MATTHEW 22:11-14

There are many questions that need answering concerning these words found in Jesus' parable of Matthew 22:1-14. As Snodgrass states in his massive treatise on all the New Testament parables, it “is enough to make any interpreter go weak in the knees; I consider it among the most difficult parables of all.”

Are Matthew and Luke telling the same parable?

The first controversy concerns the relationship of Matthew's account with the somewhat similar parable recounted in Luke 14:15-24. Quoting Snodgrass again: “Whether the accounts of this parable – Matthew on one hand [Matt. 22:1-14] and Luke [14:15-24] on the other – are two versions of the same parable or two separate parables is debatable, and, therefore, whether the two should even be treated together is questionable...I do not think we have two versions of the same parable.”

France agrees with this assessment and begins by pointing out the plot differences between the two stories: “Luke has no king or wedding, focuses at some length on the reasons for nonattendance to which Matthew alludes only briefly in v. 5, and has two waves of replacement guests brought in (perhaps to represent Jews and Gentiles). He has nothing about the ill-treatment of the (single) messenger, and his host takes no punitive action other than excluding the original invitees from the feast. And Luke's parable stops short when the hall is full; there is no second scene with the expulsion of one of the new invitees.” He concludes: “From the point of view of an exegetical commentary it is more responsible to read Matthew's story on its own terms, and in its own literary context, than to look for its meaning primarily in terms of how it differs from Luke's.”

In Kistemaker's book on the parables, he treats these as totally separate parables. And Ellison states, “The force of this...parable is often lost by a wrong comparison with Lk's parable of a private banquet.”

Bright and Mann agree with this consensus: “The Lukan reference...is not a true parallel...both the language and the details are quite different.”

Is Matthew 22:11-14 a separate parable from Matthew 22:1-10?

Bright and Mann state without any proof or elaboration: “This obviously begins a separate parable.” “This may originally have been a separate parable dealing with preparedness, like the parables of judgment in chs. 24-25. Otherwise, given the way in which the substitute guests had been gathered (vv. 9-10), this guest's lack of a wedding robe would be surprising.” (Overman)

Blomberg: “This episode is often seen as incongruous and as a justification for assuming that vv. 11-14 originally came from a separate parable that Matthew has conflated with v. 1-10.” But he disagrees with this view.

Where were the attendees supposed to get wedding clothing at the last minute?

“It is fruitless to discuss whether there was a custom demanding that the giver of a wedding feast had an obligation to provide special clothing. No such custom is known to us and...it is probable that only clean clothes were expected.”

Hendricksen says, “There is only one solution, as far as I can see, that will help us out of this difficulty...It is that, by command of the king and from his bountiful supplies, at the very entrance of the wedding hall a wedding robe had been offered to each guest.” For evidence of a robe being provided for those brought into the presence of a king, he cites II Kings 10:22; Isaiah 61:10; and Revelation 19:7-8.

“Judging by similar rabbinic parables, the man had simply continued about his own business until it was too late to go home and change.” (Ellison)

Blomberg points out “nothing in the passage says that this man has not been given time to find proper dress or that he was unable to locate any. Moreover it is quite possible that the imagery here reflects the custom of a king providing festive dress for those he invited to the banquet. Despite claims that no first-century evidence attests this otherwise common custom of antiquity, see...the plentiful references to other parallels in Gundry, Matthew, 439.”

And then there is David Hill, who feels that the “question of how the guests could obtain wedding garments since they were just called in from the street, is quite irrelevant to Matthew.”

What is the underlying symbolic meaning of the wedding garment?

“Those who belong to this inaugurated [heavenly] banquet are those who have faith (Mt:10-12), who wear the appropriate garments (Mt 22:11-14) and who are sufficiently 'ready' (Mt. 25:11-12)...” (Perrin) But this begs the question as to exactly what the garment stand for.

“The man in question had attempted to enter the Kingdom without prior repentance.” (Abright and Mann)

Kistemaker reconstructs the situation as follows: “All except this one person had accepted the robe [provided by the host]. This one man, however, had looked at his own robe, had perhaps lightly brushed it off with his hand, and had then told the attendant, 'My own robe is good enough. I don't need the one you're offering me.'” If that is the scenario, then the man's clothing represents his own works, which he feels are good enough to get him into heaven without having to accept any grace from God.

However, if the guests are only supposed to go home and change into clean clothes, then the man's fault is that he shows up in the dirty clothes he was wearing when invited. “The symbolism is of someone who presumes on the free offer of salvation by assuming that therefore there are no obligations attached, someone whose life belies their profesion: faith without works.” Note that Kistemaker and France draw almost opposite lessons from this same parable.

Hill: “'The wedding garment' probably symbolizes righteousness (dikaiosune), that faithfulness and obedience which can be expected of those who are members of the Kingdom, or Church.”

And France responds in more detail: “As usual, the more improbable the details of the story, the more likely they are to indicate the intended application...the symbolism again invades the story, as the punishment far exceeds the scale of the man's offense. So to be a member of the 'new' nation is no more a guarantee of salvation than to be born into the old Israel; it still depends on producing the 'fruit,' here symbolized by the wedding clothes.”