But if that evil bondman should say in his heart, My lord delays to come,
Jesus has just described a servant left in charge of the household. The master came back and found him faithful. Now He turns the picture over. This time the trouble starts with no visible act at all. It starts with what a servant tells himself about when his master is coming. (The writers below quote an older wording, "my lord delays his coming." The ESV reads "My master is delayed.")
The Lord calls him evil before he has done anything visible. What condemns him is a thought he keeps to himself.
If there is a "faithful, wise, and blessed servant," there is also "an evil servant." That servant "says in his heart, My lord delays his coming." Mark this. The thought about the delay of the coming starts in the heart of the wicked servant.
The servant never says his master will not return. He simply stops treating the return as something that could happen now.
"If that servant says in his heart, My lord delays his coming" — this is pretty much the position of the professing church. It is not that people say, He will not come. They simply do not look for Him as something present.
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Behind the delay is something he wants. The thought suited him.
The servant's heart, it turned out, did not want his Lord to return. So he made up his mind that Christ was not coming soon. He did not love His appearing. Why should he? How could he? A quick coming might have cut across some of his plans and projects. He therefore said in his heart, "My Lord delays His coming." But it was a false heart, caught by a device of Satan.
Two things follow, and they pull in opposite directions. He is harsh with those inside the house and comfortable with those outside it.
There you have the great danger of the professed servants of Christ in this world. First, he wrongs his fellow servants by seizing a high-handed authority. Authority is right where a man uses it in obedience to Christ... But here it is man's will. The servant takes the place of the Master and begins to beat his fellow servants. Second, along with that, he keeps bad company with the world. It does not say that he is drunk himself, but there is association with the world... Where the thought of the Lord is gone, ministry loses its true character.
This is more than one man's private failure. Mackintosh points to what it has produced on a large scale.
We need not say how terribly this has been shown in the history of Christendom. True ministry flows from the risen and glorified Head in the heavens. It builds up the body, blesses souls, and makes the household prosper. Instead of that, we have a false clerical authority, arbitrary rule, a lording it over God's people, a grasping after this world's wealth and power, ease for the flesh, self-indulgence, and personal advancement.
The issue is not that he holds mistaken views about prophecy. It is what his heart wants, which then shapes what he believes.
The man is clearly a hypocrite. This is no case of simple ignorance about prophetic teaching. It is what his heart says, whether his views on prophecy are right or wrong... He keeps company with people who live loosely. He is perhaps worse than his company, because of the profession he makes... We easily persuade ourselves of what we want to be true.
Kelly draws a careful line here. Wrong ideas about the timing of the return are not by themselves this sin.
This is far more than wrong thoughts about the coming of the Lord, which some believers might hold without this Scripture applying to them... What the Lord judges is not a mistake or a doctrinal blunder. It is the state of the heart — content that Christ should stay away. If we want something great, something men admire, how can we say, "Come"?
The damage did not stop with one servant.
Putting off this blessed event brought in all kinds of evil. We may even say that losing it was the ruin of the church in its earthly relations here below. For what is the sign of the evil servant? He says, "My lord delays his coming." That is what brought him "to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with drunkards."
- Heart — It starts in his heart, before he lifts a hand or a cup.
- Delay — He never denies the return. He just stops expecting it soon.
- Wish — He does not want it. His Lord's coming would spoil his own plans.
- Damage — With the Master pushed off, the servant takes the throne: harsh at home, at ease with the world.
- Ruin — Commentators trace the church's decline to that one private thought. The cure is to look for Him today.
and begin to beat his fellow-bondmen, and eat and drink with the drunken;
The servant in this parable has just told himself that his master is in no hurry, and this verse shows the result. Why does a fading hope lead to cruelty inside the house and loose company outside it?
The two acts in this verse are not where the trouble starts. One writer asks what was inside the man first.
What is the poison in his wrongdoing? What marked him as "that evil servant"? His conduct shows two fatal stains: he beats his fellow servants, and he eats and drinks with drunkards. He lifts himself up in pride over those whom the Lord has placed on the same level as himself. He also joins himself to the world and shares its life. But what marked the looseness and waywardness of his soul? What was inside him led to these outbreaks of evil, for evil never begins in outward conduct of any kind. The mischief is always inside first.
It is not a mistake in his theology. It is a matter of what he wants.
This is not an intellectual system: "the evil servant says in his heart, My lord delays his coming." His own will was part of it. The result was that the will of the flesh showed itself.
The faithful servant of verse 45 was set over the household to give them food at the proper time. This servant holds the same post and uses the same hand for the opposite purpose.
The effect is shown in lording it over the fellow servants (hierarchical or clerical assumption in Christ's absence), beating instead of feeding, and dealings and fellowship with the world, eating and drinking with the drunken.
The verse names one sin toward those in the house and one toward those outside it. Both follow from forgetting the Master.
There you have the great danger of the professed servants of Christ in this world. First, wronging the fellow servants by taking an arbitrary place. Authority is right when it is used in obedience to Christ... But here it is man's will, where the servant takes the place of the Master, and begins to beat his fellow servants. Second, along with that, he has evil dealings with the world. It does not say that he is drunk himself, but he keeps company with the world... Where the thought of the Lord is gone, ministry loses its true character. There will be oppression toward those inside, and evil dealings with those outside.
The verse never calls the servant a drunkard. It says he keeps their company, and one writer weighs what that company means for a man who claims to serve Christ.
He seizes authority over his fellow servants for himself, and joins himself to people who live loosely. It does not say that he becomes a drunkard, but a man is known by the company he keeps. He is perhaps worse than the company he keeps, because of the claim he makes for himself.
The two acts come in an order, and one writer sets this verse beside a similar failure elsewhere in Scripture.
In both cases alike, they lose all sense of God's claims and of the nature of their position, and evil conduct toward their brothers follows. The comparison goes further. The next thing the evil servant does is "to eat and drink with drunkards," and in the other case we have union with "the daughter of a foreign god." Both are alliance with the world. And this is always the moral order: first, relationships with God ignored, then with our brothers, and finally association with the world.
This is more than a warning to one servant. One writer sees the same two evils in the history of Christendom, the world of people who call themselves Christian.
We need not say how dreadfully this has been acted out in the history of Christendom. True ministry flows from the risen and glorified Head in the heavens. It builds up the body, blesses souls, and keeps the household thriving. Instead of that, we have a false clerical authority, arbitrary rule, a lording it over God's heritage, a grasping after this world's wealth and power, bodily ease, self-indulgence, and personal advancement.
Some argue that expecting Christ at any moment makes people careless about how they live. One writer answers from this verse that the opposite is true.
It was the evil servant who gave up the blessed hope who became lawless. He said in his heart, "My lord delays his coming." Then he ill-treated his fellow servants, and he also ate and drank with drunkards. Such conduct plainly broke the law of faithfulness and decency in his master's house.
- Heart first. Evil never begins in outward conduct. What the servant said to himself in verse 48 produced both crimes in this verse.
- Will, not error. The servant does not deny the Lord's return. He pushes it off because he wants to, and his own will then takes over.
- Inward tyranny, outward worldliness. He oppresses those inside the house and takes his pleasure with those outside. The verse never calls him a drunkard, only a man who keeps their company.
- The order never varies. God's claims ignored, then brothers wronged, then the world embraced. Writers see that same order across the history of Christendom.