Angus Harley
Most Evangelicals will be scratching their heads wondering why anyone would question the free-offer model. Especially when Matthew 21:1-14 is all about the invite to the kingdom banquet. It’s a no-brainer. Or is it?
Matthew 21:28-46
On the face of it, the free-offer model has a point: Jesus is clearly implying that all people are the same, for they are sinners who need to repent and receive the Gospel of the kingdom of God. Yet, Jesus’ parables (Matt.21:28-46) do not focus on this point, but relay to us a completely different teaching. There is no attempt in these parables to paint the Jews as an undifferentiated mass of sinners, or as a kind of ‘blob’ of people in need of salvation. Instead, these parables invariably present two groups, and two different kinds of listening. Reflecting this duality, judgment is brought upon the heads of the hardened, but salvation given to those who hear. The free-offer model focuses merely on the fact that all are sinners, and in that sense undifferentiated. Jesus’ ministry and teaching, according to these parables, do not settle for this common-denominator way of looking at things, for he describes for us the duality and division that the Gospel encounters and engenders.
Matthew 22:1-14
This section continues Jesus’ parabolic teaching (v1). We can expect, therefore, that Jesus is going to mark out the hardened from those who listen, and that duality and division will continue. The point of all the parables was to show how the kingdom of God was being stripped from Israel as a nation and given to the ‘unclean’ in Israel, to ‘sons’ who were prostitutes and tax-collectors- sinners (21:32, 43-46). This new Israel was based on the principle of following Jesus Christ and his kingdom-Gospel.
Two calls to two groups, at two different times
What, then, of the invite to the wedding feast? Is this not a perfect example of an indiscriminate offer to all people? Does not the concept of an invite convey exactly the same idea as an offer?
What we must recognize is that, first of all, the invites are sent not to an undifferentiated mass of Israelites, but first to one group of people (v3) and then a call is given to an entirely different group of people (v9). There is nothing in context saying that the second group- the strangers on the street- were part of the first group, or part of a general call to an indiscriminate group of people.
No offer
Secondly, there is nothing that is an ‘offer’ in this invitation. We are not, in this text, in the twenty-first century where someone can accept or reject a wedding invitation. (This is aside from the issue of whether today an invite can legitimately be called an ‘offer’.) The parable is teaching about the kingdom of heaven and a king. The reader is to understand that this king of the parable is like the King of the kingdom of God, and that his son, whose wedding it is, is the heir apparent to the kingdom. We know this because Jesus is described in the previous chapter as the Son of David who comes in the name of the Lord (21:9, 15). It was his house that was made a den of robbers’ (“ “My house” ”) (21:13) To reject the king’s invite is to reject the king and the next king! This is what the chief priests, elders, and pharisees had done when rejecting Jesus’ authority (21:23-27, 42). It was the son of the landowner that the vine-growers murdered, in order to take his inheritance (21:37-39). Plainly, the parables are teaching the inseparable unity of father-son, king-heir apparent, and, therefore, the Jews’ hatred of the Son and the Father. Consequently, there is no expectation in the parable itself that these regal invites can be rejected. We know this also because v5 tells us “ “they paid no attention” ” (apēlthon), which could be interpreted as something like ‘willfully neglected’ (see 1 Tim.4:14; 2:3), or ‘did not care about’ (see Heb.8:9). Also, these ‘refusers’ went on to kill the king’s messengers, as in 21:35. In other words, the parable taken as a whole is creating a literary effect in which the invite is no mere invite, for it is the king’s royal invite to, of all things, his son’s wedding, and must be responded to positively. That is why the behavior of the refusers is further described as murderous, for the parable is intensifying their rebelliousness against the king’s invite. In the ‘business’ of the kingdom, there were no legitimate reasons for refusing the wedding invite (see Luke 9:59-62).
We must bear in mind, too, that the wedding and its banquet are a picture of the Messianic wedding and banquet that the Jewish nation was meant to participate in. It was for that reason alone that God had raised up the nation, but it had refused the Gospel and the Son, so the kingdom was stripped from Israel and given to “sinners”, strangers, and Gentiles (Isa.25:6-9; Matt.8:11; 25:1-13; Luke 14:15-24; Rev.19:9). It would be ridiculous to think, therefore, that Israel were given an invite to this wedding that could, like a modern invite, be accepted or rejected.
No emotional appeal
Is there an appeal to the masses in this parable? Is the king in the parable a man who emotionally invites the first group? Do we read that he was excited, mournful, or joyous when inviting the first group?
The answer is no, there is no emotion shown by the king in issuing the invite to the first group. Although, he does reason with them, “ “Behold, I have prepared my dinner….” ”
Emotion does come forth when the king goes ballistic at the first group for killing his servants and rejecting his invite again, “ ”But the king was enraged” ” (v7). The result is that his army destroys the city, which is clearly an allusion to judgment on Jerusalem, and parallels the previous parable (21:41).
Dualism
The kingdom-call is proactively exposing two attitudes and behaviors. For that reason, the king sums up the attitude and behavior of the first group and says they “ “were not worthy” ” (v8). Not that they had ‘become’ unworthy, but they were unworthy. The invitation to them had, in other words, exposed them for what they really were, ‘unworthy subjects of the kingdom’.
From the other side, true sons of the kingdom are called into the wedding hall, and brought there by the slaves. As a group, they all accepted the celebration of the kingdom banquet and entered in to the hall.
Many are called but few chosen
A dominant reading of this phrase in v14 is that humanity as a whole is invited in the preaching of the Gospel to the Messianic wedding, but few are chosen to go to it.
I want to suggest an alternative that focuses on the main duality found in the parable itself. The term kaleō is used five times in the parable (vv3 (x2), 4, 8, 9), and of them the passive perfect-participle is used three times (vv3, 4, 8). This passive perfect-participle is invariably translated as “invite”, not “call”. It is only the first group that this invite is given to. In v9, of the second group, we do not read of an “invite” per se but of a “call” (kalesate), there being no passive perfect-participle of kaleō. Matthew is saying that the first group is invited (keklēmenous), and subsequently called (kalesate) (v3). Therefore, there were not two invites issued to the first group, as is commonly said, but only one, which is followed through by a call to honor the invite. The first group then rejects the call to honor the invite. By contrast, the second group receives no invite, but is called. It is this called group, which has received no invite, that honors the call. This is stunning, for it has received no formal invite. Instead, it responds to a call only. The point Jesus is making is that the wedding banquet was set up for the Jews, but they rejected it and its invite, so strangers were called to it who had no invite. In this light, the many who are “called ones” (the Greek adjective klētos) are not both groups combined, but the first group, the many who rejected the formal invite. This first group are the “unworthy” (another adjective). The second group, the strangers, are the few who were chosen ones (where Matthew uses the Greek adjective eklektos). They are chosen ones because the others rejected the invite, and then the king chose to bring others, strangers, to attend the kingdom banquet.
But we must not forget vv11-13, for it is those verses that set us up for v14. Vv11-13 underscore that in the new order, in the new Israel, some will enter the kingdom banquet who were not guests. These ones are made known by their lack of wedding attire. This is saying that in the Messianic assembly and its celebration of the Son and his bride, some will be fake followers of the Messiah. The strangers who were called were equipped for the wedding. The man without wedding attire is in the same category as the first group: “unworthy”.
Bigger picture
Matthew 23:37-39, we saw before, was not about a free-offer of the Gospel, but it was Jesus’ exasperation with wicked Israel, and a declaration that Israel had been cut off from the kingdom. These same these were present in Matthew 21-22. Israel had forsaken the Lord’s Gospel concerning his Son, and now Israel was paying for it. Matthew 11 was merely another expression of this same effect. Matthew 11 draws a clear-cut division between the Gospel and miracles done to and before the Jews, all of which they reject, then, after Jesus’ famous prayer, Jesus makes a call to one group only, the burdened and heavy laden. Indeed, it should be noted that in Matthew 11, this call by Jesus is abstracted from the wider ministry to the Jews mentioned before. Similarly, here in Matthew 22, the kingdom call goes to two different groups that are not mixed together into an indiscriminate blob, calls made at two different times.
In the light of this bigger picture, it seems to me that, although there are helpful aspects given in the free-offer model, it has all the hallmarks of a model looking for a text.