in this parable to tell us whether
the false members of the visible Church are many or few. The single
point on which the Master has fixed his eye is the certainty that the
false will be detected: the parable does not reveal their numbers, but
it assures us that none of them shall escape in the crowd. If the
representation had been that a large proportion, say a half or
three-fourths of the guests, had been detected at the table without the
appropriate symbol of loving loyalty to the king, the omniscience of the
visitor, and the certainty of the criminal's doom would not have been so
clearly and strongly expressed. That the king's eye instantly detects
the undecorated guest, although he is only one in a multitude, is the
most emphatic warning that could possibly be conveyed to the
unbelieving. None who live without Christ in the world shall be
permitted to glide into heaven with the crowd in the great day. The
constancy of nature is sometimes wielded as a weapon of assault against
revealed religion: it will one day strike a heavy blow on the other
side. When a mixture of wheat and chaff is thrown up in the wind, the
solid grains drop down on the spot, and the light chaff is driven away.
You never expect, in such a case, that to please some fancy of yours,
the solid grain will fly away on the wings of the blast, and the chaff
drop down at your feet. The constancy of nature prevents. Well; by a law
as constant and changeless--a law of the same God, reigning over the
world of spirit, "the wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the
righteous hath hope in his death" (Prov. xiv. 32).
He was speechless. The judgment will be so conducted that the condemned
will be compelled to own the justice of their sentence. Conscience,
brought again into contact with God, will be awakened and restored to
the exercise of its functions; like a mirror it will receive and repeat
the decree of the Judge. Persecutors were wont to gag their victims
while they burnt them; it was found necessary to put iron on the tongues
of the witnesses, to make them silent while they suffered. No such
clumsy device is needed in the assize which the righteous God will hold
upon the world. Conscience swelling within will stifle the complaint of
the guilty. The courage of the despiser will fail: the last poor comfort
of the blasphemer, to hurl against the judgment seat the last
despairing, defiant word, will be taken away. The history of the fact
written by divine prescience before the time, makes no mention of what
the condemned will say. The record simply runs, "These shall go away
into everlasting punishment."
"Outer darkness:" tell us in detail what the condition the outcast will
be, and what will be the constituents of their suffering? We cannot.
Rome has impiously traded upon this weakness of humanity. She has
parcelled out her purgatory, as we delineate this upper world on a map.
This is the machinery whereby she is enabled to traffic in the souls of
men. No; that condition lies in outer darkness; I cannot see through the
veil, and tell the specific sufferings that lie beneath it. My Lord has
told me that it is in outer darkness; but he has covered it from my
sight. He hath done all things well. He often warns us that the wicked
shall be cast away; but he never tells us the particulars of their
torments. For teaching about this terror let me listen to his word; for
safety from it, let me hide in his bosom.
THE TEN VIRGINS AND THE ENTRUSTED TALENTS.
MATT. xxv. 1-30
Both historically and logically the two parables, of the ten virgins and
of the talents, are connected and constitute a group: in place they are
contiguous, and in nature they are reciprocally complements of each
other, making together a complete whole. De Valenti has by a happy
generalization placed their relations in an interesting and instructive
light. He points out that there are two kinds of almost-Christians, the
bustling labourers, and the mystic-dreamers. One class tries to live on
works without faith, and the other on faith without works. From opposite
causes both efforts fail. The parable of the ten virgins addresses its
warning to the Almost-Christianity which is all body with no spirit; and
the parable of the talents addresses its warning to the
Almost-Christianity which is all spirit with no body.
These constitute a pair; or rather they are the right and left sides of
one living lesson. Both represent the character and condition of the
Church and its members, while they wait for the coming of the Lord; both
apply decisive tests to a seemly profession, and thereby separate
between the true and the false: but they differ in that the first
searches the heart, and the second examines the life. The first test
detects the want of secret faith; the second the want of active
obedience. The parable of the ten virgins prepares and throws into the
mass of Christian profession a solvent which serves to determine whether
and where there is life _in_ the Lord; the parable of the entrusted
talents prepares and throws into the mass of Christian profession a
solvent which serves to determine whether and where there is life _for_
the Lord.