The Wedding Garment

(Matt. 22)
WHEN a great person invites to a feast in Eastern countries it is customary to send not only an invitation, but also a garment to those who are bidden; further, it is usual to send not only the invitation and the garment, but, just when the feast is ready, a messenger, saying, “Come, for all things are now ready,”
Should a king send the invitation to any of his subjects it would be almost the same as a command — contempt of the message would be contempt of the king, and disobedience would be regarded and treated as treason.
Men think but lightly of their offense in slighting the message of God to them. Not only is it written, “As though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5: 20), but it is also said, God “commandeth all men every where to repent.” (Acts 17:30.) To turn to the farm and to the merchandize, instead of heeding the divine invitation to joy, is a crime against the majesty of God.
The robe sent to the invited guest would be one just suited to the occasion. We read of garments kept in the royal wardrobe to be used for state occasions — garments which cannot be bought, but which belong to the king, and are bestowed by royal favor on such as are honored to stand before him. However fine or beautiful the clothes of the invited might be, the eye of the king would be satisfied with none other garment for his guests save that of his own providing.
So is it with God and the guests whom He in infinite condescension invites to partake of the joy of the feast in Honor of His Son. He sends out His invitation, and along with it what we may term the robe of perfect fitness, to appear before Him. The invitation comes to whom He pleases to send it. “Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.” It is to the Honor of the King that there should be guests at the feast; hence many are called.
The terms of the invitation include the reception of the robe. There is a story told of an English officer in India to whom an invitation came from a great ruler to be present at a marriage feast. The Englishman prepared to go, but as he was leaving his house, one of his Indian servants said to him, “Sahib, you have not on the wedding garment.” The officer at first did not understand, for he had not heard of such a robe being sent to him; indeed through the ignorance of his English servants it had been put aside. But enquiries were made, the garment was found, and attired in it the officer went to the feast. How often it is that a poor sinner, who receives God’s invitation, knows not that God sends not only the gracious call to come to Himself, but bestows on those who accept His word of love, perfect fitness to appear before Him. “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” (Col. 1:12.)
The servants of God should, like the officer’s native servant, know well what their God’s ways as to the invitation are. Never should an invitation be given without the perfection of God’s way of salvation being shown. A veteran in God’s service was telling us, the other day, how that, when God first awakened him to his need of salvation, he heard over and over again from godly ministers the invitation, “Come to Jesus — come to Jesus,” but so little of what God’s salvation really is, that he despaired in his soul of ever being saved: how to come he knew not. Now he most earnestly presses upon all the servants of God who go out into the highways and “bid to the marriage” to explain to their hearers what God’s salvation is; and we would echo the same wholesome truth, saying, “Remember the robe is sent with the invitation.”
When God, through His servants, invites a poor outcast to Himself — to the joys of heaven — to the everlasting feast and song above, He provides, not only the joys of the feast, but presents also perfect fitness for the invited to be present. In Christ all perfections abound. In Christ “we have redemption... the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1:4.) In Christ Jesus we Gentiles — we men and women of the highways, once far off — are made nigh by the blood of Christ. (Eph. 2:13.) So that when a sinner truly believes he truly receives. He is by God accepted in the Beloved. (1:6.)
The best robe wherewith the prodigal was clad upon entering his father’s house marked at once the richness of the father’s glory in grace, and the fitness of the son to enter and to be at home in the house. He was welcomed outside the house when in his rags; he was brought into the house worthy of being his father’s son. The robe he wore came from his father’s wardrobe — it came not from the far country. So it is with the wedding garment — it is all of God’s handiwork. No human hand has woven its perfections — no human hand has added a stitch of broidery thereto. However we view the garments in which we may be attired in our daily lives — and some are, no doubt, very respectable compared with others — the fitness to be present before God depends solely upon His grace and the favor He bestows upon us in Christ.
How great was the indignity, yes, the insult, rendered to the king by the guest who accepted the invitation but rejected the robe! “And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: and he saith unto him, Friend, how earnest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?” The servants would not have dreamed of asking the man into the palace without leaving the robe for his attire. Was he like so many — oh, so many! — in these days of Christian profession, who speak gaily of going to heaven, yet who leave Christ out of their religion? who say they expect to dwell with God in the joy and the glory of His presence, yet who are content to fix their hopes on the future upon religion, morality, or simple good-nature! Did Christ the Son of God come then from heaven to earth for nothing? did He die upon the cross for no end? Oh, terrible will be the awakening of the vain, proud heart, which discovers, when too late, that to dream of a title to glory without Christ is but an insult to God, and an unpardonable crime against His eternal majesty!
At the king’s question the man was speechless. There was no excuse to render, he had despised the king’s gift, and had come into the king’s presence according to his own proud thoughts.
“Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” — taken away from the joy of the feast, and cast into the dungeon below, because of his pride in willfully rejecting the wedding garment.
The Lord says, “Many are called, but few are chosen;” and in our day, how true it is that many are called, for the very highways and the byways resound with the call; but too few who hear the call care to appropriate to themselves the wedding garment.

Narratives from the Gospels in the Light of Jewish Customs.
THE PHARISEE AND PUBLICAN.
FEW parables of the Lord are more familiar to us than that, the title of which stands at the head of this paper, and probably few scenes were more familiar to the Lord’s hearers than the one described by Him — the going up to the Temple for prayer. Happy indeed would it have been if those journeys to the sacred building had always been made in the true spirit of prayer, so that the words which He on another occasion quoted from the prophet might have been really fulfilled: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Such seems to have been its design, though very singularly there is no mention of prayer in the entire Mosaic code. It is not enjoined, and no example is given of prayer, unless we class under that head the threefold benediction of the high priest and the “profession” of the Israelite at the offering of the basket of first fruits and “poors’ tithe.”
But Solomon, upon the consecration of the Temple, in his dedicatory supplication, recognizes prayer as an act suited to all states and conditions, and with it the Temple is closely connected. “O Lord my God, hearken unto the cry and to the prayer, which Thy servant prayeth before Thee to-day: that Thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which Thou hast said, My Name shall be there: that Thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which Thy servant shall make toward this place.” Here is the secret of a Jew’s interest in the Temple: Jehovah had set His Name there. And though Solomon’s Temple might fall, yet in the house which rose again upon its foundations, to the Jew, Jehovah’s Name was still there. So in drought, in famine, in battle, in defeat, in captivity, the Jew bethought himself of the Temple, and his eyes turned toward the city which God had chosen, and to the house which was built for His Name. Thus Daniel in the land of his captivity opened his window toward Jerusalem, and Jonah in the belly of the great fish said, “I will look again toward Thy holy Temple.” So we read in the Gospels of the pious resorting to the Temple, and in the Acts, of Peter and John going up thither at the hour of prayer.
But devout and prayerful as to a casual observer the people would appear to be,we find that formalism and hypocrisy to a large extent prevailed. How sharply the Lord spoke of those hypocrites who loved to pray standing in the synagogues and corners of the streets that they might be seen of men! “Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”And not only do the Gospels preserve this condemnation of empty prayer, but when we turn to Jewish teaching, it unwittingly records its own condemnation. The Rabbis make prayer a meritorious act: “Moses was accepted by the Lord,” say they, “not for his works, but for his prayers.” One Rabbi, indeed, well declared that to convert prayer into a regular recurring duty, is not devout supplication. True words are these. But when we meet with the current Rabbinic saying, “Prolix prayer prolongeth life,” we discover one of the causes of the “long prayers” condemned by the Lord. Again, “Since every berechah (thanksgiving) contained praise of the Divine Name, it was considered by the Jews an act of piety, and therefore entailing merit, to repeat as many as possible, till it was declared an evidence of special righteousness to say a hundred such berachoth (thanksgivings) in the course of a day.”
It is believed that in the time of the Lord some amount of freedom was allowed in prayer, but already burdensome rules (which afterward were made more stringent) were imposed as to posture, etc. It was laid down, either at that time or a little later, that the back must be bent till every bone was visible; that the voice must not be too loud, nor too low; neither, if during prayer even a serpent should twine itself round the heel of the suppliant, must it be shaken off — a restriction removed in the case of a scorpion, whose bite was more dangerous. In these and other ways all true prayer was in danger of being crushed out of the heart, under the “grievous burdens” imposed by the spiritual guides of the people.
But if prayer itself was so meritorious, the place in which it was offered was of no small importance. For, though Rabbi Jochanan (a contemporary of the Apostle Paul) excellently says, that he who prays in his house fortifies it as with a wall of iron, he adds that this holds good only where a Jew is alone — where no community exists. There, the synagogue must be resorted to. Others went further, and held that prayer was valid only when offered in the synagogue. How different the spirit of Christianity as expressed by St. Paul: “I will that men pray everywhere.”So other causes than the fact that Jehovah’s Name was set in the Temple, would induce suppliants to resort thither.
Thus the Lord brought a familiar sight to the minds of His hearers when He spokes of the two men, who “went up into the Temple to pray; the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are [literally, the rest of men], extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess [rather, acquire]:’” That is all; it is not a long prayer, but we are amazed at its terms. There is no word of petition in it! Can it be that the Lord has chosen an extreme case, to make Pharisaism repulsive? Not so, for prayers of celebrated Rabbis are preserved which astonishingly resemble this self-complaisant utterance. “I thank Thee, O Lord my God,” prays one, “that Thou hast put my part with those who sit in the academy, and not with those who sit at corners [money changers, &c.]. For I rise early, and they rise early: I rise early to the words of the law [Thorah], and they to vain things. I labor and they labor: I labor and receive a reward; they labor and receive no reward. I run and they run: I run to the life of the world to come, and they to the pit of destruction.” Strikingly similar is the prayer of Rabbi Nechunjah: “I thank Thee, O Lord my God, and God of my fathers, that Thou hast cast my lot among those who frequent academies and synagogues, and not among those who attend theaters and games. Both I and they work and watch: I work for the inheritance of heaven, and they for their perdition, as it is written: ‘For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption!’” One more example of Rabbinic righteousness will suffice. R. Simon ben Jochai (“whose worthiness was so great that through his lifetime no rainbow was needed to insure immunity from a flood”) said: “I have seen the children of the world to come, and they are few. If there are three, I and my son are of the number; if there are two, I and my son are they; if only one, I am he!”
What light such a spirit throws upon those passages of Scripture which speak of the self-righteousness of the Jews — of those who, ignorant of God’s righteousness, went about to establish their own! So with the Pharisee of our parable; he has no petition to ask; but dividing all mankind into two classes, he sets himself in the one, and “the rest of men” in the other. The latter he paints in the blackest hues, as a background to the brighter tints of his own virtues. The most abominable sins are imputed to others. As for himself, he is not only free from them, but he can point to a higher obedience than the much reverenced Thorah demanded. That enjoined a fast once a year only — on the day of atonement; he fasted twice a week. Again, the law called upon the people to give a tithe of the land, whether of seed or of fruit; but this Pharisee paid tithes of all that came into his possession. So he closed his prayer; and, satisfied with himself and his righteousness, he goes his way. Alas! when the testing time came, what would he and such as he find their righteousness to be worth? Absolutely nothing; in the light of God’s presence it would appear only as filthy rags.
Very different was the poor publican who came up to the Temple. He indeed stood afar off but as an old writer truly nuts it―
“One nearer to God’s altar trod
The other to the altar’s God.”
The Pharisee might advance farther into the Temple, but the publican, though afar off, approaches nearer to God. Standing with downcast eyes, smiting upon his breast, he really prays, and his prayer has furnished till this day words for the contrite soul­ “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” He, like the Pharisee, marks himself out from other men, but to condemn himself, and in his prayer for “mercy” lies an acknowledgment of his guilt and the need of propitiation. His few words come from a deep source — not from the lips only, but from a heart such as God delights to make His dwelling — the contrite and lowly. And both Pharisee and publican depart from the place of prayer possessing what each esteems above all other things — the one his own righteousness, the other God’s mercy. In the eternal issues — what a contrast! The one to receive abasement and shame for his self-righteous pride; the other to be exalted, though his exaltation is indeed reached by way of the Valley of Humiliation. For, “I tell you,” is the Lord’s emphatic comment, “this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; but he that abaseth himself shall be exalted.”
Oh, let us not miss the lesson which in this parable is written large for us! Let us not imagine that its application extends to a little sect of the Jewish people and ends there. It reaches down to us. For the words were spoken to “certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” It may be each of our readers would refuse to admit such full-blown Pharisaism as is described by the Lord; but is our trust in self or in God? The blessing which the publican received can never exist with Pharisaic pride, and to lose that blessing is to lose all. May we, like the publican, prove the truth of God’s word, that a broken and a contrite heart He will not despise. Jr.