Matthew 22
RileyMatthew 22:1-46
CHRIST’S DEALING WITH HIS DEADLY CRITICS Matthew 22, 23. IN the further pursuit of our studies in Matthew, we see Jesus returning to the parable method of teaching and his major theme, “the Kingdom of Heaven”. In this case, the Kingdom is set forth under the figure of marriage, and the groom is none other than “the king’s son”. This is not the parable of the great supper recorded in Luke 14:16-24, but another, and in fundamental features, a different figure. In Luke’s parable, it was “a certain man who made a great supper and bade many”. In Matthew, it is “a certain king which made a marriage for his son”. Luke’s parable presents Jesus as a host.
Matthew’s parable presents Christ, God’s only Son, the royal heir to the throne. Jamieson, Faucett and Brown justly suggest that in Luke, the parable is rather of Old Testament history, and Jesus is the last and greatest of the line of its prophets and teachers, through whom God is demanding something from men; while in Matthew the parable is New Testament in its nature, reveals God’s grace toward men and suggests the honors that belong to Christ, His royal Son. The main point of the parable, however, isTHE NON- GUEST. The sin of this individual is made to appear the more deep-dyed because it contrasts exceeding grace with ungrateful conduct.The invitation guaranteed a garment for the guest. The first company to whom the invitation went revealed a stubborn indifference. Neither the joyousness of the occasion, the grace of the invitation, nor the expense of feast and proffered full-dress made any appeal. “They would not come” (Matthew 22:3). The second and more urgent invitation recited the king’s sacrifice in the abundant provision and expectant royalty.But even this combination was treated with contempt. “They made light of it and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise” (Matthew 22:5). But most amazing of all, indifference meets the urgency of grace with an inexplicable hatred, “and the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully and slew them” (Matthew 22:6).How natural the next portion of the parable. “When the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city” (Matthew 22:7). How unnatural and yet gracious the king’s further conduct! “Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.
Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests” (Matthew 22:8-10).To provide social equals with gay garments for a great occasion—that often occurs in human history; but to proffer such garments to social outcasts, that is a parable of the grace of God.
Surely salvation is of grace; “By grace are we saved”. Only through the grace of God shall we finally come into friendly and everlasting converse with Him. Only by the grace of our God shall we sit at the king’s table and feast on the heavenly provisions and be permitted to reflect the gladness that radiates from the face of the king’s son. It is written, “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness”, and the promise is, “They shall be filled.” This is of grace!The guests were expected to be properly garmented. That’s clearly indicated in Matthew 22:11, “And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment”. The oriental custom of providing garments for guests is here suggested.
That custom gives special meaning to many Scriptures. It is well understood by every student of Scripture that man has no merit of his own with which to clothe himself when he comes into the King’s presence.
Our righteousness is from Him. The Prophet Isaiah, the Old Testament evangel, perfectly understood this great Christian truth, and he said,“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels” (Isaiah 61:10). “Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments” (Revelation 16:15). When James, with the pen of inspiration, gave to us the definition of pure religion, he said, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).It may seem to men who are in perfect health and to whom the appeals of pleasure and passion are beckoning, that purity is a matter of little moment, but it is doubtful if any immortal soul has ever consciously approached the gates of death that usher into the presence of God, without feeling a gripping fear lest the garments of character, when they are brought before His gaze, shall prove themselves “spotted by the flesh” (Jude 1:23).The king’s presence became an inspection of clothing.“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? And he was speechless. “Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall he weeping and gnashing of teeth. “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:11-14). This result was not because the king desired to judge. It came in consequence of the occasion. Rags are out of place at royal banquets. Even the nonconformist in clothing is very uncomfortable on great occasions. How much more uneasy must the beggar be who finds himself and his tattered clothing the object of all observation! Once more, the great Prophet and evangelical Preacher, Isaiah, gives us a vision of ourselves if we shall ever stand before God on a character basis, for He says, “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).The greatest single danger to which the Church of God is being subjected at this moment, and the spiritual peril of the people who make up its membership, is at this point.
We have a new gospel now that is no gospel. It is a gospel of justification on the ground of character and conduct, of salvation through self-endeavor, and of self-justification, if not self-glorification, through social service.
More and more false teachers are telling us that “we are our own saviours”; and outstanding teachers, retaining membership in evangelical churches and fellowship with evangelical denomination, have of late been repudiating the whole doctrine of the atonement, even declaring that “men cannot be saved through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ”, but must go before God “on the ground of personal merit”, giving new occasion to Paul’s words to the Galatians, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel; which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:6-7). For as the same Apostle wrote to the Romans, “If it be of works, then it is no more grace” (Romans 11:6); and to the Ephesians, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).Truly these reflections, and particularly these quotations from Scripture, give pith and point to the concluding words of this parable. “Many are called, but few are chosen”. The invitation of the king had been widespread indeed; the provisions of his grace were abundant, but men “would not come”. Of that invitation “they made light”. They not only refused to be present at the feast, but with fury they sought the lives of those who brought them the invitation; and with that disposition which belongs to the unregenerate man, some now say they accept all the provisions that God Himself has made for His own, yet reject the livery of Heaven and propose to push themselves into the heavenly house of God, wearing no other garments than those of their own character and conduct, “spotted with the flesh”.
It will not work! God’s grace is exceeding great, but His Heaven has its orderly appointments.
His house must retain its clean and unspotted character and His guests must be in every instance the subjects of His grace. Think not then to manage the matter somehow in the last day. Hope not to escape the Divine detection. We are not to appear in the Divine Presence in the filthy rags of our own righteousness. Consent to be clothed with the garment of God, which is “the righteousness of Christ”.The turn these Scriptures take should create no surprise. “Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle Him in His talk. And they sent out unto Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest Thou for any man: for Thou regardest not the person of men” (Matthew 22:15-16).They had properly interpreted the parable.
They perfectly understood that these sentences were a Divine condemnation of their course and conduct. They knew full-well that Christ was not only talking to them, but speaking of them; and straightway they formedTHE UNION OF NATURAL ENEMIES. The Pharisees, the religious bigots of the hour; the Sadducees, the natural skeptics of the time, and the Herodians, the state party in religion—these united. These three classes took their turn in the entangling attempt.The Herodians were the State party in religion. They were Sadducees in faith, and they were the advocates of the Herod party, then in power. It would be very difficult to imagine a more perfect parallel in ecclesiastical history than that which existed between the Herodians and Sadducees of Christ’s day and that which exists between the rulers of present-day denominations and the skeptical modernists who now back the party in power, and in turn employ that party for purposes of their own propaganda. It is well known that Herod, the ruler, was a Sadducee, and the High Priest, whose consent was essential to the betrayal of Christ, held equally with the Sadducee party. So while there was a distinction made between the Herodians and the Sadducees, it was a distinction without a difference; in other words, in the language of present ecclesiastical controversy, the Sadducees of that day were the modernists of the time; and the Herodians were the officials in office, whose theological learnings were Sadduceean; and who in turn, looked to the Sadducee vote to retain them in their place of power.The Pharisees, on the other hand, were the fundamentalists of the day; and they had at that time, exactly as we have it at this time, certain of their company who were willing to join forces with officials against Christ.
In their hearts they despised the Herodians, and with the Herodian-theology they had little or no sympathy; but official Herodians were not to be disregarded and the power of the machine was not to be treated with contempt, not even if the teachings of Jesus were to be opposed and His deliverances were to be disregarded.Between them they formulated a questionnaire. It had the potency of a dilemma and they hoped to have Him impale Himself on one horn or the other, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not”?
If He said, “It is,” the opposer of Caesar were offended. If He said, “It is not,” He would bring the wrath of high officials upon His head.Christ is today being opposed after a kindred manner. There are men, many of them professed ministers of His Gospel, who deny His Deity, deride His miracle-working power, name His resurrection from the grave “a physical falsehood” but a “spiritual influence”, and hold His promised return to be sufficiently fulfilled by His posthumas influence. Sad to say, those men find among the fundamentalists of the day office-lovers, who for the sake of station and salary, advise a cessation of theological discussion, an ignoring of theological differences and a co-operation in Kingdom interests. But when a definition of the “Kingdom” is demanded it is discovered that their “Kingdom” is not the Kingdom of God’s prophecy and promise; but, rather, a world-organization, with the world objective of international peace and a civilization somewhat softened by Christian concepts. To these men the Herodian organization is the thing to be kept at any price and its salaried officials will frankly tell you, “We are no longer concerned in what you believe.
We are not ordained to preach the Gospel; but, rather, to support the organization, and to lend loyalty to the party in power.” It is a great program and it has in it as many elements of opposition to Jesus as did the combination of compromising Pharisees and Herodians. Through their influence every fundamental of the Christian faith has been flouted; and by their representatives, Christ Himself is daily denied.The hope of the great evangelical denominations lies in one direction—the dethronement of modern Herodians.
If that be not accomplished there is but one other possible interpretation of present-day conditions, namely, the final apostasy is on.The Sadducees were the natural skeptics of that day. They flatly denied certain fundamentals of the faith, particularly “the existence of spirit”, “the possibility of resurrection from the grave”; and they were grossly ignorant of the teachings of God’s Word. When they saw the combination of certain Pharisees and Herodians set against Christ it suggested to them a further opportunity. The breech was made and they walked into it, for it was on the same day (Matthew 22:23) that they attempted to further entangle Him in theological questions. Like present-day modernists whose predecessors they were, they proposed an unprobable case and affirmed it actual, involving a man, dying childless, and the marriage of his widow to six surviving brothers (Matthew 22:24-32). Just exactly as the advocates of present hypotheses, they presented as possible a most improbable case.
The unlikelihood of such an occurrence strangely suggests the hypothetical arguments in favor of evolution. They presented as possible a thing that had never been known to take place, and staked their whole question upon the circumstance that it might so occur.
That is the identical procedure of modernists at this moment. You ask them for the proof of their hypothesis that spontaneous generation gave life its beginning, and they say, “It might have occurred,” that life began with the simple form and proceeded to a more complex one. Again they answer, “In the far ages of the past it might have so occurred that one species evolved into another”; and they tell you that “nobody knows, but ten millions of years ago it might have occurred.”Meanwhile their error is absolutely the product of and identical with the error into which the Sadducees of Christ’s day fell, “They know not the Scriptures; nor the power of God”. Their ignorance of the plainest teachings of the Bible is proverbial; and their denial of the power of God raises a question of their professed Christian experience.It is impossible for one to look on this bit of history here recorded without an instant reminder of the present-day procedure. Modernists do not come to the Bible to learn from it the solution of life’s problems; they approach it under the pretense of desiring to know whence it came, what right it has to speak at all, and why anybody should regard what it says. They come to it to argue the accuracy of its historical statements; to question its chronological order, and to criticize its antiquated decisions.
And yet, exactly as the modernists of Christ’s time, they feign sincerity, but while they are apparently studying the Bible, they hold a stealthy knife in hand, determined to drive the same through its vitals; and while they hail Christ as “Master”, they stand ready to sell Him again, not for thirty pieces of silver, but for Rockefeller millions. Certainly history repeats itself.But the questioners of Jesus have not yet finished.There were some honorable Pharisees who came in quest of honest information.
One of them, which was a lawyer, tested Him, saying, “Master, which is the greatest commandment in the Law”? “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).That this Pharisee belonged to the better company of Old Testament believers is evidenced in Mark’s report, for the lawyer who was a Scribe, said, “Well, Master, Thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask Him any question” (Mark 12:32-34).Thank God for open-minded men!
Thank God for a man who is willing to test the Christ and willing that others should test Him; and when He has proven Himself capable, wise and all-sufficient, will say so. The Pharisees of Christ’s day were the fundamentalists of that time.
Exactly now as then, there are fundamentalists who for political reasons and ecclesiastical preferments, will join the Herodian and Sadducee crowd; and there are other fundamentalists who will do nothing of the sort, but who with open mind will put their questions, and when they are adequately answered, will both justify and glorify the Christ. The increase of their company is the hope of the Church!No question has yet been put to Jesus by ecclesiastical potentate, modernist, or sincere inquirer for which He was inadequate. His program is not capable of improvement; His Gospel knows no flaw; His answers are sufficient; His appeal to the Scriptures is unanswerable.A silence falls upon His enemies and suddenly Christ turns spokesman Himself, but turns away from these pretentious quibblers to the multitude and to His own disciplesIN CHARGES. He charges scribes and Pharisees with sound words but with offensive works. He reminds these Sadducees and Pharisees that they have taken Moses’ seat and have mouthed over Moses’ writings. He reminds the multitude that Moses’ writings are inspired and that when Scribes speak according to the Scriptures they should observe and do all that the Scriptures say. Never should they follow the example of these teachers, for while their precepts were Scriptural and hence sound, their practices were burdensome and even abominable, and their professions hypocritical. Their ambitions for ecclesiastical preferment and academic honors were selfish and unmanly. The whole procedure invited condemnation (see Matthew 23:2-12).He charged them with downright hypocrisy in conduct.
We are not much disposed to emphasize the numerics of the Bible; but it is hardly debatable that seven is God’s number for perfection; and it is an interesting sidelight, to say the least, that He, seven times over, charges these Scribes and Pharisees with hypocrisy.First, “the hypocrites” who “shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men” (Matthew 23:13); second, “the hypocrites” who “devour widows’ houses and for a pretence make long prayer” (Matthew 23:14); third, “hypocrites” who “compass sea and land to make one proselyte” and when he is made, convert him into a child of hell (Matthew 23:15); fourth, “hypocrites” who “pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith” (Matthew 23:23); fifth, hypocrites who “make clean the outside of the platter, but within are full of extortion and excess” (Matthew 23:23); sixth, hypocrites who are like whited sepulchres without, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness (Matthew 23:27); seventh, “hypocrites” who “build the tombs of prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous” but are the children of them which destroyed both (Matthew 23:29-32).One can scarcely read this text and forget that plea for peace made today on the part of men who openly deny the Lord, and whose chief argument is that we should not condemn anybody or anything or any opinion, but employ always and only “the language of love”. Will you show me anywhere in human speech the language of excoriation that exceeds that which fell that day from the lips of Christ? He not only called them “hypocrites” and gave the ground of His charge, but He named them “blind guides”, “fools”, “whited sepulchres”, “prophet-murderers”, and finally, “serpents, and generation of vipers”, and concluded with the question: “How can ye escape the damnation of hell”?Christ was not a man of soft speech, and soft speech is more often the expression of pretence than of sincerity. Compliments for wrong-doing are never conceived in Heaven, nor indicted by the Holy Ghost. Why teach us in one breath to take Christ as our example in all things, and in the next, tell us we are never to speak against falsehood, excoriate hypocrisy or pronounce a curse upon false teaching?Finally, He prophesied a judgment as terrible as certain. Speaking with tenderness of His own Prophets, He said, “Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes”, and then with language that cut and uncovered, He added,“Some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: “That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. “Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:34-39). The amazing thing, and yet the thing that goes to prove His Deity, is the circumstance that He could combine such excoriation with such compassion. Never since man had a place on earth have lips parted to speak severer denunciations than are here recorded as coming from the ineffable lips of the Lord Jesus Christ; and yet, never in human history has any heart poured out the language of such compassion!“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. “For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh m the. Name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:37-39). I have read the pathetic language of David as he went up in his chamber over the gate, crying as he walked, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son”! (2 Samuel 18:33). Even that language does not hold the pathos found in this report, or voice the agony that tore the heart of Christ when He saw that men with wilful sinfulness had rejected Him and brought judgment upon themselves and their city.