LIT TORCHES: READINESS FOR THE
ADVENT.
THE
virgin character is one of God's chosen symbols for the regenerate soul. "I espoused you,"
says Paul - you, all the Corinthian Christians - "to
one husband, that I might present
you as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Cor. 11: 2). In the Ten Virgins - virgins in Christ's
sight, not merely virgins before the world (Stier) -
this truth is strongly reinforced by the figure of lit lamps.* "The spirit of
man is the LAMP of the Lord" (Prov. 20: 27):
oil is the unfailing figure of the
Spirit of God: so all ten virgins
are souls burning with the flame of spiritual life; lamps actually kindled;
God's lights in the world; like John, "a
burning and a shining lamp" (John 5: 35). "The Virgins,"
as Greswell says, "are
all who agree in the common character of Christians, and in the common
circumstance of being subjected to an
economy of probation on Christian principles."
[*Outdoor lamps, or torches.
"It was the custom to bring the bride in
the night-time; there were about ten staffs; and upon the top of each was a
brazen dish, containing rags, oil, and pitch" (Rabbi Solomo), which was fed with oil from another vessel.]
Moreover,
all are bridesmaids, and so all are
presumably clothed, as invited guests, with the wedding garment - the imputed righteousness of Christ*:
the parable belongs to bridesmaids alone. All Ten - torches in hand - thought that the
Advent was immediately at hand, and eagerly responded to its call. But it is the responsibility side of
the Virgin character, as the number ten - Ten Commandments, Ten Plagues, Ten
Servants, etc. - always indicates: virgins divided, not into "good" and "bad"
; much less into "saved" and "lost"; but into "wise"
- prudent, farseeing, rightly regardful of their own interests - and "foolish" - imprudent, improvident, spiritually
thriftless. So identical are they in
basic character that the same reward is proposed and suggested to all -
the inaugural Banquet of Messiah's
coming Kingdom: "the reward of their faith and
obedience which is proposed to any, is proposed to all, and if attainable by
any is attainable by all" (Greswell).
[* Many Christians
believe, on the basis of Rev. 19: 8, that
the ‘righteousness’ of the ‘Bride’ is not that
of Christ’s but one’s own righteousness after conversion. Hence there us a distinction made in the
parable between the ‘bridesmaids’ and the ‘Bride’.]
So
then we find that the supreme quality emphasized, - which severs the Virgins
into two groups, and which makes the startling distinction of destiny, is READINESS. "The foolish,
when they took their lamps, took no oil
with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels"
- the cans or flasks they carried with the torches, for replenishing the oil
"with their lamps" (Matt. 25: 3).
The wise and foolish virgins are identical in nine points, they differ
only in one. All were virgins -
regenerate; all ten lamps were lit - by the indwelling Spirit; all expected the
Bridegroom - at the Second Advent; all go forth to meet Him - outside the camp;
all fell asleep - in death; all hear the midnight cry - the Advent shout; all
rise together - in resurrection*; all trim their lamps - anxious to appear
shining before their Lord; and all appear, for separating judgment, before the
Bridegroom. The solitary difference
between them lies in the absence of a supply of additional oil:
it is not a difference between those who have some oil and those who
have no oil; but between those who have some and those who have more. "The supply of
oil laid up in these vessels, being necessarily something distinct from the
stock contained in the lamps, if that was to be called the ordinary
supply, this must be called the extraordinary
" (Greswell).** So far from the foolish being unlit lamps,
unregenerate souls, it is the very forefront of their offence that their
self-security rests on their being lit lamps - they are
confident that the flame of regeneration, the indwelling of the Spirit, is
amply sufficient preparation for the Advent; while they are ignorant, or
sceptical, of the fact that "a common belonging
to the Church looking for Christ's Parousia, and
therefore a common waiting and hoping for the day of the Lord, does not exclude
a perilous distinction of folly and wisdom among individual disciples as
regards the manner in which one class and the other make ready for the Lord's
coming" (Goebel). The lamp
possessed by all, is an invitation to the Wedding Festival: the
mistake the Foolish make is to regard it as a passport. The prudent virgin, on the contrary
corresponding to the faithful servant who trades with the talents - makes
ready, consciously and deliberately, by an experience of sanctity unknown to
the foolish, and achieved altogether subsequently to the kindling of the torch.
"This exhortation,"
says Calvin, "is to
confirm believers in perseverance.
Christ says that believers need to have incessant supplies of courage,
to support the flame which is kindled in their hearts; otherwise their
zeal will fail ere they have completed the journey."
[* There
is no scriptural evidence that ‘all rise together in resurrection’.]
[**We
have a curiously apt parallel in petrol and the motor; for additional spirit is
reserved and carried in a spare can or separate compartment of the tank, to use
when the machine, through exhaustion of the spirit in it, begins to die
down.]
Now
one great event befalls them all. "Now while the Bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered"
- fell sick, passed into coma - "and slept"
- died. That the sleep is innocent is
obvious, because it befalls the wise equally with the foolish, and is nowhere
rebuked; and thus nearly all the ancient interpreters expound it: had it been
spiritual sleep, the conferring on the wise virgins of supreme reward would
have been utterly impossible. It is thus
extraordinarily significant, and pregnant with warning, that two believers
manifestly such, with shining lamps* - can fall asleep exactly alike, otherwise
indistinguishable, both supposing themselves perfectly prepared for the Advent;
yet one is ready for the Lord, and one not - and nothing but the event will reveal which is which. The very delay is designed as the
discriminating test: as years and
decades pass we are proving ourselves
wise or foolish. For here (in this
context) is the whole
[* Whether we translate (with A.V.) "are gone out,"
or (with R.V.) "are going out," both equally imply that all
are possessed of the Spirit, and all are ignited from Christ. "If you deny that
the torches of the foolish had any oil, I deny it equally to the torches of the
wise" (Govett).]
Now
comes the crash of Advent, with its earthquake shock
bursting all locks and betraying all secrets.
"But at midnight" - midnight is
the point of junction between two separate days, a watershed of severed epochs
- "there is a cry" - apparently from
the Lord's attendant angels "Behold the
bridegroom! Come
ye forth to meet him." The
virgins had "come forth," before, from
the world: now they "come forth," from
the tomb. As all arise at once, all are
believers: for "the rest of the dead lived
not until the thousand years should be finished" (Rev. 20: 5): it is an axiom of Scripture that the wicked and the holy do not rise together.
All the lamps had gone on burning through the night; all have saving
grace that survives death: but now the foolish virgins discover their
disastrous mistake. "Our lamps," they cry, "are going out"; not gone
out, for (as Archbishop Trench points out) they
ask, not for kindling, but for oil.
It is the same word as is used (1 Thess. 5: 19) for the quenching of the Spirit. They
had thought that they would shine before the Lord by regenerating grace alone:
now, shocked into wisdom, they are wise - they are not called foolish after
arising - too late: not an hour, not a minute, remains for readiness. HE IS HERE. In that day no man can protect us from the
revelation of our own works; not because he will not, but because he
cannot. "And
they that were READY went in."
For
now, though at last appearing with
the oil - as we may reasonably suppose; for they would hardly repeat their
mistake of appearing a second time without it: therefore
now as fully equipped as the rest - they have lost the Banquet. "Afterward came
also the other virgins, saying, "Lord, Lord" - these are hearts that feel acutely their
separation from Christ - "open to us" for nothing but the Lord's own utterance will
convince many believers of our coming judgment, and of our peril of exclusion
from countless rewards, and not merely (as here) from the Kingdom's inaugural
banquet. The foolish hope now to get as a, favour
what they had forfeited as a right.
"But He answered and said, Verily I say
unto you, I know you not": you are strangers
to Me, because you were not ready to receive Me (Goebel).* Our Lord is
most careful not to say what He said to empty professors,- "I NEVER knew you; depart from Me, ye that work
iniquity" (Matt. 7: 23):
nor could He say it; for had He come earlier in the first shining of their
lamps, they were ready.
He says, instead, I do not recognize you, as guests; I
know you not in the capacity for which I invited you: as you have not paid due
honour to either the Bride or the Bridegroom, I cannot rank you with those who
have. They were Bridesmaids, but they had fallen out of the procession. It was curiously illustrated a few months ago
when a young lady, asked why she passed a young man of her acquaintance without
notice, said:- "I have unknown
him." The force of the
pungent words has proved too clear to be missed. "We must
observe that in the present case we have not the terrible addition, Depart from
Me. The sentence of exclusion from
Christ's presence is not equivalent to that of ver. 41, which dooms souls to the everlasting fire prepared for the
devil and his angels. These five virgins
had received the grace of God, and used it well for a time, and only failed at the last for lack of care and
watchfulness. It is not improbable that the exclusion refers to the deprivation of
participation in Messiah's future kingdom, whatever that may be, according to
the vision in Rev. 20.* These virgins represent believers divided into two
sections; evidently they are all supposed to hold the true faith, and to be
pure and undefiled followers of the Lord, to be waiting for His coming,
and to love His appearing; but some fail for lack of grace or of perseverance.”
(Pulpit Commentary.)
[*
It does not seem to me honourable to accept the honey on the Lord's table, and to refuse His garlic. But the Greek lifts some measure of the
severity. "It does not mean, ‘I know nothing of
you,’ but, according to the well known use of the Greek word … with the
accusative of the person - ‘I know you not,’ namely, as bridesmaids and sharers
in the feast," (Goebel). Another Greek word means knowledge of character;
as in Matt. 7: 23; John 5: 42; 10: 14,
27; 1 Cor. 8: 3; 2 Tim. 2: 19: this Greek word
means personal intimacy; Matt. 26:
72, 74; John 1: 33.]
“This inference errs by excess. That for much graver offences
the Lord will then receive into the kingdom of glory only those who are ready
to receive and stand before Him, but will exclude all the unprepared"
(Goebel), other Scriptures in abundance assert; but here, for the mere negation
of additional oil, no more is threatened than exclusion from the brief scene of
joy, the festival of indescribable honour, portrayed as a Marriage Feast.]
Finally,
we are left in no manner of doubt by our Lord Himself as to what the whole
purport and purpose of His parable is, its
overwhelming stress and strain. "Watch THEREFORE, for ye know not" - ye apostles and
disciples, wholly and solely concerned: no dead soul can ever be told to
"watch" - "the day nor the hour": not wake to life by
conversion; but, watch as those already wide awake. All the Virgins begin ready,
but all do not end ready; and nothing is so deadly as the easy doctrine that
all will some how come right, apart from urgent warning and constant watchfulness.
In Goebel’s admirable summary of the
Parable:- "No one is to
suppose, because he belongs to the Church of Christ, which waits for the Lord
and His coming, that he can neglect personal preparation for His parousia, seeing that on the speedy coming of the Lord in
the moment least expected, this want of self-preparation will be revealed, and,
because then incapable of remedy, will irretrievably
exclude from the blessedness of God's kingdom." The sacred oil of sanctity can be got, for
keeping a blazing lamp and a radiant life: but
without sleepless vigilance, prudent foresight, incessant guarding against
danger and surprise, it will become the dying throb of a famished motor.* "Every kind and degree of Christian goodness is an energy of
Christian vigilance" (Greswell). Keep the oil stores replenished: keep the soul brightly burning: grace consumes itself in
burning, but "He giveth more grace"
(Jas. 4: 6). The "wisdom"
of the child of God consists in readiness; and readiness
can only be maintained by constant grace. In a Southern Army Camp, an officer, training
an awkward squad who would invariably put the wrong foot foremost, at last
cried in exasperation, - "Men! take
your eyes off your feet; look up, and your feet will follow your eyes."
Absorb Christ, and our walk will
follow our gaze into the Glory.
[*
Mr. Govett, in his two valuable pamphlets on the
Parable, makes out a strong case for supposing that the additional oil is the
miraculous supply (Gal.
3: 5) of the Holy Ghost, long lost: if
so, the Marriage Feast - corresponding to a coronation banquet confined to the
privy council and the peers and statesmen of the realm - will be shared only by
apostles, prophets, and the miracle-gifted and inspired. The principle of the Parable,
however, in any case is certain; and to it I have confined myself:- namely, that readiness,
and not regeneration only, is essential for approval at the Advent.]
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SATISFIED
Not with my life-work, finish’d, past,
Shall I be “satisfied” at last :
Not with the gifts I brought my Lord,
Nor with my knowledge of His Word:
Not with the witness these lips gave
Unto the One Who died to save:
Not with my service, or my love,
Shall I be “satisfied” above.
Faulty and weak is my poor best,
Needing cleansing with all the rest.
Only from Christ come grace and power,
Sure sufficiency every hour.
He is my glory and my song,
He, Who has led me all along;
And in the Light no cloud can dim
I shall be “satisfied” with Him.