In The Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1-14) Jesus told of a king who made a banquet for his son. He sent out servants to his guests, telling them to come to the wedding, because everything was ready. However, the guests refused to come, and they mistreated the king’s servants, even to the point of killing some of them. When the king heard of what they did, he sent out his armies and killed those wicked man and destroyed their city. What we need to understand is the motif of the wedding banquet is found in the Old Testament. This was the well from which Jesus drew the message of his parables.
Isaiah prophesied about a great, walled city that the Lord would destroy (Isaiah 25:1-2). At the same time, according to the prophet, the Lord would make a great feast in that mountain, that is the great, walled city that he had destroyed (Isaiah 25:6-7). Moreover, at that very time, the Lord would swallow up death in victory (Isaiah 25:8). Paul quotes this verse in 1Corinthians 15:54 to describe the time of the resurrection (1Corinthians 15:50-57). Isaiah prophesied that the resurrection would occur at the time of the destruction of the great, walled city and when the Lord made a great banquet for the nations. Clearly, this great banquet is the same as that, which Jesus described in The Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1-4).
Jesus spoke of this theme throughout his ministry, using different words under different circumstances to show it was coming. Notice what Jesus claimed when he described the great faith of the gentile centurion:
Matthew 8:10-12 When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. (11) And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. (12) But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (emphasis mine)
When men died before the coming of the Lord, they slept until the time of the resurrection. We are able to see this from David’s words in Psalm 146:4 where he claims that at the moment of death one’s thoughts perish. They are no more. The grave cannot praise the Lord (Psalm 6:5; 30:9: 88:10-12; 115:17-18). Daniel was told to go his way, for he would rest but rise again at the end of the age (cf. Daniel 12:13). Therefore, if Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are sitting down in the Kingdom of God, they have been raised from the dead, and notice when Jesus said this would occur—at the time “the children of the kingdom are cast out” (Matthew 8:12)! Luke 13:28 is even more emphatic in that Jesus tells his audience that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets would be in the Kingdom of God when “you, yourselves, are cast out.”
In other words, the resurrection would occur at the time when Jerusalem would be judged. Wasn’t Jerusalem judged in 70 AD? Wasn’t that the time the great, walled city was destroyed (Isaiah 25:1-2), which the prophet claimed would occur at the time of the great banquet (Isaiah 25:6-7; cf. Matthew 22:1-4), and didn’t the great banquet occur at the time the Lord swallowed up death in victory (Isaiah 25:8)?
It is impossible, if we keep everything in context, to separate the great banquet from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. And, neither can we divorce the destruction of Jerusalem from the time of the resurrection. They all occur about the same time—at the coming of the Lord in 70 AD.
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