'Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten
virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet
the bridegroom. 2. And five of them were wise, and five
were foolish. 3. They that were foolish took their
lamps, and took no oil with them: 4. But the wise took
oil in their vessels with their lamps. 5. While the
bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. 6. And
at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom
cometh; go ye out to meet him. 7. Then all those virgins
arose, and trimmed their lamps. 8. And the foolish said
unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are
gone out. 9. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest
there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to
them that sell, and buy for yourselves. 10. And while
they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that
were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the
door was shut. 11 Afterward came also the other virgins,
saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. 12. But he answered and
said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. 13. Watch
therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the hour
wherein the Son of Man cometh.'--MATT. xxv. 1-13.
We shall best understand this beautiful but difficult parable if we
look on to its close. Our Lord appends to it the refrain of all this
context, the exhortation to watch, based upon our ignorance of the
time of His coming. But as in the former little parable of the wise
servant it was his faithful, wise dispensing of his lord's goods,
and not his watchfulness, which was the point of the eulogium passed
on him, so here it is the readiness of the wise virgins to take
their places in the wedding march which is commended. That readiness
consists in their having their lamps burning and their oil in store.
This, then, is the main thing in the parable. It is an exhibition,
under another aspect, of what constitutes fitness for entrance into
the festal chamber of the bridegroom, which had just been set forth
as consisting in faithful stewardship. Here it is presented as being
the possession of lamp and oil.
I. The first consideration, then, must be, What is the meaning of
these emblems? A great deal of fine-spun ingenuity has been expended
on subordinate points in the parable, such as the significance of
the number of maidens, the conclusions from the equal division into
wise and foolish, the place from which they came to meet the
bridegroom, the point in the marriage procession where they are
supposed to join it, whether it was at going to fetch the bride, or
at coming back with her; whether the feast is held in her house, or
in his, and so on. But all these are unimportant questions, and as
Christ has left them in the background, we only destroy the
perspective by dragging them into the front. In no parable is it
more important than in this to restrain the temptation to run out
analogies into their last results. The remembrance that the virgins,
as the emblem of the whole body of the visible Church, are the same
as the bride, who does not appear in the parable, might warn against
such an error. They were ten, as being the usual number for such a
company, or as being the round number naturally employed when
definiteness was not sought. They were divided equally, not because
our Lord desired to tell, but because He wished to leave unnoticed,
the numerical proportion of the two classes. One set are 'wise' and
the other 'foolish,' because He wishes to show not only the sin, but
the absurdity, of unreadiness, and to teach us that true wisdom is
not of the head only, but far more of the heart. The conduct of the
two groups of maidens is looked at from the prudent and common-sense
standpoint, and the provident action of the one sets in relief the
reckless stupidity of the other.
There have been many opinions as to the meaning of the lamps and the
oil, which it is needless to repeat. Surely the analogy of
scriptural symbolism is our best guide. If we follow it, we get a
meaning which perfectly suits the emblems and the whole parable. In
the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord uses the same figure of the lamp,
and explains it: 'Let your light shine before men, that they may see
your good works.'
II. Note the sleep of all the virgins. No blame is hinted on account
of it. It is not inconsistent with the wisdom of the wise, nor does
it interfere with their readiness to meet the bridegroom. It is,
then, such a sleep as is compatible with watching. Our Lord's
introduction of this point is an example of His merciful allowance
for our weakness. There must be a certain slackening of the tension
of expectation when the bridegroom tarries. Centuries of delay
cannot but modify the attitude of the waiting Church, and Jesus here
implies that there will be a long stretch of time before His advent,
during which all His people will feel the natural effect of the
deferring of hope. But the sleep which He permits, unblamed, is
light, and such as one takes by snatches when waiting to be called.
He does not ask us always to be on tiptoe of expectation, nor to
refuse the teaching of experience; but counts that we have watched
aright, if we wake from our light slumbers when the cry is heard,
and have our lamps lit, ready for the procession.
III. Then comes the midnight cry and the waking of the maidens. The
hour, 'of night's black arch the keystone,' suggests the unexpectedness
of His coming; the loudness of the cry, its all-awaking effect; the
broken words of the true reading, 'Behold the bridegroom!' the
closeness on the heels of the heralds with which the procession
flashes through the darkness. The virgins had 'gone forth to meet him'
at the beginning of the parable, but the going forth to which they are
now summoned is not the same. The Christian soul goes forth once when,
at the beginning of its Christian life, it forsakes the world to wait
for and on Christ, and again, when it leaves the world to pass with
Him into the banquet. Life is the slumber from which some are awaked
by the voice of death, and some who 'remain' shall be awaked by the
trumpet of judgment. There is no interval between the cry and the
appearance of the bridegroom; only a moment to rouse themselves, to
look to their lamps, and to speak the hurried words of the foolish
and the answer of the wise, and then the procession is upon them. It
is all done as in a flash, 'in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.'
This impression of swiftness, which leaves no time for delayed
preparation, is the uniform impression conveyed by all the Scripture
references to the coming of the Lord. The swoop of the eagle, the
fierce blaze of lightning from one side of the sky to the other, the
bursting of the flood, that morning's work at Sodom, not begun till
dawn and finished before the 'sun was risen on the earth,' are its
types. Foolish indeed to postpone preparation till that moment when
cry and coming are simultaneous, like lightning and thunder right
overhead!
The foolish virgins' imploring request and its answer are not to be
pressed, as if they meant more than to set forth the hopelessness of
then attempting to procure the wanting oil, and especially the
hopelessness of attempting to get it from one's fellows. There is a
world of suppressed terror and surprise in that cry, 'Our lamps are
going out.' Note that they burned till the bridegroom came, and
then, like the magic lamps in old legends, at his approach shivered
into darkness. Is not that true of the formal, outward religion,
which survives everything but contact with His all-seeing eye and
perfect judgment? These foolish maidens were as much astonished as
alarmed at seeing their lights flicker down to extinction; and it is
possible for professing Christians to live a lifetime, and never to
be found out either by themselves or by anybody else. But if there
has been no oil in the lamp, it will be quenched when He appears.
The atmosphere that surrounds His throne acts like oxygen on the
oil-fed flame, and like carbonic acid gas on the other.
The answer of the wise is not selfishness. It is not from our
fellows, however bright their lamps, that we can ever get that
inward grace. None of them has more than suffices for his own needs,
nor can any give it to another. It may be bought, on the same terms
as the pearl of great price was bought, 'without money'; but the
market is closed, as on a holiday, on the day of the king's son's
marriage. That is not touched upon here, except in so far as it is
hinted at in the absence of the foolish when he enters the
banqueting chamber, and in their fruitless prayer. They had no time
to get the oil before he came, and they had not got it when they
returned. The lesson is plain. We can only get the new life of the
Spirit, which will make our lives a light, from God; and we can get
it now, not then.
IV. We see the wise virgins within and the foolish without. They
are, indeed, no longer designated by these adjectives, but as
'ready' and 'the others'; for preparedness is fitness, and they who
are found of Him in possession of the outward righteousness and of
its inward source, His own divine life in them, are prepared. To
such the gates of the festal chamber fly open. In that day, place is
the outcome of character, and it is equally impossible for the
'ready' to be shut out, and for 'the others' to go in.
'When the bridegroom with his feastful friends passes to bliss at
the mid hour of night,' they who have 'filled their odorous lamps
with deeds of light' have surely 'gained their entrance.' There is
silence as to the unspeakable joys of the wedding feast. Some faint
sounds of music and dancing, some gleams from the lighted windows,
find their way out; but the closed door keeps its secret, and only
the guests know the gladness.
That closed door means security, perpetuity, untold blessedness, but
it means exclusion too. The piteous reiterated call of the shut-out
maidens, roused too late, and so suddenly, from songs and laughter
to vain cries, evokes a stern answer, through which shines the awful
reality veiled in the parable. We do not need to regard the prayer
for entrance, and its refusal, as conveying more than the
fruitlessness of wishes for entrance then, when unaccompanied with
fitness to enter. Such desire as is expressed in this passionate
beating at the closed door, with hoarse entreaties, is not fitness.
If it were, the door would open; and the reason why it does not lies
in the bridegroom's awful answer, 'I know you not.' The absence of
the qualification prevents his recognising them as his. Surely the
unalleviated darkness of a hopeless exclusion settles down on these
sad five, standing, huddled together, at the door, with the
extinguished lamps hanging in their despairing hands. 'Too late, too
late, ye cannot enter now.' The wedding bell has become a funeral
knell. They were not the enemies of the bridegroom, they thought
themselves his friends. They let life ebb without securing the one
thing needful, and the neglect was irremediable. There is a tragedy
underlying many a life of outward religiousness and inward
emptiness, and a dreadful discovery will flare in upon such, when
they have to say to themselves,
'This might have been once,
And we missed it, lost it for ever.'