Читать книгу The Banquet - Ronald James Mahler - Страница 7

_________ Introduction _________

People are naturally curious about the afterlife. During our childhood years, many of us are taught that there is a blissful place that “good” people go to after they die: heaven. However, many of our cultural conceptions about the reality of heaven and how one gets there are either askew of the Bible’s teaching or estranged from it.

Many parables of Jesus Christ underscore the reality of hell while highlighting how one can avoid going there or how one can enter the kingdom of God and experience its heavenly rewards for eternity. Jesus’s parable of the great banquet—a foreshadowing of what the Bible refers to as the marriage feast of the Lamb—addresses this all-important subject with sobriety.

In the parable (Luke 14:15–24), the Lord relays how a servant is sent by his wealthy and benevolent master to tell those he has already invited to a celebratory feast that the banquet is now ready. Incredibly, everyone who has been invited doesn’t actually want to attend. Their decision infuriates the goodly master, and so he directs his servant to invite others outside of the privileged crowd the master had at the top of his invitation list. The servant obeys, and the doors of the banquet are held open for people whom the initial invitees wouldn’t think to invite to their own feasts and banquets. So heartbroken and angered is the master as a result of the initial invitees’ ungrateful attitude towards his kindness that he declares that none of this crowd will be permitted to snatch even a morsel from the bounty of his banquet’s table.

As we’ll see, the parable of the great banquet’s characters indeed have “real-life” identities attached to them, just as the parable’s punchline points to the eternal rewards in heaven that await those who believe in the Son of God, as contrasted with the equally eternal (yet tragic) consequences that accompany others’ unbelief and ultimate rejection of God’s Son. The parable invites the reader to contemplate its narrative as motivation for one to do everything necessary in order to get on this banquet’s list of invitees!

By all biblical accounts, this event will be unlike anything we could possibly experience in the here and now. Imagine walking into an elaborately decorated regal hall resembling the length of countless football fields buttressed together. Imagine how overwhelmed you feel as your eye scans an enormous exhibition of faces, voices, ethnic groups, colours, and excitement. You are speechless because no words can fill in the blanks of what you could never have known about heaven. It’s impossible to process all you can see or to appreciate the layers of lavish fare that extend throughout and adorn the space’s hemispheric sightlines.

Such are the optical titillations inherent within the biblical imagery of God uniting around His heavenly banquet table with all the redeemed of every age and of every racial background, language, social status, and nation the world has known. In “the New Jerusalem,” the house of God and the family of faith are joined together in what Matthew Henry referred to as “a reception for repentant sinners.”

For purely speculative purposes, there are questions pertaining to the logistics surrounding a banquet of such magnitude that will accommodate several billion people in attendance. The Bible does not address the extraneous details relating to the heavenly banquet, the “marriage feast of the Lamb.” We can only employ conjecture on a subject such as this and muse about what it will feel like to be a part of such a magnificent event. Will the feast be held in multiple areas within the new heavens and the new earth? We could speculate as well on who will serve the food. Will it be representatives of God’s people from every generation during the human age? Will the innumerable angels get tagged for this duty? If so, how many angels will be required to serve the food, and just how much food, for that matter, will be required to feed billions of guests?

We could ponder how the menu will be decided and how many cooks will be needed to prepare the hors d’oeuvres, not to mention an unfathomable meal featuring perhaps multiple courses! Who will be doing all the cooking? How many tables and sittings will be required, and who might we sit next to? Can you foresee yourself elbowing Moses or passing Peter a plate of bread? What if Mary Magdalene were seated close enough for us to strike up a captivating conversation with her? Imagine the incredible stories concerning Jesus she could relay that are not recorded in the Bible! How about the prospect of being asked by Daniel to say the blessing or by Paul to share a devotional? Then there’s the question of who will be responsible to do the clean-up. And just how sizable will the area need to be in order for everything to be stored? The future heavenly banquet holds much in the way of mystery and fascination for us.

In the Bible, the kingdom of God is often pictured as a feast or a banquet where jubilant celebration marks the end of the age of humanity and the triumph of God over His enemies. Death, sickness, and sorrow no longer hover over those at the table in the final state. Eternal bliss and blessings in the presence of God now replace the former earthly realities. The prophet Isaiah foresaw God’s final judgment of all the powers that are opposed to Him in the heavens and on earth and when He will victoriously reign over His redeemed people of all ages (Isaiah 24:21–23). One of the earliest references in Scripture to an eschatological or messianic banquet also comes from Isaiah (25:6–8). There, the prophet regards the feast as an inauguration of the reign of Israel’s God with an invitation to all nations to come and commune with the one true God in His abode (Zion). The veil of religious ignorance and unbelief is removed from peoples from nations far and wide. In addition, the finest of drink and food characterize the rich bounty that will accompany the event, imagery that’s repeated later in Isaiah 55:1–2, where all are invited to freely share in the heritage of the servants who belong to God. For the prophet, then, the feast depicts the covenant promises of Yahweh that become covenant realities in their fullest sense for all peoples.

Other references anticipating the hope of an eschatological celebration in keeping with a festive theme and banquet-like setting are found in Isaiah 30:29 and Ezekiel 39:17–20. In fact, Israel’s restoration is connected with imagery of God providing for His people (Isaiah 40:11, 49:10, 58:14; Jeremiah 50:19; Micah 5:4, 7:14). This concept is present in other texts where restoration is linked to God providing Israel with an abundance of grain and wine (Isaiah 23:18, 62:8; Jeremiah 31:10–14; Ezekiel 36:29; Joel 2:19; 2 Baruch 29:3–30:1). In Ezekiel and 1 Enoch those in the renewed Jerusalem are to eat fruit from trees evoking imagery of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden (Ezekiel 47:12; 1 Enoch 25:4–5).

In the New Testament, the Old Testament’s eschatological imagery of a banquet given by God at the end of days is described as a wedding feast. John’s vision of Christ in his Gospel borrows from Isaiah 62 and 63, which describe the restoration of Israel in terms of a marriage. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’s parable of the great banquet envisages a master giving a feast to which the initial invitees decline their invitation. The master’s servant is then sent to other individuals who wouldn’t expect to be invited to take the place of those who refuse to come to the banquet (see Luke 14:15–24, 13:29).

By contrast, the parable of the marriage banquet in Matthew’s Gospel pictures a more dramatic outcome. The host-king’s servants are murdered by those originally invited to his banquet, causing him to take retribution on the ones responsible. In addition, an individual found at the banquet without wedding clothes on is thrown out into the darkness (Matthew 22:1–14). In both parables (the great banquet and the marriage banquet), Jesus communicated that people who are reputed to be socially disadvantaged and deemed outcasts (e.g. the poor, the infirm, Gentiles) are invited to the banquet feast in order to fill out the places at the host’s table. They too are a part of God’s salvation plan and scope, a reality that was largely antithetical to the ideas and beliefs that abounded in Israel at that time. In both banquet parables, the host is seen as socially benevolent and inclusive, and the initial invitees as ungrateful.

A reference to a future heavenly banquet also occurs in the parable of the ten virgins. The overriding theme of this particular parable is the necessity of the virgins to be prepared for the coming of their bridegroom. Those who are ready go directly into the wedding banquet, while those who are not are shut out (Matthew 25:1–13).

The Bible narrative begins with Adam being united to Eve and ends with the bride of Christ united with her groom (Jesus Christ). In Scripture, the future wedding feast that will take place in heaven suggests eternal satisfaction in the presence of God at His table. At the end of the biblical story when God’s redemptive work is complete, the curtain on earthly human history will come down to the sounds of a celebratory wedding banquet. The groom will take His honoured place at the head of the table surrounded by His grateful and perfected bride—the church (see Revelation 19:7–9, 21, 22).

Feasting and a wedding supper are a recurring theme related to eschatological events and the coming messianic era. Jewish hope and Christian hope are synchronized in prophecies across Scripture of this future celebratory event. God promises a splendid banquet after He destroys death and wipes away the tears and shame of His covenant people. Is it any wonder why the Bible exhorts the saints of God to persevere (see Revelation 14:13, 16:15, 20:6, 22:7, 14)?

This book explores the theological and eternal significance of the parable of the great banquet in Luke 14 for a weary world in much need of God’s truth and grace. It explores the identity of both those who are deemed worthy to attend the banquet and those whose rejection of the servant’s invitation deem them unworthy to attend the eschatological feast. Several questions are addressed: How does one qualify for entrance into the great future banquet? Why do some refuse to attend the banquet? What will happen to those who remain in a state of indifference towards the banquet or who refuse to RSVP? Is there any hope for them to ever be able to attend the banquet?

People are saved by responding to God’s gracious invitation to salvation through faith in His Son Jesus Christ and not by their own effort, religiosity, or heritage—as many of the religious leaders of Israel had believed. Being a microcosmic picture of salvation history, Jesus’s teaching in the parable of the great banquet stresses the host’s (God’s) desire and readiness to fill His banquet table. The parable contrasts those individuals who from their perceived stance of self-worthiness (Israel) spurn God’s invitation (they have other more interesting and important things to do) with those from a culturally unworthy social status (the unclean and Gentiles) who’d be surprised to even receive such an invitation. Therefore, we can see in the words of the parable of the great banquet an allusion to the larger eschatological dimension of the final judgment and the new order that is Jesus’s kingdom, which reverses our present human, worldly order—the self-exalted being humbled and the humble being exalted.

The parable’s teaching doesn’t merely convey where God stands with sinners (i.e. that they’re loved by Him and invited to experience Him in heaven for eternity); it also challenges sinners to consider where they stand with Him. The parable establishes that regardless of one’s race, social status, and geographical residence, an opportunity exists for all to either respond favourably to God’s invitation to salvation through His Son Jesus Christ or refuse the invitation. Of great eternal importance, the parable of the great banquet intimates that those displaying an outward righteousness and religiosity who appear as though they’re primed for attending the marriage feast of the Lamb could very well fall short of reserving their place at the banquet. Moreover, the parable agrees with the entirety of Scripture in that they will not get another chance (in eternity) to change their decision should they reject God’s Son before their physical death. The doors to heaven’s banquet room remain wide open, but only for a limited time. Today is the day (age) of divine grace and opportunity to trust in God’s Son; however, like any day, this one will not last forever (see 2 Peter 3:8–10).

In the book’s opening chapter, I discuss the social setting of the parable and that an event such as a banquet delineated the varying degrees of status among its attendees and further determined their placement on society’s totem pole of human significance. From there I present some of the different theological interpretations of Jesus’s parable of the great banquet. Then the focus turns to the topic of Jesus’s storytelling ability; specifically, how He was able to powerfully bridge culture with the spiritual truths of His kingdom through the use of simple and common short stories (parables) about everyday life that were relevant to His audience.

Chapter 4 presents the context of the parable. The next chapter examines the Pharisees. I highlight Israel’s religious leaders’ often hostile treatment—even outright rejection—of Jesus and their skeptical appraisal of His teachings (including the parable of the great banquet).

Chapters 6 to 8 cover the Lord’s warnings to Israel’s various religious sects and authorities as a whole. Much discussion is given to how the nation’s leaders were falling short in their spiritual leadership of God’s people and, consequently, were in danger of falling short of securing eternal life. Due to Israel’s predominant failure to recognize Jesus of Nazareth as their nation’s long-awaited and promised redeemer, a large portion of the book describes Israel’s history of rebelliousness towards God and their current spiritual position.

God’s steadfast and unshakable redemptive plan is discussed in chapters 9, 10 and 11. This redemptive plan includes those within Israel who were socially ostracized and people within the Gentile nations. The church also has a role in God’s plan.

The final chapters of the book discuss the realities of rejection and suffering inherent in being an ambassador for Christ and the obstacles the church faces as it strives to fulfill the Great Commission in the twenty-first century.

At the end of this present earth age—after all the enemies of Christ have been defeated and the unbelieving judged and their eternal destiny assigned, and after the righteous receive their kingdom dividends for their earthly service to God—a great banquet in heaven will commence. Although we cannot know with any certainty how the event will play out, we can know what manner of persons will be present at the banquet dining with the Lamb of God: His bride: the church, and all other believers whom the Father has reckoned as righteous in His Son throughout the ages. God is throwing an end-of-days bash in His banquet hall. The size of the event will be determined by the number of people who will attend from every corner of the earth (Luke 13:29). Judging from the parable of the great banquet, no chair can be left unfilled.