This parable always gets me. In the same parable Jesus is contrasting Jews/Gentiles/Saved/Lost. The church is the bride and Jesus is the bridegroom. The Jews were the first invited but when they rebelled and killed God's prophets, the Gospel was then brought to the Gentiles (the great mystery of the bible). I think of Romans chapter 11:7, "What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened." Verse 25, "...a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." When the king notices the man not wearing the appropriate clothes he immediately spots him out, it's as if no other guests noticed this difference. This speaks of the man's hypocrisy. I think of the Lords own words that in that day many who has named the name of Jesus, but were really goats, will be singled out for being phony and cast into the lake of fire, the Lord said, "Depart from me you workers of lawlessness...I never knew you!" Only men that the Lord has re-generated have the appropriate wedding clothes, the rest bring before the Lord filthy rags.
This passage is taken from the Gospel of Matthew 22:1-14.
Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. "And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. "Again he sent out other slaves saying, 'Tell those who have been invited, "Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are {all} butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.'" "But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them. "But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. "Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 'Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find {there,} invite to the wedding feast.' "Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. "But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?' And the man was speechless. "Then the king said to the servants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' "For many are called, but few {are} chosen."
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