“Right in the middle of the night there arose a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Be on your way out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and put their lamps in order. The foolish said to the discreet, ‘Give us some of your oil, because our lamps are about to go out.’ The discreet answered with the words, ‘Perhaps there may not be quite enough for us and you. Be on your way, instead, to those who sell it and buy for yourselves.’”

The oil symbolizes that which keeps true Christians shining as illuminators, namely, the inspired Word of God, on which they keep a tight grip, together with the holy spirit, which helps in understanding that Word. The spiritual oil enables the discreet virgins to shed forth light in welcoming the bridegroom during the procession to the marriage feast. But the foolish virgin class do not have in themselves, in their receptacles, the needed spiritual oil. So Jesus describes what happens:

After Christ arrived in his heavenly Kingdom, the discreet virgin class of true anointed Christians awoke to their privilege of shedding light in this bedarkened world in praise of the returned Bridegroom. But those pictured by the foolish virgins were unprepared to provide this welcoming praise. So when the time comes, Christ does not open the door to the marriage feast in heaven to them. He leaves them outside in the blackness of the world’s deepest night, to perish with all other workers of lawlessness. “Keep on the watch, therefore,” Jesus concludes, “because you know neither the day nor the hour.” Matthew 25:1-13.