Luke 12:47, commentary and pictures

The verse teaches that a servant who knows his master's will yet fails to get ready and fails to do it will receive severe punishment for knowing neglect and disobedience. To know the Lord's will is to have received the light of truth and opportunity to understand it, and all will be judged by the light they have received and not by light never given them. Guilt, condemnation and punishment are measured by light, privileges, opportunities and warnings received and disregarded, so greater light brings greater responsibility and knowing disobedience brings the heavier stripes. In the last great day all will be judged by God's law as the standard of character and according to their deeds, words, and neglected duties as recorded in heaven's books. What is entrusted determines what is required, for the Lord closely investigates stewardship and expects returns according to talents bestowed and use made of them, whether of means, abilities, influence, or opportunities to do good and to warn others.

Wording and Immediate Setting

The servant knew his lord's will yet did not prepare himself and did not act according to that will, and shall be beaten with many stripes, meaning severe punishment for knowing neglect and disobedience. What is required from each person depends on what has been entrusted, for the Lord requires both principal and interest and stewardship will be closely investigated. The verse applies to those who know God's will yet do nothing to advance His work, who are unfaithful stewards to be judged according to responsibility. Knowing the commandment and having received its light makes deliberate disobedience especially accountable, so that knowing transgression of God's Sabbath commandment will be punished rather than excused. The light, truth, influence of the Holy Spirit, and gifts received determine what is required, and turning away after receiving them makes guilt greater than that of an uninformed sinner. Those who corrupt their way despite knowing the truth face judgment, with Sodom and Gomorrah left as warning against repeating their course. It applies also to one already familiar with the evidence of truth who repeatedly neglects the Spirit's calls, for delaying or remaining uncommitted does not remove responsibility. Knowing the truth while loving the world and failing to live by it makes profession of faith no protection, but brings greater anguish and judgment.

To know the Lord's will is to have the light of truth, to understand every point of faith, to be familiar with prophecy and the treasures of divine wisdom, even to teach the truth to others while professing to keep the Sabbath, and such knowledge without corresponding works brings loss of the seal of God in the forehead. It requires acting faith and commanding the household, so that by a well-ordered family the influence of truth upon the human heart is presented to the world. Responsibility is proportionate to light received through God's warnings, and the law's claim to obedience remains upon everyone who has had opportunity to know God's will. Judgment is by light received, not by light never given, for mere possession of Scripture is not understanding, and those who have not yet received further truth may nevertheless be righteous before God. Access to Scripture leaves without excuse those who fail to apply its words and cleanse their hearts from sin, God gives power to meet what He requires, and people are judged by the light shining on their path.

The verse belongs to Christ's warning about the last events of earth's history, calling for constant readiness, faithful work and service, where greater light brings greater responsibility. Joined with the next verse it shows that knowing the Lord's will makes a person responsible to do it, not to postpone obedience until the Lord's coming seems near. The servant must live and work as though the Master could come at any time, and knowledge of duty makes failure to prepare and act especially blameworthy. The lesson is to walk with God every day, watching and waiting with a single eye to His glory.

The chapter is urged for study as an important lesson for God's people on the responsible use of the Lord's money, teaching that a house of worship should be neat and appropriate, not needlessly adorned. It belongs to the chapter urged for study in connection with using the Lord's entrusted goods for His work rather than spending them on unnecessary things, warning that the servant who knows his lord's will but does not prepare or act accordingly is answerable and will receive many stripes.

Light Increases Responsibility

To know the Master's will is to be bound to get ready and to do it, and those who know the truth yet do nothing to advance the work, bear no witness by service and good works, leave kind affections, generous impulses, spiritual insight, social advantages, abilities and influence unimproved, idle, hoarded or reserved only for friends, or remain indifferent and worldly under profession of faith, are unfaithful and answerable for neglected duty. Light, ability and influence entrusted must be used for the Lord, and refusal to obey, repent and be converted after receiving spiritual light and opportunity increases condemnation, so that further light gives no excuse when it is not followed. Having generous impulses or spiritual understanding does not excuse inactivity, and a profession of faith makes worldliness and failure to follow God's will more serious, bringing greater accountability and heavier punishment.

Guilt, condemnation and punishment are measured by light, knowledge, privileges, opportunities, intelligence and warnings received and disregarded, so greater light brings greater responsibility and knowing disobedience brings many stripes. Those who have put on Christ by baptism, separated from the world, covenanted to walk in newness of life, rejoiced in sins forgiven and tasted a Saviour's love, and then persist in uniting with foes of Christ, rejecting the perfect righteousness Jesus offers, choosing the ways, amusements, vanities and follies He has condemned, and refusing to conform conduct to the just and holy requirements of God's law, commit the most aggravating sins and will be judged more severely than heathen who never had the light and never knew God or His law. Appeals and warnings disregarded will stand against them in the judgment, deciding between happiness and woe, and those who know of reproof given to others for unfaithfulness yet turn away from admonition are doubly guilty with punishment proportionate to guilt. The same measure appears in Israel's defeat with great slaughter and loss of the ark, proving professed people's iniquities will not go unpunished but bring sore chastisement revealing hypocrisy and rebuking presumption as a testimony for all future ages, God accepting the labors of those who walk in faithfulness and humility while rejecting those who profess to serve Him yet follow the unrighteous course, since He can carry forward His work without those who would pervert or disgrace it. It appears nationally also, for a land richly favored with religious freedom, pure Christian teaching and other blessings bears serious national guilt for ingratitude and forgetfulness of God, with making void God's law completing its iniquity.

Accountability reaches not only light accepted but light that could have been received by following on to know the Lord, using abilities and advancing in faith. Those who remain ignorant of God's claims and duties because they fail to seek that light are in peril, and access to Scripture leaves no excuse where its words are not applied to cleanse the heart from sin, for God gives power to meet what He requires and judges by the light shining on the path. Neglecting faculties, refusing responsibility, or using selfish reasoning and excuses to avoid knowing and doing God's will makes guilt greater, even greater than that of people in doctrinal error who act in keeping with the light they have. Warnings and lessons given to others become condemnation when neglected, and each must act on the light and instruction received.

Those with little light and few opportunities who live up to and improve what they have may enter the kingdom, while those given fuller light and greater advantages who fail to use them are left out. Some who had less light will enter heaven before those who knew more but failed to follow it, and people who repent and accept truth after a life of sin stand in a more favorable position for Christian growth than those who have known much truth but failed to live by it. Many Catholics who live up to the smaller light they have far better will be tested and proved just as surely, judged according to willingness to stand the testing, and a great number of them will be saved, while those claiming to believe present truth and not living it carry greater accountability. To know the Lord's will and have great light requires seeking His face, having the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, and living in full accordance with what is known, and failure to do so while judging others who have not seen the light is foolish wisdom that will be exposed, leaving the knowing but unfaithful more guilty than those outside who have seen less light but live more faithfully in harmony with it. Had an unfaithful knower died without repentance his case would have been worse than that of an unenlightened sinner, though God may spare life in answer to prayer to give time to repent and redeem the time.

What is entrusted fixes what is required, for the Lord requires both principal and interest and this stewardship will be closely investigated. At the judgment the light and knowledge received, the gifts entrusted, and the use made of them determine accountability and eternal destiny, with greater privileges bringing greater responsibility. In the last great day men are judged by God's law as the standard of character and dealt with according to light received, guilt measured by opportunities and privileges failed to improve and returns expected according to talents bestowed. Punishment then is not merely for personal rejection of the offer of salvation but includes account for influence in encouraging others in sin, refusing the yoke of Christ, and keeping others from becoming laborers together with God, where faithfulness would have won eternal life and drawn others into the kingdom.

Judgment According to Knowledge

In the last great day people will be judged by God's law as the standard of character and dealt with according to the light received, with each person judged according to deeds and with obedience or disobedience to God's law determining destiny. Deeds and words are reviewed, including neglected duties and unkind speech, and every day's character recorded in the books of heaven is examined. Knowing the Lord's will and not preparing and doing it brings beating with many stripes, with guilt measured by opportunities and privileges failed to improve and with returns expected according to talents bestowed. A lifetime of crooked, God-dishonoring works leaves a deformed character that can never be made straight, yet Christ will pardon the sincere repentant sinner even with only a few hours left to live, though no one should risk delay while knowing God's will.

Knowing what God requires but failing to heed it increases responsibility, and the appeals, warnings and refused opportunities disregarded will stand against transgressors in the judgment, deciding happiness or woe. Present excuses will not shield them, for there is no exception and no valid excuse left to one who knows the right way yet walks directly contrary to light. Inherited practice and another person's advice cannot excuse disobedience to a clear command, and self-deception by cares, perplexities and press of business cannot save those who think their sin will escape. Their disobedience is not omitted from the book of record, and those who profess to believe the Bible and even expound its truths while living in indulgence of cherished sin without gratitude will at the final summons before the great white throne stand in speechless terror under the Judge's eye, unable to urge the excuses they now use. This applies with special force to God's law, especially the command to do all usual business, worldly profit and pleasure in six days and to remember the Sabbath by keeping the sanctified seventh day for worship, so that those enlightened about it who steal it for worldly business, profit, pleasure and selfish purposes receive the heavier punishment of knowing transgression.

Punishment is not merely for personal rejection of the offer of salvation but includes account for influence exerted on others. It includes encouraging others in sin, refusing the yoke of Christ, and keeping others from becoming laborers together with God, where faithfulness would have won eternal life and drawn others into the kingdom. Through such unfaithfulness others may be ruined, and their blood will be charged to the one who knew what God required but did not obey. Those who teach truth and understand the faith and its prophecies yet fail to live by received light will not receive God's seal, and their neglect can endanger others who follow their example.

Those who know the truth yet disregard God's commands with continually increasing hardness of heart mock and dishonor God, and those put in trust to see that workers receive right education meet the result of unfaithfulness in the great day of final accounts. Knowing the lord's will means making effort to distinguish between the sacred and the common and giving other minds a clear and elevated bias toward right action, but giving the wrong bias because the mind is not clear and elevated is doing the devil's work when supposed to be doing good work for the Master. Unless there is repentance with full purpose of heart and turning to God, judgment and calamity will overtake such servants, and though judgments may be delayed they will surely come while heavenly angels turn away with grieved countenances and the world learns the reason.

Punishment is greater for those who know their Lord's will and receive greater light but remain unrepentant and disloyal, denying their Saviour, and the greater a person's position and light the greater the punishment. Ministers bear responsibility proportionate to the great light received, and ministers who use their position to lead people into disobedience, having professed purity and been entrusted with the gospel, are more guilty than ordinary sinners. The same measure falls on people in responsible positions who misuse privileges and pervert entrusted gifts or hinder God's cause, with judgment according to gifts perverted and opportunities and talents used to hinder. Professed Christians who act as sinners will be punished as sinners, for church membership alone cannot protect anyone from judgment; God weighs people and their actions, and the time of trouble will test those who merely pretend to be faithful.

Even when the soul is not lost there is eternal loss for knowledge that might have been gained but was not gained, for yielding to selfish appetite, and for diminished moral powers, since forgiveness does not restore every voluntary loss suffered during probation. God holds people, especially ministers, responsible for all they might have been if they had improved their talents, and judgment is given according to what they ought to have been but were not and what they might have done but did not accomplish because they did not use their powers to glorify God. All influence belongs to God, all that is acquired is to be used to His glory, and all entrusted property is to be held on the altar of God and returned to Him, for each person is working out his own destiny. To know the light on temperance, self-denial and harmful foods such as flesh meat yet continue self-indulgence in eating and drinking weakens piety, diseases spirituality, causes sickness and invalidism, robs God of His glory and leaves opposers where God cannot work for them or through them, so that even if they repent and are converted eternity will testify to the loss sustained.

The same principle of proportion to knowledge applies to the fallen angels: their knowledge of God's character and glory and the privileges enjoyed in heaven made rebellion especially guilty, so punishment was proportionate to those privileges. Having rebelled in the presence of the glory already experienced, they had no further revelation that could place them in better condition to be won back.

Stewardship of Entrusted Gifts

Entrusted riches, money, goods and influence are to serve the Lord and to diffuse blessings to every nation, kindred, tongue and people, not to be spent on personal extravagance, selfish gain or self-serving adornment. God has made His people stewards of His grace and truth to carry the means of life to a world perishing for lack of knowledge, and neglect to impart what was entrusted is unfaithfulness to trust. The servant who knows his Lord's will for that worldwide diffusion, yet abates in ardor, uses the stores for his own benefit, forgets the starving sufferers to whom he was sent, and treats needy and destitute people without compassion, diverts benevolence into selfishness and diverts resources from God's work. Such misuse robs God, leaves fellow beings to die without the help and message they need, and leaves people without practical help while knowing what Christian duty requires. The Owner will investigate how what was entrusted was used, and those who prove faithful will receive their reward.

Kind affections, generous impulses, spiritual insight, social advantages, abilities and opportunities are talents to be used in service to others and for God's glory, not qualities to keep unused, reserve only for friends, hoard or leave idle. Life itself is a trust, and each person must answer to God for faithful or unfaithful use of what He has entrusted, including clearer understanding of Scripture. Knowing the Master's will brings responsibility to act on it, so having generous impulses or spiritual understanding does not excuse inactivity. Greater gifts, abilities, light and opportunities bring heavier responsibility, and talents kept idle or hoarded are abused rather than faithfully used. The more light and ability received, the more work should correspond to it, and failing to do one's part despite reason and knowledge of God's will is blameworthy and brings heavier condemnation and greater punishment.

The known will includes the God-given responsibility to be faithful in preaching the gospel of the kingdom to all parts of the earth, to all peoples, tongues and nations, before Christ comes. Because the period of life may close at an unknown time with the demand to give an account of stewardship, bringing eternity into reckoning and living for God every day requires hurry. Christ died that every soul might become a missionary, so none may leave the burden to ministers alone, who have fallen into the grave carrying burdens others refused to lift. Each must divest every particle of selfishness, spend no money or time on self-serving adornment such as flowers, feathers or decoration of the body since that waste may cost a soul, and use time instead to open the Bible and awaken perishing souls around who are out of the truth and ready to die. Each must keep clean from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and uphold ministers by holy living and prayers that follow them like sharp sickles into the harvest field, getting above a world that has crazed, benumbed and paralyzed, for knowing the truth without acting on it or witnessing through works is failure to do what was given to do.

Those put in positions of trust to see that workers receive right education will meet the result of unfaithfulness in the great day of final accounts. Knowing the Lord's will means making effort to distinguish between the sacred and the common and giving other minds a clear and elevated bias toward right action. Giving the wrong bias because the mind is not clear and elevated, doing the devil's work when supposed to be doing good work for the Master, abusing goods by abusing influence and misappropriating talents, growing careless and disregarding God's requirements, and failing to learn meekness, lowliness, compassion and love for others brings a call to account from God. People in responsible positions who profane what is sacred, who through narrowness and blindness lose sight of principle, fail to impart to others what God gives, refuse discipline and instruction, partake of the spirit stirring the ungodly, and hinder others from receiving knowledge of God face judgment as unfaithful stewards according to perverted gifts. Unless there is repentance God's judgments will fall upon such servants, and though judgments may be delayed they will surely come with severity proportionate to light had but not heeded.

Faith must be put into practice in ordering the household, for by a well-ordered family the influence of truth upon the human heart is presented to the world. Knowing the Master's will is having the light of truth, understanding every point of faith, and being familiar with prophecy and the treasures of divine wisdom, even teaching truth to others while professing to keep the Sabbath, yet such knowledge without corresponding works brings loss of the seal of God in the forehead. Those who teach truth and understand the faith and its prophecies, yet fail to live by the light received, will not receive God's seal, and their neglect can endanger others who follow their example. The duties of family life are a work God has assigned in which faithfulness brings reward, while neglect of this sacred duty brings the unfaithful steward's reward.

Christians who know their Master's will but neglect the duties and talents entrusted to them, abate in ardor, use the stores for self, and fail to give what they were charged to deliver are recorded as unfaithful servants. God regards this neglect as robbery, writes the tale in His record in heaven where the cries of the perishing ascend, and holds Christians daily guilty of this terrible sin when, though engaged in a work that makes them co-laborers with angels, they fail to deliver what they were charged to give. Those who disregard their God-given responsibility and fail to use abilities faithfully according to knowledge gained will have no place in God's redeemed family.

Obedience in Daily Life

The Master's will is God's law, especially the command to labor in all usual business, worldly profit and pleasure through six days and to keep the sanctified seventh day for worship. Those enlightened about the Sabbath who have received its light yet steal it for worldly business, profit, pleasure, selfish purposes and gain walk directly contrary to light, deceive themselves if they think their sin will escape, dishonor God and teach others to transgress. No cares, perplexities, press of business, excuse or self-deception will save such transgressors, for there is no exception for them and their disobedience is not omitted from the book of record. When the nations come before God for judgment their knowing transgression brings its merited punishment with the rod, a heavier punishment of knowing disobedience with many stripes rather than excuse. Hearing truth and receiving spiritual privilege bring responsibility to practice what is heard, since Sabbath observance and meeting attendance alone do not make a Christian, and people are judged according to light and privileges received with corresponding consequences for deeds, honoring God through faithful observance of the day He made holy while those who receive light from His Word about it and reject it will not be saved in doing so.

Knowing God's will about health reform requires living accordingly in temperance, self-denial and abstinence from harmful foods such as flesh meat. To know that light yet continue self-indulgence in eating and drinking, yielding to selfish appetite and opposing its principles, puts opposers where God cannot work for them or through them. Such intemperance weakens piety, diseases spirituality, keeps believers from the high standard of spirituality God has set, causes much sickness and invalidism, and robs God of His glory. Knowing the Lord's will means obeying the truth by putting away fleshly appetites and injurious food, meat eating and other harmful diet, Sodomitish impurity and all uncleanness, and revealing its purifying, sanctifying influence, while those who hold the truth in unrighteousness, pervert it and offer corrupted, Christless service will, without repentance and forsaking of uncleanness, fall with the wicked at the execution of judgment, whereas those who overcome and forsake sin become saints fit for God's kingdom in the earth made new. Even if opposers repent and are converted, eternity will testify to the loss they sustained by yielding to selfishness, for knowingly failing to follow what God has made known leaves them accountable to severe punishment with many stripes and an eternal loss.

Those blessed with great light, especially students given grand truth, carry a heavy burden of responsibility to live up to what they know by putting the whole heart into Christ's service rather than striving in a tame, listless way without religious interest. Knowing the Lord's will calls for daily prayer and watchfulness, earnest seeking of the Lord, and not only claiming to believe the truth but living and practicing it, reaching supreme love to God and love to those for whom Christ died. Christ requires experience and character to accord with talents, light, grace and privileges received, with obedience, faith and love developed in proportion to what was given. Faith exercised according to light and privileges opens heaven, brings fulfillment of God's rich promises and leaves nothing wanting, while unbelief is offensive to God and withholds good; if faith does not increase, light and blessings decrease, and if talents are not improved condemnation follows in proportion to the neglect.

Knowing without doing makes profession of faith no protection but increases guilt, censurability and punishment, bringing greater anguish and judgment when judged. It condemns loving the world and following its ways, worldliness, pride, vanity, frivolous talk, gossip, jesting, amusements, jealousy, suspicion and evil-speaking, which create difficulties and alienations and seriously dishonor God. Longer experience, standing among believers and solemn appeals increase accountability, shape youth toward the world, and are written by angels, so that those who profess belief in the truth but live as sinners will be punished with many stripes unless they repent and manifest reformation.

Knowing the Master's will without doing it leaves a person in a perilous condition, with the year spent failing to act on what was known lost. Presuming on God as merciful while neglecting to make calling and election sure gives no safety, because mercy and assurance belong only to those who know and do, and salvation comes when men accept its conditions and depend on God's mercy, with God then working out their salvation for them. Every day character is recorded in the books of heaven and every person will be judged according to works, and a lifetime of crooked God-dishonoring works leaves a deformed character that can never be made straight. Christ will pardon the sincere repentant sinner even with only a few hours left to live, but no one should run the risk of delaying while knowing the will of God, and knowledge of duty makes failure to prepare and act especially blameworthy, requiring living and working as though the Master could come at any time, walking with God every day, watching and waiting with a single eye to His glory rather than postponing obedience until His coming seems near.

Warnings from History Forward

Sin is measured by knowledge of God's will, so the greater the knowledge the greater the guilt of those who disregard it. Israel's defeat proves the iniquities of professed people will not go unpunished but bring sore chastisement that reveals hypocrisy and rebukes presumption. Knowing God's will yet disregarding it, judgment fell in defeat with great slaughter, thirty thousand men dead on the field, the ark of God taken, and Eli's two sons fallen while defending it. This was left as a testimony for all future ages that God rejects all who profess to serve Him yet follow the unrighteous course. He accepts the labors of those who walk in faithfulness and humility before Him, is not dependent upon men to cause His name to be feared and honored, and can carry forward His work without the cooperation of those who would pervert or disgrace it.

Punishment is in proportion to intelligence and to warnings despised. After God pleaded with the Jews not to provoke Him to anger with the work of their hands and hearts and they hearkened not, Jeremiah predicted their captivity for not heeding the word of the Lord. The Chaldeans were used as the instrument by which God would chastise His disobedient people. He had long delayed His judgments from unwillingness to humiliate His chosen people, but then visited His displeasure upon them as a last effort to check them in their evil course. Those who know their Lord's will are judged according to the light received and bear greater guilt when they do not act on it. The Jewish leaders had the prophecies and the written Word testifying of Christ, so their knowledge made them accountable for rejecting Him.

The greater the light and evidence received, the greater the guilt and retribution for rejecting it. Those who repeat the Jews' rejection of Christ's warnings and reproofs in the face of greater light incur greater condemnation. The same measure applies to nations, for degree of guilt is proportioned to light received and rejected, and those who know God's will and fail to act on it face greater punishment. The United States, richly favored with religious freedom, Christian teaching taught in purity, and other blessings, bears serious national guilt for ingratitude and forgetfulness of God proportionate to the light it rejects. Making void God's law will complete the measure of its iniquity.

The light, truth, influence of the Holy Spirit, and gifts received determine what the Lord requires, and turning away after receiving them makes guilt greater than that of an uninformed sinner. Those who corrupt their way despite knowing the truth face judgment, and the example of Sodom and Gomorrah warns against repeating their course. Belshazzar had opportunities to learn from God's works and from Nebuchadnezzar's warning and experience but ignored them, and he was condemned not only for doing wrong but for failing to use his opportunities and abilities to do right. People are not condemned simply for honestly believing error, but for neglecting the means available to learn the truth. Greater spiritual advantages increase the obligation to live faithfully, neglecting the light hardens the heart and leaves a person unready for judgment, and Capernaum's exceptional privileges did not ensure its favor in judgment. God's people must keep advancing in the light they are given.

Those who know God's will and have received great light are accountable for living by it, and neglecting that light brings judgment corresponding to what they knew and despised. Professed followers of God may be found among the unjust when every case is decided for eternity, while only those whose works match the light given them are counted on the Lord's side. Professed Christians who act as sinners will be punished as sinners, with severity corresponding to how they used their opportunities and talents to hinder God's cause. Church membership alone cannot protect anyone from judgment, for God weighs people and their actions, and the time of trouble will test those who merely pretend to be faithful. At the last great day those in the church who dishonor God by acting like the world will be found among those who knew their Lord's will and did it not. They are one with the world, full of evil in heart and practice, readily discerning defects in others, treating their own souls meanly, having no real confidence in themselves and therefore quick to see the mistakes of others, and making all possible capital out of the errors of their brethren, and as they judge so they will be judged.