THE MAN WITHOUT A “MARRIAGE GARMENT”

10. The time should be close upon us for what feature of the illustration to be fulfilled, and why?

¹⁰ Well, now, after all the gathering work of the previous eighteen centuries, there should be comparatively few, or far fewer, replacements needed to be made by the time of this twentieth century. So not many would be gathered. Now since the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 and the start then of the “time of the end,” the time should be upon us when the heavenly King’s “room for the wedding ceremonies” should be filled. In Jesus’ illustration that point is reached, and he goes on to say: “When the king came in to inspect the guests [the reclining ones] he caught sight there of a man not clothed with a marriage garment. So he said to him, ‘Fellow, how did you get in here not having on a marriage garment?’ He was rendered speechless.”​—Matt. 22:11, 12.

11. Why was the garmentless man rendered speechless at the king’s question?

¹¹ The king had provided a marriage garment for every guest to wear at the wedding festivities, and so there was no excuse for the garmentless man to be without one. Rightly he was rendered speechless, muzzled. Jesus in his illustration does not say that the man put it on to get in and then took it off. Rather, the man declined the garment when the king’s attendant offered it to him or showed him the king’s wardrobe for guests. The king did not ask him, ‘Why did you take off the marriage garment?’ but, “How did you get in here not having on a marriage garment?” He refused to wear it. He declined to wear it at the feast table. He did not meet the requirements for being there at the table, and he did not belong there. Whom does he picture today?

12. Whom, briefly, does the garmentless man picture, and what do Bible commentators saw that the marriage garment pictured?

¹² He pictures those who profess to be godly Christians but who have not put on what was pictured by the “marriage garment.”

14. Whom, then, did the garmentless man picture?

¹⁴ Since the lone one whom the king discovered was not wearing the available marriage garment, he pictured the class who did not exercise faith and take due action in harmony with faith to be declared righteous by God and adopted as his spiritual son and taken into the new covenant that is made with spiritual Israel through Christ. He does not picture Christians who have been anointed with God’s spirit and made joint heirs with Christ but who prove unfaithful to God and lose out on the heavenly kingdom. Rather, he pictures imitation Christians, of whom Christendom today is composed and who claim and pretend to be at the marriage feast “table.” God the King never recognized them as being there with the proper identification, and so he did not anoint them with holy spirit as Kingdom heirs.

15, 16. (a) The time must come for the King to do what with respect to the garmentless class? (b) When is it that the King would come in to inspect the guests?

¹⁵ The time must come when God exposes the wrongness of the claim and pretense of being at the marriage feast “table” as made by Christendom and to execute adverse judgment upon her before the eyes of all onlookers. God the King does this when he as the Arranger of the marriage feast for his Son ‘comes in to inspect the guests.’ According to Jesus’ illustration, this must occur when the “room for the wedding ceremonies” is “filled.” (Matt. 22:10, 11) With the filling of this room with enough guests the gathering work by the king’s slaves would stop. As the gathering of the ones to be “chosen” is done under the invisible guidance of God’s angels, the heavenly King would come in and inspect when the work foretold by Jesus is fulfilled at the conclusion of the system of things:

¹⁶ “Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will beat themselves in lamentation, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet sound, and they will gather his chosen ones together from the four winds, from one extremity of the heavens to their other extremity.”​—Matt. 24:30, 31.

17, 18. (a) The completion of that gathering work would be the time for determining what with regard to the garmentless class? (b) How does Jesus’ illustration show what will be done then to that class?

¹⁷ The completion of this gathering of the “chosen ones” would take place shortly before the “great tribulation” that Jesus compared with the deluge of Noah’s day begins. (Matt. 24:21, 22, 37-41) So, at that time of inspection made by the heavenly King, would the class pictured by the man without the marriage garment be taken along as one of the “chosen” ones? Or would this class be left to share with “all the tribes of the earth” who beat themselves in lamentation because of the coming destruction? The class that makes up Christendom has no excuse to offer to the King for trying to be at the “marriage feast” without the symbolic garment. That class can offer no reason for being allowed to enjoy the “wedding ceremonies” and “feast.” At the time of the final inspection, that class is found “speechless.” How will the King treat that class? Jesus’ illustration shows:

¹⁸ “Then the king said to his servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and throw him out into the darkness outside. There is where his weeping and the gnashing of his teeth will be.’”​—Matt. 22:13.

19. Into what will that class be thrown out, and what will it fail to enjoy?

¹⁹ So this class is bound beyond all ability to offer resistance. It is cast thus into the “darkness outside,” outside where the darkness is not alleviated by such things as street lamps. There, with no enlightenment of any kind from God, that class will weep and gnash its teeth, in the “great tribulation” in which religious Babylon the Great and all the rest of this system of things will be destroyed. (Rev. 17:14-18) That class will be cut off from the “kingdom of the heavens” and will have no part in the “evening meal of the Lamb’s marriage” in the heavens above.​—Rev. 19:9.

24. (a) What does Jesus’ illustration not show as respects the man thrown out? (b) In the fulfillment, why is there no need to bring in replacements for that garmentless class?

²⁴ One thing Jesus’ illustration does not show. What? That, after the man without the marriage garment was thrown out, the king would send out a slave to bring in a replacement for that man. Certainly the king would not send out a slave into the night, “into the darkness outside,” to hunt up a replacement for the man thrown out. What person would be on “the roads” outside the city at that hour of the night? The king approves of the garmented wedding guests (reclining ones), and the feast now goes forward with all these and without the garmentless man who was thrown outside. In the fulfillment of the final part of Jesus’ illustration today, there is no need to bring in a replacement for Christendom and her religious crowd. They merely tried to get in to the feasting table without meeting the divine requirements. Their pretense at being there does not work.