Matthew 22:11-14: Many are Called, but Few are Chosen

“How did you come in here without wedding clothes?” The king to the speechless guest at the wedding feast, Matthew 22:12

 “Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.   We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (C.S. Lewis, “Weight of Glory”; first given as a sermon at Oxford in November 1941)

“If we go to heaven, and some say we don't, but if there's a reckoning day.  Please God, I'll see you and maybe I won't;  I've a bag packed to go either way.”  (Mark Knopfler, “Heart Full of Holes”)

“Sorry I wasn’t in church on Sunday but I was practicing witchcraft and learning to become a lesbian.”  A bumper sticker we saw in Ft. Collins, Colorado, July 1999.

These four verses from Matthew 22 are a continuation of the parable of the king’s feast.   In the parable none of the king’s invited guests attend the wedding feast of his son (Matthew 22:2-3); they even mistreat and kill the king’s messengers (Matthew 22:6).   So the king sends his slaves to gather together all they could find, from the main highways and streets, anybody and everybody, (Matthew 22:9) “and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests” (Matthew 22:10).

But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw there a man not dressed in wedding clothes and he said to him, “Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?”  (v. 11-12).   The Ryrie Study Bible offers this insight: “This assumes that the guests would have been supplied with robes by the king’s servants, since all the guests came in a hurry and most were unsuitably attired.”   To receive proper clothing to wear when one was the guest of royalty was customary in Biblical times (Genesis 45:22; 2 Kings 10:22; Esther 6:8, 8:15).

The main teaching point of the previous parable is that Israel has rejected God’s call to live as His covenant people, even mistreating the prophets sent to her (see Jeremiah 32:32-33, etc.).  So the invitation to be among His covenant people has been sent out everywhere; all are invited to the wedding feast.   Yet this parable, vv. 11-14, offers a strong warning:  May we not take for granted the invitation to the wedding feast.     

Paul said that as wild olive branches grafted into the domestic olive tree once the original dead branches have been cut away, we should “not be conceited, but fear.  For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you,” (Romans 11:20-21).   All may come to the wedding feast.  But we come on His terms, not on our own terms.    We do not clothe ourselves in our own righteousness, rather we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14).

The king then gives orders to have the speechless (v. 12), improperly dressed guest to be tossed “into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (v.13).   The gift of salvation is free.   But for those who reject the free gift, there is no back door into heaven.  The kingdom of heaven is not about rewarding good people; for we know that “both evil and good” (Matthew 22:10) will be at the wedding feast. Rather His kingdom is about the Lord gathering to Himself those who are His by faith. “For many will say to Me on that day,” Jesus explains in Matthew 7:22-23, “’Lord, Lord, did we not…in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me…’” 

“For many are called, but few are chosen,” (v. 14) Jesus says in conclusion.   There is the general call to salvation given to all peoples.   Then there is the specific call that brings some to Himself.  I don’t know where the line is between man’s free will and God’s election; for me it is not a clearly defined line.  And I am okay with that; there are some things about the Infinite God that finite man we will never fully comprehend.  I echo the words of theologian Alan Hultberg regarding this verse: “Jesus preserved a tension between individual response and divine election.”

However, I can comprehend that to be a properly clothed guest at the King’s wedding feast for his Son will be the greatest joy imaginable.  It will make an invitation to any royal wedding on this planet seem like making mud pies in the slum.  Lay aside our trivial pursuits for worldly pleasures.  Get dressed; lets go.  And don’t miss this for the world!