When the cry was heard all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. When life is closing behind, and eternity opening before us, we are all aroused. Every one who has a lamp hastens then to examine its condition and stimulate its flame: all who have borne Christ’s name search themselves to see whether they are ready for his presence. There is no visible distinction at this stage between those who have only a name that they live, and those who have attained also the new nature: all bestir themselves to examine the ground of their hope, and the state of their preparation.
At this point the decisive difference which existed in secret long before emerges into view. The foolish virgins, having no oil in separate vessels, could not keep the flame of their lamps any longer alive. Both classes had a profession; the formalists had a profession and nothing more. Finding in the hour of their extremity that they had neglected their souls while the day of grace was running, they make a piteous appeal to believing neighbours for help, “Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out.” How true to nature is this picture! He who draws it knows “what is in man.” How fondly the empty, in such a crisis, lean on the full. Alas, even the full is but a little vessel filled by Christ. That vessel is not a spring; this saved sinner is not a saviour of sinners. He has gotten from his Lord all that himself needs; but he cannot supply a neighbour’s want. Brother, if the call come to you while you are not in Christ reconciled and renewed, though all the saints in heaven and earth stood weeping at your bedside they could not save you. If you neglect the Son of God while he stands at the door and knocks, in vain will you apply to a godly neighbour, after the day of grace is done.
Taking into view generally the intimate relations which subsisted among that group of maidens, and in particular the unselfish tenderness which must have characterized the wiser five, we should expect to learn that they had generously resolved, at all hazards, to share their oil to the last drop with their unfortunate companions. But this, though consonant with nature in the external body of the parable, would have been incongruous with the spiritual truth which the parable has been framed to convey. In the structure of the parable provision is made for defining sharply the spiritual lesson, even at the expense of some measure of harshness left on one feature of the story. True Christians cannot impart a share of the grace that dwells in their own hearts to deluded formalists in their departing hour. On the spiritual side such a distinction cannot be made, and therefore the Master represents the wise virgins as distinctly and peremptorily refusing to share their store of oil with their improvident companions.[52]
“Go to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.” The advice was the best that in the circumstances could be given. The mention of “them that sell” calls up all the scene of the preceding day. Oil was plentiful in the town; the five wise virgins having gone by daylight to the stores with their vessels, had experienced no difficulty in obtaining a supply. The same method was open to the rest: they failed to secure a store in the daytime, and then they tried in vain to make good the deficiency at midnight, after the merchants had retired to rest. This feature of the parable intimates that those who are found destitute at the coming of the Lord, enjoyed their day and their opportunity, but neglected them: they allowed the day of mercy to run out, and cried frantically for mercy after the merciful Saviour had wearied waiting and gone away.
While the foolish virgins are absent on this errand, the bridegroom comes up. They that are ready go in with him to the wedding, and the door is shut. Christ calls away his own at some midnight hour when they are off their guard; but though surprised, they are not hurt. The five wise virgins were asleep when the approach of the bridegroom was announced, and yet they were ready to meet him. Their safety resulted not from their fluttering activity at that moment in the trimming of the lamps, but from their wise foresight on the preceding day. The salvation of a soul depends not on frightened earnestness in the moment of departure, but on faith’s calm closing with Christ, before the moment of departure comes. In the vessels of the wise there was store of oil, and it was easy for them at any time or place to refresh the fading fire of the torches which they bore. Deep in the hearts of those disciples dwelt the spirit of Christ, and the light of their profession which had shone brightly in a time of ease, burst into greater brightness in the hour of their extremity. An abundant entrance was administered to them,—an entrance into the joy of their Lord. The door was shut! Suffering, sorrowing believers, do you hear the clang of that closing gate! Be of good cheer, disciples; when your Lord and you go in, the door is shut behind you, and nothing shall enter that defileth. Heaven is for the holy, and for them alone; if it were open for all it would not be heaven.
The foolish virgins went away after midnight to seek a supply of oil; but we are not informed whether or not they obtained it. The omission is significant; this word of Jesus gives no encouragement to delay in the matter of the soul’s salvation; not a ray of hope is permitted to burst through the gloom that shrouds these hapless wanderers. The sole lesson of the parable is a simple, sublime warning that sinners should close with Christ now, lest they should be left to invoke his name in vain at the hour of their departure. This parable is a voice from an open heaven promising all grace now, but refusing to promise any then.
They came afterwards to the door and cried bitterly for admission, but the Lord answered from within, I know you not. As the omniscient he knew them; he was acquainted with all their ways. He knew them, for they had crucified him afresh by their neglect. But he did not know them, as he knew the poor bashful woman who crept near in the crowd and by her touch drew saving grace from his overflowing heart; he did not know them by feeling their weight, like John’s, leaning on his breast.[53]
After the parable is finished the marrow of its meaning is given in one short sentence by the Lord: “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” Let us take heed here, lest after all the pains we have bestowed on this scripture, we should miss the portion for ourselves with which it is charged. This parable was not spoken for the purpose of kindling an agony of repentance in the hour of death. It describes a sudden call, and an eager upstarting, and a fruitless effort, and a right prayer uttered too late, and final rejection, and a fearful doom,—but it reveals this dreadful close of a life, in order to show us what we should be and do before the close of life comes on. The end of the foolish five is unveiled in order that we may be wise unto salvation in the beginning of our days. The lighthouse reared on a sunken reef flings its lurid glare far through a stormy air and over a stormy sea, not to teach the mariner how to act with vigour when he is among the breakers, but to warn him back, so that he may never fall among the breakers at all. Even so, the end of the lost is revealed in the word of God, not to urge us to utter a very loud cry when the door is shut, but to compel us to enter now while the door is open.
“Behold I stand at the door and knock.” His word to-day runs, Soul, soul, open for me: if that tender plea is echoed back from your closed heart in a beseeching Saviour’s face to-day, your cry, “Lord, Lord, open to me” will come back to you in empty echoes from a closed heaven.
The foolish five came to the door only a little too late, but it was not a little damage that they suffered thereby. In the matter of fleeing to take refuge in Christ, to be late by a little is the loss of all.
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