Rayford Strange
Part I: The Parable of the Ten Virgins
In preparing ourselves for heaven, Jesus said in Saint John 3:5, “you must be born again of the water and of the Spirit.” Indeed, this is the first prerequisite of entering into the Kingdom of Heaven. This important subject is a necessary study for another time. This treatise here concerns those of us who have already been born again but have need of preparing ourselves for where we will live in eternity after we depart this life to face judgment according to our works which must come to all men after their life on earth is over.
The author does not represent that all things said here is original with himself since there is nothing new under the sun. But, after living a very long life, much has been taken from various mentors over these many years including many teachers and fellow laborers in the Master’s employment. Those things which have become particularly alive in me are those things taught by the indwelling Teacher, the Spirit of Truth whom Jesus said of the Comforter, “shall be in you and teach you all things.” (John 14:26)
Recently, I was deeply stirred in my spirit in the reading of the 25th chapter of St. Matthew, all of which made a profound impression on my mind. Thus, I felt it important that I share with you, as many as will receive it. I feel that with your careful attention in reading the following, the same profound influence of the Holy Spirit upon your mind will be yours also. It is my sincere desire that you will find the following words here to be a blessing. This is part one of three parts. Part two will be the parable concerning the man traveling into a far country. Part three will be the parable of dividing of the goats from the sheep.
The parable of the ten virgins is one of the most attractive of the many which our Lord delivered and left for the edification of his church. Important as it is to have right views on the nature of the general judgment, as it may be seen in chapter 24, in this case, a yet particular judgment is that in which we have the deepest, because an immediate personal interest. It will therefore be most profitable for us to consider the parable in this application. For every divine work is like itself in its general and particular operations. The less is an image or epitome of the greater; and the same description applies to both. So with the parable of the ten virgins.
Verse 1 “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.” A virgin is a common symbol of the church, and of the church both in its pure and corrupt state. The virgin daughter of Zion and of Jerusalem are other names for the church, but even the virgin daughters of Israel can do a very horrible thing (Jer. 18:13), and in doing it, must represent the church, and the members of the church, in a corrupt state. Among the reasons for virgins being taken to represent the church in the present instance, there is one that appears to deserve attention. The three parables which the Lord employs in this chapter to describe the same event, we cannot suppose to be mere variations of the same idea. The things signified are as different as the symbols. The three parables are descriptions of the judgment on three different classes of persons. Here in Part I of Preparing for Heaven, the virgins are they who are judged as to their affection for and against the principles of goodness; in Part II, the servants to whom the Lord delivered talents are they who are judged as to their affections for or against the principles of truth; And the sheep and the goats, Part III, are they who are judged as to their affections for or against goodness and truth in the actions of life. Thus discriminated, the parables may be understood in relation to an individual as well as to a multitude. There are ten virgins. In the natural sense this may be considered to mean an indefinite number, but in the spiritual sense numbers have a definite signification. Both revelation and creation bear testimony to these numbers being the result of a divine law. All the laws of divine order are collected into the ten commandments but these are still more summarily expressed in the two general precepts of love to God and love to man, as the ten commandments were written on two tables by the finger of God.
The number of the virgins in the parable, spiritually understood, has therefore a distinct and instructive meaning. The virgins are ten in number, not only because that is an indefinite number, used to express all who were to be judged, but because it expresses all who have been instructed in the knowledge of the Divine laws, and have had the ability, the means, and the opportunity of preparing themselves to enter with the bridegroom into the marriage – with the Lord the Savior into the kingdom of heaven. One of the particulars in which these ten virgins were alike was that they took their lamps. The lamp as the means of affording light, is employed here, and in other parts of Scripture, Is a symbol of light itself; and light is a universally recognized emblem of truth, which is intellectual light. As a lamp is the emblem of truth that enlightens the mind so is it of the Word itself, from which all true enlightenment comes. “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). The possession of the Word as an immediate revelation from God is that which peculiarly distinguishes the members of the Lord’s visible church from the heathen. God has nowhere left himself without a witness, but the direct light of revelation is the highest testimony which he vouchsafes to man. It is not, however, the Word as a book, precious as it is, that makes it a lamp which we can take to light us on our way, but it is the Word as a record in our mind. The Word can only be a lamp to guide us on our way so far as its truths are engraved on our heart or inscribed on our memory. The parable assumes that the ten virgins were each possessed of a lamp. Each one of those whom they represent is in possession of the Word, even to having its general truths impressed upon their minds. But the parable begins by saying of the virgins that they took their lamps. To take the lamp is to apprehend the truths of the Word, and even to take hold of them by faith, – for those who belong to the church, and profess to be Christians, must at least have some nominal belief in its principles. There is another particular in which the ten virgins resembled each other: they went forth to meet the bridegroom. The taking of their lamps and going forth to meet the bridegroom describes the commencement of the religious life, when the Word, previously possessed, becomes an object of mental apprehension and personal faith, when men go forth to meet the bridegroom, by coming to the Lord, either really or nominally, as the Redeemer and Savior.
2. But while all possessed the Word, and had a knowledge of its truths, and professed belief in them, the virgins were yet essentially different in character, for “five of them were wise and five were foolish.” No words could express greater opposition of state and character than this. In the language of Scripture, wisdom and folly do not mean keenness and obtuseness of intellect, but moral excellence and depravity. The wise and the foolish of the Scriptures are the good and the evil. Wisdom and knowledge are sometimes confounded with each other, but they are entirely different. Wisdom is knowledge reduced to practice; knowledge teaches us the way of life and happiness, and the wise are they who walk in it. But he who knows how to be happy, and yet acts in such a way as to bring certain misery on himself, cannot be considered wise, but in the most emphatic sense is foolish. There can be no wisdom without knowledge, but there may be knowledge without wisdom.
3, 4. The Lord, after telling us that five were wise and five were foolish, shows in what their wisdom and folly consisted, and in what it was exhibited. “They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.” All alike had the lamp of truth, but the wise only had the oil of love. Here is the grand distinction between wisdom and folly. Splendid talents, high intelligence, ardent zeal, may not be claimed by the wise more than by the foolish. In all matters of intellect, the spiritually foolish may even outshine the spiritually wise. Intellectual acuteness does not constitute wisdom, and is not incompatible with folly. But this is a point that will be more clearly seen in a future part of the parable. We need only remark here, that wherever oil is mentioned throughout the Scriptures, love is the grace which is meant by it. And the Scriptures throughout as invariably teach that love is the essence of religion: “God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). If Christian love is that which enables us to dwell in the bosom of divine love, it is evident that those who are destitute of that heavenly grace cannot enter heaven.
5. The bridegroom whom the ten virgins went out to meet did not immediately come. “And while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.” Whether we consider the scene of this transaction to be in the natural or in the spiritual world, it teaches us here an instructive lesson. As the lord, when he delivered talents to his servants, left them and went into a far country, whence he returned to receive his own with usury, so does the bridegroom tarry, after he has invited the guests to the wedding. His tarrying is the interval between our being endowed with the means of living, preparing ourselves for heaven, and our entering into the spiritual world, to realize what we have prepared ourselves for receiving. During this important period the wise and foolish live undistinguished from each other, and even are all slumbering and sleeping. This common condition is significant. An external state of life is meant by sleep, and an internal state by wakefulness. Life in this world is as sleep, compared with life in the eternal world, which, comparatively, is wakefulness. The spirit of man, which is the real man, while in the body, is in a state of comparative, dullness and obscurity, both as to the will and understanding, which in the parable is expressed by slumbering and sleeping. This is a state or condition of being which is incident to the real and the nominal members of the church alike, the difference being, that the same external condition covers two different states of mind.
6. “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” Midnight is the time of the end, and the midnight cry is the announcement of a new beginning. The end of the church, the end of life, the end of a particular state, is expressed in the Scriptures by night, and especially by midnight. When the midnight of the Jewish church arrived, there was a cry made of the same purport as that in the parable. John was “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare Ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” So with every one individually at the end of life. When the day of preparation is ended, the midnight cry is raised, that the bridegroom cometh, and that we must go out to meet him. The Lord comes to us by the messenger of death, and calls us to go out of the body and out of the world to meet him.
7. Awakened by the midnight cry, “then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.” When we pass out of time into eternity, we awaken to the consciousness of a new and higher state of existence. The material body and all the conditions of time and space being removed, the soul is set free; and the spiritual world, which before was a matter of faith, becomes an object of sight. What an awakening is this! Its immediate effect is to call into activity the faculties both of the will and the understanding which is expressed by the virgins arising and trimming their lamps. Arising is predicated of the will and its affections, and trimming the lamp, of the understanding and its thoughts. When, even in this life, the affections are greatly excited, they rise above their ordinary condition into one of intense feeling, and when the thoughts are powerfully directed to a subject, they concentrate their energies, and endeavor to bring increased light to bear upon it. How much more must this be the case with us all when we awake in the eternal world, and hear the midnight cry, “Prepare to meet thy God!”
8. And now the fatal truth dawns upon the minds of the foolish ones. The lamps which they have trimmed are going out, and they have no oil to feed the dying flame. “And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone (going) out.” During their abode in the world they were able to keep the lamp of faith from dying out by that fictitious love which simulates the true, i.e., the love of knowledge, that simulates the love of truth. But in the spiritual world, where earthly counterfeits are of no avail, the fictitious fountain dries up, and the lamp of faith which has no true spiritual love to support it gradually dies out. But the foolish see that the wise have oil, and they desire to receive from them what they had neglected to acquire for themselves.
9. But the wise refused to supply the need of their destitute companions. They answered, saying, “Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.” Works of supererogation find no place here. None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, that he should still live for ever” (Psa. 49:7, 9). The wise know that the greatest measure of goodness is little enough for themselves, and that, little or much, it is incapable of being imparted to another. They therefore give the sage advice, “but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.” The heavenly oil cannot be obtained as a gift, it must be bought with a price. But who are they that sell? The Divine Being himself is the only Author of love and goodness, and he calls upon all to come to him and buy. But the laws of divine order are the delegated sellers of the holy oil, and they tell us the price at which we must purchase it. We must sell all that we have, do the work of repentance, and bring forth the fruits of righteousness. These laws are holy truths, which yield the oil of love and goodness to all who obey them. We must therefore go and buy for ourselves. For although the Lord gives without money and without price, yet he cannot give of his own love except to those who relinquish their self-love to obtain it.
10. “And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.” The bridegroom’s coming during the absence of the foolish virgins, or their absence at the time of his coming, is expressive of an entire dissimilarity of state between them and him, and of their consequent unpreparedness to enter into the marriage. But the wise, who were ready, entered with him. Entering with the Lord into the marriage is not only entering into heaven as a place, but into heaven as a state, and this is a state of the internal mind, and of the conjunction of goodness and truth there; for the Lord enters with the righteous into the heaven of their inner man, and there dwells with them eternally in the union of love and faith. And when he has entered with them into this heavenly and eternal marriage, the door is effectually and for ever shut against the intrusion of all external things that can disturb their peace and happiness. But the door which shuts the righteous in shuts the unrighteous out. The door that is shut against the foolish is the door of their own minds – in particular, that by which there is a communication between the spiritual and natural minds – for the spiritual mind is man’s particular heaven. During a man’s life in the world that door is never absolutely shut – at least, never so fixedly closed as to be incapable of being opened by sincere repentance. For the Lord stands at this door and knocks; and the door at which God knocks, man must be able to open. But in the other life he can no longer do so. He who has not opened the door of his heart in this World, cannot open it in the next. And when the door that opens into the inner man is closed, the natural mind is left in darkness and death. The darkness of the outer mind, when all light from the inner mind is shut out, is the outer darkness into which the wicked are said to be cast at the judgment; and is that in which the virgins are understood to have been left, when, with extinguished lamps, they were shut out from the glory of the marriage in heaven.
11. “Afterward came also the other virgins saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.” As the desire to be happy is common to all mankind, so the desire to enter heaven is common to all who have belonged to the church, who believe heaven to be the abode of happiness, admission into which many think is all that is necessary to be made for ever happy. And if heaven be considered as the heaven of the inner man, the evil still desire that the door that gives admittance into it should be opened by the Lord even in the other life.
12. But the Lord answers the foolish virgins: “Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” God’s knowledge of the evil is like their knowledge of him. The evil may know the Lord intellectually, but they know him not savingly. So is the Lord with them. As God, the Lord knows the evil; but as Savior, be knows them not. Their names were not written in the Lamb’s book of life. They have no saving knowledge of, no saving interest in, his incarnation and redemption. Neither have they the mark of his children. The Lord’s Name is not written in their foreheads, nor in their hands, neither in their hearts, nor in their lives. How, then, can the Lord know them? Their names are not written in heaven, how can they be known there? They are not in the Lord, and the Lord is Not in them. The inevitable consequence is, that there is no ground of communion, no means of conjunction, between them nothing but the great gulf, which makes complete and eternal separation.
13. How solemn, then, is the warning, Watch therefore, for Ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh! Our happy ignorance of the time when we shall be called into the presence of the Lord, affords us the opportunity of preparing for the judgment. Our preparation must be begun when we are free from the immediate apprehension of the event which ends it. We must keep watch even when we see no signs of danger. We know that the thief will come, therefore our watching can never be in vain. And unless we are constantly watchful, we may at any time be surprised, and all our previous anxiety and labor lost. Watch, therefore. But what is the duty of a spiritual watchman? It is not to live in fear and apprehension; for this rather exposes us to danger than preserves us from it. Those, who are prepared for the intruder watch with a tranquil mind; it is the unready that need to fear the enemy. To watch, therefore, is to have set our house in order, and wait the coming of the event which We know must come. And come when he may, may the Lord then find us ready!
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