I will consider the pair of parables[228] just mentioned, before the discourse in which the saying first occurs, although they stand later in the history, because they shew most clearly what Christ's meaning was. In both parables we remark the following points.
(1) The rewards are proportioned, not to the amount of the original arbitrary gifts, which, I suppose, stand for natural advantages, but to [pg 317] what has been obtained by turning these gifts to account.
(2) What the servants are recompensed for is administrative efficiency. This shews that our Lord had in view some active service in God's cause and not internal self-improvement alone.
(3) The rewards are not such that the servants can use them for their own gratification, they are not given money for their own use, but they are promoted to wider governments. He who has made five talents is given the rule of a larger province. And the servants are not so promoted merely for their own sake, the general welfare of the ruler's domain is the paramount object, and in order to promote this those who have proved themselves the ablest are given the amplest charge.
In the parable of the talents, the “man going into a far country” entrusts to his servants sums varying in amount, “to each according to his several abilities.” With these they are to carry on business on his behalf during his absence. One of them, he who was of the lowest capacity, received only one talent—with him I am not now concerned; but the rest double the capital which had been put into their hands and all of these, those who have made two talents as well as those who have made five receive the same reward. To each is said “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee [pg 318] over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Here the rewards are not in proportion to the original gifts, which were as five and two, but are in proportion to the rate of profit, which was in both cases the same. All have shewn the same diligence and all are recompensed alike.
The same principle appears in the parable of the pounds. The like sum, one pound, is entrusted to each servant; and the difference in the returns, one making ten pounds and the other five, is wholly due to the difference of judgment or diligence in using the money. The reward is exactly proportional to the amount which each servant has earned.
The greater charge is given to him who had made ten pounds—not purely as a reward, but because he has shewn himself twice as well adapted to govern the ten cities as the servant who had only made five pounds.
A few words in the parable of the pounds shew how well our Lord knew what the prevalent notion about equality was. The notion I mean that God must have intended men to share all advantages alike. When the pound is taken from him who has left it unused and given to him who has turned his own pound into ten, the bystanders in the parable, who, we may suppose, represent common current opinion, are surprised, not at the pound being taken away, but at its being so bestowed as to augment the inequality. They would [pg 319] have looked to see it go to him who had made five pounds, so as to bring the conditions of the two servants more nearly to a par. They say, “Lord, he hath ten pounds,” implying “Why give more to him who has so much already?” Men are jealous of God's prodigality in reward, although such reward may not diminish what they obtain themselves. The master in this parable makes no reply to the bystanders, and our Lord concludes the parable with the moral,
“I say unto you, that unto every one that hath shall be given; but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him.”[229]
The pounds in this parable, be it observed, are not bestowed on the servants as absolute gifts, they represent money held on trust, and this is the case not only with the original pound, but with the profit as well. The Lord (St Luke xix. 23) evidently regards all the produce as his own. The ten pounds have never been given over to the servant who gained them, so as to be absolutely his. Neither is the forfeited pound bestowed on him as a free gift, it is only an addition to the ten pounds of profit, which formed a fresh amount of capital in the hands of the most diligent of the servants to be used in his new employ. All this agrees with the view which I have [pg 320] taken, that the question in the parable is not one merely of reward and amercement but of putting the greatest opportunities into the best hands. In like manner our Lord looks to a practical end and adopts practical means. The paramount object that He has in view is the effective carrying forward of God's work; and those who shall prove most efficient are to receive as their reward,—not anything they can sit down to and enjoy,—but a wider sphere of activity, an extended range of opportunities, and of duties answering thereunto.