Matthew 25

  25:1-13.  The parable of the Ten Virgins is about the visible church.  The lamps are our hearts, and the oil is the Holy Spirit.  We share the gospel with everyone who will listen, but no one can share the oil of the Spirit.  When the Lord tarries, all need sleep.  But when the watchman shouts, “The Bridegroom cometh!” the Spirit in God’s people flames up.  The indifferent panic, but it is too late to supply an empty lamp.

     This parable gives us a little glimpse of the wedding customs of the culture.  The husband was expected to tarry at the father-in-law’s house for a time, being impressed by the father with the value of the wife, and trying to assure the father, with gifts and words, that he could provide for such a fine woman.  (The worst example of all this gone wrong is Jacob’s bargaining with Laban).  All this was followed by several days feasting at the groom’s home to celebrate the consummation (cf. Song 4 through 6).

     25:14-30.  The remarkably capitalist Parable of the Talents teaches us how to live until the Lord comes.  Use what you are given or lose it, and stay on task.  As we use our gifts and abilities, we gain more.

      A talent is a weight of measure, about seventy-five pounds.  A gold talent was a huge amount of money.  Silver talents are probably meant here, and in buying (not silver content) power figured by comparing today’s wages to their wage of a denarius a day (Mt.20:2), we are still dealing with maybe $200,000 a talent in today’s labor market.  This is not something a wise person would just bury and expect the lender to be pleased.

     25:31-46.  This parable seems like a plain description of the judgment that employs a simple simile (“…as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,”).  The righteous on the right are unselfconscious about their good works (v.38ff.).  They did them with no thought of reward, but from a compassionate heart.  For a description of them, see Mt.5:3-12.

     On the left, the self-righteous goats (who everyone knows are much smarter than sheep) are secure.  They are resting perhaps in their strict law keeping, and are shocked to find that they are condemned for their hardness of heart.  The law itself condemns them, for love is the whole law and the prophets.

     Notice also the harmony between the teaching here of the significant free moral choice making of responsible men, and the clear implication of double predestination.  The overruling sovereign God judges based on a choice He made from the foundation of the world (v.34; v.41).  Cf. Acts 13:46, 48; Ro.9:11, 18.

     For other examples of the free actions of responsible men accomplishing God’s predetermined plan, see Luke 22:22; Acts 4:27-28; Gen.50:20.  See my review of Jonathan Edward’s treatise, The Freedom of the Will, in Certainty in a Random World.