Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 22:11

"But when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding-garment:" — Matthew 22:11 (ASV)

To see the guests—The verb conveys the idea of inspecting. The king came to see whether all the guests had fulfilled the implied condition of arriving in suitable apparel. The framework of the parable probably presupposes the Eastern custom of providing garments for guests invited to a royal feast. Wardrobes filled with thousands of garments formed part of the wealth of every Eastern prince (Matthew 6:19; James 5:2), and it was part of his glory to bring them out for use on state occasions, as in the assembly Jehu held for the worshippers of Baal (2 Kings 10:22).

On this assumption, the act of the man found not having a wedding garment was one of willful insult. He came in the filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) of his old life instead of putting on the white linen fitting for a kingly feast (Ecclesiastes 9:8; Revelation 3:4–5), which had been freely offered to him. Even without this assumption, the parable presupposes that the man could have easily obtained the garment, and therefore, it was his own fault that he did not have it.

What, then, is the wedding garment? Answers have been given to that question from very different dogmatic standpoints. Some have seen in it the outward ordinance of Baptism; others, the imputed righteousness of Christ covering the nakedness of our own unrighteousness. It is believed, however, that these answers are both too narrow and too technical. The analogy of scriptural symbolism elsewhere (Revelation 3:4–5, 18; Revelation 19:8; 1 Peter 5:5; Isaiah 1:18; Psalms 109:18) leads us to see the "garment" of a person as the habits of good or evil by which his character is manifested to others.

Here, therefore, the wedding garment is nothing less than the "holiness" without which no man shall see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). And that holiness, as in the framework of the parable and in the realities of the spiritual life, Christ is always ready to impart to anyone who truly believes. It is obvious that no inference can be drawn from the fact that only one guest in the parable is without the wedding garment, any more than from there being only one wicked and slothful servant in the parables of the Talents and the Pounds.