ACC ~ Matthew 18 v24

WHEN HE BEGAN THE RECKONING

ORIGEN: The moment of beginning the reckoning starts with the household of God, as is it written in Ezekiel: “Begin at my sanctuary.” [1] This judgment begins as quickly as the twinkling of an eye. [2] In thinking of the demanding of accounts, let us not forget what we have said before, that these accounts are spiritually conceived. And the moment of demand begins understandably with those who owe the most. This is why the passage does not begin generally with a reckoning of all accounts but a specific one: one was brought to him. Here is the moment. He is beginning to demand an account of one who owed him ten thousand talents! It is as if the servant had lost a vast amount and much had been loaned and entrusted to him but had brought no gain to his master. Rather, he ended up losing a vast sum so as to owe him an incredible debt of talents. Remembering the prophet Zechariah, it may be that he owed so many talents for this reason: he had often sought out the woman hidden in a barrel with a lead cover, whose name is Iniquity. [3] COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 14.10. [4]

[1] Ezek 9:7.

[2] 1 Cor 15:52.

[3] Zech 5:7-8, a vision in which wickedness was personified as a woman entrapped in a measuring barrel with a heavy lead cover.

[4] GCS 40:298-99; ANF 9:520.

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