otten
their life, through the Spirit's ministry, "hid with Christ in God."
This will more fully appear as we proceed stage by stage with the
interpretation.

"The bridegroom tarried." For a special purpose, the Lord represents
that the bridegroom lingered till a much later hour than that at which
the virgins expected him. The disciples, during their Master's ministry
and long afterwards, cherished a belief that the coming of the Lord and
the end of the world would take place in their own generation. This
expectation was, in its literal sense, incorrect; but it could not be
corrected by an explicit announcement that for more than a thousand
years all things should continue as they were; for such an intimation
would have destroyed the expectant watchfulness which in the
circumstances was salutary and even necessary. By that watchfulness the
Christians of the immediately succeeding generation escaped the
disasters which befell the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem, and by
it believers in subsequent times were kept more loose to the world and
more close to Christ. In this parable, however, and elsewhere in the
Scriptures, prophecies are recorded, which events subsequently
explained,--prophecies which showed the Christians of a later age that
while their Lord desires to keep them in an expectant attitude through
all generations, his intention from the beginning was to permit a long
period to intervene between his ascension and his return. The
preparation which Christ desires and true Christians attain, pertains
more to the inner spirit than to the anticipation of the external
advent.

While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. At this
point many interpreters endeavour to grasp a lesson regarding the
tendency of even true disciples to slumber sinfully at their post, like
their worldly neighbours. The lesson is in itself good, and comes
readily to hand, but it is not taught in this text. Calvin has correctly
conceived and clearly expressed the meaning of the sleep that oppressed
the waiting virgins; it intimates the necessity that lies on all of
going down into the ordinary affairs of this life. Disciples in the
body cannot be occupied always and only with the expectation of their
Lord's appearing. Sleep and food, family and business, make demands on
them as well as on others,--demands which they cannot and should not
resist. If the coming of the bridegroom be delayed till midnight, the
virgins must slum