Once again I will be discussing The Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1-14), wherein Jesus told of a king who made a wedding for his son. He sent out his servants to tell the guests he had invited that everything was ready, so they should come to the wedding. However, the guests wouldn’t come, and they devalued the importance of the wedding and mistreated the king’s servants and killed them. When the king heard of what they had done, he sent out his armies and killed the evildoers and burnt their city. Upon doing this, he sent out his servants to invite everyone they found on the highways in order to have guests at the wedding.
Jesus’ parables are often eschatological in their content, and the Apostles drew their own eschatology from Jesus, who also based his teaching upon the prophecies of the Old Testament. In a previous study I developed Jesus’ eschatology out of Isaiah 25, but in this study I want to consider Isaiah 65. Notice that Isaiah prophesied that Israel wouldn’t listen to the Lord, although he spread out his arms to them all day long in an effort to get them to cease their rebellion (Isaiah 65: 1-2). Therefore, the Lord would appoint them to the sword and destroy them (Isaiah 65:12), which is what Jesus claimed would be done to the evildoers in Matthew 22:3-7.
Notice also that Paul drew his teaching of the last days from Isaiah 65:1-2 when he claimed:
But Isaiah is very bold and says, “I was found by those who did not seek Me, I became known to those who did not ask after Me.” (21) But to Israel He says, “All day long I have stretched forth My hands to a disobeying and gainsaying people” (Romans 10:20-21).
Romans 10:20-21 is almost a verbatim quote from Isaiah 65:1-2. In Romans 10 Paul was justifying his ministry of going to the gentiles. First, he showed that the Jews of the first century were simply not listening to what the Lord commanded through his Apostles (Romans 10:1-3). Although they zealously sought after God, they didn’t seek after him according to his will. Instead, they sought after the Lord, according to their own ideas (Romans 10:3).
Just after prophesying that the Lord would slay those who did wickedly (Isaiah 65:12), the Lord draws a contrast between how he will treat his servants, and how he would treat his rebellious people:
Isaiah 65:13-17 So the Lord Jehovah says, Behold, My servants will eat, but you will be hungry. Behold, My servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, My servants will rejoice, but you will be ashamed. (14) Behold, My servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will howl because of a breaking of spirit. (15) And you will leave your name for a curse to My elect; for the Lord Jehovah will kill you, and call His servants by another name. (16) He who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth. And he who swears in the earth will swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hidden from My eyes. (17) For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. And the things before will not be remembered, nor come to mind. (emphasis mine)
Here, the prophet shows that in the latter days, the Lord would do a new work. It would be a new creation (Isaiah 65:17). He would make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, but it would be unlike the one made at Sinai (Jeremiah 31:31-32). Rather, it would be a covenant made within the hearts of men (Jeremiah 31:33). Therefore, as Paul would say, “If anyone is in Christ, that one is a new creature; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2Corinthians 5:17), which is clearly drawn and interpreted from Isaiah 65:17.
Christ, himself, told the Apostles that the old creation would pass away, but his words would remain (Matthew 24:35). What words? The words of his coming to judge Jerusalem, which meant he would be destroy the old creation, i.e. the Temple and the Old Covenant (Matthew 24:29), and in so doing all the tribes would mourn, as they see Jesus coming in the clouds (Matthew 24:30; cf. 26:64). Moreover, Jesus claimed all this would occur in that generation in the first century AD that crucified him and killed those he sent to them (Matthew 23:36-38; 24:34; cf. 16:27-28).
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