Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. But at midnight there was a shout, “Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those virgins rose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the prudent, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the prudent answered, saying, “No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.” And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. And later the other virgins also came, saying, “Lord, lord, open up for us.” But he answered and said, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.” Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour. (25:1-13)

Here Jesus gives another of the several warning parables in the Olivet discourse (see 24:43, 45-51) that illustrate His repeated and specific declarations that the exact time of His second coming will not be known in advance. It will be at a time when it is least expected (24:36, 42, 44, 50; 25:13). As discussed earlier, the general time will be known by those who heed the birth pain signs He has given (24:4-29), because that is the purpose of those signs (v. 33). But the precise time of His personal appearing in power and great glory (24:30) will not be known in advance even by the heavenly angels. It was not known by Jesus Himself during His incarnation (v. 36).

The parable of the ten virgins is given to accentuate the incalculable importance of being spiritually prepared to meet Christ when He returns to earth, because after He appears, unbelievers who are then alive will have no further chance for salvation.

The setting for this parable was a typical Jewish wedding ceremony. In Israel, as well as in most other parts of the ancient Near East, a wedding was the most celebrated social event. Virtually everyone in a village or in a neighborhood community of a large city would be involved as a participant or as a guest. It was a time of great happiness and festivity.

A Jewish marriage consisted of three parts, the first of which was the engagement. Most often arranged by the fathers of the bride and groom, the engagement amounted to a contract of marriage in which the couple had little, if any, direct involvement. The second stage was the betrothal, the marriage ceremony at which the bride and groom exchanged vows in the presence of family and friends. At that point the couple was considered married, and their relationship could be broken only by formal divorce, just as if they had been married for many years. If the husband happened to die during the betrothal, the bride was considered a widow, although the marriage had not been physically consummated and the two had never lived together. The betrothal could last for many months, sometimes a year, during which time the groom would establish himself in a business, trade, or farming and would make provision for a place for the couple to live.

At the end of the betrothal period the wedding feast would be held, and it was in the feast and its related celebrations that the entire community became involved. This festivity, which could last a week, began with the groom’s coming with his groomsmen to the bride’s house, where her bridesmaids were waiting with her. Together the bride and groom and their attendants would then parade through the streets proclaiming that the wedding feast was about to begin. The procession was generally begun at night, and lamps or torches were used by the wedding party to illumine their way and to attract attention.

At the end of the feast period, a close friend of the groom, who acted much like a best man, would take the hand of the bride and place it in the hand of the groom, and the couple would for the first time be left alone together. The marriage would be consummated and the couple would henceforth live together in their new home. It was that third part of the marriage rite that Jesus used as the framework for this parable.

As the parable unfolds, Jesus focuses first on the bridesmaids, then on the bridegroom, and finally on the warning that the parable is given to reinforce.

THE BRIDESMAIDS

Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. (25:1-5)

The world was not ready to accept Christ when He came to earth the first time, although His coming had been clearly and repeatedly predicted by the Old Testament prophets. The Messiah was to have a forerunner who would be a voice crying in the wilderness, and John the Baptist was that forerunner. He was to be born in Bethlehem, the son of a virgin, and in the line of David. Jesus uniquely and exclusively met those qualifications. He was to minister in Galilee of the Gentiles and exhibit great miraculous power, and He did those things. Nevertheless, when “He came to His own, . . . those who were His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11).

Preparation for His second coming will be more decisive and consequential than preparation for His first, because those who rejected Him during His incarnation had continued opportunity to be saved as long as they were alive. Doubtlessly many of those who cried out for Jesus’ crucifixion in place of Barabbas or who voted against Him in the Sanhedrin were later convicted to turn to Him as Lord and Savior. But there will be no such continued opportunity when Jesus comes again. When He appears then, the opportunity for salvation and citizenship in the kingdom of heaven will be past.

Then refers to the time of Christ’s unexpected appearing in power and glory, about which He was speaking. At that time, He said, spiritual preparedness for entrance into the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to the preparedness of a certain ten virgins who served as bridesmaids at a wedding.

As with all of Jesus’ parables, the message of this one is simple. It is meant to illustrate truths He has just been teaching: that He is coming again, that He will then judge sinners and reward the righteous, that people must be ready, and that His coming will be unexpected. The central truth is that once He has arrived, there will be no second chance and the opportunity for salvation will be gone forever.

The parable is not an allegory, as many interpreters have claimed. Every small facet of the story does not carry a mystical meaning that is subject to speculation and imagination. Nor does every part of the parable have application to Christian living, as devotionalists frequently maintain. Still less is the parable a confused and clumsy teaching effort on Jesus’ part, as some liberal interpreters suggest. The fact that details such as the bride’s identity and the place where the virgins slept are not mentioned has no bearing on the point Jesus was making. For His purpose, the story was clear and complete.

There may be significance in the fact that there were ten virgins, because Jews considered ten to be a number representing completion. According to Josephus, a minimum of ten men was required to celebrate the Passover. The same number was required to establish a synagogue and to give an official wedding blessing. The attendants were virgins because it was the custom of that day that bridesmaids be chaste young women who had never been married.

Although the English lamps is derived from lampas, in New Testament times that Greek term was used primarily of torches, as it is translated in John 18:3, where it denotes the torches carried by the soldiers who arrested Jesus. Another word, luchnos, was generally used for a lamp. The torches used by wedding attendants consisted of tightly wrapped cloths attached to long poles. In addition to lighting the way for the procession, the lamps, or torches, served to identify members of the wedding party, marking them off as special participants. It was therefore important that each of the bridesmaids have a torch.

To meet translates hupantsis, a noun that literally means “a meeting” and was often used of the official welcoming of a dignitary. In the context of Jesus’ teaching about His return and of the parable’s illustrating the coming of His kingdom, the bridegroom is obviously Christ Himself. The ten virgins are professed believers in Him, and the lamps, or torches, symbolize their outward identity with His church. The torches also represent expectation of His imminent return, the preparation and readiness of the bridesmaids to meet the divine bridegroom when He comes to gather them for His wedding feast, the kingdom of heaven.

The ten bridesmaids represent professed disciples of Christ who claim to love the prospect of His appearing and who demonstrate outward readiness for entrance into His kingdom. In appearance the ten were indistinguishable. They were all dressed appropriately in wedding garments and all had the required torch to carry in the wedding procession. But they were not truly alike, which is the point of the parable, because they were not all prepared—five of them were foolish, and five were prudent.

The evidence that some of the bridesmaids were unprepared despite their outward appearance was the fact that they took no oil with them. They carried torches that looked exactly like those of the others, but they had nothing to burn in them, nothing that would give light and significance. A torch without fuel is obviously worthless, and a profession of faith in Jesus Christ without a saving relationship to Him is infinitely more worthless, because one is left in spiritual darkness.

The prudent bridesmaids, however, took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Their outward profession was substantiated by inward possession. They had the oil of preparedness, namely, the reality of the light of the saving grace of God within them. The oil is similar to the wedding garments in Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast that a king gave for his son. The man without the proper wedding clothes who attempted to crash the celebration was thrown out into the darkness (Matt. 22:11-13). The king had invited everyone in his realm to the feast, regardless of social standing, wealth, or character. He made every effort to see that no one was excluded, sending his servants into every obscure part of the country (vv. 9-10). The only condition for attending the feast was the wearing of the wedding clothes provided by the king, symbolizing the divinely bestowed grace apart from which no person can come to God. Because that presumptuous, self-satisfied man would not allow himself to be attired in the king’s clothing, he was rejected.

Like that man without proper wedding clothes, five of the bridesmaids were without proper torches. They had a form of godliness but had no spiritual life or power because they did not belong to God (cf. 2 Tim. 3:5). They were committed to Jesus Christ religiously, intellectually, socially, and no doubt emotionally. But they were not committed to Him in their hearts because their hearts had not been regenerated by His saving grace. They had the appearance of faith, but it was dead (cf. James 2:17). They were in darkness, not light.

The warning Jesus gave in this parable is repeated over and over in the gospels, a continually recurring theme of His teaching. He warns that professed believers are like wheat and tares; some are genuine and some are false. They are compared to various kinds of soils, some of which give initial evidence of productivity but only one of which genuinely receives the seed of the gospel and allows it to take root and grow. It was not a popular message in Jesus’ day and is not a popular message today, even in many evangelical churches.

No conclusion regarding the number who will be saved can be drawn from the fact that the bridesmaids were divided evenly between the foolish and the prudent. But the proportion suggests, however, that a large part of the professing church does not belong to God. And the situation is obviously pervasive or Jesus would not have spent so much time warning about it. It existed during Jesus’ earthly ministry, in apostolic times, and throughout the church until the present. And it is evident from this parable that it will also exist at the end of the Tribulation.

The statement that the bridegroom was delaying reinforces Jesus’ teaching that His second coming will be unexpected. It will not be delayed from the divine perspective but from the human. Because so much time will have elapsed since His first coming, most people, including many professed Christians, will be carrying on business as usual when He appears (see Matt. 24:38, 43). Jesus may also have been giving the disciples a hint that He would not be returning as soon as they anticipated (see Luke 19:11). But the main thrust of the parable, like the main thrust of the entire discourse, is directed to the generation who will be living during the latter part of the Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:34). Even the short period of time that will elapse between the signs of His coming and His actual appearance will cause some people to think the Lord is delaying His return.

That idea is supported by the bridesmaids’ becoming drowsy and falling to sleep. They were expecting the bridegroom’s coming and were gathered together awaiting Him, all in seeming preparedness. There is no indication in this context that sleep represents laziness or faithlessness. Even the prudent bridesmaids fell asleep, illustrating still again that no one, not even faithful saints, will know exactly when Christ will appear. The sleep of the foolish bridesmaids might suggest their false confidence, whereas the sleep of the prudent ones could suggest their genuine security and rest in the Lord.

In one sense, life should go on much as usual for the believer who eagerly anticipates the Lord’s return. Readiness for His coming is not evidenced by going apart somewhere to wait idly for Him but by being about His business with enthusiastic dedication. Even the most ardent service of the Lord does not exclude such normal activities as eating, drinking, laboring, and sleeping. Therefore, when Christ comes, “there shall be two men in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left” (Matt. 24:40-41).

It will not be their common participation in the normal activities of human life that will distinguish the prepared from the unprepared when the Lord returns, but the supernatural, internal participation in the life of God that only believers will possess.

The nineteenth-century Bible commentator William Arnot observed: “There is not a more grand or a more beautiful spectacle on earth than a great assembly reverently worshipping God together. No line visible to human eye divides into two parts the goodly company; yet the goodly company is divided into two parts. The Lord reads our character and marks our place. The Lord knows them that are his, and them that are not his, in every assembly of worshippers” (The Parables of Our Lord [London: Nelson, 1869], p. 290).

The Lord can look down on every group of bridesmaids, as it were, and accurately judge between those who are unbelieving and deceived about their readiness, and therefore foolish, and those who genuinely believe and are therefore wise. But when He appears in power and glory at His second coming, the difference will be apparent for all to see. The torches of believers will shine brightly, but those of unbelievers will not even burn.

THE BRIDEGROOM

But at midnight there was a shout, “Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those virgins rose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the prudent, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the prudent answered, saying, “No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.” And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. And later the other virgins also came, saying, “Lord, lord, open up for us.” But he answered and said, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.” (25:6-12)

At midnight most people are typically deep in sleep, just as the bridesmaids were, and the bridegroom’s arrival at that time underscores still again the unexpectedness of Christ’s return. The children of Israel began their journey out of Egypt at midnight (Ex. 12:29), and rabbinical tradition held that the Messiah would come to earth at that hour.

All of the bridesmaids knew the groom would be coming soon and they were gathered at the bride’s house waiting for Him. They were well aware that the engagement and betrothal periods were over and that the final festivities were about to begin. But they did not know precisely when He would arrive until they were awakened with the shout, “Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.”

In the same way, people living during the end of the Tribulation will have seen all the signs of His coming and will know that His appearing is imminent. But they will not know the moment of His arrival until they see Him “coming on the clouds of the sky” (Matt. 24:30).

As soon as the bridegroom’s presence was announced, all those virgins rose, and trimmed their lamps. Trimming the lamps, or torches, probably amounted to cutting off any ragged edges of the cloth and then saturating it with oil to make it ready for lighting. At that moment the foolish bridesmaids realized their predicament: they had no oil. It was not that they had been unaware of their lack of oil but that they were not concerned enough about it to acquire it before the bridegroom’s arrival. Perhaps they thought they could quickly run down to the oil shop anytime they wanted and secure what they needed in plenty of time. Or perhaps they thought they could borrow oil if the shop were closed, the recourse they now tried to take. No reason is given for their negligence, no doubt because the reason is irrelevant. Because they had ample warning that the bridegroom was coming and had ample opportunity to be totally prepared for His arrival, nothing could excuse their failure.

When the Lord appears at the end of the Tribulation, many professed Christians will frantically realize their lack of spiritual life. They will not have heeded Paul’s advice to the Corinthian church: “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Cor. 13:5). They will be self-deceived, perhaps believing that mere association with the things and the people of Christ has made them a part of Christ’s true church. Some may think that being born into a Christian family will make them a member of God’s family. We know with certainty that many will be trusting in their good works, saying to Christ, “on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then [He] will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’ ” (Matt. 7:22-23).

When the foolish said to the prudent, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out,” . . . the prudent answered, saying, “No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.” When the foolish bridesmaids apparently tried to light their dry torches, the cloth would only smolder and keep going out. And by then it was too late for help.

The point of the prudent bridesmaids’ response was not that they were selfish and calloused but that they were helpless to provide oil for their foolish friends. Their own oil was not . . . enough to share with anyone else; it was necessary that each buy her own.

Just as one person cannot transfer part of his physical life to another person, neither can he share spiritual life, which is indivisible and unique to each person who has it. Like physical life, spiritual life is a direct, individual gift from God and is nontransferable. The saved cannot themselves become saviors. Those who receive grace cannot impart it. When the call to the judgment seat of God comes to an unbeliever, whether at death or at the Lord’s coming, the intercession of all the saints in heaven and on earth could do him absolutely no good. After that time there is no second chance, no purgatory, no hope.

Salvation cannot be bought, and the buying of oil from the dealers refers simply to securing salvation from its only source, God. It is bought in the sense that Isaiah used the term when he wrote, “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (Isa. 55:1). The same idea is used by Jesus in His parables of the treasure found in a field and of the pearl of great price (Matt. 13:44-46). In both cases, the discoverer sold everything he possessed in order to obtain that which was valued about all else. In that sense, the price for salvation is the entire relinquishment of one’s own merit, which has no value in itself but must be surrendered because it is an absolute barrier to God’s grace.

Paul declared with the deepest conviction and sincerity, “I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites” (Rom. 9:3-4). He was willing to give up his own salvation and become forever separated from Christ if that could somehow save his fellow Jews. But he knew such a thing was impossible. They could not come to God apart from their own acceptance of His Son as Lord and Savior. The apostle could proclaim the gospel fully and faithfully, as he always did (see Acts 20:27), but he could not dispense the grace he had received.

Stressing the necessity for individual appropriation of the gospel, Jesus said,

Everyone who comes to Me, and hears My words, and acts upon them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood rose, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard, and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house upon the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great. (Luke 6:47-49)

People who build their lives on any other foundation than Jesus Christ are doomed to destruction. They do not have the necessary grace, imputed righteousness, resident holiness of God, or transformed character to counter the destructiveness of sin, whose ultimate consequence is death. In short, they have no spiritual life and therefore no eternal hope. They may feel happy about Jesus, admire His teachings, and enjoy the fellowship of His people. They may look as prepared for His coming as do true believers, having torches like the rest, but they have no oil with which to light them.

While they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. The tragedy, of course, was that there was then no more opportunity to make the purchase, and the search for the oil merchant was in vain, because all the shops were closed.

In another of His many illustrations about lost opportunity for salvation, Jesus said,

Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, “Lord, open up to us!” then He will answer and say to you, “I do not know where you are from.” Then you will begin to say, “We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets”; and He will say, “1 tell you, I do not know where you are from; depart from Me, all you evildoers.” There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth there when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being cast out. (Luke 13:25-28)

Therefore when the foolish virgins returned from their unsuccessful search for oil and came saying, “Lord, lord, open up for us,” the bridegroom answered from within the house, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.” Those five were sham attendants who had never belonged to the wedding party but had managed to dress and act like true bridesmaids. Now the pretense was over, and their sinful, foolish character was exposed.

It will be a moment of sheer terror when unbelievers face a holy God and realize with absolute certainty that they are eternally lost. That must have been the feeling of the people of Noah’s day when they saw the flood waters rise above their heads and knew the door to the ark was unalterably shut.

Although the parable of the ten virgins illustrates the time of Christ’s second coming, its truths apply to an unbeliever’s facing God at death in any age. At that moment the opportunity for salvation will be past and all hope gone forever.

THE WARNING

Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour. (25:13)

For the fifth time in the discourse (see 24:36, 42, 44, 50) Jesus called on those who will be alive during the last days of the Tribulation to be alert, because they will not know the day nor the hour of His appearing. They would know its nearness by the catastrophic signs, but the exact day and the exact hour they would not know.

“Be on guard,” Jesus had said in the Temple on the previous day, “that your hearts may not be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day come on you suddenly like a trap; for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth. But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:34-36).

In his epic poem Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson used figures from the parable of the ten virgins in a song directed to the wicked Queen Guinevere, who learned too late the cost of sin:

Late, late, so late, and dark the night and chill!

Late, late, so late, but we can enter still.

Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now.

No light had we, for that we do repent;

And, learning this, the Bridegroom will relent.

Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now.

No light, so late, and dark and chill the night!

O let us in, that we may find the light.

Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now

Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet?

O let us in, tho’ late, to kiss His feet!

No, no, too late! Ye cannot enter now.