Re: Saved From The Worst But Kept From The Best? When you wrote about the man being ejected from the wedding feast, you said “He hadn’t kept himself pure and had lost his salvation. When the Lord returned, he tried to gain entrance into the Kingdom in his own clothing (on the strength of his own righteousness) without the righteousness imputed to him by faith (the wedding clothes). He was discovered and ejected.” This man was already at the wedding feast. How then did someone who God knew was not a Christian get into Heaven in the first place? Am I reading this incorrectly?
I’ve been researching the term outer darkness lately. There are many sites on the ‘net that bring in this wedding crasher man into this phrase, and a lot of them suggest that Christians who do not get any crowns, or lazy Christians who have no reward are thrown into the outer darkness. No matter where I search, I keep getting conflicting ideas and different opinions. It seems as though no one has a clear answer. To say this has me perplexed is putting it mildly.
Keep in mind that the Parable of the Wedding Banquet is not an actual event. It’s a story the Lord made up to illustrate a point. It’s not necessarily accurate in every detail. So while it would be possible for an improperly clothed wedding guest to sneak into a banquet on earth, it would not be possible for an unauthorized person to sneak into Heaven. That’s why in my explanation I said, “He tried to gain entrance into the Kingdom.”
It’s important to consider the context of a passage when doing your research, because many people don’t. In the case of this parable the Church is not a last minute guest at the Lord’s wedding. The Church is the Bride who the Lord has made radiant, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:25-27). The only qualification for being in the Church is to believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose again (1 Cor. 15:1-4). Any opinion that puts a Church Age believer in any place other than at the Lord’s side in His kingdom has violated that context and denied the sufficiency of the Lord’s death on our behalf.