Matthew 25:30

Cast - Worn-out; old; cast-off.

Weeping and gnashing of teeth - See on Matthew 8:12 (note), a note necessary for the illustration of this, and the foregoing parable.

And cast ... - See the notes at Matthew 8:12. The spiritual meaning of the parable may be thus summed up:

1. The servants of God are not all endowed with equal gifts and talents.

2. All, whatever may be their ability, are bound to employ their talents in promoting his honor, and in a proper improvement of them.

3. By employing their talents in a proper manner, they improve and strengthen them.

4. They will be judged according to the improvements which they have made.

5. All sinners look on God as a hard master, and as unreasonable and tyrannical.

6. People will be judged not merely for "doing wrong, but for neglecting to do right."

7. If the servant who kept the talent entire without injuring it, and who returned it to his master as he received it, was nevertheless judged, condemned, and cast away, what must they expect who abuse their talents, destroy by drunkenness and lust the noble faculties conferred on them, and squander the property that might be employed in advancing the interests of morals and religion!

25:30 Cast ye the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness - For what? what had he done? It is true he had not done good. But neither is he charged with doing any harm. Why, for this reason, for barely doing no harm, he is consigned to outer darkness. He is pronounced a wicked, because he was a slothful, an unprofitable servant. So mere harmlessness, on which many build their hope of salvation, was the cause of his damnation! There shall be the weeping - Of the careless thoughtless sinner; and the gnashing of teeth - Of the proud and stubborn. The same great truth, that there is no such thing as negative goodness, is in this chapter shown three times: In the parable of the virgins; In the still plainer parable of the servants, who had received the talents; and In a direct unparabolical declaration of the manner wherein our Lord will proceed at the last day. The several parts of each of these exactly answers each other, only each rises above the preceding.