Matthew 25:21

His lord said unto him, Well done “The original word, Ευ, well done, has a peculiar force and energy, far beyond what we can express in English. It was used by auditors or spectators in any public exercise, to express the highest applause, when any part had been excellently performed.” Doddridge. Good and faithful servant Those that own and honour God now, he will own and confess hereafter, and their diligence and integrity will be found to praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. 1st, Their persons will be accepted. He that now knows their integrity will then bear witness to it; and they that are now found faithful, will then be declared to be Song of Song of Solomon 2 d, Their performances will be accepted, Well done. Christ will call those, and those only, good servants, who have done well; for it is by a patient continuance in well doing that we seek for and obtain this glory and honour: and it is on condition of our doing that which is good, that we shall have praise of the same. Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler, &c. It is usual, in the courts of princes and families of great men, to advance those to higher offices who have been faithful in lower. Christ is a master that will prefer his servants who acquit themselves well. He has honour in store for those that honour him, a crown, a throne, a kingdom. Here they are beggars: in heaven they shall be rulers and princes. Observe, reader, the disproportion between the work and the rewards. There are but few things in which the saints are serviceable to the glory of God, but many things wherein they shall be glorified with God. The charge we receive from God, the work we do for God in this world, is but little, very little, compared with the joy set before us: put together all our services, all our sufferings, all our improvements, all the good we do to others, all we obtain to ourselves, and they are but a few things, next to nothing, not fit to be named the same day with the glory to be revealed. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord The joy which he himself has purchased and provided for his servants; the joy of the redeemed, bought with the sorrow of the Redeemer; the joy which he himself is in possession of, and which he had his eye upon when he endured the cross and despised the shame, Hebrews 12:2; the joy of which he himself is the fountain and centre; for it is joy in the Lord, who is our exceeding joy. Into this joy glorified saints shall enter, that is, shall have a full and complete possession of it; as the heir, when he comes to age, enters upon his estate. Here the joy of our Lord enters into the saints, in the earnest of the Spirit, but shortly they shall enter into it, and shall be in it to all eternity, possessing fulness of joy and unspeakable pleasures for evermore.