Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.
Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps - the foolish virgins as well as the wise. How very long do both parties seem the same-almost to the moment of decision! Looking at the mere form of the parable, it is evident that the folly of "the foolish" consisted not in having no oil at all; because they mast have had oil enough in their lamps to keep them burning up to this moment: their folly consisted in not making provision against its exhaustion, by taking with their lamp an oil-vessel wherewith to replenish their lamp from time to time, and so have it burning until the bridegroom should come. Are we, then-with some even superior expositors-to conclude that the foolish virgins must represent true Christians as well as the wise, since only true Christians have the Spirit; and that the difference between the two classes consists only in the one having the necessary watchfulness which the other wants? Certainly not. Since the parable was designed to hold forth the prepared and the unprepared to meet Christ at His coming, and how the unprepared might, up to the very last, be confounded with the prepared-the structure of the parable behooved to accommodate itself to this, by making the lamps of the foolish to burn, as well as those of the wise, up to a certain point of time, and only then to discover their inability to burn on for want of a fresh supply of oil. But this is evidently just a structural device; and the real difference between the two classes who profess to love the Lord's appearing is a radical one-the possession by the one class of an enduring principle of spiritual life, and the want of it by the other.