By Zane C Hodges with Robert N. Wilkin
{This is Chapter 9 from the new book Tough Texts: Did Jesus Teach Salvation by Works?}
Bob Wilkin (BW): To understand what Jesus is talking about in this passage, it is crucial to recall the context of the Olivet Discourse and to review its parabolic structure.
In the Parable of the Just and the Unjust Servant in Matt 24:45-51, we see a servant who was doing very well. He was ruling over other servants of the Lord. He was doing a good job. But then we’re told in the text that he says in his heart, “My Lord delays His coming.” This was when he starts beating his fellow servants. He starts drinking with the drunkards. He loses his focus. When Jesus returns, this person gets a verbal tongue lashing. He’s rebuked by Christ, and instead of being made a ruler in the life to come, he’s relegated to a position of non-rulership. The lesson to be learned in that parable was that we need to remain watchful in this age for the imminent return of Christ. He could return today, tomorrow, at any moment.
Matthew 25:1-13, the Parable of the Ten Virgins, deals with the Tribulation period. The midnight cry in the middle of the parable deals with the abomination of desolation which takes place at the midpoint of the Tribulation. And here, all ten of these virgins were watchful. None of them failed to watch. All of them were waiting for the Lord’s return. But it’s possible to be watchful and yet not be prepared. You could watch for a person to come to your house but you haven’t prepared any food for him. You haven’t prepared for his arrival. The difference then is not that some were watchful and some weren’t. The five foolish virgins had their torches burning, but they didn’t have a sufficient supply of oil to keep them burning. They were not prepared. They failed during the first half of the Tribulation to make the necessary expenditure of effort, time, prayer, study of the Word, and fellowship with other believers in order to be prepared for the Lord’s return. The lesson from the Parable of the Ten Virgins is that not only are we to be watchful, but that within the watchfulness we also need to be prepared.
Zane Hodges (ZH): That is an excellent summary of the basic lessons in the first two parables that conclude the Olivet Discourse. A word about the structure at the end of the discourse would be helpful.
As we know, there are actually four parables that conclude the Olivet Discourse. I like to label them as A-1, B-1, A-2, and B-2.
A-1 Parable of the Faithful or Unfaithful Servant
B-1 Parable of the Ten Virgins
A-2 Parable of the Talents
B-2 (Quasi) Parable of the Judgment of the Sheep and Goats
Now, it seems to me that A-1 and B-1 belong together in the sense that both of them focus on the second advent and on being watchful and ready for that second advent. The statement made in Matt 25:13, “Watch, therefore, for you do not know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man comes” is a conclusion to this particular unit. Both of these are what we might call Advent parables with the focus upon the arrival of the Son of Man. The focus is on His actual arrival.
However, A-2 and B-2 are what we might call accountability parables in the sense that they focus upon the judgments that follow the Second Advent. As you’ve indicated in your review, A-1, the Parable about the Faithful or Unfaithful Servant, deals with somebody waiting for the beginning of the Second Advent—someone in the church age. And B-1 deals with people who live through the Tribulation.
A-2 is concerned with the accountability of regenerate people who have lived up until the beginning of the Second Advent, that is, church-age believers. And B-2 concerns the accountability of believers who live through the Tribulation period when the Lord then comes and executes the judgment of the sheep and the goats.
The Lord gave us a very carefully structured and balanced presentation. Two Advent parables are followed by two accountability parables. The first member of each of these pairs deals with people of this age—the church age—and the second member of each of these pairs deals with people who pass through the Tribulation. This is the way in which our Lord has structured His discourse.
The Talents
BW: Now, let’s discuss the third parable, the Parable of the Talents, which is the first of the two accountability parables. Let’s begin with a brief summary of what’s going on.
ZH: In this parable, the Master, who is going abroad, commits a significant responsibility in monetary terms to the servants He leaves behind. And in this particular parable each servant is given his responsibility in accordance with his ability. One of them is given five talents, one is given two talents, and one is given one talent.
The parable focuses on the assessment of the performance of these servants after the Master returns. In the first two cases the individuals have maximized the responsibility they’ve been given. The five-talent man now has ten talents, and the two-talent man now has four talents to present. The final one-talent man has been too timid to do anything and has wrapped his opportunity up in a napkin and simply brings what he started with.
The first two are rewarded, very much in the same language: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord” (Matt 25:21, 23). This is something that’s said to the first two men. Even though the first man brings much more money, he had more money to start with, and so the Lord evaluates their performance as equal. But the third man is the man who fails to do anything, and he is the man who loses the praise and privileges that were given to the faithful servants.
BW: Some stumble over the fact that the person who starts with five and ends up with ten gets the same commendation and apparently the same reward as the one who goes from two to four. It would seem like the one who goes from five to ten should have more authority in the life to come than the one who goes from two to four. Aside from the bonus the ten-talent servant receives at the end (Matt 25:28), it seems like they’re getting the same reward.
ZH: The lesson is that each of these first two servants does the same thing with the amount he is given. The first man doubles his money, and the second man also doubles his money. From the Lord’s standpoint—especially since the original commitments were based on the ability of each individual—they’ve both done equally well.
An example of this might be a world famous evangelist who maximizes the opportunities God gives to him and a washer woman who spends her life scrubbing floors and pinching pennies and sending off everything she can to the mission fields. The woman may maximize her opportunities in exactly the same measure and degree as the world famous evangelist maximizes his. We should never feel particularly inferior to other people because the Lord hasn’t given us the gift that we so much admire in some other servants of His. If we are faithful with the gifts we’ve been given in terms of our own abilities, then our reward will be the same as someone who has traveled the world and maximized his.
In some ways one would almost think that a man with a large amount of ability is called upon to make special efforts in order to maximize that ability. I would think it’s a little bit harder in some ways to preach worldwide and not to succumb to the temptations associated with that and to maximize the opportunity, than it is to labor in obscurity and maximize that lesser opportunity. But in any case, God treats his servants fairly, and He measures what we’ve done on the basis of what He’s given us.
BW: So it’s really not appropriate to be comparing ourselves with others and saying, “Woe is me. I’ve not been given as many blessings and opportunities as other Christians.” We should do the best with what God has given us and not worry about what other people are doing.
ZH: That’s exactly right. Remember when Jesus predicts to Peter his own death, and Peter says, “Well, what about John?” (see John 21:21). And Jesus basically says, “You know, that’s none of your business. Why do you care about that? You follow Me” (see John 21:22). That’s the basic lesson here as well. We’re tempted to be jealous if somebody has more ability to do more for God, but that’s none of our business. That’s the Lord’s business. My business is to follow Him and maximize my potential.
The Outer Darkness
BW: What about the third servant in the Parable of the Talents? Most commentators take the third servant as representing an unbeliever who’s being condemned eternally by Christ at the Great White Throne Judgment. But there’s good reason to believe that this person is a believer who, along with the first two servants, is being evaluated at the Judgment Seat of Christ or, in Greek, the Bema. Isn’t there good reason to view this as an evaluation to determine the third servant’s reward in the life to come?
ZH: It has always seemed to me that the idea of the third servant being an unbeliever is a totally gratuitous suggestion about the text because, right up front, all three of these men have exactly the same relationship to their Master. All three of them are identified as His servants. All three are given responsibilities by Him. If we identify the responsibility of the first two as Christian responsibilities, what is the responsibility given to the third servant?
There is no exegetical basis within the text itself for coming to the conclusion that the third servant is not a regenerate man. He is, in fact, a servant of Christ who is called to account at the same time that the other men are called to account, which would be the Judgment Seat of Christ. He’s not called to account a thousand years later at the Great White Throne.
But what is important to remember is that the story is parabolic. And what he receives is the opposite of what the others receive. They receive commendation. They receive new authority. They receive participation in the joy of their Lord. Those are precisely the three things that are denied to him. Instead of commendation, he gets rebuke. Instead of additional authority, he loses the opportunity he has. And he is excluded from the joy of his Lord.
This is not to be understood in some kind of universal framework that the unfaithful Christian has no joys in the future. That would be contrary to lots of other Scriptures. But there are special joys which the Lord Jesus Christ shares with His faithful servants and only faithful servants are admitted to those. Unfaithful servants are excluded from those special joys.
BW: A lot of people then are confused by vv 29 and 30, about the outer darkness.
“For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
But what is this outer darkness and the weeping and gnashing of teeth?
ZH: One of the things I always like to point out is that when people come to the phrase outer darkness they tend to forget all about the parabolic nature of the teaching. Here’s a servant who has a talent wrapped up in a napkin. There’s no literal talent. There’s no literal napkin. And he is stripped of the talent and that is given to the man who has ten talents. There’s no exchange of talents at the Judgment Seat of Christ. All of this is parabolic, and people understand that.
But then, when we get to the outer darkness, we suddenly jump the track and begin thinking this is literal. It would be much better to keep within the framework of the parable and understand the outer darkness as figurative. There is no such thing as a literal dark spot to which unfaithful servants will be sent. This is all part of a parabolic apparatus that Jesus has expounded in Matthew.
In Matthew 22, the outer darkness is fully fleshed out in terms of a wedding supper which was customarily held at night. An individual arrives at the wedding supper without the proper garment. He’s tied up hands and feet and cast into the darkness outside, which means he’s put out of the brightly lit banqueting hall and put out on the grounds. The parable does not say there are some torturers out there who inflict unending torture on this poor guy that’s tied up hands and feet. All of this is parabolic. Nobody believes that even the lost are going to be tied up hands and feet. What this means is that the man’s activities are restricted and he is excluded from the brightly lit banqueting hall where there’s joy and festivity.
That gives us the background for the Lord’s statement, here, “Enter thou into the joy of your Lord.” Or, alternatively, “Cast him into the outer darkness.” The faithful servants are admitted to fellowship with our Lord’s special joys inside the banqueting hall. But the unfaithful servant is excluded. This is not to be understood as hell or anything like that. The weeping and gnashing of teeth is an expression of extreme remorse on the part of the servant who now realizes what he has lost by not being diligent in serving his Master.
Just as with the first parable (A-1), we need to keep in mind that in the Middle East, extreme expressions of grief are very natural. They may not be as natural to us in the West, but it would be quite unsurprising for a man who has lost his beloved wife to weep and gnash his teeth. So, there’s nothing about the phraseology itself that belongs only in the context of hell. And the context here is clearly that of a servant who has failed his Master and who is excluded from very significant privilege.
As a result he’s very, very sorry. This does not mean there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth forever and ever. But imagine being at the Judgment Seat of Christ, and the Lord Jesus says, “You’ve failed Me significantly. I cannot admit you to these privileges and to these rewards.” It would be very strange if we didn’t weep over that. It would be even stranger, because when we stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, we’ll be perfect. We will be capable of the shame and regret that we’re not now capable of because of our sinful nature. We’ll be standing there with purified natures. And it would be very appropriate for a wholly transformed man, who looks back on a life that has been significantly wasted, to weep and mourn severely. That’s what the Lord has in mind here.
BW: It would also be expected for a person with a glorified body and with no sin nature to also bounce back from this weeping and gnashing of teeth rather quickly. In other words we don’t anticipate this person weeping and gnashing his teeth for the thousand years of the Millennium, for example.
ZH: It’s surprising how rigidly some approach these passages without any touch of realism in our understanding of them. Let us suppose that I have, on this earth, lost a loved one who is very close to me. Would others find it strange that I would weep and grieve over that? If I didn’t, they would find it strange.
Losses of that kind that we experience on earth send us through a grief cycle. If we have good emotional structure and a good personality structure there’s a recuperation period. We get to the place where we’re not weeping about it at all. There may be spurts of weeping, but eventually the weeping stops; the grieving ends.
It goes almost without saying that a holy man who has something to grieve over will go through a grief cycle. But he’ll recover from it much better than we human beings down here, with our sinful nature remaining in us, would recover from a grief cycle. But we all know people who have recovered remarkably from deep and significant losses. There’s no reason to think that the redeemed person who is transformed into the likeness of Christ will not have the capacity to bounce back as quickly as possible, even from a deep grief like this.
BW: In v 28 the Lord says, “Therefore take the talent from him [the third servant], and give it to him who has ten talents.” So the first two servants both doubled what was given to them. Both received equal commendation, equal authority in the life to come. But now something extra is given to only one of the two, not both.
ZH: The structure of the parable is about three servants, yet there will be far more than three servants. There are going to be millions of servants on review here. The point of taking the talent from the failing servant and giving it to one of the other servants is that the opportunity is lost by the failing servant and gained by a faithful servant.
It would be incorrect, given the structure of the parable, to read something into this about the inferiority of the second servant. Suppose there had been a fourth servant, and he had also failed. Then it might very well be that his talent would be taken from him and given to the second servant because both he and the first servant were equally committed. But the nature and structure of the parable prevents that. In any case, that’s not a very meaningful point. The point is the loss of opportunity on the part of the unfaithful servant, and it is gained by a faithful servant.
BW: So the talent represents opportunity for service.
ZH: That’s the way I would express it. Obviously this is a commercially oriented parable. The unfaithful servant was told he should have gone and put his talent in the bank so he could collect interest. So, we’re thinking in commercial terms here. Money is a good parabolic image of opportunity because money has potential. And so we would say every servant has potential granted to him by God. The parable is not interested in identifying the various forms of potential but the lessons about potential.
More or Less
BW: Back in v 29 we read, “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.” The principle stated here has application today to the believer in relation to how he uses what God has given him, how he takes in His Word.
ZH: The Lord uses this particular statement in more than one context. And each context would have to be examined to determine what its meaning might be. In one instance, the idea is that if you have knowledge of the Scripture, more knowledge will be given to you (Luke 8:18).
But that’s not the way the Lord uses it here. This is one of His very useful articulations which is applicable to a number of situations. The point here is that the man who appears before the Judgment Seat of Christ and has something to offer his Lord, will get more. And the man who appears before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and doesn’t have anything to offer his Lord will lose what he already had. So here the statement belongs in the context of the Judgment Seat of Christ, but other passages have it in other contexts and apply it in different ways.
BW: The third servant puts his talent in a handkerchief, and he buries it. This is symbolic, but of what? What would this look like in the life of a Christian today? And, Christ says this servant should have deposited the money with the bankers. That wouldn’t be doing as much as the first two servants did, but what does that minimal sort of involvement look like today?
ZH: One of the important elements of this parable is that it’s significant that the man who got one talent is the one who does this. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done by somebody who gets a lot of talents. But in this particular story it’s the man with the least amount of opportunity or ability, who does the burying.
This is very true to life, because in the Christian church there are people who realize, correctly, that they don’t have a whole lot of talent. They don’t have a whole lot of giftedness. They should realize they have something because the Scriptures assure us that all Christians have a spiritual gift. But it is easier for the man with the small gift to say, “What can I do? I could never be a world famous evangelist. I couldn’t pastor a church. I can’t even teach a Sunday school class. I just won’t do anything. I’ve got so little talent that if I tried to use it, I’d probably squander it and mess things up like I do with a lot of other things in my life. And so I just won’t do anything. This way, at least I won’t harm anything.”
This is the thinking of the third servant. He essentially says, “I knew what kind of Master you were. You were a very exacting Master. And I didn’t want to take a chance of blowing the talent that you gave me, so I just hid it. Now you can have it back” (see Matt 25:24-25).
The Master replies by saying in essence, “That’s the wrong approach” (see Matt 25:26-27). We can understand why the parable singles out the least talented people for this because there is a greater temptation to do nothing, to hide abilities, when the abilities are small.
BW: And in regard to depositing the money with the bankers, this would be what—giving money to others who will effectively serve the Master?
ZH: That may be, but since this is a commercially based parable, it’s likely that the other servants also deposited their money with the bankers. But if you had five talents and you invested very wisely, you could reap another five talents. Ditto with two. So, I don’t think He’s saying, “You should have done something a little bit different from what the other ones did.” We don’t know what the others did.
There are always various ways of investing money, but the point is that this man should have at least done something with the money. The simplest and easiest thing was to deposit it with the bankers. But instead of banking it, he hid it.
For the Christian who feels he has minimal talents, the church is his bank. He can invest it in the church life. The whole nature of spiritual gifts is that they’re given for the benefit and edification of the church. So it doesn’t matter that he has a small gift. He can make a contribution to the church, no matter how insignificant the contribution seems. The bank is there; do something with the ability God has given you.
Risk and Reward
BW: Would it be fair to say, then, that Jesus is suggesting here that there is some risk in the Christian life in investing what God has given us, but that timidity is the wrong approach? Instead, we should, indeed, take risk? There’s the old adage that says, “If you never attempt anything, you may not do anything wrong, but you’re going to accomplish nothing.”
ZH: The minute I try to serve God, significantly or insignificantly, I run a risk. I not only run a risk of personal failure, because my sinful nature induces me down the wrong path, but I also run into the opposition of Satan and his agents. Satan does not sit idly by while I try to serve God. We take it for granted that he will attack the guy with a lot of talents. But Satan has time to attack the one-talent Christian, as well.
There’s risk up and down the line. But the more prominently God places you in ministry, the more the risks multiply because then you become a target for everybody and everything. Therefore, there’s every bit as much risk for the five talent man as there is for the one talent man. The idea of risk is inherent in this parable.
BW: Jesus taught a similar parable in Luke 19:11-27, the Parable of the Minas. And there, instead of each servant being given according to his own ability—five, two and one—each servant in that parable gets one mina. Each gets the same exact sum. The first servant goes from one to ten, the second from one to five, and the third buries his mina. But what you find in that parable is they don’t receive equal commendation. One of them hears, “Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities” (Luke 19:17). The next one just hears, “You also be over five cities” (Luke 19:19). I wonder if you can comment on the distinction between the two parables.
Here we have two servants who maximize what God has given them to invest, and one who doesn’t. But in Luke 19, we have a servant who neither maximizes nor buries his mina.
ZH: The key to the distinction between these two parables is that in the Parable of the Talents each individual receives a different amount of money to invest, according to his ability. However, in the Parable of the Minas, all the servants receive the same amount of money.
And, by the way, there were ten servants, but only three of them are recorded in the accounting part of it. Jesus doesn’t tell us about the other seven because He only needs three to make His point.
When taken together, the point of both parables is that there are two ways of looking at our capacity to serve. One is that I serve God in accordance with the abilities and capacities that He has given me. And these vary from one Christian to another.
The other is that I serve God with my heart and life. I serve God with my whole self. At this level, all Christians are equal. No matter what our talents and abilities, we are to give ourselves fully to God. We are to serve God with all our hearts. This is true of every Christian, regardless of the gifts that have been given.
So in the Parable of the Minas we have three servants who start out in exactly the same place. The first is twice as good as the second in terms of his productivity, and the third one does nothing. So, it is obvious that, since they all start at the same place and they get different results, they have to receive different rewards. The first servant does ten times the worth of what was committed to him. The next servant does only five times what he was given. God can’t treat those as equal because there was nothing in the original commitment that would haveprevented the second servant from getting as much money out of his investment as the first servant.
So the first servant gets a commendation and ten cities. The second servant doesn’t even get a commendation, just the five cities. And the third servant gets a rebuke and no cities. All Christians have an equal opportunity to serve God fully. And they also have the opportunity to use their talents to the max.
The Citizens Who Hated Him
BW: It is important to note the presence of a group of people in the Parable of the Minas which is not mentioned in the Parable of the Talents. There are citizens that didn’t want Jesus to rule over them. This transparently looks at unbelieving Israel. And they’re slain in the Master’s presence (Luke 19:27). This is in direct contrast to the third servant (Luke 19:20-26). This lends support to the view that the third servant is not sent to eternal punishment in hell.
ZH: The introduction of this fourth group in the Parable of the Minas is interesting. The Master says, “But bring here those enemies of mine, who didn’t want Me to reign over them, and slay them before Me.” Again, we must remember that this is parabolic. It represents the final judgment and the second death.
In other words, these people also get a time in front of the Master, but not until He is through with His servants. Only then does He say, “Get them together.” We know from Revelation that a thousand yearsintervene between the Judgment Seat of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgment. But the outcome of the second judgment is death, spiritual death, eternally, in the Lake of Fire. That second judgment is what is represented in Luke 19:27.
This does confirm the general approach that we took to the talents, because the three servants in the Parable of the Minas are in contrast to these people who are slain at a different time and a different judgment. That reinforces the interpretation that all three of the servants in the Parable of the Talents are saved.
Together, these parables offer a very solemn warning that we should assess the abilities that God has given to us. It would have been strange if the servant with five talents never counted the talents, or the man with two never counted his. He knew he had two talents. And the first servant knew he had five. Similarly, it is important for us, under the guidance of the Scriptures and with prayerful waiting on the Lord, to discern what gifts God has given us so we can maximize them. If I’m careless about counting the money I’ve got, how can I know what I have to invest?
BW: Although we don’t look at what God has given us to determine if we’re born again or not, we do look at what He’s given us, and what we’re doing with it, to determine how we’re doing in terms of these accountability parables.
ZH: That’s exactly right. And, of course, when we’re first saved we don’t know exactly what gift God has given us. One of the simplest ways to find out is to attempt to serve Him in various ways. It soon becomes obvious which ways are natural and enjoyable for us to serve Him. He will bless those areas in which we are gifted and encourage us to continue in that ministry.
I was encouraged, for example, at a very early stage in my Christian life by people who first heard me speak. I was probably quite lousy in those days, but there were some people that I respected who detected a gift in me. And so, that encouraged me to cultivate it. And over the years I think God has confirmed that I have a teaching gift.
In the very early phases of the Christian life we should be prayerfully looking for the capacity that God has given us. And then, based upon the way in which the Scriptures relate gifts to our lives, we will be able to realize the relative responsibility that we have, based on our gift. We are told, for example, “Let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment” (Jas 3:1). So, we know if we discover that we have a teaching gift we are at a high level of responsibility and accountability.
BW: But one of the pitfalls of knowing our spiritual gift is to limit ourselves to only that area of ministry. Even if I don’t have the gift of giving, for example, I’m still to give. If I don’t have the gift of helps, I’m still to help. If I don’t have the gift of encouragement, I’m still to encourage. If I don’t have the gift of evangelism, I’m still to evangelize. If I don’t have the gift of teaching, I’m still to teach my children, or others within my sphere of influence.
So, even though I may have but one spiritual gift, I’m called to develop all of these other areas and even things that aren’t spiritual gifts: natural abilities, the finances God gives me, the time God gives me. All of this is what God has entrusted to us, with a special emphasis upon our spiritual gift.
ZH: Yes, the parable assumes the differentiation between the servants. And one of the things that differentiates us is our gift. But that is certainly not the only thing that differentiates us. I happen to be a single man. I don’t have the responsibilities that God gives to a married man, and I won’t be held accountable for those. But maybe I have opportunities and responsibilities that come to me as a single man that a married man doesn’t have. We all have to look at our whole life and what God has given us and the abilities He’s given us and assess them accordingly.
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Zane Hodges taught New Testament Greek and Exegesis at Dallas Theological Seminary. Bob Wilkin is Executive Director of Grace Evangelical Society. He lives in Highland Village, TX with his wife of 40 years, Sharon. Their latest book Tough Texts: Did Jesus Teach Salvation by Works? is available now.
