AT 24:42{AT 25:30{In this portion we have exhortations to the disciples, and the responsibility of Christians during the absence of the Lord. The general result for Christianity is developed at the end of chapter 24. All depended on the living expectation of the Lord. If these should fail, the servant would take the mastery over his companions in service, and would tyrannize over them; he would join himself to the world, in order to enjoy its fleshly delights: the consequence would be that he would be cut off, counted among the hypocrites, and cast outside. This gives occasion to more precise details as to the condition and the responsibility in which Christians are placed during His absence, and which we will examine.
CHAPTER 25. The coming of the Savior gives occasion to look at Christians as ten virgins gone forth to meet the Bridegroom, The true force of the word is that the kingdom of the heavens will then have become like to ten virgins, thus gone out. Nothing more solemn and more instructive than this parable as to the state of Christians. It is a question of the return of the Savior and of that which will happen to Christians, to the members of the kingdom, at that epoch. If the servant said, “My Master delayeth His coming," it would be his ruin, the demonstration of the state of his heart. But in fact the Bridegroom would delay; and this is what has happened.
It is of moment to remark the mutual relationships in which the personages of the parable are found. It is not a question here of the church as bride. If one would absolutely think of a bride, it is Jerusalem on earth. Christians are regarded as virgins gone out to meet Him who was the Bridegroom. The Jewish, remnant does not go out. When Jesus shall come again, it will be found there on earth in the relationships in which it will have remained here below. The Bridegroom tarried, and the virgins, the wise like the foolish, went asleep, no longer expecting the Bridegroom. Furthermore they go in somewhere in order to sleep more conveniently. Nevertheless there are of them such as have oil in their vessels with their lamps: it is divine grace which sustains the lamp of the Christian profession. They are not surprised. It is a question of those who make profession.
The moral state of the kingdom consists in this, that all are gone asleep: the coming of the Lord is forgotten by all. At an unforeseen moment the cry makes itself heard, " Behold the Bridegroom!" God re-awakens souls that they may think of it; but what a testimony rendered to the state of Christians! That which should have characterized them, the thing for which, as a living state of the soul of the Christian here below, one had been converted (according as it is written, " How ye turned to God.... to wait for His Son from heaven "), has been entirely forgotten. They were no longer waiting for the Lord; and though there was oil in the vessels of some, the lamps were not trimmed. It is the soul that awaits the Lord which watches to be ready to receive Him. Their lamps shone no longer suitably. There might be smoke and ashes; the fire was perhaps not extinct; but there was little light, enough however just to manifest negligence and slumbering. Where was then the love for the Savior, when all forgot Him, no more occupied with His return? Fidelity and love to the Savior were equally at fault.
One is asked sometimes how it has happened that those so excellent men of past times had no knowledge of this truth-were not animated by this. The answer is easy: the wise virgins slept like the foolish. Waiting for the Savior was lost in the church. And, mark it well, it is the cry, " Behold the Bridegroom!" which awakens from their sleep slumbering Christians. One must not fall under illusions: the proper state of Christians depends on this expectation: " Ye yourselves [it is said], like unto men that wait for their lord." Without doubt the new nature that the Christian receives produces essentially the same fruits, whatever be the circumstances in which it is found; but also the character is formed by the object that governs the heart; and there is nothing which detaches from the world like waiting for the Lord, nothing which searches the heart like this expectation, in order that there be nothing that suits not His presence. Nothing consequently introduces like it the feelings of Jesus in the judgment that it conveys on good and on evil; nothing like it for cherishing affection for Jesus in the motives which govern our conduct. Remark also that in reality it is the same waiting for the Savior, the fact of watching in waiting for Him, which is in question here; not at all the service that we have to accomplish during His absence. Service and the responsibility that attaches to it are found in the following parable (chap. 25:14-30).
The same distinctions are found in Luke 12 In verse 37 it is said, " Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching;" then the recompense is that they will enjoy the blessings of heaven and that Jesus will gird Himself to make them happy. Afterward (ver. 43) it is a question of the service to render during His absence; and then the reward is the inheritance.
Returning to Matt. 25:1-131Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 2And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 3They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: 4But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 5While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. 6And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. 7Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. 8And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. 9But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. 10And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. 11Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. 12But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. 13Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. (Matthew 25:1‑13), I think the fact that the other virgins had to go away to buy oil means only that it was too late to have part with the Bridegroom, and that the faithful virgins could not then communicate grace. One must have it in time for the service itself. I will add that I do not think the foolish virgins were saved souls. The Bridegroom says to them, " I know you not "—what Jesus could hardly say to those who were His own.
In the parable of the talents (vs. 14-30) it is a question of service. The Lord goes away and confides to His servants a part of His goods to trade with them. They are the spiritual gifts that the Lord Jesus has imparted to those that followed Him when He went away. It is no question of that which providence has given us, nor of all men, but of the servants of Jesus, and of that which He has given them at the moment of His going away. There is a certain difference between this parable and what is found in Luke 19 In this latter passage the same amount is given to each of the servants; human responsibility enters into it far more in the thoughts of the Spirit of God; also the reward is proportioned to what love gained. Here the amount is according to divine wisdom, in reference to the vessel to which it is confided; and each faithful workman is equally called to enter into the joy of his Lord; he is set over many things, but he enters into the joy of his Lord. Faithful to Jesus according to what was confided to him, Jesus makes him enjoy His own joy. The principle of work is the confidence that the workman has in the Master, and the spiritual intelligence which that confidence gives him.
The talents had not been entrusted to them for doing nothing with: in that case the Master might have kept them to Himself. They understood well that they had been put into their hands in order that they might traffic with them, for the Master during His absence, and they employed those talents, those spiritual gifts, for the Master's service. Their heart knew that Master, desired His profit and honor, sought no other authority or warrant for work than the fact that He had confided those gifts to them, and the zeal of a heart made confident through the knowledge that they had of Him. What the third servant lacked was exactly this true knowledge of the Master. In his eyes He was an austere man. And, mark well, when there is not the true knowledge of God as He is revealed in Christ, one has always an entirely false idea of Him. The heart ever betrays itself by the idea that one forms of God, and unbelief always makes of the true God a picture from which the heart revolts. Knowledge of the rights of God as well as of His love, is lacking. If God were such as unbelief imagines and His authority were recognized, one would have acted accordingly; but when His love is unknown, His authority is despised. God only reveals Himself in Christ, in Christ alone can He be really known.
The case of the unfaithful servant marks also distinctly the difference between gifts and grace, and the effect of grace in the heart. We have no practical example as to this in the New Testament, yet the principle is clearly established in Corinthians 13. In the Old Testament we have examples of the Spirit's power without conversion taking place-far from it indeed. This is what also explains Heb. 6 Here sloth and unfaithfulness flow from the ignorance in which the servant is concerning his Master's character, as well as from the false and guilty idea that he had formed of Him.
Let us remark in our two parables an important fact which we shall find again elsewhere. The Lord, in the teachings which relate to His coming, says nothing which can give one occasion to think that it must necessarily be delayed beyond the life of those whom He addresses. Thus the virgins who slept are the same who awoke; the servants who received the talents are the same as those whose work is taken account of at the end. We know that many generations have appeared and disappeared since the departure of the Savior, but He did not wish that they should be expecting beforehand any delay. In the same way when He wishes to give the history of the church to the close, the Spirit of God takes up seven churches which existed at that moment in order to describe in seven epochs the great features of that history; so that, although we may recognize now these features and these periods, there was nothing when the Apocalypse was written which announced in a formal manner any continuance of the church on earth.
There is another remark I have to make. What is said in. verse 28 seems to me to state a great principle. Those who possess Christian privileges without any living enjoyment of them, without truly knowing the Lord Jesus Himself, lose all that they have (this answers to Heb. 6); whilst those who are faithful to the light they possess acquire more. This, too, is the explanation given in verse 29. The judgment upon the wicked servant is executed in verse 30.