Enjoying the wedding clothes of Christ in time. John 14:19-20; Matt 22:10John 14:19"After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also.
/The believer is given Christ’s seamless undergarment at the moment of salvation. Through the inculcation of doctrine he learns how to wear it consistently.\
The Lord spoke a parable revealing that Israel would reject His clothing, while the Church would accept it.
Matt 22:1 And Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parables, saying,
Matt 22:2 "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king, who gave a wedding feast for his son.
Matt 22:3 "And he sent out his slaves [OT prophets up to John the Baptist] to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come.
Matt 22:4"Again he sent out other slaves [the first disciples] saying, 'Tell those who have been invited," Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast. "'
Matt 22:5"But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business,
Matt 22:6and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them.
Matt 22:7"But the king was enraged and sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and set their city on fire.
Matt 22:8"Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.
Matt 22:9'Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.'
To interpret this parable correctly it is important to realize that those on the main highways are travelers and as such would have been wearing very common clothes that ranged from the somewhat dirty to the very dirty.
Matt 22:10"And those slaves went out into the streets, and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.
Matt 22:11"But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw there a man not dressed in wedding clothes,
No one would have been traveling in wedding clothes so the only possible explanation for this man being the one without any is that the clothes were provided by the king in the palace.
/The clothing of Christ is given as a grace gift by the King [God the Father] when the believer enters the palace [PPOG] by faith.\
This man refused the wedding clothes, which showed his utter contempt for the King and the wedding of His Son. It was an insult through total apathy of the King’s love for His Son and the worthiness of honor and respect to the Prince. So why enter? He entered just to see what he could get.
This is a picture of an unbeliever who shows up to church, puts on a façade that he is a believer simply to see what he may get from the church, but he has never believed in Christ.
Matt 22:12and he said to him,' Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?' And he was speechless.
Matt 22:13"Then the king said to the servants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' [LOF]
Matt 22:14"For many are called, but few are chosen."
/Being clothed in eternity is an absolute due to our position, but wearing our wedding clothes in time depends on your attitude towards BD.\
/Rev 19:8 And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.\
While I personally believe that every Church-age believer will be clothed in heaven there is a special garment given to the overcomer or winner believer who advances to maturity.
/Rev 3:5 'He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels. \
As in the military there may be different uniforms for different ranks so will it be for eternity.
At any wedding feast we dine and in time our feast is the word of God.
/Rev 3:18 I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich, and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. \
The cost is time. The cost is enforced humility and teachability. It will cost you your arrogance, your unhappiness, your self-inflated image.
John 14:20"In that day [when you behold Me and clothe yourselves with Me] you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
/ “you shall know” – future middle indicative of ginwskw, [ginosko] = to come to know from the process of learning. After enough doctrine we realize the reality of God’s plan.\
The future tense means that right now the disciples are in ignorance. However, they cannot be blamed since this is the first time that they are receiving these doctrines.
Why has the Lord waited until His last night with them to reveal the doctrines of the Church?
/Jesus had two jobs to do. A) He had to present Himself as the King of Israel with a kingdom platform. Therefore He had to do a lot of teaching about the Millennium. \
/B) He also had to do a lot of gospel teaching and had to present Himself as a person, the God-Man, the only saviour. \
While Israel continued to have volition, despite the prophecy in the OT that they would reject the Messiah, they still had every chance to accept the Messiah until the end.
Now the time is up and the report is finished – they have rejected Him.
Therefore, now is the time to begin to teach the Church-age, but it is not a cramming session. He was only to introduce it. When the Spirit of Truth came He would lead all of them into all of the CA doctrine.
John 16:12 “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
John 16:13 "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
The night before He went to the cross is the first time they heard any of this information. These disciples who were going to be the apostles of the Church at this time didn’t know as much as we know.
John 14:20"In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
/“that I in my Father” – The Son does not indwell the Father. Jesus Christ and God the Father have identical essence and so they have a perfect relationship.\
/“and you in Me” – Jesus Christ wants us to have the same relationship as He does with His Father. That is Christianity; it is not religion. \
You do not indwell Christ, but at the moment of salvation you were baptized by G/HS where He entered you into union with Christ. This is positional sanctification.
/Positional sanctification – every believer is set apart from the world in union with TLJC.\
/Experiential sanctification – when the believer exploits his union with Christ by doctrine so that he shares the mind of Christ, just as the Father and Son share the same essence.\
Having the same mind means a special and intimate relationship.
Remember Paul’s prayer in Eph 3?
/Eph 3:16-17 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell [be at home] in your hearts through faith; \
When we start out we don’t have any grace in us, that comes with doctrine. But we are in a perfect grace relationship from the day we were saved. Our grace relationship with the members of the Godhead will never be improved; positional truth cannot be improved. The problem is that we are imperfect without capacity to appreciate it.
/“I in you” is a reference to the indwelling of Jesus Christ. At the moment of salvation your body is made a temple of God for the permanent indwelling of the deity of Christ.\
The Lord has now introduced to them for the first time that God the HS will indwell them and He will indwell them. Their heads must be spinning.
/The doctrine of the indwelling of Jesus Christ: John 14:20 is the first prophecy of the indwelling of Jesus Christ. \ |