Matthew 22:1-14; Ephesians 5:15-21; Isaiah 55:1-9
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
God is holy, and God commands that you must be holy as He is holy. But what does it mean to be holy?
For God to be holy means that He is not like you. God is wholly other. His holiness is the very state of His being. And for you to be holy is not what you might think. Holiness is not morality, and sanctification is not simply moral improvement or self-improvement. Holiness is a state of being in which you share in God’s holiness, for only God is holy.
And yet, your Holy God makes you holy in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. The prerequisite for sharing in God’s holiness is purity, being cleansed from the stain and guilt of sin. It is to be justified before being sanctified.
Therefore, when God commands that you must be holy as He is holy, He is not merely commanding something for you to do. He is declaring something about you that is true: you are holy, because God has made you holy in the atoning death and resurrection of His Son. In Christ, you are clean and holy, justified and sanctified. And this is entirely God’s work, done for you and done to you in Jesus Christ your Lord.
Consider those familiar words of Jesus: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” These words do not merely describe God’s affection for you, though they certainly do that. They explain how God has loved you. God loved the world in this way: He gave His only Son unto suffering and death.
God did not give His Son only for His chosen people, the moral and upright, the faithful and good. God gave His Son for the world, so that the world and everyone in it might be holy as He is holy. This is the doctrine of objective justification. The reason you are pure and clean before God lies entirely outside of you, in the objective death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Lamb of God, died for the sins of the entire world. This is universal atonement: Christ’s death and resurrection were for the entire world and for everyone in it. There is no one whom Christ did not atone for. His blood is sufficient for all. Therefore, there is reconciliation with God, forgiveness, cleanness from sin, purity, and holiness in Jesus Christ.
But do not misunderstand. The fact that Jesus died for all does not mean that all will join in the marriage feast of the Lamb and His Bride, the Church. As Jesus says, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” All are invited. All have been atoned for. Yet many refuse to come. Many refuse to receive God’s gifts.
That is the picture Jesus gives us in the parable. A king gives a wedding feast for his son and sends his servants to call those who have been invited. But they refuse to come. Some are simply disinterested. Others are too preoccupied with work, possessions, and play. Others become angry and violent, mocking, abusing, and killing the king’s servants. They were invited by the king’s grace, but they despised the invitation. They counted their own affairs to be of greater value than the king’s gracious gift. And so they are judged according to their own works, merits, and worth.
Then the king sends his servants out again: “Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.” And they gather everyone they find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall is filled with guests.
But then Jesus tells us about one man who does not have a wedding garment. Remember, these people had not been preparing for a wedding. They had been going about their ordinary business. They were gathered from the highways and byways. Yet somehow this man is without the proper garment, a garment that was provided by the king! How is it possible that he did not have a wedding garment?
The man was invited. The king even addresses him as “friend.” He had been given everything necessary for the feast, including the proper clothing. But he refused the king’s gift. He rejected the garment that had been provided for him. And so he is cast into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is the warning of the parable: God provides everything. He provides the invitation. He provides the feast. He provides the garment. And the garment is Christ’s righteousness.
God is holy, and God commands that you must be holy as He is holy. And God has made you holy through the death and resurrection of His Son. You are invited to the wedding feast, and you have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness, which covers all your sins. You do not stand before God clothed in your own righteousness. You do not stand before Him clothed in your morality, your good intentions, your accomplishments, or your worthiness. You stand before Him clothed in Christ.
If you reject God’s gracious invitation and refuse His garment of righteousness, then you stand only with what you have to offer: your sin-tainted works and your sin-corrupted flesh and blood. But God has already provided what you need. His grace is not something you earn. His mercy is not something you accomplish. His righteousness is not something you produce. It is given to you in Christ.
God is holy, but He is not remote. God is wholly other, yet He has come to you. The Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, sanctified you, and kept you in the true faith. He clothed you in the baptismal garment of Christ’s righteousness, and you are clean. And now He brings you to the wedding feast even now, giving you a foretaste of the feast to come. He feeds you with the choicest of meats and the finest of wines in the holy body and precious blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, your Savior.
The invitation is still being proclaimed: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
Come, then. Come to Christ. Come and receive what He gives. You are holy, not because you have made yourself holy, but because your Holy God has made you holy in Christ.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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