Luke 17:7-10

The Non-meritoriousness of Works. “ But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? 8. And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? 9. Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. 10. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. ”

This saying, which has no connection with what immediately precedes, does not the less admirably close this series of exhortations given by Jesus, which almost all relate to pharisaism; it is peculiar to Luke. A slave returns in the evening, after having laboured all day in the fields. Does the master give himself up to extraordinary demonstrations of pleasure? No; everything goes on in the house according to the established order. From the work of the day, the servant simply passes to that of the evening; he dresses the viands, and serves at table as long (ἕως, or better still, ἕως ἄν) as his master pleases to eat and drink. And only then may he himself take his meal. So the most irreproachable of men must say to himself that he has done nothing but pay his debt to God; does not God on His side provide for all his wants? From the standpoint of right, they are quits on both sides. The word ἀχρεῖος, unprofitable, here signifies: one who has rendered no service (beyond what was due). This estimation of human work is true in the sphere of right where pharisaism plants itself, and it crushes this system in the dust by denying, along with all human merit, all obligation on God's part to recompense man; and this estimate should remain that of every man when he values his work in the presence of God. But there is a sphere higher than that of right, that of love; and in this latter another labour on man's part, that of joyful devotion, and another estimate on God's part, that of the love which is rejoiced by love. Jesus has described this other point of view, Luke 12:36-37. Holtzmann thinks it impossible that this exhortation should have been addressed to the disciples (Luke 17:1). But is not the pharisaic tendency ever ready to spring up again in the hearts of believers? and does it not cling like a gnawing worm to fidelity itself? The words: I trow not, are mistakenly rejected by the Alex. Perhaps the οὐ δοκῶ has been confounded with the οὕτω which follows.

How are we to explain the position of those four exhortations in our Gospel, and their juxtaposition, without any logical bond? According to Holtzmann, Luke is about to return to his great historical source, the proto-Mark, which he had left since Luke 9:51 to work the collection of discourses, the Logia (comp. Luke 18:15, where the narrative of Luke begins again to move parallel to that of the two others); and hence he inserts here by anticipation the two exhortations, Luke 17:1-4, which he borrows from this document (A); then he relates further (Luke 17:5-10) two sayings which he had forgotten, and which he takes from the Logia (Λ), which he is about to quit. But, 1. Why in this case should he not have put these last in the first place (which was the natural order, since all the preceding was taken from Λ), and the two first afterwards (which was not less natural, since Luke is about to return to A)? Besides, 2. Has not the exegesis convinced us at every word that Luke certainly did not take all those sayings from the same written source as Mark and Matthew? The only explanation which can be given of the fragmentary character of this piece appears to us to be the following: Luke had up to this point related a series of exhortations given by Jesus, the occasion of which he was able to a certain extent to indicate; but he found some in his sources which were mentioned without any historical indication. It is this remnant scrap at the bottom of the portfolio, if I may so speak, which he delivers to us as it was, and without any introduction. Hence follow two consequences: 1. Luke's introductions in this part are not of his inventing. For why could not his ingenious mind have provided for these last exhortations as well as for all the preceding? A historical case like those of Luke 11:1; Luke 11:45; Luke 12:13; Luke 12:41, etc., was not difficult to imagine. 2. There is no better proof of the historical reality of the sayings of Jesus quoted in our Syn., than this fragmentary character which surprises us. Discourses which the disciples had put into the mouth of their Master would not have presented this broken appearance.