It is not surprising that the servant who has done best comes first and the one who has done worst comes last. Our willingness or reluctance to come into the presence of God is tied to the testimony of conscience. Those whose hearts do not condemn them and who have served the Lord faithfully, come to him without hesitation, but others fear and draw back because they know before they come that they have not served diligently. The hearts of the righteous approve them not because they are without guilt and have lived a perfect life, but because they know their sins have been forgiven, and the evidence is found in their own hearts: a willing heart to serve the Lord.
Our handling of God’s truth is represented under the figure of trading. It is the nature of spiritual truth, if handled in the right way, to grow. Just as wealth invested in the commercial world produces more wealth through profit, so spiritual truth causes growth in the life of the one who values it. First it causes growth when the word of God is received with joy, as we recognise the precious truth that it is. The implanted word causes us to be consciously born of God, and to be delivered from a lost eternity. Who can measure the value of a soul? No one but God can fully say how much is gained by the salvation of a soul. From that moment onwards, the new life continues to cause increase, whether through the process of sanctification that goes on in the heart, or by the zeal that God gives for the conversion of others, which prompts men and women to face all manner of hardship in order to tell the good news. It is this that Christ means by the five additional talents and not some improvement of natural gifts which does not advance the kingdom of heaven one inch, and often only leads people further from the Lord. For when natural talents are improved, the result is normally only an increase of pride, yet pride is forbidden entry to the kingdom of heaven, where only God may receive the glory. Those who start off with a general belief in the goodness of man will have trouble believing this, but those who are acquainted with the depths of sin in their own hearts, and who accept the testimony of Scripture that the same disease is universal, will be sceptical about what natural gifts can achieve.
The five extra talents are not presented in a boastful way but in order to please the master to whom they belong. The Christian does not claim any credit for good works which God has prepared in advance for him to do, but he casts his crown before the Lord, giving him all the credit for what God has enabled him to do.