nd which he had in
view. Our Saviour adds: "For the children of this world are in their
generation [more exactly, _towards_ or _in respect to_ their own
generation; that is, in dealing with men of their own sort] wiser than
the children of light." The steward and his lord's debtors were all
"children of this world," and the transaction between them was conducted
upon worldly principles. Our Saviour would have "the children of
light"--God's holy children, who live and act in the sphere of heavenly
light--provident of their everlasting welfare in the use which they make
of this world's goods, as this steward was of his earthly welfare when
he should be put out of his stewardship. He accordingly adds, as the
scope of the parable (ver. 9): "Make to yourselves friends of [by the
right use of] the mammon of unrighteousness [so called as being with
unrighteous men the great object of pursuit, and too commonly sought,
moreover, by unrighteous means]; that when ye fail [are discharged from
your stewardship by death], they may receive you [that is, the friends
whom ye have made by bestowing your earthly riches in deeds of love and
mercy] into everlasting habitations." Our Lord uses the words, "they may
receive you," in allusion to the steward's language: "they may receive
me into their houses." They do not receive us by any right or authority
of their own, for this belongs to Christ alone; but they receive us in
the sense that they bear witness before the throne of Christ to our
deeds of love and mercy, by which is manifested the reality of our
faith, and thus our title, through grace, to everlasting habitations.
Compare the remarkable passage in Matt. 25:34-46, which furnishes a true
key to the present parable.

8. To determine whether a _symbol_ is a _real transaction or seen only
in vision_, we must consider both its _nature_ and the _context_. When
Ezekiel, at God's command, visits the temple-court, digs in its wall,
and sees the abominations practised there (chap. 8), we know from his
own words (ver. 3) that the whole transaction was "in the visions of
God." So also the remarkable vision of dry bones. Chap. 37:1-14. But the
symbolical action that follows--the joining of two sticks into
one--seems to be represented as real; for the people ask concerning it:
"Wilt thou not tell us what thou meanest by these?" (ver. 18), and the
two sticks are in the prophet's hand "before their eyes" (ver. 20). The
nature of the symbolical tra