How to Dress for a Wedding

Okay, so this post is not really about what to wear to a wedding. (This is a good thing. I have no fashion sense.) Rather, it’s about the wedding attire in Jesus’ parable from Matthew 22. In that parable, a king has a wedding celebration in which one particular guest is found not wearing the right clothes. The king's response to the man? “Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Understanding the Symbols

Apparently the wedding garment is a pretty big deal. So what does all this mean? A few of the symbols in the parable are easy to understand; one in particular (the wedding garment) is not. First the easy ones.

The wedding celebration is the celebration of God’s people in his Kingdom. It’s a celebration marked by love and joy in God's presence. Love and joy are the two primary fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and thus they are the two primary characteristics of the Christian life both on earth and in heaven.

The king in the parable is God the Father, and the wedding feast is given for his Son, Jesus. The servants who invite all the guests are the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. (Ephesians 4:11)

Those who refuse the invitation are those who hear the message but whose worldly cares and concerns prevent them from coming. It’s worth noting that love and joy are being held out to them – life in God’s presence is being held out to them – but they’re too worried and distracted to lay hold of this gift.

These people who don't listen are definitely a sorry lot, but even worse are those who treat the servants shamefully and kill them. These are the persecutors of the Church’s messengers, and they cannot stand being told to repent from sin and believe in Christ. True, the messengers are inviting them to everlasting joy and love in God’s presence, but the persecutors hate being told what to do. And so they kill the messengers…some openly and crassly, others quietly and subtly.

The Wedding Garment

But what about that wedding garment? The man without the wedding garment somehow arrives at the wedding feast, but he doesn’t belong there. He is a Christian only in name, not in spirit.

The king is dismayed with this man’s presence and sends him into the outer darkness. The wedding garment matters greatly to the king. If one wants to enter the wedding feast (everlasting love and joy in God’s presence!), he must put on this garment.

One particular interpretation, prominent especially in Lutheran circles, is that the wedding garment is the imputed righteousness of Christ. According to this view, not much has changed underneath the garment – little to no sin has been uprooted, and the heart of the one wearing the garment looks very little like the heart of Christ.

In other words, the garment is a sham. Rather than uprooting sin and giving one a new heart and a new Spirit, the garment just covers up sin and lets the heart remain hard and rebellious. In theological terms, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to someone, but never infused into him.

But is this what the New Testament means by being “clothed with Christ”? By no means. Two passages are worth noting. First is Romans 13:14: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” In other words, the necessary corollary to being clothed with Christ is self-denial. One cannot say he is “clothed with Christ” if he continues to give-in to sinful desires.

Second is Colossians 3:12: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” This verse makes something clear: To “put on” the garment of Jesus Christ is to clothe oneself with his attributes. An unkind, impatient person cannot say he is “clothed in the righteousness of Christ.”

As these verses show, the wedding garment is no mere covering for sin. Rather, it is the displacement of sin by true righteousness – the infused righteousness of Christ, which is the Spirit of Christ, given to anyone who turns from sin and believes in him. This is what the garment-less man in the parable had not received.

The Real Issue of Interpretation: What is Faith?

The interpretation that treats the garment as nothing more than a covering for sin has one particular problem. Namely, it treats faith as separable from repentance and separable from love. Thus, one may think that the guests at the feast have put on the wedding garment through faith – but their faith somehow exists without repentance from sin and without the fruit of love.

But ask anyone who has ever walked in Christ: Have you tasted the joy of God’s Kingdom without repentance? Without love? It’s not possible. Faith without repentance and without love is no faith at all, but rather the dead faith rebuked by James and not worthy of the name.

The man who misses the joy of God’s Kingdom is the man who has failed to put on Jesus Christ – not in a merely external way, but in spirit and in truth. The proper wedding garment is the righteousness of Christ not as a figment of one’s mind (i.e. “Jesus covers my sin, so I’m good to go!”), but as a living person in one’s heart (i.e. “Jesus covers my sin, so I’ll repent and receive his Spirit!).

Only by crucifying the flesh and living in the Spirit of Christ does one bear the Spirit’s fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Such attributes are at home in God’s Kingdom, and the one whose life is about putting on those attributes will find himself a citizen there. He'll be a true guest at the wedding feast. And not just a guest, but a bride:

“I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 11:2