He indicates that a man who trusts complacently in his possessions is
tempted into a disastrous security. He speaks of laying up treasure in
heaven as opposed to the treasures which men store up on earth; and He
points out that whenever things are put aside unused, in order that the
owner may comfort himself by the thought that they are there if he
wants them, decay and corruption begin at once to undermine and destroy
them. What exactly the treasure in heaven can be it is hard to define.
It cannot be anything quite so sordid as good deeds done for the sake
of spiritual investment, because our Saviour was very severe on those
who, like the Pharisees, sought to acquire righteousness by
scrupulosity. Nothing that is done just for the sake of one's own
future benefit seems to be regarded in the Gospel as worth doing. The
essence of Christian giving seems to be real giving, and not a sort of
usurious loan. There is of course one very puzzling parable, that of
the unjust steward, who used his last hours in office, before the news
of his dismissal could get abroad, in cheating his master, in order to
win the favour of the debtors by arbitrarily diminishing the amount of
their debts. It seems strange that our Saviour should have drawn a
moral out of so immoral an incident. Perhaps He was using a well-known
story, and even making allowances for the admiration with which in the
East resourcefulness, even of a fraudulent kind, was undoubtedly
regarded. But the principle seems clear enough, that if the Christian
chooses to possess wealth, he runs a great risk, and that it is
therefore wiser to disembarrass oneself of it. Property is regarded in
the Gospel as an undoubtedly dangerous thing; but so far from our Lord
preaching a kind of socialism, and bidding men to co-operate anxiously
for the sake of equalising wealth, He recommends an individualistic
freedom from the burden of wealth altogether. But, as always in the
Gospel, our Lord looks behind practice to motive; and it is clear that
the motive for the abandonment of wealth is not to be a desire to act
with a selfish prudence, in order to lay an obligation upon God to
repay one generously in the future for present sacrifices, but rather
the attainment of an individual liberty, which leaves the spirit free
to deal with the real interests of life. And one must not overlook the
definite promise that if a man seeks virtue first, even at the cost of
earthly possessions and comforts, h