And when one of them that sat at
meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall
eat bread in the kingdom of God. Then
said [Jesus] unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And
sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all
things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The
first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and
see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke
of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said,
I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and
shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to
his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring
in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the
servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.
And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and
compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, That
none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper (Luke 14:16-24).
FREE/WELL-MEANT
OFFER ARGUMENT:
Appeal
is commonly made to this parable (and the parallel passage in Matthew 22) to
support the teaching of the “free/well-meant offer of the gospel.” Adherents of this view interpret the voice
that goes forth to those who are bidden to the great supper as an “offer” (whereas,
according to the context itself, it is better interpreted as a very serious calling—and
there is a huge difference between an “offer” and a serious “call”).
A very delicious meal is offered to all who were
bidden. The feast is ready; the oxen and fatlings are slain; now let the people
come and eat! But those people had no hunger. Perhaps they also had enough to
eat and to drink at home. They were also busy with their fields and with their
merchandise. Hence, they simply did not accept the offer to eat with the king …
A well-meaningly offer for all to come and feast deliciously!
(I)
Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965)
[If]
now it really concerned that [i.e., a well-meaning offer for all to come and
feast deliciously], was it then such a great sin of those people not to come?
One would say then: [But] the offer is well-enough intended, and those people
were indeed greatly honoured by the king; but [had this really been an “offer”]
it remained their right not to come. And if then they were not hungry and were
simply not attracted by a delicious feast, who then could take that ill
of them? An offer is after all an offer! And if someone does not accept my
offer, then I certainly do not become angry at him. Or, to remain with
the parable, if someone does not accept [such an] offer … [one] does not put
him to death for this! …
… [Indeed,]
those who were bidden could depend on it that they would be well entertained by
the king, but no offer of a delicious meal was extended to them, but
they were called by the king to the wedding. The parable … concerns an obligation
of those who were called to the wedding. That solemn obligation was to come. When the king called, they had no right any longer to stay away. That
the king would royally entertain them indeed made it all the worse … but it is
the calling of the king which is here decisive. Not to come was not simply a friendly decline
of an invitation or the rejection of an offer with sincere thanks. It was, in the first place, disobedience to
the king's call; and, in the second place, a trampling of the king’s
honour, a refusal to acknowledge him and his son …
[That
it is] not an offer of fatlings, but a serious calling, which the called
were obligated to heed, appears from everything. In the first place,
from the emphasis upon the word call
in the entire parable. Even the word which we translate by “invited,” or “bidden,”
still means in the original “called.” In the second place, this appears from
the attitude of those who were called. They did not politely decline the
invitation, but they would not come, they did not respect the calling of
the king, they continued to go their own way, and they intreated the servants
of the king who called them spitefully and slew them. It is very plain that what is involved is
something entirely other than the eating of a delicious meal. It concerns the king and his son. And
this appears, finally, also from the attitude of the king over against
these subjects who refused. He became very angry. He sent his armies and
destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. Such is presentation of the
parable.
And
thus it was in reality, and that with much more seriousness than it ever could
be with an earthly king and his subjects. For after all, that king is God.
That son is Jesus Christ. That wedding is the Kingdom of Heaven.
And the calling to enter into that wedding is not simply an offer of salvation, but a very serious calling of God to forsake all the ways
of sin, unrighteousness, and self-righteousness, and to enter into the
communion of all the spiritual-ethical blessings of salvation prepared by God
in Christ. In that kingdom it concerns God in Christ. And indeed, he who enters
into the wedding of the Son shall inherit salvation, for only in that kingdom
is salvation, peace, and happiness, and eternal life. But this comes about
precisely through the fact that God alone
is good. He who forsakes Him has nothing but sorrow upon sorrow to fear. He
who turns to Him finds in Him the highest blessedness. When that God,
therefore, calls us to the wedding of His Son, then that is not an offer which
men can accept or reject, but a deeply serious calling, whereby God addresses
man in the depth of his rational, moral existence; a calling, the refusal of
which is deeply sinful. Thus, it was also in reality. For those who are
bidden or called are the ungodly Jews of the old dispensation. They were
called, called time after time, through the servants sent to them, the
prophets. They are children of wickedness. They kill the prophets. They rebel
against the Most High. They do not want His covenant. They choose their own
ways. And when all things are ready and the fatlings are slain, they do not
enter in. Their city is burned up, and they are destroyed.
[In
light of all this, surely] there is in the parable of the Great Supper or of
the king who had prepared a wedding for his son no comfort and no support
for the doctrine of an offer … [The view that] salvation in Christ and the
grace of God are the object of an offer which on God’s part comes to all
men well-meaningly … is Arminianism of whole cloth.
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(II)
Prof.
Herman C. Hanko
Jesus is explaining in this
parable who they will be who sit down with him in the kingdom of heaven to eat
bread, and who, therefore, are the ones “blessed” with that great
blessing. Jesus had come, sent by God,
to establish the kingdom of heaven through the work which He performed on His
cross and through His resurrection, and which He now performs at God’s right
hand in heaven. When He comes again,
that kingdom will be fully realized and all who are brought into the kingdom
will enjoy fellowship with God through Christ.
The blessedness of the final realization of Christ’s kingdom is often
pictured as a feast (see, e.g., Matt. 22:2), because a feast is a sign of
fellowship and the joys of life together.
The Jews were completely
persuaded that they were the ones who would enjoy the blessedness of the great
feast of the kingdom of heaven. They based their conviction on the fact that
they were the children of Abraham and that they kept the law. But in this parable,
Jesus makes clear that they will not be there.
The reason why they will
not be there is their rejection of Christ, through whom alone the kingdom is
established, and by faith in whom one enters the kingdom. Every time they were confronted with the
demand that they enter the kingdom by believing in Christ, they had a reason
why they should not. That is depicted in
the parable. Everyone had an excuse: one had just bought a piece of ground;
another had to prove a newly purchased yoke of oxen; another had just married.
It is like what Jesus says
in Matthew 11:18-19: “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He
hath a devil. The Son of man came
neither eating nor drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a
winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.”
They stupidly asked for a sign when they were witnesses to hundreds
of signs in Jesus’ miracles. But when Jesus cast out devils, they claimed it
was by Beelzebub; and when a voice from heaven confirmed that Jesus was God’s
beloved Son, they dismissed it with an airy wave of the hand and the remark,
“Oh, it thundered.” This unbelief is the
juridical basis for their being rejected by God.
But the feast will
be provided with guests—only, the guests will be those whom nobody expected. They will be the Gentiles, the uncircumcised,
the pagans, the godless idolaters, the publicans and sinners, the harlots and
blasphemers from every nation and tribe and tongue under heaven.
This is pictured in the
parable, first, by the fact that the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind
were gathered; and, secondly, by the fact that the guests were gathered from
the highways and hedges. Christ goes
into the streets and alleys, the byways and places of wickedness, the corners
and crannies of the earth to fetch from thence His guests. Thus, a truly catholic
church is gathered.
And the parable emphasizes
that this is God’s purpose. The guests
who finally come are not bidden to come but are fetched from the slums
and “compelled” to come in. They are
gathered irresistibly by Christ, through the work of His Spirit in the hearts
of His elect for whom He died.
And that suggests very
strongly that, although the juridical basis for the rejection of Israel was their
sin and unbelief, this was also according to the purpose of God, whose eternal
plan was not to gather a narrow, one-nation church from the Jews, but to set
aside the Jewish nation in order to make room for a truly catholic
church. And thus, a remnant of Jews is
also saved. In other words, the parable
looks at the rejection of Christ by the Jews from the viewpoint of their own
sin.
Does the parable have any
importance for us? Indeed, it
does. Who can escape that? Paul writes in Romans 11:16-26 that the
Jewish branches are cut out of the natural olive tree to make room for the wild
Gentile branches who are grafted in; but he warns these Gentiles, “Be not
high-minded, but fear. For if God spared
not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.”
We, too, can so often have
our excuses for our failures to be obedient to God. We know that it is wrong to be a part of a
godless labour union, but we have our excuses to hand: we have to feed our
children; it is hard to get jobs; there is good reason why I need not, in this
instance, obey.
Or again: We are called to
leave an apostate church and join ourselves to a true church; but we, too, always have our excuses why we
need not do it; why the time is not ripe; why there are good reasons why it can
be postponed, etc., etc.
Obedience to God and faith
in Christ are our calling. Christ has
not promised that the way of obedience and faith in Him will be easy. After all, he who would be Christ’s disciple
must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow the Lord. But the way of obedience does lead to the
blessedness of eating bread with Christ and God, in the kingdom of heaven. And that is true blessedness.
Let us then live in
obedience.
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(III)
More
to come! (DV)
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