Luke 19:21 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 19:21

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The servant now explains his action, or lack of action, and attempts to justify it. Amazingly, he tries to blame his master, the new king, for his failure. He manages to represent his master’s enlightened act of kindness and generosity as a cunning and selfish act. Instead of taking advantage of the wonderful opportunity given him, he pours scorn on it. Christ puts into this servant’s mouth words which are just about plausible, but which are utterly false. The servant calls his master an austere man, a severe man, a man who makes unreasonable demands on others, and expects far more than he should from them. He tries to make him a selfish man who is only out for his own gain, and seeks something for himself at the expense of others. He had made a judgment about his master’s character, which was contrary to all the evidence, yet once that got into his mind, nothing would shift it. Every new piece of evidence was twisted to fit his distorted view of his master. But there was the pound which he had been given, still wrapped up in that cloth. Its potential remained the same. Another man could have done something useful with it, but this man was unwilling to try.He made out that what caused him to behave as he did was fear: ‘I feared thee.’ But was that true? Would he really have liked to engage in this scheme, but he could not bring himself to do so out of fear? No doubt he did fear his master, but behind that fear was something else. He disliked his master, and he did not want to fit in with this scheme. He was unwilling to show any gratitude to his master or to admit that his master had done anything good for him. He only wanted to find grounds to accuse his master. But all that was left out of the picture. He mentioned only his fear, because that would seem to give him justifiable grounds for his inaction: it was entirely his master’s fault. Nevertheless, he believed his own distorted view of the nobleman, and therefore he was never going to engage with this scheme. ‘Thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.’ Contrast these accusing words with the words of the first two servants, who were in exactly the same situation but who saw it so completely differently. Who was right? The other servants were thankful, happy to please their master and present him with the fruit of their trading. This man saw only a master who took advantage of him. He took up where he had not laid down – in other words, he expected back more than he had given in the first place. That was not something considered hard by the other two, but an opportunity to please their master. He reaped where he had not sown – in other words, he looked for a return, on the basis of his servants’ trading. That was the delight of the other two, but not of this one. His sour spirit made all that a burden instead of a joy.

Application

How greatly cynical unbelief misreads God and misrepresents him! How do we manage to so misread God? By collecting up everything negative we hear about him, and focusing on that, and ignoring everything good that Scripture tells us about him, and everything good that we see about him in the world. We choose our source of information about God in a thoroughly biased way. We latch on to anyone who has anything critical to say about God, about Christ, about Scripture, about religion; they must be right – we have already made up our minds. We are distrustful of anyone who has anything good to say about the Lord, or who speaks of their experience of finding him. We are ready to discount their testimony on the basis of deeply rooted prejudice. This servant reads into his master’s character all manner of things that are not there. Where do they come from? They come from his diseased mind.

Suspicion misreads all that God does. It treats him as a liar, and it thinks it knows his motivation better than he does. Suspicion treats the kindest of acts into something horrible. Man’s fevered imagination is capable of turning the most beautiful and merciful scheme ever seen on earth – the gospel – into something unreasonable, something which exploits others. People hear of God’s judgment and they challenge his right to judge, even though he is their Creator and law giver. They hear that there is a place called hell, and they think if cruel that any should ever be sent there, even though they refuse heaven on his terms. They hear that God requires us to give him our hearts, and they call him overbearing, autocratic, and oppressive, a God who denies men and women their freedom. Unbelief has the ability to represent the gospel as the opposite of what it is. It is a scheme of indescribable kindness and goodness to those who deserve nothing, and yet unbelief can portray it as a form of slavery designed by a self-seeking deity. This is what Christ is telling us when he puts these words into this man’s mouth. Whose view of God is to be believed? Whose view of God is true? The other servants put the lie to this excuse offered by the third servant.

There is great danger in cynicism. It has the ability to blind us with scales on our eyes that we cannot remove. It claims to be wise, but it is a short cut to wisdom that really leads to great foolishness. We may be justified in being cynical about the claims of men, but it is madness to be cynical about the words of God. If cynicism starts to affect us, it must be purged from us as soon as possible. It is a cancer that eats up all that is good, and it is a lie. The unbeliever has to work hard to tell himself that God is on the make.

The truth is that God gains nothing by redeeming sinful human beings and by taking them as his children. It is cost to him all the way. God the Father looks down upon lost sinners and sees us deserving condemnation, and yet he says, I will send the Son of my love, Jesus Christ, to die for those men and women and to purchase salvation for them so that I can forgive them freely. Christ must leave the bliss of heaven, and set aside his visible glory, and be born into this world, born under the law and under the curse. He must face the constant contradiction of unbelieving sinners, and maintain his testimony to the truth in the face of relentless opposition. He must call out from this lost humanity a people for himself, and then bear with their slowness to learn, and their frequent falls and backslidings, even after they have been converted. Ultimately he must lay down his life for them and suffer the eternal punishment that they deserve in order to deliver them, body and soul from hell. He must continually intercede for them. It is grace, grace, all the way. To call the Lord Jesus an austere man is the most serious mistake our souls can ever make, when he pleads with us to come to him for life.

This is the day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be opened. You will want to keep your mouth shut, but you will be gripped by such a divine power that you will be made to say the things that you secretly thought to God. You will see his withering look right going through you. What are you thinking? ‘I don't want to engage with this message. I don't want to come to Jesus Christ. God isn't fair. He is hard; he makes unreasonable demands. I won't be able to do the things that I want to do. I won't be able to please myself. I won't be able to carry on with my sins. I won't be able to be a law unto myself. I shall have to submit to him. If I am going to be converted, I will have to obey him. My life will have to change. I'll have to love him and serve him.’ Is that what you are afraid of? You don't want his authority over you. He will make you tell him all this with your own lips in the last day. Can you imagine it?

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Luke 19:21 Commentary and Bible Study

The meaning of Luke 19:21 explained