The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 364

HOMILETICS. V ers. 1-14. -The parable of the ma,rriage f e,ast, I. THE FIRST INVITATION. 1. The King. 'l'his parable resembles t.he parable of the great supper in Luke xiv.• bu11 it was delivered at a different time, under different circumstances. It diffe~ also in its ending and in many of its details. It cannot possibly be, as some have thought a m_ere variation of that parable. The King is God the Father, the Lord God ommpotent. He made a marriage for his Son. The marriage is the union between Christ and his Church-the union described by St: Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesian& (v. 23-27); the union which is to reach its perfect consummation and bliss in God's eternal and everlasting glory (Rev. xiL 7-9; xxi. 9, 10). The bride is the Church, regarded in its ideal character, as one, holy, catholic, apostolic. The invited guests are those who have been called into the Church, taken individually. So in Rev. xxi., the holy city, regarded as a whole, is the bride, the Lamb's wife; while in ver. 27, individual saints, they which are written in the Lamb's book of life, are described as entering into it. The King made the marriage. The choice of the Church lies in the eternal purpose of God, the election of God the Father. " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begott.en Son." He determined, in his gracious love, to sr.nctify our human nature, by uniting it to the Divine nature in the Person of his only begotten Son. The Son of God loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church. The parable describes the • preparations for the marriage; not the glorious marriage supper of the Lamb, when the bride shall have made herself ready, arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For that marriage supper is the blissful consummation of the mystical union of the bride with the heavenly Bridegroom; all who are admitted there are blessed, The marriage feast of the parable is the kingdom of heaven which the Lord came to establish upon earth ; the Church, his bride, is not yet in the full sense ready; she has not yet been transfigured by his grace into the likeness of the heavenly Bridegroom; her robes are not yet whiter than snow, made white in the blood of the Lamb. But she is even now his chosen bride, though she needs purification and sanctification. The great Catholic Church, the whole congregation of Christian people upon earth, is the figure, the beginning, of the congregation of the redeemed in heaven. The privileges offered to the faithful are spiritual communion with Christ through the gift of the Holy Spirit, access to our Father in heaven tbrongh the atonement once made upon the cross, the blessed sacrament in which all true believers are strengthened and refreshed with heavenly food; all these are a foretaste of that great marriage supper which the Lord is preparing in heaven for those who are being sanctified by his Holy Spirit upon earth. 2. Bis 6ervants. The King sent forth his servants to call them which were bidden (as Esther sent the chamberlain to bring Haman to the banquet to which she bad invited him the day before); but they would not come. The servants were John the Baptist, the twelve, the seventy. They called the Jews, God's chosen people, bidden long ago, to receive the salvation, the full gospel privileges of which all the prophets had spoken. The Lord himself called them. "If any man thirst," he said, "let him come unto me, and drink;" "He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." But, alas I they would not come. "Ye will not come to me," he said in his Divine sorrow, "that ye might have life." .Again the King sent other servants. He did not at once reject his ancient people for their sLubbomness and disobedience. He sent again, and now the mesRage was more urgent: "I have prepared my dinner [it was not the supper, li<i1r110"; but the midday meal, l',.pur... 011, which would mark the beginning of the marriage festivities]: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready." The other servants were the en. x:m.1-46.J THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S1'. MATTHEW. 369