Jesus’s teaching is concluded by a short, unnamed parable. So I will name it, “The Parable of the Duty of the Unworthy Servants”. The premise is this: 1. Christians are God’s servants. 2. God owns his servants. 3. God gives his servants duties. 4. God’s servants obey his commands, the duties he commits to us. 5. The servants do not merit rewards because we obey. 6. God owes us nothing for duty. 7. If God gives us anything, it is not because he owes us. 8. Servants are to mind their places. 9. Duty is not a job with wages, even if obeyed perfectly. Duty is an expected obligation to our owner.
Calvin commented on “The Parable of the Duty of Unworthy Servants”. “With respect to merit, we must remove the difficulty by which many are perplexed; for Scripture so frequently promises a reward to our works, that they think it allows them some merit. The reply is easy. A reward is promised, not as a debt, but from the mere good pleasure of God. It is a great mistake to suppose that there is a mutual relation between Reward and Merit; for it is by his own undeserved favor, and not by the value of our works, that God is induced to reward them.
“By the engagements of the Law, I readily acknowledge, God is bound to men, if they were to discharge fully all that is required from them; but still, as this is a voluntary obligation, it remains a fixed principle, that man can demand nothing from God, as if he had merited any thing.
“And thus the arrogance of the flesh falls to the ground; for, granting that any man fulfilled the Law, he cannot plead that he has any claims on God, having done no more than he was bound to do. When he says that we are unprofitable servants, his meaning is that God receives from us nothing beyond what is justly due but only collects the lawful revenues of his dominion.” (Calvin’s Commentaries)
