Matthew 25:12 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Verily—I know you not— This circumstance in the parable is perfectly consistent with the rest; for nothing intimated a personal acquaintance with them; and guests asking admittance with such a pretence, might have been multiplied beyond all reason and convenience: at least its significancy and application are very apparent and important. In this parable, by the kingdom of heaven is meant the Gospel kingdom—the kingdom of grace in its last dispensation, when it is about to be swallowed up in glory. By the tenvirgins are meant the complete and general number of all Christian professors; the visible church of God upon earth, mixed with good and bad. By their taking the lamps, and going forth to meet the bridegroom, is meant their taking upon them by baptism, and their leading their lives in, the outward profession of the Christian faith. By the bridegroom is meant the Lord Jesus, the divine and glorious bridegroom of his spouse, the church. By the foolish virgins are meant mere professors; Christians only in name, who have a lamp without oil, faith without love. By the wise virgins are meant real Christians, who to an outward profession join inward holiness; who have not only the form, but the power of godliness; faith which works by love; a life beautified by the fruits of the Holy Spirit, whose gifts and graces particularly are figured out to us by the oil. By the slumber and sleep of them all, wise as well as foolish, is meant death, the common lot of good and bad. By the midnight cry to go forth and meet the bridegroom, is meant the last aweful summons to judgment, the archangel's trumpet, and the voice of God: by the solicitude of the foolish virgins, the discovery which nominal professors will make, too late, of their want of holiness. By the reproof of the wise isshewn, the impossibility of transferring good works from one to another; and of consequence the absurdity of the popish doctrine of supererogation; since no man at that day will be found to have more than enough for himself. By the admission of the wise to the marriage-feast, is meant the happy entrance of faithful Christians into bliss eternal with their all-glorious bridegroom; and by the exclusion of the foolish, the everlasting banishment of the strangers to true holiness from that bliss. And as the parable represents the suddenness of Christ's coming, it shews both the folly and danger of delaying repentance to a death-bed, and powerfully enforces habitual watch-fulness, both in the acquisition and exercise of grace, upon all men in every age, from the uncertainty of life;—for the day of death is to each of us as the day of judgment. Accordingly, the application of the parable is, watch therefore, &c. Matthew 25:13.