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Bible Dictionaries
Invitation
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or INVITATION.—The method of public teaching adopted by our Lord being exclusively oral, it was necessary that two features difficult to combine should be prominent in the form of His instruction,—an immediate impression, and a firm grip on the memory. This He secured by mingling freely in the social life of the time, and by an abundant use of similes and illustrations drawn from facts in the daily life and social customs of the people whom He addressed. This is one of the reasons why He clothed so many of His doctrines in parables and figures centred in the idea of hospitality.
The Hebrews were an eminently sociable people. In the earliest times, the laws of hospitality were specially sacred; strangers were made heartily welcome at the door of the patriarch’s tent (Genesis 18:3, cf. Hebrews 13:2); and in later times a surly attitude towards travellers needing refreshment was considered a serious offence against good manners (1 Samuel 25:4-10). Many strict injunctions were laid down in the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 19:33-34, Deuteronomy 14:29 etc.) as to the duty of kindness to strangers. At a still later period, when the community was settled in towns and cities, an elaborate code of manners grew up, both as to giving and receiving hospitality. There was much entertainment of friends, relations, and strangers among the Jews in the time of our Lord; social meetings were frequent, and religious gatherings frequently took on a festive character.
Jesus freely accepted such opportunities of social intercourse as were offered to Him; He was fond of being entertained by His friends (Luke 10:38 etc.), and distinguished Himself from the outset of His public career as an eminently sociable man (Matthew 9:10), often accepting invitations from quarters that gave offence to those who considered themselves leaders of society (Matthew 9:11, cf. Luke 19:7). This, however, He did, not merely because He delighted in the fellowship of men and women, but mainly because of the unexampled opportunity it afforded Him of spiritual instruction (Matthew 9:12-13, Luke 7:41-50), and of bringing His influence to bear on those around Him, whether they were His personal friends (Luke 10:41-42), or secret enemies (Luke 7:36), or the general public (John 12:9), or individuals who were denied entrance into recognized society (Luke 18:10). It was a sign of His insight and wisdom as well as of His broad sympathies, that in a community so eminently sociable as that in which He moved, He should make such free use of the machinery of hospitality for His Messianic purpose, and devise many parables and illustrations drawn from the customs of the day, and from the etiquette that ruled the relations of hosts and guests, from the highest circles of life to the lowest.
It is partly from this point of view that we are to understand His frequent habit of representing the gospel of grace as God’s invitation to the soul to partake of the blessings of salvation. It made an instant appeal to the sympathies of His audience; it brought spiritual realities within reach of the intelligence of the humblest and most ordinary people, and it predisposed them to receive His message willingly; and, as the similes and illustrations in which He clothed His teaching represented recurrent facts and exigencies in their lives, it helped to drive home deep into their memory the lessons which He taught, and to bring them back frequently to their recollection. In this way the method of His teaching helped to perpetuate its substance till the time when it took a written form. But the parables of invitation have a wider appeal, for the relationships from which they were drawn are universal, and belong to all nations and communities where the customs of social life are honoured. These customs vary in detail in different ages and lands, but the root-relations of hosts and guests are permanent. These parables are a kind of Esperanto of the spiritual life, and appeal to the universal intelligence and sympathies of mankind. Thus the human side of Christ’s teaching forms an ideal channel for its Divine contents.
When we pass from the form to the substance of the teaching, which represents the gospel as an invitation, the simile is further justified by its appropriateness and its beauty.
1. It emphasizes the bright and genial aspects of religion, which shine with so clear a lustre in the teaching of Jesus. It has been a recurrent and baneful feature of theological learning that it has tended to envelop religion in an atmosphere of gloom, by making so much of the horror and mischief of sin, and dwelling so exclusively on the need of repentance, atonement, and justification. Religious ritual introduced another baneful element into the spiritual life by representing its duties too much as a series of sacerdotal observances, which by frequent recurrence became mechanical and wearisome. Ethical writers have likewise been prone to dwell exclusively on the responsibilities of religion, to the obscuration of its privileges. In the teaching of Jesus there is nothing of this mischievous tendency. His parables are full of the sound of wedding-bells, of the voice of laughter, of the joy of a great deliverance, of the discovery of a precious and unsuspected happiness. There are clouds on the horizon, and the echo of distant thunders; but the foreground is full of happy figures intent on celebrating the marriage of the soul to its Divine Lover and Friend, and on enjoying the new-found fellowship of God as the Giver of life and salvation. Without in any way obscuring the evils from which the soul is delivered by the gracious ministries of the gospel, preachers should follow their great Model in placing greater emphasis on the sunny joys and holy privileges brought within our reach in Jesus Christ. One reason why the common people heard Him so gladly was, that He took them away from the word-splitting and elaborate discussions of the Rabbis, and transported them into that circle of happy human relationships from which He mainly drew His illustrations. What was true then is just as true to-day.
2. The presentation of the gospel as a Divine invitation throws emphasis on another of its essential features,—that it embodies a free gift of grace from God to man. The central idea of hospitality is that one gives freely what the many receive and enjoy ‘without money and without price.’ Jesus in the ‘parables of grace’ teaches us that the gospel contains something infinitely precious which is given to us, but which we could never deserve or buy. Religion is not a bargain between man and God; it is a boon, a largess bestowed by God on man. It is not commerce, it is reconciliation and friendship. It is thus represented not as an exchange of commodities in a market-place, but as a feast where the one side gives all and receives nothing back, save in realizing the happiness and loyal gratitude of the invited guests. Jesus justifies this idea of a one-sided benefit by nearly always making use of a simile of feasting in which a superior invites his inferior to a banquet. It is a king inviting his subjects to the wedding-feast of his son (Matthew 22:2-14); it is a great man entertaining a miscellaneous assemblage of guests from all quarters (Luke 14:15-24); it is a father welcoming home a renegade son with the best of the flock. In all these cases there could be no question of a return in kind. The conditions were satisfied by the coming of the guests, and their happy enjoyment of the good things provided. ‘The gospel is ever a gospel of grace.
3. A third significant aspect suggested by the simile of an invitation is its voluntariness on both sides. There can be no compulsion in the invitation to a feast of rejoicing. Unwilling guests have no place at a banquet. Religion has no room for the idea of spiritual compulsion. The invitation is free to all: acceptance must be as free. Thus is the sacred function of spiritual liberty, of the freedom of the will, safeguarded by the gospel. Those who refuse or neglect a social invitation may be incurring a grave responsibility; but they can do so if they choose. The spiritual appeal of religion may also be refused; it lies with the soul whether it will respond to the call of God or reject it.
The word translated ‘compel’ in Luke 14:23 (ἀνάγκασον) must be read in its secondary meaning of ‘constrain by persuasion.’ It ‘reflects in the first place the urgent desire of the master to have an absolutely full house, in the second the feeling that, pressure will be needed to overcome the incredulity of country people as to such an invitation to them being meant seriously. They would be apt to laugh in the servant’s face’ (Bruce in Expositor’s Gr. Test., in loco).
4. The idea of an invitation thus merges into that of response; and it is important to notice that great stress is laid on this side of the question in the parables. In not a few it is clearly the pivot on which the teaching turns. There is one way in which an invitation may be worthily accepted; there are several in which it may be rejected: e.g. it may be (1) openly scorned, (2) accepted and then rejected or ignored, (3) accepted in a wrong spirit, or with an imperfect realization of its privileges and value. Each of these situations is dealt with by Christ to typify the attitude of men to His gospel. In the parable of the Marriage of the King’s Son, the first guests invited treat the offer with scorn (Matthew 22:3), and ‘make light’ of it, preferring to find their satisfaction in their own way, and even maltreating the king’s messengers. By this Jesus exposed the attitude of the Pharisees and scribes towards His gospel, and in a wider sense that of all those who in a thoroughly worldly spirit have since treated His offer of salvation with derision or disrespect. In the parable of the Great Supper, the guests first accepted the invitation, and then, finding other more absorbing interests, sent various excuses for not attending. These represent the fickle multitude, who at first thronged to hear the ‘gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth,’ and afterwards left Him, having exhausted the sensational aspect of His ministry and wonderful works, and having no love for His higher message. Returning to the parable of the Marriage, we find a final episode in which the man without a ‘wedding-garment’ is dealt with. Clearly he stands for those who, having heard and accepted the invitation of the gospel, show that they have failed to realize the lofty and decorous spirit in which the soul should respond to it, and who treat it as a common thing, with no sense of its high privilege. The care with which Jesus developed these situations in His parables, and proclaimed the doom that followed, shows how deeply He felt the importance of a right attitude towards spiritual realities. It is as though He were repeating in many tones and accents the fact that God offers man His best in the invitations of the gospel, and expects man to be at his best in responding to them, otherwise he perils his soul (cf. Matthew 22:7, Matthew 22:13, Luke 14:24).
When we turn from the teaching to the practice of Christ, the same attitude of appeal and invitation is manifested, and the same spirit of loyal and worthy acceptance is expected in turn. Everywhere in His dealings with men we find Him acting as God’s messenger of goodwill, and urging them to respond to heavenly grace with grateful hearts and willing service. Where men do so He promises them a great reward (Matthew 19:27-30); where they fail to do so He shows a Divine and touching sorrow (Matthew 23:37-38); and though He is clear in revealing His own disappointment at such a result, He lays the chief stress on the loss and misery which rejection must bring on those who are guilty of spurning or ignoring His ever-renewed appeal.
The heart of the gospel is found in the central invitation given by Christ to all men in the words, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28).
Literature.—Wendt, Teach. of Jesus, i. 148 ff.; Stalker, Imago Christi, ch. vii.; Bruce, Galilean Gospel, ch. xii.; Expositor, i. xi. [1880] 101 ff. See, further, art. Coming to Christ.
E. Griffith-Jones.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Invitation'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/i/invitation.html. 1906-1918.
