The Lord here addresses His disciples.
The last chapter consisted of parables spoken to the publicans and sinners that drew near to hear Him in the Presence of the murmuring Pharisees and scribes. They had for their object to show how the sovereign grace of God makes the lost to be saved; and in this the mind and temper of heaven in contrast with the self-righteous of the earth.
Now we have a weighty instruction for disciples. It is no longer sinners shown the way to God, but disciples taught the ways which become them before God, and this in view of the judgment of the world, more particularly of the elect nation. The Jews were now losing their special place. The peculiar privileges of Israel had wrought no deliverance for themselves or for the earth. Contrariwise they had caused the name of God to be blasphemed among the nations. They had been untrue to God; they had been ungracious and even unrighteous to man. The Lord accordingly sets forth in a parable the only wisdom which suits and adorns those who understand the present critical condition of the world.
“There was a certain rich man which had a steward, and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.” This had been done by man of course in general, but by the Jew especially, as being the most favored and therefore under a more stringent responsibility. He was not only a man but a steward. There was a trust reposed in the Jew beyond all others; and most justly was he accused of wasting his master's goods. What had he done for God? He ought to have been a light in the earth; he ought to have been a guide of the blind; he ought to have been a witness of the true God. But he fell into idolatry when God was displaying Himself in the temple in the Shekinah; and now he was about to reject God Himself in the person of the Messiah, His Son-a still more profound and gracious display of God. Thus he had altogether lost his opportunities, and wasted the goods of his master. He had brought shame on the law of God, and the living oracles into contempt through his own vanity and pride.
Hence, in the parable, the master called the steward, and said unto him, “How is it that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.” The Jew was about to sink down into the level of all other nations, just as in the Old Testament times we hear that God had pronounced him Lo-ammi as set forth in Hosea. Then the last hope was gone, when not only Israel was swept away but Judah became faithless to the true God. This was confirmed when the returned remnant in the days of Christ proved no better—rather worse. There was a feeble body which represented the Jews that returned from Babylon, and it might have been a nucleus for the nation; but, instead of this they were more and more hardened against God, till all ended in their rejecting the Messiah and the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
“Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.” He had no power; for the law rather provokes evil than gives good. But what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. On the other hand the Jew was ashamed to beg. He was unwilling to take the place of a lost good for nothing sinner, entirely dependent on God, looking up that God might do and give what he could not. Alas! the indomitable pride of the Jew rose up in rebellion against God's sentence of his impotence.
“I am resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship they may receive me into their houses.” This was prudent, and the precise point of earthly wisdom in the parable which the Lord commends for our admonition. Well for the Jew, had he adopted it! “He called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill and write fourscore.”
Thus plainly the steward assumes the title to sacrifice the present in view of the future. He acts with the utmost liberality with his master's goods. No doubt it cost him little or nothing. Nor is it the honesty of the step but its prudence which his master commends. He reduced the debt of the first one half, of the second considerably. He thus bound by his favor and leniency these debtors to himself; that, when he was turned out of his place, they might receive him into their houses. “And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely.” There is no ground to suppose that the parable makes light of his dishonesty. He is especially branded as the “unjust steward.” Such really was the position and character of the Jew; they were all unrighteous in the sight of God. But had they done what the steward does when about to be discharged? No! He looked forward to the future, and acted at once upon the conviction. Were they not, on the contrary, absorbed in the present? Is not this the great snare of men, and of the Jew as much as others, to sacrifice the future for the present, not the present for the future “And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the sons of this age are in respect of their own generation wiser than the sons of light.” They look onward, though it be only on the earth, for they have a keen sense of their best earthly interests; but for the soul, for heaven, for Christ's love, for God's nature and will, men are apt to allow the smallest of present advantages to blot out all just thought of the future. This is an important consideration for our hearts as disciples. What the Lord is insisting upon is that the present—so fugitive and fallacious—is not the real prize for us; that the future—the eternal future—is the thing to consider, and that it should govern the present. For we cannot walk rightly as disciples unless filled with the sense of what is to be; not carried away by what is. What is it that spoils the testimony of disciples now? That they are living chiefly for the present moment. If circumstances guide, what can one be but governed by what is wished? This ruins not merely the sinner as such, but the disciple—because he is only living for himself and the circumstances of this life. It is impossible to glorify the Lord thus. Let us hear His will and wisdom in this parable.
The unjust steward, as here portrayed, though bad in other respects, was wise in this, that he looked out steadily at the future; so that, when he lost his stewardship, he might be received kindly by the men whom he had befriended. For this it matters not that the goods were his master's rather than his own; indeed, we may see the deepest wisdom in the parable as it is, when we come to the application to our own practical conduct. For the only means whereby we can thus look out for the future is by reckoning what people—what self—would call ours, the resources of our master. We have nothing whereby to secure the future, except we use all as belonging to God. But this is the victory of faith; that instead of looking with a natural eye at the present moment, we resolutely contemplate the future, and act accordingly. Then, instead of seeking to hold fast what we have for ourselves, we learn to use all freely as in truth belonging to God. So assuredly those do who gain that which is future and eternal. Hence we find the Lord applies the illustration thus: “And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Are you thus making to yourselves friends by the mammon of unrighteousness? Instead of keeping money as something precious, treat it as what it really is.
Observe that the Lord gives here an ignominious name to the objects man covets—money, property, and everything of the kind. He calls it, not only mammon, in itself a word of ill omen, but “the mammon of unrighteousness.” He heaps plentiful disdain upon it; just as the apostle Paul counts all that man values most, even religiously, as the vilest refuse which should be kept or thrust out of doors. This is a great point; for Saul of Tarsus had not always been disposed thus to sacrifice the present in view of the future. His place as a Jew, his tribe, his family, his earthly thoughts and feelings, his personal advantages, he once estimated as much every way to cherish. But when he viewed them in the light of Christ and of that glory to which he was hastening, he counted them but dung. Who would ever think the earth at its best an object to look back on, when they have the glory before their eyes? Who would talk of getting rid of dung as a great sacrifice? Certainly everything, yea in religion too, of which men are apt most to boast, Paul calls dung; such he counted them, and so to the last, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. Was not this really to act in the wisdom of the steward, not in his injustice, but in his looking out and onward? In Paul's case it was heavenly wisdom; and the love of Christ was its source and spring.
The meaning of the words “that they may receive you” is simply “that ye may be received into everlasting habitations.” Just so the apostle says “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead.” This answers to being received into everlasting habitations when all that is of earth fails, To be received there is what should be of concern to the heart that loves the Lord and His will. There is no stress to be laid on the form of the phrase “they may receive you.” This has misled not a few. Literally this might hold good on earth, as we see in verse 4, but spiritually it simply means “That ye may be received.” Compare Luke 6:38; 12:2038Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. (Luke 6:38)
20But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? (Luke 12:20); the first wrongly rendered in the Authorized Version, the last rightly. God alone receives into heaven: no one else has a title to receive there. The expression alludes to the parable, but it is used with the utmost vagueness. It is a virtual impersonal—that reception may be given you into the everlasting tabernacles.
Let us not over-estimate these sacrifices of the present; but imitate the apostle who shows how little he values the best things that earth honors. So our Lord Jesus here says, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much,” The smallest thing affords a sphere in which one can glorify God; but there must be the disregard of the present in the light of the future. It is something to be generous in money matters; it is very much more to love the Church, and be devoted to the Master, suffering with Him and for Him. But there are countless ways in which He may be magnified. “He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” Yet, as all know little things constantly test our reality. Many a man might not be dishonest about a thing of great value, but he might make too free in what is petty. There cannot be a greater fallacy than decrying a severe judgment formed about moral failure in matters of little pecuniary value, as it were making much ado about nothing; whereas it is in small things often that a man's true character is best known.
“If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” The true riches cannot be entrusted where the heart has been false in that which is so trifling in the Lord's eyes as “the unrighteous mammon.” Nor is it only that present honor and riches are not “the true,” but the mere counters of the hour; there is the further consideration: “if ye have not been faithful in that which is another's who shall give unto you that which is your own?” Present property is not strictly one's own. The whole course of the Christian here is really that of one acting for another, even Christ. We are servants in trust for the Lord. The Christian ought to regard his time, his money, his abilities, his property, as the goods of his Master; and his business is to serve his Master, faithfully carrying out His will. This is of immense importance; because covetousness consists in endeavoring to make earthly things your own which God has not given. The wisdom of the disciple is to count what appears to belong to him as really his Master's.
Now it is easy to be generous with another's money. Count your riches another's and act with all possible liberality in faith of the future. We should thus judge by faith what we have to be Christ's and then be as free with it, as the unjust steward was with his master's goods. Those who enter heaven are not men hard and grasping as if by possessing more than is needed a man's life consists of his substance. No doubt the natural spirit of man cleaves to what it counts its own (and perhaps particularly of the Jew), as if the present moment were of all importance. But the true wisdom is to be like the steward in his steady resolve to secure the future by acting freely with what belonged to his lord. When the glory comes, we shall have what is our own. What a wonderful truth! That the wide scene of Christ's glory in which we shall reign with Him will be ours. Then we shall bear power and glory without abusing it; now we can only safely use what we have by counting it Christ's and using it according to His will.
“No servant can serve two masters.” If I have not Christ for my Master, I shall make myself so; and the moment we set up our own will, we find ourselves in Satan's service, for the fallen will is Satan's slave. “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will cling to one and scorn the other.” In the first we find the stronger case. With a man warm in his feelings everything is apt to be extreme. The other case supposes a person of feeble character. But in one way or another, whatever the character, to attempt this double service is fatal. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Alas! mammon is the real ecumenical idol; it is the object of widest homage—not only in the world, but, grievous to add, in christendom. By its own confession (witness the popular prize of that title) mammon now reigns supreme in the hearts of men generally throughout these lands professing the name of the Crucified, who most of all despised and denounced it,