The Wedding Feast is the parable of a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.
The invited guests would not come.
They made light of it.
Some seized the servants and killed them.
The king sent troops, burned their city,
and filled the hall from the streets, bad and good.
A man was found without a wedding garment.
Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?
He was speechless.
Bind him and cast him into the outer darkness.
Many are called, but few are chosen.
Matthew sets this story hard after the wicked tenants. The vineyard was taken. Now the king’s son must have a feast. Servants go out with the summons: everything is ready. The first list will not come. One goes to his farm, one to his business. The rest treat the messengers as the tenants treated the prophets. The king’s anger is not a mood. His city burns. Then the invitation widens to the main roads. The hall fills. That is grace with a hard edge: the feast will happen, and it will not wait on the proud. Inside the hall another test remains. The king comes in to look at the guests and sees a man not wearing the garment the feast required. No speech. Hands and feet bound. Weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Luke tells a related banquet where excuses of field, oxen, and marriage empty the first table and the poor fill it. Matthew’s version will not let the new crowd treat entrance as casual. Called is not the same as clothed. The Son is the bridegroom. The Father is the king. The garment is not explained in a footnote, but the rest of Scripture knows a robe of righteousness and white garments given, not sewn from self. Many hear the call. Few sit as chosen guests in the clothes the King provides.
- The feast is for the son. Refusing the feast is refusing the son.
- First invitation and second invitation both matter. So does the garment.
- Business and farm can be real and still be contempt when the king has called.
- The burned city sits in the same week as Jesus’ words over Jerusalem.
- Bad and good are gathered. The hall is not a hall of the already perfect.
- Speechless is the end of self-justification.
- Many called, few chosen is not cruelty. It is the difference between a mailed invitation and a seated guest.
- The King’s Son – The feast exists because of Him.
- The First Invited – Privilege that treats the call as optional.
- Violence against Servants – The same line as the tenants and the prophets.
- The Open Roads – Hall filled from the highways.
- The Garment – Required clothing the guest did not wear.
- Outer Darkness – The same end named in other kingdom warnings.
- Called and Chosen – Hearing is not the same as belonging.
- Matthew 22:1-7 – “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come… But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.”
- Matthew 22:8-10 – “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
- Matthew 22:11-14 – “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”
- Luke 14:16-24 – “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many… ‘I have bought a field… I have bought five yoke of oxen… I have married a wife’… ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’… ‘None of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”
- Isaiah 25:6-8 – “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food… He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.”
- Isaiah 61:10 – “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord… for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress.”
- Revelation 19:7-9 – “The marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure… Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
- Matthew 25:1-12 – The ten virgins; the door shut; Lord, lord, open; I do not know you.
- Matthew 8:11-12 – Many from east and west recline with Abraham; sons of the kingdom cast into outer darkness.
- Zephaniah 1:7 – “Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is near; the Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests.”
- Proverbs 9:1-6 – Wisdom prepares her meat and wine and sends out her young women to call.
- Revelation 3:4-5, 18 – White garments; buy from Me white garments so that you may be clothed.
- Galatians 3:27 – “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 – That in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
- Matthew 21:43 – The kingdom taken and given to a people producing fruit—the parable just before this one.
A king gave a wedding feast for his son. Everything is ready. Come.
They paid no attention. One to his farm, one to his business. Some killed the servants.
Go to the main roads. Fill the hall. Bad and good.
Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? He was speechless.
Many are called, but few are chosen.
Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. It was granted her to clothe herself.
Do not excuse your way out of the feast. Do not walk in without the garment the King provides. Put on Christ. Come.
Entry compiled for the JESUSaves.com Bible Glossary. Optimized for wiki.js Visual Editor.