For Zion’s sake, I will not be silent; and for Jerusalem’s sake, I will not rest; until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning lamp. And nations shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. And you shall be called by a new name which the mouth of Jehovah shall specify. You also shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of Jehovah, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You no longer shall be called Forsaken; nor shall your land any longer be called Desolate. But you shall be called, My Delight is in Her; and your land, Married. For Jehovah delights in you, and your land is married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you. And as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God shall rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:1-5)
The kingdom of Heaven is compared to a man, a king, who made a wedding feast for his son. And he sent his slaves to call those being invited to the wedding feast, but they did not desire to come. Again, he sent other slaves, saying, Tell the ones invited, Behold, I have prepared my supper; my oxen, and the fatlings are killed, and all things ready; come to the wedding feast. But not caring they went away, one to his own field, and one to his trading. And the rest, seizing his slaves, insulted and killed them. And hearing, the king became angry. And sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, Indeed, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Then go onto the exits of the highways and call to the wedding feast as many as you may find. And going out into the highways, those slaves gathered all, as many as they found, both evil and good. And the wedding feast was filled with reclining guests. And the king coming in to look over those reclining, he saw a man there not having been dressed in a wedding garment. And he said to him, Friend, how did you come in here, not having a wedding garment? But he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Binding his feet and hands, take him away and throw him out into the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of the teeth. For many are called, but few chosen. (Matthew 22:2-14)
We come now to the final of the eight parables of the kingdom of heaven that are found in Matthew’s Gospel. These parables have moved us through a series of ever deepening truths about the nature of the self and the nature of the Lord and enlightened us to the principles that need to be active within our mind if heaven is to become present for us. We started with the idea of the separation of the wheat the tares where the truths that belong to spiritual life must be allowed to grow alongside those ideas that cannot serve until they are ready to be seen as such. We saw that a trust in the Word as the Lord grows slowly from small beginnings, like the simple mustard seed and that the new ideas that we are being introduced to need to be given time to ferment and percolate, like the leaven in the meal. The next two in the series of these parables taught us that the great price which must be paid is that our sense of ownership over our lives must be given up and in its place, an acknowledgment that all that we have is from the Lord must live instead. And that if we do this then the one and only true pearl will unveil itself, like a treasure that has been hidden in the field until now. Once the awakening to this reality unfolds then we find that there a growing sense of responsibility to live according to the truths from the Word that we are beginning to have insight into. We realise that we are being asked to take account to what the Word says, to respond to the direction from the king of the heavenly kingdom. Which brings us now to this parable which speaks of the king who makes a wedding feast for his son.
In the Greek, the word translated wedding feast is a word which embraces the idea of marriage in its entirety so that it might read,
The kingdom of heaven is like a king who made marriages for his son.
The plural is used because by marriages the meaning is inclusive of all the elements that make up the marriage as an event. Spiritually, this is useful because it teaches us that the spiritual marriage in principle is not a one off occurrence, but is the culmination of a series of marriages and that the process is ongoing. We can reflect on the natural representative image of marriage between two people to connect to these ideas. Depending on the traditions used, the marriage ceremony is composed of a number of smaller events, which we taken together make up the whole wedding experience. Also, the marriage ceremony is not the end but the beginning of being married or if you like, of becoming married. The marriage ceremony offers the promise of a life-long commitment of a continuous process of the two lives becoming more and more intertwined through their shared home, their shared experiences, in their care for one another, and in the expansion of this combined life through the birth and care of children and grandchildren.
From this representative image we can see then that the spiritual idea of marriage has to do our commitment and growing connection to the Lord, the process by which this is brought about and the fruits that are produced from this. The first aspect of this process is found in this parable where we read that it begins with a king who makes a wedding feast (marriages) to his son. Who is this king and who is this son? And what are these marriages? Well, they must have something to do with what we experience as we seek to live the spiritual life for the term marriage, spiritually speaking, describes our actual regeneration. To be regenerated means that things are becoming married within us. As we work with the Word and apply what it teaches to the life of our thoughts and feelings it brings about a new will and understanding or a new internal and external man, and as these grow and develop together in us – they come to act as one. For this is the result of building up truths in our understanding that are able to govern how we act in response to how we feel and think, because they provide us with the ability to reflect on our motivations. These truths form the new understanding, in fact they are our new understanding. And when we compel ourselves to act from them, our affection for what is heavenly is strengthened and so this affection conjoins itself with the truths that we have been seeking to live our lives from. So both work as complements to one another – our understanding of the Word’s truth as the presence of the Lord in our life forms a complementary relationship with our affection for it. And so the harmonious joining together of these two can be referred to as a spiritual marriage for it is a marriage occurring in the life of the spirit, of what pertains to our mental life. And it reflects the image and likeness of the Lord Himself who is the perfect marriage of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom.
This marriage can be found within the Word because the Lord IS the Word and so we need the Word as Divine Truth in our life, to bring about a spiritual marriage within each of us. For in its operations within the human spirit, Divine Truth is in a constant effort to bring about the wholeness and unification of the heavenly marriage. When we integrate the truths into our life we are conjoined with heaven and so with the Lord, because the Lord is these truths. This is the reason why it is said that the kingdom of heaven is like a king who makes marriages to his son for as we saw last time, a king symbolises the Divine Truth or the Word.
However, we can’t be joined to the Lord as He is in Himself for the Divine Truth is beyond the comprehension of any finite mind but we can certainly have an increasing sense of being united to Him if we are willing to live from the understanding of the truths that we have. For as the Word enters our minds it produces a response in our spirit that comes into our consciousness as our image of God. But no two people can have the same view of God. None of us are able to see the infinity or eternity of the Divine Truth; we only see the things that we can grasp with our limited understanding in accordance with our own unique state of spiritual life. And because the Word as Divine Truth will always remain infinitely beyond the understanding of anyone, even the highest angels, we should never presume to have a monopoly on the truth because all we can ever be in are appearances of truth. It’s important that we constantly remind ourselves of this in our dealings with others who may hold different views to our own … no one ever sees the whole picture.
So for every person who is able to come to the Word and draw their ideas of God from it, there arises a different or personal view of God and spiritual things. The truths one person sees are viewed differently by another, yet all are from the Divine Truth or the Word. These differences don’t exist in the Lord, for He is the same forever and in Him no change is possible, but they exist instead in the different states of mind into which He flows. In this sense, the Word is like a father from whom comes as many different understandings or views of the Lord as there are human minds that come into contact with it. All these different views of the Lord are still from the Word and so are the Lord with each person – this is what is meant here by the son of the king. For if the king is the Word, then the son of the king can be thought of as the image that we carry of the Lord in our minds which arises from our limited understanding of the Word.
The limitations of a finite understanding of the Word is how the Lord is seen to take on human frailty and weakness. Again, these human weaknesses are not in the Lord Himself, nor have they ever been but arise from our limited capacity to grasp the Divine as He is in Himself. Divine Truth flows into whatever vessels or mental thought structures in our mind that are able to receive it and so in this way the Lord accommodates Himself to our state of life. The ideas which we hold about Him are the means by which He seeks to integrate each person’s life into a whole, or to bring us into the spiritual marriage which is the marriage of truth and good within our minds, that is, of our understanding of truth and are affections for it. This is why the marriage is centred on the son in this story because our idea or understanding of the Lord and spiritual things is intimately related to the level of motivation we have for working with the Word as the basis for examining our life.
Our response to our understanding of truth is so important here. The Lord’s desire for our salvation means that all that is from Him in His Word looks to draw us into being united with Him. This is captured in this parable in that we see that the command from the king to His slaves, or servants which is the word used in as other translations, is to invite all who are called into the wedding feast.
And he sent his slaves(servants) to call those being invited to the wedding feast, but they did not desire to come.
or
And he sent his servants to call those being invited to the marriages, but they did not desire to come.
The general message that flows from every aspect of the Word is a call to wholeness. Divine Truth works to bring healing and wholeness to every level of our being; this is what it is to be invited into the wedding, into the heavenly marriage. It is a call found in the challenges which truths make upon us when we consider their implication for our life. These truths that invite us to live our lives in accordance with the principles we know are the servants who go out under the command of the Divine Truth to draw us closer to the Lord.
We then see various responses that can occur within us in to what the Word invites and offers us…
And he sent his servants to call those being invited to the marriages, but they did not desire to come.
The Word is read or heard, its truths are presented, but there is nothing in the heart that desires the spiritual life and so there is no will to live from the Word.
Then there is a second call…
Again, he sent other servants, saying, Tell the ones invited, Behold, I have prepared my supper; my oxen, and the fatlings are killed, and all things ready; come to the marriages. But not caring they went away, one to his own field, and one to his trading.
In this second call a greater understanding of the preparations that the king has made is communicated. This represents a deeper understanding of truths but again, without a desire to actually live from them, there is no response to do what is required to enter into the spiritual life. All is ready, the oxen and grain-fed calves have been sacrificed or prepared for the marriage celebrations. But the things of the world hold more allure. This is a powerful warning to those who are in possession of truths, who know what they must do yet refuse to act from them. Knowing that the Word is Divine and that it contains everything necessary for the spiritual life is of little benefit if the invitation It makes to us isn’t taken up. What the Lord has prepared as food, as super, in His Word can have little effect if it is not eaten and so taken into our spirits.
And so this state of life that is described here makes light of the invitation, literally doesn’t care for these things and so prefers to go to its own field and trading business. It speaks of placing a higher priority on natural life and so caring little for the spiritual life. To go to one’s own field is to prefer a life centered on the field of selfish interests and to go to one’s trading is to believe the false ideas and perspectives that self-interest generates to support living for self and so rejecting the Lord.
Having heard truths and having at least sensed something of the challenge they make, if these are then not acted upon, the mind works to dismiss the challenge to reduce the discomfort they produce upon the conscience, and to dismiss and deny what was initially seen. This process of trying to weaken the impact that truth has on us and to take away the responsibility it places upon us is described in the treatment of the servants by what remains.
And the rest, seizing his servants, insulted and killed them.
And so it is that the servants or truths that call us to account, that call us to the marriages and to the work of self examination and repentance that this commitment involves, are seized, insulted and then killed. This speaks of doing violence to truths so that their life or spirit can no longer influence the mind. Of becoming dead to the power of the Word to transform our lives through having given ourselves over to the loves of self and the world. To insult truth is to discredit it or falsify it and and to kill it is to allow lower things reign in its place. Both of these words are also used in Gospel of Luke when Jesus predicts his own death.
For He will be delivered up to the nations, and will be mocked, and will be insulted, and will be spat upon. And flogging Him, they will kill Him. And on the third day He will rise again. (Luke 18:32-33)
In this Scripture we find captured, the meaning of the parable; it is the same story in a slightly different form. If we hear the truth but will not act on it because we prefer to live disconnected from the Lord in favour of our own self-interest, then we mock it. All this goes on in the natural man, or natural mind, who is opposed to the things of the spirit – but this is not the last word. For on the third day, Jesus declares He will rise again as indeed the third invitation in this parable in Matthew is to those elements within us that can and will respond. This is the subject of the second part of the story which we shall explore next time.
The reason why no one can come into the kingdom of God unless he has been born again is, that man by inheritance from his parents is born into evils of every kind, with the faculty of becoming spiritual by the removal of these evils; and unless he becomes spiritual he cannot come into heaven. From being natural to become spiritual is to be born again or regenerated. But in order that it may be known how man is regenerated these three things must be considered: the nature of his first state, which is a state of condemnation; the nature of his second state, which is a state of reformation; and the nature of his third state, which is a state of regeneration… Man’s third state, which is a state of regeneration, follows upon and is a continuation of the former state. It begins when man desists from evils as sins, and it progresses as he shuns them, and it is perfected as he fights against them; and then, as he from the Lord conquers them, he is regenerated. With one who is regenerated the order of life is changed. From being natural he becomes spiritual; for when the natural is separated from the spiritual it is contrary to order, and the spiritual is according to order. Therefore the regenerate man acts from charity, and makes what belongs to his charity belong also to his faith. Yet he becomes spiritual only so far as he is in truths, for every man is regenerated by means of truths and a life according to them; because by means of truths he knows the life, and by means of the life he performs the truths. He thus unites good and truth, and this is the spiritual marriage in which is heaven. (Divine Providence 83{1&6})