Chapter XVIII: Part II: The Wedding Garment (7)

There is a blank in the history here. The later stages of the prodigal's misery are not exhibited in the light: fully exposed, they might have been shocking rather than impressive. Every height has its opposite and corresponding depth: as eye has not seen nor ear heard in all its fulness the blessedness that God hath prepared for them that love him; so neither can our faculties measure the miseries of sin, in their foretastes here and their fulness hereafter. How the prodigal fared under that veil, as his misery day by day increased to its climax, we know not; but at length he suddenly emerges another man. "He came to himself:" the wild foul stream that had sunk into the earth and flowed for a space under ground, bursts to the surface again, agitated still indeed, but now comparatively pure. We learn for the first time that the man has been mad, by learning that his reason is restored. It is a characteristic of the insane that they never know or confess their insanity until it has passed away: it is when he has come to himself that he first discovers he has been beside himself. The two beings to whom a man living in sin is most a stranger are himself and God; when the right mind returns, he becomes acquainted with both again. The first act of the prodigal, when light dawned on his darkness, was to converse with himself, and the second to return to his father.

A man can scarcely find a more profitable companion than himself. These two should be well acquainted, and deal frankly with each other; in the case of the prodigal how disastrous was the estrangement, how blessed the reconciliation between them! The young man, during the period of his exile, was as much a stranger to himself as to his father. His return to himself became the crisis of his fate; from the interview sprang the burning thought, "I will arise and go to my father," and the resolute deed, "he arose and went."

When he had determined to return, he returned at once, and returned as he was. Emaciated by prolonged want,--naked, filthy, hungry, he came as he was. He did not remain at a distance until by efforts of his own he should make himself in some measure worthy to resume his original place in the family; he came in want of all things, that out of his father's fulness all his wants might be supplied. The signification of this feature on the spiritual side is obvious; it exhibits a cardinal point in the way of a sinner's return to God.

But while the repenting youth did not pretend to bring anything good to his father's house, neither did he presume to bring thither anything evil: his poverty and hunger were brought with him, but the companions and instruments of his lusts were left behind. This is a distinctive discriminating feature of true repentance. In the act of fleeing to his father the prodigal leaves his associates, and his habits, and his tastes behind: and conversely, as long as he clings to these he will not--he cannot return to his father.

In the narrative it is made evident that a return to his father was the son's last resort; he did not adopt it--he did not even entertain it, until all others had failed. The grief which he must have known his unnatural exile caused in the bosom of the family at home did not move him: even want, when it came upon him like an armed man, failed to overcome his stubborn spirit. He will be the servant of a stranger rather than his father's son; he would live on swine's food, if it had power to sustain a human life, rather than sit at his father's table. It was not till death stared him in the face that he consented to return. He encountered all extremities of privation rather than come home; no thanks to him, then, for coming at last. Yet he was received with an ardent welcome, and without upbraiding. The son's sullen, obdurate, desperate resistance becomes a measure and a monument of the father's forbearing, forgiving love. It is thus that sinful men return to God in Christ to-day; and thus that God in Christ to-day receives sinful men. Prodigals returning deserve nothing, and yet obtain all. Of even the last rag of merit that the imagination can conjure up--the merit of being willing to receive favour--they are utterly destitute. Though we do not come back to our father until all other resources have failed--although we come, as it were, only when we cannot help coming, he receives us with open arms; he takes the sin away, and does not cast it up.

"When he was yet a great way off his father saw him." He must have been looking out. Often, doubtless every day, his eye turned and strained wistfully in the direction of his son's retiring footsteps. While that son was starving in a foreign land, his father was weeping at the window, longing for his return; when at last the prodigal appeared, the watchful father caught sight of his form in the distance, and ran to meet him. Behold again in this glass another feature of redeeming love! Jesus, looking down on Jerusalem, wept for sorrow, because its giddy multitude would not turn and live; if they had with one accord come forth to accept the pardon which he offered, he would have wept again for joy. In his tears, as well as in his teaching he showed us the Father.

The reconciliation is immediate and complete. The parable reveals an extraordinary outburst of paternal tenderness. The son, melted, and in some measure confused by the undeserved, unexpected warmth of his reception, bethought of the speech which, at the turning point of his repentance, he had resolved to address to his father, and began to recite it as he had conned the words in exile:--"Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;" but there stopped short, omitting the portion about being content with the position of a hired servant. Bengel suggests that the father may have cut the prodigal's speech short by giving aloud an order to the servants for the kind and honourable reception of his child; but another thought, also suggested by the same acute and experimental expositor, brings out, I think, more truly the deep significance of the omission:--The son lying on the father's bosom, with the father's tears falling warm on his upturned face, is some degrees further advanced in the spirit of adoption than when he first planned repentance beside the swine in his master's field. There and then the legal spirit of fear because of guilt still lingered in his heart; he ventured to hope for exemption from deserved punishment, but not for restoration to the place of a beloved sen. Now the spirit of bondage has been conclusively cast out by the experience of his father's love; the fragments of stone that had hitherto remained even in a broken heart are utterly melted at last, as if by fire from heaven. He could not now complete the speech which he had prepared; its later words faltered and fell inarticulate. He could not now ask for the place of a servant, for he was already in the place of a son.[83]

[83] The paraphrase of this Scripture, in a selection employed in
most of the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, stumbles at this
point, and misses the meaning of the text. Overlooking the mighty
step of progress which the prodigal had made between the time when
his accumulating convictions turned the balance first in favour of
repentance, and the time when the last fragment of distrust melted
away in the flood of a full reconciliation, the hymn represents the
son as still pleading specifically to be sent away into the place of
a servant, after the embrace, and the kiss, and the tears of his
father had bestowed and triply sealed his sonship.

"He ran and fell upon his neck,
Embraced and kissed his son:
The grieving prodigal bewailed
The follies he had done."

"No more, my father, can I hope
To find paternal grace;
My utmost wish is to obtain
A servant's humble place."

No; after the meeting the youth did indeed say that he was not
worthy to be called a son, but he did not say he had abandoned the
hope or the desire of being reinstated. Yet, notwithstanding this
and other errors that have crept into the collection, and the
superior character of many that are excluded from it, no vigorous
effort has been made to obtain a revision in order to exclude the
faulty and introduce better in their stead. Conservative inertia--an
instinct to keep unchanged what has descended to us from our
fathers--is a great and curious power in human nature, operating
both on Church and State. Although not creditable to the wisdom and
courage of men, it is doubtless overruled for good by the providence
of God.

The father's command regarding the son's reception represents the complete reconciliation of the Gospel--the total oblivion of the prodigal's past sins, and his admission into the favour and the family of God, as a dear child. Even the details at this point have been framed after the pattern of spiritual privileges as they are elsewhere represented in the Scriptures; and they admit, consequently, of being minutely examined and applied. The best Robe points to the Redeemer's righteousness which the believer puts on, and wherein he is justified; the Ring is the signet of a king, the seal of the Spirit in the regeneration; the Shoes suggest that the sinner, forgiven and renewed, shall walk with God in newness of life; the Feast indicates the joy of a forgiving God over a forgiven man, and the joy of a forgiven man in a forgiving God.

These two lessons Christ has tenderly and plainly taught in this parable,--first, that God receives and forgives a sinner who comes back repenting; and second, that he delights in the act of so forgiving repentant sinners: on these points no ambiguity is left, and no room for controversy. These features of our Father's character, if they were fully perceived and frankly accepted, would soon change the face of the world. Guilt makes the guilty suspicious and distrustful. For the chief ailment of humanity the parable supplies a specific antidote: let the aspect of God's character, which is here displayed, take possession of a sinful heart, and it is forthwith won.

A young person is in want of employment; and a great man lives in the neighbourhood who could give him both work and wages. To this man the youth is advised in his distress to apply; but this is the man whom the youth has injured and offended,--the man whose just resentment he dreads. But it is known and reported that this possessor of great wealth is kind, generous, forgiving; that he does not retain resentment for injuries received; that he delights to bestow favour on those who have offended him. Convinced by these representations, the youth determines to venture, and accordingly sets out on his journey toward the great man's house. As he approaches it, however, his limbs grow feeble, his heart beats high, and he lacks courage to go near and knock. He halts, and is about to turn back in despair. What would suffice to encourage the trembler at that moment, and bear him through? If then and there he could in any way be thoroughly convinced that the man whom he formerly injured, and therefore now dreads, is not only in general tender-hearted and open-handed, but is at that moment specifically thinking of this individual transgressor, grieving over his impenitence, watching from his window for his coming, yearning to receive his confession, and enjoy the blessedness in his own heart of forgiving and satisfying the penitent; this will be effectual; the youth will go forward to the door now with a firm step.

It is such a conviction regarding the mind of God towards erring men that is needed, in order to bring them in clouds to his mercy-seat, like doves to their windows; and it is in order to work this conviction in our hearts that Jesus, who has authority to declare the Father, has given us the parable of the Prodigal Son. May the Spirit take this word, and make it in us quick and powerful.

Here we are not left to deal with curious or doubtful speculation. Nothing in heaven or earth can be truer, surer, plainer than this. The view that Jesus gives is the true view of the Father, as he turns his face to-day toward the children of men.

Here is a youth who has discovered suddenly that a disease has fatally stricken him, deep in the springs of life. After struggling some days against conviction, and clinging to false hopes, he has at length acknowledged that sentence of death has been passed. When the first tumult subsides, a species of calm succeeds,--the calm of earnest occupation with one over-riding and absorbing theme. The world, with its hopes and fears, is conclusively cut off: his business with time is closed. He has bidden farewell to the crowd that he has left behind, and has entered the solemn vestibule which at the other end opens on eternity. With all the energy of his being, he applies himself now to the question, Am I lost or saved?

He looks alternately backward on his own life, and upward to God's throne; both prospects trouble him. Backward he sees only sin; forward, only judgment. Himself seems the stubble, and the Judge a consuming fire. As these two approach, and their meeting seems near, he fears with an exceeding great fear, and cries with an exceeding bitter cry. He greatly wonders, meanwhile, that he never saw things in this light before. Now, in man's extremity, is God's opportunity to show him the Father. While the eyes of the body are closed in weariness, the mental vision remains active; and a picture appears, as if it were hung in light upon the wall. To the soul's eye Christ appears, and appears in the act of revealing the Father. The Father whom Christ reveals runs forth to meet his prodigal son, falls on his neck, weeps, and kisses him. There is no upbraiding, no bargaining for terms. The returning son is forgiven, accepted, clothed, honoured, loved. He has all, and abounds. This is doubtless a true picture, the dying youth reflects, for it is Christ that displays it; but, alas, it brings no hope to me. I have stifled convictions, and lived for my own pleasure; and though I often heard of mercy, I never sought it, until I found that death was on my track. How can I expect that God should receive me, when I make him a do-no-better, for I never thought of seeking him until all my chosen idols had forsaken me, and I was left destitute?

Brother, look; what good thing was in the lost son, that served to recommend him to his father? He would not remain at home; he could not enjoy his abundance as long as the father, whose face he loathed, abode under the same roof. He went away, that he might enjoy the pleasures of sin. He did not return while he had enough; he did not return when he began to be in want; he endured the extreme of misery and shame rather than return; he came back to his father only when all other resources failed;--and yet his father received him with great gladness. Sinner, look on this love,--look on it till you live in its light. It is not him that never departed, or came back while he yet had plenty, or came back soon, or came back with an improved heart,--it is, "_Him that cometh_ I will in no wise cast out."

Those who from this parable conclude that God receives sinners into favour without a propitiation, and those who endeavour to escape from that conclusion by affirming that the father in the parable represents Christ, err equally, although on opposite sides.[84]

[84] Stier's observations on this point are excellent:--"The
well-meaning efforts which are made to explain the absence of
reference to the mediating _propitiation_ of the Son of God in this
instant exhibition of the _Father's mercy_, are altogether needless;
they rest fundamentally on false dogmatic views of this
propitiation, as if there were not existing in the Father's being
the same love which is expressed in the Son,--as if the Father
needed abstractly to be propitiated in order to entertain this love!
We are not to seek _Christ himself_ as mediator in the person of
this father; nor (though Melancthon has strangely ventured to affirm
it), afterwards in the fatted calf, as sacrificially slain. _His_
place here is rather to be sought in his thus authoritatively
testifying of the Father's mercy. As Nitzsch excellently says:--'If
he seems to conceal himself here, he is all the more manifest there,
where the Shepherd seeks the lost sheep. For _the_ Son--who is
neither an elder nor a _younger_, the _eternal_ Son of the Father,
one with him, his eye and his heart towards the lost--is come into
this world, although invisible and unnamed in the parable, to reveal
the Father where he had been ever invisible, and where no man knew
him: and he is to the children of the law and the curse, not only a
living herald of the propitiable--we shall rather say of the already
propitiated--Father, but the (that is _our_) propitiation itself,
and the way whereby every one of us may come back to God.' The
mediation of Christ is no more denied by this silence than the
seduction of Satan was denied in the sinner's apostasy at the
beginning of the parable. We may also say with Von Gerlach that the
'coming out of the father to meet his son, here figuratively
exhibits the sending of the Son.'"--_Stier in loc_.

The notion that a mediator is not needed, because a mediator is not here specifically represented, proceeds upon the assumption, obviously and inexcusably erroneous, that all truth must be taught in every parable. While occasionally visiting the printing works of the publishers as these sheets are passing through the press, I have observed the process of printing coloured landscapes by lithograph. One stone by one impression deposits the outline of the land; another stone, by another impression, fills in the sea; and a third stone, on a different machine, subsequently adds the sky to the picture. No observer is so foolish as to complain, while he sees the process in its earlier stages, that there is no sea or no sky in the landscape. It is thus with the parables in general, and with this group in particular. By the two first, certain portions and aspects of the scene are represented; and by the last one, when it is impressed on the same field, the remaining features are completed.

* * * * *

Hitherto we have been occupied exclusively with the younger of the two sons; but the notice given in the first sentence of the parable prepares us for meeting with the elder in some significant capacity ere it close; and here, accordingly, he comes up to sustain his part.

At the moment of the prodigal's return, his elder brother was in the field, whether for his father's profit or his own pleasure we are not informed. When he came home in the evening, and before he had entered the house, he heard the sound of the festival within. Surprised and displeased that a feast on so large a scale should have been instituted without his privity and participation, he assumed and maintained an attitude of haughty reserve. Instead of going in at once and seeing all with his own eyes as a son, he went to a servant, and in the spirit of an alien, inquired the reason of the mirth. Having learned the leading facts, instead of imitating his father's generosity, he abandoned himself to selfish jealousy, and went away in a pet. The father, on every side true to his character, came out and pleaded with him to enter and share the common joy. Hereupon the true character of the _soi-disant_ model son is revealed; he peevishly casts it in his father's face, as a reproach, that he had never provided such a feast for his immaculate and superlatively dutiful child.

The elder son, in his statement of the case, introduces an elaborately constructed double contrast between his brother's experience and his own, which is peculiarly interesting in relation to the mercy of God and the methods of the Gospel. To the jaundiced eye of this sour-tempered pharisaic youth, it seemed that his father gave much to him that deserved least, and little to him that deserved most: to the profligate son, the fatted calf; to the eminently dutiful child, not even a kid. Here the hard, self-satisfied formalist, like Pilate and Caiaphas, preaches the Christ whom he did not know. The envious contrast portrayed by the elder son is a dark shadow which takes its shape from the Light of life. It is a law of the Gospel that nothing is given to the man in reward for the righteousness which he brings forward as his boast; but all is given to the man who has flung away his own righteousness with loathing as filthy rags, and come, "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," to cast himself on the mercy of God. The greatest gift is bestowed on the most worthless; for "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. v. 8).

At this point the line of our parable touches that of the lost sheep, and thenceforth runs coincident with it to the close: it points to the same features of human character, and teaches the same principles of divine truth. In the first place, it repeats the answer already given in the two preceding parables to the question embodied in the complaint of the Pharisees,--"This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them." The father announces with great clearness and fulness, the grounds on which he rejoiced more that day over the prodigal restored than over the elder son, who had never left home. It is a rule in human experience, universally understood and appreciated, that though a son never lost is as precious as one who has been lost and found, parents experience a more vivid joy in the act of receiving the exile back than in the continuous possession of a son who has been always in their sight.[85]

[85] This law may be illustrated by an analogous fact in the
material department of creation. Lay a ball, such as a boy's marble,
on an extended sheet of thin paper, and the paper, though fixed at
the edges and unsupported in the midst, will bear easily the weight:
take now another ball of the same shape and weight, and let it drop
upon the sheet of paper from a height, it will go sheer through. The
two balls are of the same weight and figure; but the motion gave to
one a momentum tenfold greater than that of the other at rest. It is
in a similar way that the return of a lost son goes through a loving
father's heart, and makes all its affections thrill; while the
continued possession of another son, equally valuable and equally
valued, produces no such commotion either in the heart of the father
or his home.

In the meantime, it is very sweet to learn from the lips of Jesus that this law, which may be clearly traced on earth, penetrates to heaven, and there prepares for repenting sinners, not a bare escape from wrath, but an abundant entrance into the joy of their Lord.

But while the parable thus demonstrates that even though the claim of the Pharisees were granted their objection falls to the ground, it most certainly does not grant that claim. So far from conceding that they needed no repentance, the Lord makes it evident that they kept company with the publicans in sin, and only differed in this, that they did not repent and forsake it. The elder brother, towards the close of the parable, presents a life-likeness of the Pharisees; in him they might have seen their own shadow on the wall.

The self-righteousness, the pride, the peevishness, the jealousy of the elder brother in the close of the parable represent, in its most distinctive features, the character of the Jewish people and their leaders, in the beginning of the Gospel. One of their leading reasons for refusing to own Jesus as the Messiah was his manifested willingness to extend the blessings of redemption to the needy of every condition and every name. When the Lord reminded them that Elijah was sent past many suffering widows in Israel to relieve a stranger at Sarepta, and that Elisha left many lepers uncured among his own countrymen when he healed the Syrian soldier, they were so exasperated by the suggestion that God's favour had already flowed out to the Gentiles, and might flow in the same direction again, that they "rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong" (Luke iv. 29). The same spirit burst forth when they were touched on the same tender point in the ministry of the apostles. Paul was permitted from the stairs of the fortress attached to the temple at Jerusalem to address an excited multitude on the faith as it is in Jesus. Loving the Hebrew tongue in which he spoke better than the Greek, which they had expected him to employ, they listened with interest and in silence to the story of his conversion through the appearing of the risen Jesus; but when in the progress of the narrative he found it necessary to inform them that the Lord his Saviour gave him a commission to preach the Gospel beyond the boundaries of Israel, saying, "Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles, they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live" (Acts xxii. 21, 22). In this inveterate prejudice of the Pharisaic Jews against the admission of persons or communities other than themselves into the privileges of Messiah's kingdom, we see the reason why the Lord gave his parable the turn which it takes in the extraordinary conduct of the elder brother. Counting that the kingdom belonged exclusively to themselves, the Jewish hierarchs violently resented every suggestion that pointed to the reception of strangers. It was to them that this series of parables was addressed; and to them, in immediate relation to their stupid and impudent cry, "He receiveth sinners!"

But we have not exhausted this portion of the lesson when we have pointed out that those whom the elder brother represents fret proudly and peevishly against the admission of their neighbours into the kingdom: by that very fact they unconsciously but surely demonstrate that themselves have not entered yet. The spirit that in regard to self is satisfied, before God unhumbled, and towards men unloving, has no part with Christ: this is the proud whom God knoweth afar off, not the meek whom he delights to honour.

Ah, woe to the man who serves God as that son served his father, with a mercenary mind and an unbroken heart,--who thinks his obedience praiseworthy, and would be surprised if it should go without reward. The elder son was lost as well as the younger; but as far as the parable reveals his history, he was not like him found again: he, like his brother, went astray; but unlike him, refused to come back. The father was grieved as much by the sullen, dry, hard, cold, dead formality of his elder son, as by the prodigal wastefulness of the younger, without getting the sorrow balanced by a subsequent joy. Whited sepulchre! what will thy residence in the house, and thy constant and punctilious profession avail thee while thou art planting daggers in thy father's heart, and nursing vile hypocrisy in thy own? It is the empty open vessel that gets itself filled when it is plunged into a well of living water; the vessel that is full and shut, although it is overflowed by rivers of privileges, does not receive and retain a drop. Before God and under the Gospel, the turning-point of each man's destiny is not the number or the aggravation of his sins, but the discovery of his own guilt, and the consequent cry out of the depths for mercy. That which really in the last resort hinders a man's salvation and secures his doom is not his sin, but his refusal to know and own that he is a sinner. All the excesses of the prodigal will not shut him out of heaven, for he came repenting to the father; but all the virtues of the elder brother will not let him into heaven, for he cherished pride in his heart, and taunted his father for overlooking his worth. The ground on which the Laodiceans were condemned was not the sinfulness of their state, but their stolid satisfaction with the state they were in. "Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Rev. iii. 17). What although they were not rich;--if they had known their poverty, all the treasures of the Godhead were at their disposal: what although they were wretched;--all the blessings that are at God's right hand were theirs for the asking. What although this son was prodigal;--there is a place for him in God's favour,--a place for him in the mansions of the Father's house for ever when he comes back repenting, confiding; but what although he never strayed--never missed a diet of worship or a deed of alms, the elder brother by holding to his own righteousness, rejects the righteousness which is of God by faith, and shuts himself out of the kingdom. Him who thought he was poor and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked, the father runs to meet with kisses of love and tears of joy: but him who thought himself rich and increased with goods, and in need of nothing, the father puts away, with the most piercing expressions of loathing which the whole Scriptures contain, "I will spue thee out of my mouth."

XXV.

THE PRUDENT STEWARD.

"And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man,
which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had
wasted his goods. And he called him, 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. 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. I am resolved what
to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive
me into their houses. So 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.
And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done
wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser
than the children of light. 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."--LUKE xvi. 1-9.

On the face of this parable a difficulty presents itself, all the more formidable in that it lies not in the critical, but in the moral department. In almost all the other examples, the acts attributed to human agents are either morally blameless in themselves, or are manifestly exhibited in order to be condemned: but here, an element of injustice is inseparably mixed up with the prudence which is commended in the conduct of the steward. The difficulty lies in this, that the specimen of worldly prudence presented in order to suggest and stimulate spiritual prudence in securing the interests of the soul, is dyed through and through with the loathsome vice of dishonesty. It is not easy, at least for us, to gather the lesson which this man's prudence contained, out of the dishonesty in which in was steeped.

When we read the parable we may detect a feeling of surprise creeping over our minds, that the Lord, who had the whole world and its history before him whence to select his examples, should have chosen a specimen of worldly wisdom, damaged by an admixture of downright falsehood, in order to stimulate thereby the spiritual zeal of his own disciples. The three following observations will, in my judgment, explain and completely remove the difficulty:--(1.) The Holy One, precisely because he is perfectly holy, can come closer to the unholy than we who are infected with sin and susceptible of injury from contact with impurity. Jesus talked with the Samaritan at the well, and permitted the sinner to wash his feet with tears in Simon's house. His own disciples and the Pharisees wondered by turns why he came so close to the unclean; but if they had been free from sin as he was, they could have handled it freely when in their ordinary ministry it crossed their path. Inflammable matter must be kept far from fire; whereas matter that is incombustible may, when a necessary cause occurs, safely pass through the midst of the flame. (2.) A shorter parable in another place presents and explains the same difficulty: "Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Serpents are proposed to the disciples as examples to be imitated; but it is the wisdom only and not the hurtfulness of the serpent that their Master enjoins them to imitate. Foresight and dishonesty are not more closely or inseparably united in the character of the cunning steward than wisdom and hurtfulness in the nature of the serpent. In both alike the Master meant that one quality which is commendable should be selected for imitation, and the other quality which is vile should be cast away with loathing. (3.) The key-note of the parable is expressed in verse 8: "The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." The line of interpretation must be drawn through this point, and all the scattered features of the picture brought up or brought down to meet it. Thus the tinge of dishonesty that runs through the prudence of the steward, so far from rendering his case unsuitable for the purpose of the Lord, imparted to it additional appropriateness and point. The methods, as well as the ends of the worldly, were different from those of the spiritual. This example shows that, from the ungodly man's own view-point, and according to his own maxims, he prosecutes his object with energy and skill. Let the Christian, with his clearer, purer light, prosecute his high aim by holy means with an energy and zeal similar to those which the ungodly exhibit in the pursuit of their gains or pleasures. It was the design of the Lord not simply to give his disciples generally an example of wisdom, but to give them specifically an example of the wisdom of the world--the wisdom that neither fears God nor regards man. An example of prudence taken from a good man's history, and exercised under submission to the law of God, would not have suited the Master's purpose so well as the one that has been chosen.

It is important to notice at the outset, that in this instance the Lord addresses his instructions specifically to his own disciples. The three parables which are recorded in the preceding chapter were spoken to the Pharisees; immediately after these, and in continuation of the history, the evangelist intimates that "he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man," &c. Besides those lessons which he gave to the multitude, teaching how the distant may come near, he gave this lesson to those who had already come near, in order to incite them to diligence in the course which they had chosen: this Teacher rightly divides the word of truth, giving to each his portion in due season. In this lesson the diligence of worldly men is employed to rebuke the slothfulness of Christians. Those who make perishing things their portion are thoughtful, inventive, energetic, decisive in prosecuting their object; how thoughtless and slow are the heirs of the kingdom in the work of their high calling!

"A certain rich man had a steward." We learn here, incidentally, how evenly balanced are the various conditions of life in a community, and how little of substantial advantage wealth can confer on its possessor. As your property increases, your personal control over it diminishes; the more you possess, the more you must entrust to others. Those who do their own work are not troubled with disobedient servants; those who look after their own affairs, are not troubled with unfaithful overseers.[86]

[86] A case came up lately in an English court of justice, in which
a certain duke prosecuted his butler for malversation in his charge.
It appeared in evidence that the defalcation on the account for wine
alone amounted to L. 1500. This fact incidentally reveals two
things:--How great is the wealth of these British princes; and how
little that wealth is under their own control.

This overseer cheated his master, and concealed the fraud for a time under the folds of complicated accounts; but, as in all similar cases, this career of wickedness came suddenly to an end. Some person discovered the facts and informed the proprietor. When suspicion was raised inquiry could not be resisted; and, when an inquiry was instituted, the crime could not be hid. The steward seems to have given up his case as soon as he was accused; he uttered not a word in his own defence. There was no proof on one side, and no denial on the other. The case was clear, and the process summary; sentence of dismissal was pronounced on the spot. But the proprietor was still in a great measure at the mercy of this unfaithful servant; the accounts were all in his hand, and the owner could not instantly resume the power which he had delegated. The agent accordingly was ordered to prepare and submit a balance-sheet, on which his successor might proceed to administer the estate.

There was not much time for deliberation: the decree of dismissal had already passed, and as soon as the state of accounts could be made up, this once comfortable and important personage must be cast penniless upon the world. Now or never, he must do something for himself. With habits, both mental and physical, cast in another mould, he cannot win his bread as a labourer; and his pride revolted against the prospect of becoming a beggar on the spot where he had long been owned as master by the multitude. His resolution is quickly formed, and as quickly carried into effect. He will employ his present opportunity, so as to provide a refuge for himself in his future need: he will so deal with the money while it is still in his hand, as that he shall not be left destitute when he is driven from his place.

In prosecution of his purpose, the steward summoned his master's debtors one by one into his presence. He held their acknowledgments for goods received, or their signatures for the amount of rent which they had agreed to pay for their lands. Having in his hands the documents which bound the debtors, he might have read off from these the amount due by each; but it suited his purpose better to ask the obligants what sums they owed, and to proceed wholly upon their voluntary acknowledgments. The first owed a hundred measures of oil, the second a hundred measures of wheat. What these quantities may have been in relation to our standards is a question which possesses only a critical and antiquarian interest: it has no bearing on the interpretation of the parable, and therefore we pass it without further notice. The absolute amount of the debt has no influence on the meaning of the parable; the point which is really important is the proportion between the amount owned by the debtors and the amount exacted by the steward. Olive oil and wheat were two of the staple products of the country, and the obligations in regard to them may have been incurred either in transactions of a mercantile character, or in those which intervene between landlord and tenant.[87]

[87] Probably the rents were paid in kind, and these were the
arrears which the tenants acknowledged.

The method of the overseer is short and simple: apart from considerations of morality, conscience, and divine retribution, it seemed a short road to the accomplishment of his purpose. He surrendered to the debtors their obligations, and received in return obligations for smaller amounts, in one case for fifty, and in another for eighty, instead of a hundred. These two cases are submitted as specimens: others were treated in a similar way. Of course the steward could not obtain from these debtors any obligation in his own favour for the portion remitted, which could be enforced in a court of justice; for the proof of the claim on the one side would have revealed his guilt on the other: but it was assumed between the parties that the benefit conferred should in due time be substantially acknowledged and repaid. The steward counted that in the day of his distress those men on whom he had conferred favours would receive him into their houses.[88]

[88] Of the same nature were the long leases of ecclesiastical
property in England at low rents, granted by the living incumbents,
in consideration of a sum of money in name of fine paid to
themselves.

It was expected, moreover, that the proprietor, or the steward whom he might afterwards employ, could not exact more than the smaller sums, for which they possessed the acknowledgments of the parties. We could indeed conceive a case in which the injured owner could lead a proof of fraud in the transaction, and enforce from the obligants the original amounts; but it is not probable that, in an age when records were defective, and the two parties immediately connected with the fraudulent transaction deeply interested in concealing it, such a suit could be successfully carried through.[89]

[89] A case emerged lately in the courts of this country, in which a
proprietor, who had lost very large sums by the unfaithfulness of
his agent, prosecuted the parties for restitution, on the ground of
the agent's bad faith in the transactions. The case was protracted,
and I lost sight of it before the solution was reached; but it is
enough for my present purpose that a plea was actually raised to
obtain from one debtor the price of a hundred measures of oil
instead of fifty, which he acknowledged, on the alleged ground that
the absconded steward had corruptly and for his own interest
sacrificed the rights of his employer.

The lord, that is the injured proprietor, commended the unjust steward, because, or in that, he had done wisely. The difficulty here lies on the surface,--lies, as it were, in the sound; upon a close examination it vanishes. First of all, the lord who praised the steward is, as the translators have indicated by printing the word without a capital, not the Lord Jesus, the speaker of the parable, but the master, whom the cunning agent had robbed. Further, this praise obviously did not indicate moral approval. The master praised the servant when all was over, not for the faithfulness with which he had been served, but for the cleverness with which he had been cheated. The commendation which the master bestowed upon the servant was that of sharply looking after himself. It is the commendation which one whose house has been robbed during the night might bestow in the morning upon the robber, after noticing how adroitly he had opened the locks, and carried off the booty.

This nefarious transaction was, from the perpetrator's view-point, cleverly planned and promptly executed. It was no sooner said than done; delay might have ruined the steward's prospects. He must have everything done before he is summoned actually to transfer his books to his successor's hands. He provided in his own way for his own future need; the plan was well-contrived, and successfully carried into effect. This praise, but expressly and only this, the injured master bestowed upon the man.

"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." Such is the lesson which the Lord draws from the picture. Difficulties, indeed, adhere to the phraseology in its details; but the interpretation, in its main line, is determined and made evident by landmarks which can neither be overlooked nor removed. The mammon of unrighteousness means the world with all its business and its possessions; mammon is denominated unrighteous, generally on account of the manner in which it is employed by worldly men, and specially on account of the case in hand, where a gross injustice was perpetrated without scruple, and as an ordinary matter of business. Alas, how prevalent is this form of unrighteousness still! Although justice in a large measure pervades and so sustains the vast commerce of the country, many mean tricks insinuate themselves between its mighty strata, corroding its fabric, and undermining its strength.

In counselling the disciples to acquire for themselves friends from the mammon of unrighteousness ([Greek: poiêsate heantois philous ek tou mamôna tês adikias]), the Lord obviously adopts the terms of his spiritual lesson from the structure of the parable which conveys it. By remitting part of their debts the steward made the debtors his friends; he won them to his side, and made sure of their sympathy when his day of need should come. His prudence and skill were commendable, but the fraud which was mingled with them is neither approved by the Lord, nor prescribed as a pattern for the disciples.[90] Nor is it difficult to lift the pure lesson from the impure ground on which it lies. The steward could not reach his unrighteous object except by a crooked path; but the ends which a Christian strives to attain neither require nor admit the employment of falsehood. Use the world in such a way that it shall help and not hinder the interests of your soul and of the world to come.

[90] The Emperor Julian adduced this parable in order to prove that
the doctrines of Christ were adverse to good morals. This is
precisely the place where the apostate, seeking reasons to justify
his apostasy, will most readily find what he seeks.

The position of the phrase, [Greek: eis tên genean tên heautôn], in or for their own generation, near the end of the sentence, determines that it is applied equally to both parties. It is implied that both classes, the children of the world and the children of light, look after their own affairs; and it is intimated that the one class attends to its business more earnestly and more skilfully than the other. This man cleaves to the world as his portion, and that man has chosen the Saviour as his: but, in point of fact, he who has chosen the inferior object prosecutes it with the greater zeal. The superior energy of the worldling in the acquisition of gains is employed to rebuke the Christian for his slackness in winning the true riches. This is the main lesson of the parable.

The specific form which the lesson assumes is,--Provide now for future need, and make the opportunities of time subservient to the interests of eternity.

The characteristic features of the steward's skill were, that when his dismissal was near, he occupied the short time that remained, and the resources still at his disposal, in skilfully providing for the future. We are stewards in possession still, but under warning; do we employ the time and the opportunities that remain in making our calling and election sure?

Many precious possessions have been placed in our hands by the owner of all; health of body and soundness of mind; home and friends; good name or great riches, or both conjoined;--these and many others have been by their owner placed under our charge, that we should lay them out for him. Soon the stewardship will be taken from us. "When ye fail,"--that is, when we can no longer retain our hold of time and life; when flesh and heart are failing; when a mist comes over the eye, so that it can no longer see the circle of weeping friends that stand round the bed of death,--have we an everlasting habitation ready to receive the departing spirit?

More particularly the practical question is, Have we disposed of earthly possessions and opportunities, so that they helped and did not hinder the acquisition of an incorruptible inheritance?

There is a place and a use for temporal things in making sure of the life eternal. How constant has been the tendency of fallen humanity to run wildly into opposite extremes of error; because the Popish system gives worldly possessions too high a place in the concerns of the soul, we may readily fall into the error of giving them no place at all. We lean hard over against the superstition that expects by alms, and money paid for masses, to smooth the spirit's path to peace beyond the grave; but when we have refused to make money directly the price of our admission into heaven, we have not exhausted our duty in regard to its bearing on our eternal weal. The property, and money, and occupations of time may instrumentally affect for good or evil our efforts to lay up the true riches. According as they are employed, they may become a stumbling-stone over which their possessor shall fall, or a shield to cover his head from some fiery darts of the wicked one.[91]

[91] For example, their competence and the comforts which it brings
shield women of the higher and middle classes in this country, in a
great measure, from certain snares of the devil in which multitudes
of their poorer sisters miserably fall. If those who enjoy this
protection throw away their advantage by turning that which is a
protection on one side into a temptation on the other, and so bring
themselves to an equality over all with the less favoured classes,
the fault is their own. It is proved by obvious facts that worldly
possessions may be placed between you and temptation, as cotton
bales and sand bags may be employed to ward off cannon shot from
stone walls. They are capable of being turned to some account in
advancing our eternal interests; for our inheritance in heaven, the
world is useful, if it is rightly used.