Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant

Often you will hear Christians speaking about how, when they die, they long to hear the following words spoken to them by God: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” It is a hope, a fond expectation, and a motivation to Godly living for many. I was thinking about it recently though and considering whether it is right for us to expect to hear these words. And as I did, my initial thoughts were that there really was no warrant to expect them.

For one thing, we have to consider the context in which we find the biblical statement. It appears twice in the Bible, both times as part of “The Parable of the Talents” in Matthew 25. We have to be careful not to lean too heavily on the precise words spoken by the master in the parable. It is straining beyond the point of reason to assume that just because certain words are found on the lips of the master in the parable, we can expect to hear those same words emanate from the mouth of God. For if we are to assign to God all that is true of the master, then we must assume that God is “a hard man, reaping where he did not sow, and gathering where he scattered no seed,” as the servent alleges (25:24) and the master seems to admit (25:26).

We must be careful though not to overly allegorize each detail of a parable. While the individual parts of a parable may indeed serve as symbols pointing to various correlative truths, with a parable we must remember to always keep the main point the main point. In this case, for instance, as Calvin warns, “This harshness has nothing to do with the substance of the parable…Christ only means, that there will be no excuse for the indolence of those who both conceal the gifts of God, and waste their time in idleness.”

Even so, perhaps we are to understand the parable in such a way as to see that the servant is wrongly accusing the master, and the master’s reply is merely rhetorical in nature. If we do this though, we still have a problem. The reality of the situation is that no matter what righteous deeds we might have done, they can never serve to qualify us as “good and faithful.” Isaiah 64:6 tells us that before a perfectly righteous God, “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (KJV = “filthy rags”), and Luke 18:19 reminds us that, “No one is good except God alone.”

As I considered these truths, I knew that there was nothing I could do that would cause God to rightly call me his “good and faithful servant.” But there is One to whom this label would rightly apply: Christ Jesus himself. And here is the really good part: My identity is no longer found in who I am and what I’ve done. My true identity is now found in who Christ is and in what he has done (Philippians 3:9).

So in the end, I’m not certain that God actually says those blessed words to individual people upon their arrival at the pearly gates. But if he indeed does, I certainly expect to hear them. It will not on my own account, but for the sake of Christ and as a result of my union with Him that I will rejoice in the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”