the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Wedding Garment
Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary
or The custom of the East at their marriage feasts, can only explain that expression of our Lord in his parable, (Matthew 22:11) of the man that had not on a wedding garment. The uniform custom at all marriages, even among the poorer sort, was to make presents of clothing to the persons invited. And for the king's son in his marriage, which the parable represents, the presents must have been splendid indeed. An Eastern writer, describing a nuptial feast in the year 1612, speaks of a retinue of mules laden with tapestry, cloth of gold, of velvet, and satin, and other riches which were to be used upon this occasion. Therefore for the king on coming in to see his guests, to find there a man without the wedding garment, implied such a contempt to his person, and to his son's marriage, as might well justify the anger shewn. And as the parable of Jesus on this subject was wholly figurative, and with an eye to the gracious marriage of the Son of God with our nature, nothing could have been more happily chosen to have shewn the awful consequence of the unbeliever, in his appearing now at ordinances, and finally at the last day, at judgment; unclothed with the righteousness of Christ, and standing naked and defenceless in his own sinful nature, when the King shall come in to the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven! It would be well if every man who is looking for acceptance, either wholly or in part from any garment of his own, would pause over the awful subject of such contumacy and self-righteousness!
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Hawker, Robert D.D. Entry for 'Wedding Garment'. Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance and Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/pmd/w/wedding-garment.html. London. 1828.
