For many are called, but few are chosen.
For many are called, but few are chosen. So Matthew 19:30. See the note at Matthew 20:16.
Remarks:
(1) What claim to supreme Divinity brighter and more precious than our Lord here advances can be conceived? Observe the succession of ideas, as unfolded in the Old Testament, and how Jesus places Himself in the center of them. First, all the gracious relations which Yahweh is represented as sustaining to His people culminate in the intimate and endearing one of a marriage-union (Jeremiah 3:14; Hosea 2:16; etc). But next, when the nuptial-song of this high union is sung, in Psalms 45:1-17, we find it to celebrate a union, not directly and immediately between Yahweh and the Church, but between Messiah and the Church; yet a Messiah who, while anointed of God with the oil of gladness above His fellows, is addressed in the Psalm as Himself God: so that it is just Yahweh in the Person of Messiah "the King" who in that nuptial-song is celebrated as taking the Church to be His Bride. But this is not all; because in other predictions this Divine Messiah is expressly called the Son of God (Psalms 2:7; Psalms 2:12; compare Proverbs 30:4; Daniel 3:25). Such being the representations of the Old Testament, what does Jesus here but serve Himself to Heir to them, holding Himself forth as Himself the King's of Old Testament prophecy, as the Anointed King in whose Person Yahweh was to marry His people to Himself, and whose nuptials are celebrated in the lofty Messianic Psalm to which we have adverted?
(2) As in the parable of the Great Supper (Luke 14:1-35), so here, it is not those who have all along basked in the sunshine of religious privileges who are the readiest to embrace the Gospel call, but the very opposite classes. And is it not so still?
(3) The terrible destruction which fell upon Jerusalem, and the breaking up and dispersion and wretchedness of the nation which ensued, and continues to this hour-what a warning are they of that vengeance of God which awaits the despisers of His Son!
(4) Though sinners are invited to Christ as they are, and salvation is "without money and without price," we are "accepted," only "in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6); if there be "no condemnation," it is "to them that are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). These are they that have "put on the Lord Jesus" (Romans 13:14; Galatians 3:27). This is to have the wedding garment.
(5) Though we may deceive not only others but ourselves, there is an Eye which comes in expressly to see the guests; the one thing He looks for is that wedding garment; and among myriads of persons, all professing to be His, He can discern even one who is not.
(6) No moral or religious excellences will compensate for the absence of this wedding garment. If we have not put on the Lord Jesus, if we are not "in Christ Jesus," our doom is sealed; and what a doom-to be cast indignantly and without the power of resistance into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth! Oh! Do men really believe that this doom awaits those who, however exemplary in other respects, venture to present themselves before God out of Christ?