The Younger Son Asks for His InheritanceBible World
15:11Luke 15:11
And he said, A certain man had two sons:
A certain man with two sons opens the story of a father whose younger son demands his inheritance, leaves home to waste it in self-chosen pleasure, and is later welcomed back in pity and forgiveness while the elder son resents his restoration. It belongs with the lost sheep and the lost piece of silver to teach the loss of the wanderer and heaven's joy when the lost are brought back to God. Jesus told it when scribes and Pharisees complained that He received publicans and sinners, to show His mission to recover rather than condemn them. The father is the heavenly Father, tender and compassionate, who watches, runs to meet the returning penitent, forgives without reproach, and restores him with honor. The elder son pictures the self-righteous who feel no need of repentance and refuse to rejoice, and the lesson calls God's people to seek wanderers with pity, forgive as God forgives, and share heaven's gladness over their return.
Parable Context and Purpose
A certain man had two sons opens the parable of a father and his two sons, which belongs together with the lost sheep and the lost piece of silver to teach what it means to be lost. That grouping shows heaven's joy when one who was lost is brought back to God.
Jesus gave the story in answer to the scribes and Pharisees murmuring because He received and ate with publicans and sinners. His purpose was to reveal that His mission was to recover the lost rather than to condemn and destroy them, and to teach mercy and forgiveness. The younger son stands for one who needs a Saviour, while the elder son's self-righteousness with no felt need of repentance exposes the spirit of those who condemned Christ for seeking the lost.
Christ drew the illustration from facts of life and experience familiar to His hearers, delighting to gather spiritual teaching from the surroundings of daily life. By such familiar events He made immortal truth and the unseen understandable, giving something to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. So the daily task is brightened and uplifted by constant reminders of spiritual realities.
He taught straight to the point, without long, farfetched and complicated reasoning. Reading every heart, He drew from His treasure things new and old to illustrate and enforce truth, touching the heart, awakening sympathy, and commending truth to the conscience while leaving hearers free to accept or reject it. In this most pathetic and touching story the truth is made clear and moving, as the father sees the returning son afar off, runs to meet him, and rejoices that he who was thought dead is alive.
The meaning reaches beyond the surface story and involves eternal interests, so it must be carefully studied, considered with purpose, and obeyed. It is to be studied together with the lost sheep and the lost piece of silver, which call for going out to search for and bring back those who stray from the fold instead of wounding and driving them away. The two sons picture contrasting responses to an erring one who repents: the father welcomes him with pity, gladness and love, while the elder brother is cold, jealous, unthankful and resentful. Thus the younger son's separation, sinful course, repentance, and loving welcome in humility reveal the father's pity and forgiveness, set against resentment at the lost being restored.
Younger Son Leaving Home
The younger son grows tired of the restraint of his father's home and misreads his father's love and care as a restriction on his freedom. He is not dutiful but restless under counsel and loving care, wanting his own way and seeking independence to follow his own desires. He mistakes liberty for license, breaks away from his father's authority, and chooses a course of his own.
Though he feels no gratitude or obligation to his generous father, he claims a child's right to the family goods. Rightfully he can claim nothing and should have had nothing, yet he treats his father's property as his own to use as he pleases and rejects mutual obligation. He demands his share of the inheritance before his father's death for immediate pleasure without regard for the future, bracing his selfish, rebellious spirit with the thought that part of the property belongs to him. He thinks he will be happy using his portion according to his own pleasure without advice or restraint.
The father grants the request to separate interest and manage the share to suit self-inclination. The son then selfishly withdraws and goes far away so he will not be troubled by counsel, correction, advice or reproofs. He despises restraint, is fully determined to have pleasure in any way he chooses, and goes so far as even to forget he has a father.
His departure portrays the sinner's desire to separate interest from God and use God's gifts for self-indulgence. He treats the Father's gifts as his due and manages them to suit his own inclination in a distant country. There he wastes his inheritance and his youth and powers in sinful living.
He represents one who has known the Father's love but has allowed the tempter to lead him captive. He is the backslider who leaves the Father's house and service, the lost soul away from blessing, far from home and perishing in need and in hunger. Those far from God and perishing in sin are pictured in him, to be treated with compassion and brought to saving truth.
He also pictures professed commandment keepers who transgress the law and are unthankful and unholy. They use entrusted talents with an influence that counterworks God unto unsanctification rather than holiness, having darkness rather than light in them. Jesus yearns after these sons and daughters acting as the prodigal and longs to do them the good He delights to do, but He is hindered by perversity of character.
His waywardness illustrates how indulgence at home and parents' neglect to restrain can contribute to children becoming wayward. The story is applied to wayward children.
Ruin Repentance and Return
The younger son squanders what he receives in riotous, sinful pleasure, and evil companions deepen his sin, for a life centered on self wastes its years and powers and leads to spiritual poverty and degradation. His restlessness under counsel and loving care makes him mistake liberty for license, break away from authority, and spend his inheritance until famine leaves him hungry and longing for swine's food. The freedom he sought becomes bondage and misery, leaving him impoverished, hungry, degraded and enslaved by sin after spending all in sinful indulgence until pinching want brings destitution and the low business of feeding swine.
In him is pictured a man ruined by selfish indulgence, once proud, ambitious and successful, but led downward by wine drinking until courage is lost and he comes under Satan's control, whom Christ meets with tender sympathy and words suited to his need. Serving sin and the flesh and the devil gives no profit and only poor wages and no lasting satisfaction, and long separation from God leaves the wanderer with no certain hope of eternal life and in danger of being cut off and perishing in sin. Those who abandon God for careless pleasure are thus instructed that they find no lasting satisfaction, yet can return humbly and be received with forgiveness and restoration.
Want and humiliation lead him to remember the kindness and provision of his father's house, regret extravagant pleasure, search his heart over what road he travels and where it will end, recognize his need, and decide to return with humble confession rather than flatter himself with false hopes or neglect to come. Returning means turning square about at once, leaving sin and Satan's service even at loss of work and position, confessing backsliding, and declaring a purpose to be a Christian from that day before God and angels and witnesses. The one who so returns enters a new channel with purified thoughts and changed purposes, feels the solemn responsibility taken, and receives evidence of pardon and love that brings happiness and thankfulness, with the Lord as helper unto eternal life.
The Father's house is God, and returning is turning unto the Lord with confession and contrition of soul, seeking Him in earnest prayer whether for the first time or after backsliding. It is done with full decision of soul giving heart and life to God in unreserved surrender of the whole life, worked by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit upon the heart and by willingness to receive truth and be wisely helped and saved. The lesson is to return without delay as the son came back, humbly confessing sin and seeking forgiveness, trusting firmly that Jesus is sufficient for all things and will do all He has promised so that none who seek Him in this way seek in vain. Failure and being betrayed into sin do not make one unworthy to pray, but he should come, tell his mistakes and failures, ask strength for fresh endeavor toward God's ideal, trusting the Lord recognizes every effort and never disappoints confidence, for deliverance comes through Jesus' strength, not one's own.
Enjoying a son's privileges is linked with accepting a son's obligations and conditions, for welcome into the house does not remove them. The returned wanderer must remain under care and in the fold under the shepherd rather than resume wanderings, live in keeping with sonship, repay love by remaining in obedience and self-denying service, renounce the world's favor and friendship, make Christ all and in all, walk according to His Word, and submit to His dominion and reign as King with cordial assent and willing obedience to God's terms. Such a return brings submission to God's will and way as the Lord leads step by step into a rich experience, bringing praise to the Lord and moving hearers to weeping joy. God accepts those who turn with full decision, blesses the returned one, and works through him to help others be converted.
Father's Compassionate Reception
The father in the story is the heavenly Father Himself, the One who has been sinned against, and the parable lays open what God really is toward those who stray and stand exposed to temptation. He is tender, loving, pitying and kind, and though wanderers turn away and choose their own course He does not leave them in their misery or abandon them there. When His children err and stray, yet repent and return, He receives them with the joy of an earthly father welcoming a long-lost son, and calls His people to cooperate with Him in seeking the lost and winning back the erring.
He longs and watches for the estranged son, and goes out to meet him, taking the first step to seek the rebellious. He sees him afar off and runs to meet him, rejoicing that one thought dead is alive, and He provides for him even before knowing him. This taking of the initiative gives courage to sinners who have done wrong, that the wanderer who lets Him bring him home will be welcomed back.
When the son comes back sensible of great sin and neglect, valuing his father's love and acknowledging his claims, having suffered and felt his need as only the Father can supply, the Father meets him with great joy, pity and forgiveness. He does not meet the returning sinner with denunciations and accusations of wrath, but prepares a feast to celebrate the return. The son who has followed sin and now repents comes to the Father as the only One who can supply that need, and his return becomes a source of greatest joy.
Every repentant soul is welcomed with joy and without reproach or reminders of unworthiness, for penitence and contrition are required and then pardon is free. The past is treated as forgiven, shame is covered, and the wanderer who turns back is restored as a child with tenderness and signs of honor, clothed with the robe of righteousness into the Father's household and not shamed for former sins. God joyfully receives any sinner who returns to Him in this way.
Anyone who truly desires to return will be received, even the poorest, and failure and being betrayed into sin do not make a person unworthy to pray or to come before the Lord. Let him come, tell his mistakes and failures, ask for strength for fresh endeavor toward God's ideal, and trust that the Lord recognizes every effort to reach His ideal and never disappoints or abuses the confidence of the one who returns.
The parable reveals the Father's infinite love for the fallen race in the gift of His beloved Son as a sacrifice to die for the human race, making a channel for the outflow of infinite love so that all who believe are restored again to favor. Through Christ's mercy the prodigal is brought back to the Father's house, restored to favor and assured of acceptance, peace and love, giving grand themes for thought and a solid foundation for faith beyond which nothing more can be asked of God. Believing on Him brings obedience to all of God's commandments and life in Jesus Christ. That compassion for the lost, shown at Calvary in Christ's sacrifice for human sin and dying love, is the pledge that Christ welcomes the sinner who comes to Him.
The very desire to return is the pleading of God's Spirit drawing the wanderer back to the Father, whose compassion exceeds even the tenderness expressed in the story. Those convicted by the Spirit who have neglected the invitation and not yet given the life to God are being called back by that fatherly love.
When even the poorest comes to the Father in repentance, as the prodigal did, there is joy among the heavenly host, marked by heaven's warmth, courtesy and love and the warmth of God's welcome. Christ's joy over the repenting sinner, especially one endangered by temptation and for whom He feels tender sympathy and puts forth earnest effort, is greater than over the ninety-nine who need no repentance.
The father's loving treatment of the wayward son illustrates God's patient care for Israel, whom He loves as a father loves a son even while Israel resists mercy. He is willing to suffer for their sins and bear their guilt, and the parable helps show Christ's anguish over Jerusalem and the judgment He foresaw falling upon it.
Elder Brother's Complaint
The elder son stands for the self-righteous who feel no need of repentance, answering to the Pharisees who condemned Jesus for seeking the lost, and to unrepenting Israel unwilling to recognize publicans and sinners as brothers to be sought, forgiven and led to everlasting life. The Heavenly Father welcomes every truly penitent soul with joy and without reproach or reminders of unworthiness, yet penitence is required. He also pictures believers in an established church upon whom much labor has been bestowed, who ought to rejoice when the Lord brings wandering sheep into the fold through new work elsewhere with souls awakened and baptized. Instead he acts in envy and jealousy, murmuring and complaining that others receive the ministry of the Word while he is left without it, sorely displeasing the Lord by gossip, doubt, questioning and evil surmising rather than seeking to save the lost. Those so favored should know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, and if Christ is formed within as the hope of glory they will be an earnest working church carrying salvation, reflecting light by precept and example, by burden for souls and sincere prayer, stretching out hands all day long to hunt for souls and bring truth close to hearts, instead of selfishly expecting to be constantly fed with sermons while doing no righteousness at home or in church, which is a curse and not a blessing.
In contrast to the father's pity, gladness, love, tenderness and restoration with signs of honor, he is cold, jealous, unthankful, resentful, stubborn, selfish, indifferent and contemptuous, unwilling to receive his repenting brother or rejoice at his return. Though remaining in his father's house, he watches for faults, magnifies them while overlooking his own, refuses to forgive, accuses his brother, creates division, is blinded to his own faults and left unreceptive to light, acting in Satan's spirit rather than reflecting the Father's mercy. God still loves those who separate from Him and works to bring them back, receiving them with joy and covering the restored sinner with the robe of righteousness when they repent, and His people are to seek restoration, forgive as God forgives, and rejoice when sinners return.
He stands for those handling sacred things who show indifference and careless disregard for those ready to die instead of seeking the wandering sheep as the true Shepherd does. He feels his own course righteous and faithful in home duties, supposes he needs no repentance and deserves commendation and honor, contrasts himself with the prodigal, cannot sympathize with the father's joy in receiving back the wanderer, and thereby shows he himself is in need of repentance. His complaints are natural but not right, and the parable forbids his complaining attitude toward the returning one and calls for receiving the repentant with the father's joy. Those who have erred need pity, help, sympathy and above all free forgiveness rather than efforts to make them feel their error and repeated reminders of their mistakes, lest departing from this lesson wound and drive away the lost sheep instead of seeking it. The parable calls people to examine whether they follow the father's compassionate example or the elder brother's self-righteous spirit, and it was given for the benefit of those who claim to love God that they may properly represent Him by sharing heaven's rejoicing over the found lost with sympathy, mercy and personal care rather than censure, suspicion or reproach.
Seeking and Restoring Wanderers
The church bears responsibility to seek those who have wandered and bring them back into the fold, and failure to seek them is a wrong to be recognized and acknowledged, as in the case of George Lay. God still loves those who separate themselves from Him after knowing the Father's love, and He works to bring them back, receiving them with joy and restoring them when they repent. His people are to cooperate with Him and with heaven's work to reclaim the lost, seeking restoration, forgiving as God forgives, and rejoicing when sinners return rather than resenting forgiveness in a selfish, jealous, accusing spirit that magnifies another's faults while overlooking its own. Those who have themselves been sought and restored through Christ can understand how to seek the lost, and those who teach truth must make known the Father's waiting, yearning love, even His giving of His Son to die for the human race, to win souls and bring many prodigals to the Father.
Those who have erred need pity, help, sympathy and above all free forgiveness rather than efforts to make them feel their error, reminders of mistakes, harsh condemnation, anger, censure, suspicion or reproach. They should be treated with loving, unselfish, patient, compassionate interest and personal care to lead them toward repentance, since the returning one has suffered, felt need, become sensible of great sin and neglect, and come appreciating the Father's love and acknowledging His claims as the only one who can supply that need. The parable should shape heart, mind and conduct to replace severe judgment of a fallen brother with compassion and a desire to restore, whether dealing with the erring, the fallen, youth, students, or tempted people. To depart from this lesson and take the elder brother's cold, complaining attitude toward the returning one is to wound and drive away the lost sheep instead of seeking it, for those who go astray are souls needing help, not people to be driven further from God.
Youth are instructed that abandoning God for careless pleasure finds no lasting satisfaction, but that even after reckless spending and misery in a foreign country they can return humbly in repentance and be received with forgiveness and restoration to the Father's heart. The nearly hopeless are likewise to be offered encouragement and a message of love rather than blame, so that those who have wandered from God may come back to Him in contrition and penitence and grasp redemption through Christ. Those who have left the Father's house, turned from God, or once loved and served Him should be encouraged to return, leave sin, confess backsliding, come back to Jesus and receive pardon, love, help and eternal life. God still loves such a one and will accept him as His child if he returns, as illustrated by the call to Amos.
Prodigals who are sick and sinful in darkness, separated from God and perishing in need, are to be reached where they are, pointed to Christ as the great Healer, and encouraged to return to the Father. This seeking and restoring work belongs to medical missionary work through sanitariums, carried on by sympathetic, kind, straightforward, noble and upright workers who receive light and grace and love from Christ to impart to those in darkness.
A certain man with two sons opens the story of a father whose younger son demands his inheritance, leaves home to waste it in self-chosen pleasure, and is later welcomed back in pity and forgiveness while the elder son resents his restoration. It belongs with the lost sheep and the lost piece of silver to teach the loss of the wanderer and heaven's joy when the lost are brought back to God. Jesus told it when scribes and Pharisees complained that He received publicans and sinners, to show His mission to recover rather than condemn them. The father is the heavenly Father, tender and compassionate, who watches, runs to meet the returning penitent, forgives without reproach, and restores him with honor. The elder son pictures the self-righteous who feel no need of repentance and refuse to rejoice, and the lesson calls God's people to seek wanderers with pity, forgive as God forgives, and share heaven's gladness over their return.
Parable Context and Purpose
A certain man had two sons opens the parable of a father and his two sons, which belongs together with the lost sheep and the lost piece of silver to teach what it means to be lost. That grouping shows heaven's joy when one who was lost is brought back to God.
Jesus gave the story in answer to the scribes and Pharisees murmuring because He received and ate with publicans and sinners. His purpose was to reveal that His mission was to recover the lost rather than to condemn and destroy them, and to teach mercy and forgiveness. The younger son stands for one who needs a Saviour, while the elder son's self-righteousness with no felt need of repentance exposes the spirit of those who condemned Christ for seeking the lost.
Christ drew the illustration from facts of life and experience familiar to His hearers, delighting to gather spiritual teaching from the surroundings of daily life. By such familiar events He made immortal truth and the unseen understandable, giving something to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. So the daily task is brightened and uplifted by constant reminders of spiritual realities.
He taught straight to the point, without long, farfetched and complicated reasoning. Reading every heart, He drew from His treasure things new and old to illustrate and enforce truth, touching the heart, awakening sympathy, and commending truth to the conscience while leaving hearers free to accept or reject it. In this most pathetic and touching story the truth is made clear and moving, as the father sees the returning son afar off, runs to meet him, and rejoices that he who was thought dead is alive.
The meaning reaches beyond the surface story and involves eternal interests, so it must be carefully studied, considered with purpose, and obeyed. It is to be studied together with the lost sheep and the lost piece of silver, which call for going out to search for and bring back those who stray from the fold instead of wounding and driving them away. The two sons picture contrasting responses to an erring one who repents: the father welcomes him with pity, gladness and love, while the elder brother is cold, jealous, unthankful and resentful. Thus the younger son's separation, sinful course, repentance, and loving welcome in humility reveal the father's pity and forgiveness, set against resentment at the lost being restored.
Younger Son Leaving Home
The younger son grows tired of the restraint of his father's home and misreads his father's love and care as a restriction on his freedom. He is not dutiful but restless under counsel and loving care, wanting his own way and seeking independence to follow his own desires. He mistakes liberty for license, breaks away from his father's authority, and chooses a course of his own.
Though he feels no gratitude or obligation to his generous father, he claims a child's right to the family goods. Rightfully he can claim nothing and should have had nothing, yet he treats his father's property as his own to use as he pleases and rejects mutual obligation. He demands his share of the inheritance before his father's death for immediate pleasure without regard for the future, bracing his selfish, rebellious spirit with the thought that part of the property belongs to him. He thinks he will be happy using his portion according to his own pleasure without advice or restraint.
The father grants the request to separate interest and manage the share to suit self-inclination. The son then selfishly withdraws and goes far away so he will not be troubled by counsel, correction, advice or reproofs. He despises restraint, is fully determined to have pleasure in any way he chooses, and goes so far as even to forget he has a father.
His departure portrays the sinner's desire to separate interest from God and use God's gifts for self-indulgence. He treats the Father's gifts as his due and manages them to suit his own inclination in a distant country. There he wastes his inheritance and his youth and powers in sinful living.
He represents one who has known the Father's love but has allowed the tempter to lead him captive. He is the backslider who leaves the Father's house and service, the lost soul away from blessing, far from home and perishing in need and in hunger. Those far from God and perishing in sin are pictured in him, to be treated with compassion and brought to saving truth.
He also pictures professed commandment keepers who transgress the law and are unthankful and unholy. They use entrusted talents with an influence that counterworks God unto unsanctification rather than holiness, having darkness rather than light in them. Jesus yearns after these sons and daughters acting as the prodigal and longs to do them the good He delights to do, but He is hindered by perversity of character.
His waywardness illustrates how indulgence at home and parents' neglect to restrain can contribute to children becoming wayward. The story is applied to wayward children.
Ruin Repentance and Return
The younger son squanders what he receives in riotous, sinful pleasure, and evil companions deepen his sin, for a life centered on self wastes its years and powers and leads to spiritual poverty and degradation. His restlessness under counsel and loving care makes him mistake liberty for license, break away from authority, and spend his inheritance until famine leaves him hungry and longing for swine's food. The freedom he sought becomes bondage and misery, leaving him impoverished, hungry, degraded and enslaved by sin after spending all in sinful indulgence until pinching want brings destitution and the low business of feeding swine.
In him is pictured a man ruined by selfish indulgence, once proud, ambitious and successful, but led downward by wine drinking until courage is lost and he comes under Satan's control, whom Christ meets with tender sympathy and words suited to his need. Serving sin and the flesh and the devil gives no profit and only poor wages and no lasting satisfaction, and long separation from God leaves the wanderer with no certain hope of eternal life and in danger of being cut off and perishing in sin. Those who abandon God for careless pleasure are thus instructed that they find no lasting satisfaction, yet can return humbly and be received with forgiveness and restoration.
Want and humiliation lead him to remember the kindness and provision of his father's house, regret extravagant pleasure, search his heart over what road he travels and where it will end, recognize his need, and decide to return with humble confession rather than flatter himself with false hopes or neglect to come. Returning means turning square about at once, leaving sin and Satan's service even at loss of work and position, confessing backsliding, and declaring a purpose to be a Christian from that day before God and angels and witnesses. The one who so returns enters a new channel with purified thoughts and changed purposes, feels the solemn responsibility taken, and receives evidence of pardon and love that brings happiness and thankfulness, with the Lord as helper unto eternal life.
The Father's house is God, and returning is turning unto the Lord with confession and contrition of soul, seeking Him in earnest prayer whether for the first time or after backsliding. It is done with full decision of soul giving heart and life to God in unreserved surrender of the whole life, worked by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit upon the heart and by willingness to receive truth and be wisely helped and saved. The lesson is to return without delay as the son came back, humbly confessing sin and seeking forgiveness, trusting firmly that Jesus is sufficient for all things and will do all He has promised so that none who seek Him in this way seek in vain. Failure and being betrayed into sin do not make one unworthy to pray, but he should come, tell his mistakes and failures, ask strength for fresh endeavor toward God's ideal, trusting the Lord recognizes every effort and never disappoints confidence, for deliverance comes through Jesus' strength, not one's own.
Enjoying a son's privileges is linked with accepting a son's obligations and conditions, for welcome into the house does not remove them. The returned wanderer must remain under care and in the fold under the shepherd rather than resume wanderings, live in keeping with sonship, repay love by remaining in obedience and self-denying service, renounce the world's favor and friendship, make Christ all and in all, walk according to His Word, and submit to His dominion and reign as King with cordial assent and willing obedience to God's terms. Such a return brings submission to God's will and way as the Lord leads step by step into a rich experience, bringing praise to the Lord and moving hearers to weeping joy. God accepts those who turn with full decision, blesses the returned one, and works through him to help others be converted.
Father's Compassionate Reception
The father in the story is the heavenly Father Himself, the One who has been sinned against, and the parable lays open what God really is toward those who stray and stand exposed to temptation. He is tender, loving, pitying and kind, and though wanderers turn away and choose their own course He does not leave them in their misery or abandon them there. When His children err and stray, yet repent and return, He receives them with the joy of an earthly father welcoming a long-lost son, and calls His people to cooperate with Him in seeking the lost and winning back the erring.
He longs and watches for the estranged son, and goes out to meet him, taking the first step to seek the rebellious. He sees him afar off and runs to meet him, rejoicing that one thought dead is alive, and He provides for him even before knowing him. This taking of the initiative gives courage to sinners who have done wrong, that the wanderer who lets Him bring him home will be welcomed back.
When the son comes back sensible of great sin and neglect, valuing his father's love and acknowledging his claims, having suffered and felt his need as only the Father can supply, the Father meets him with great joy, pity and forgiveness. He does not meet the returning sinner with denunciations and accusations of wrath, but prepares a feast to celebrate the return. The son who has followed sin and now repents comes to the Father as the only One who can supply that need, and his return becomes a source of greatest joy.
Every repentant soul is welcomed with joy and without reproach or reminders of unworthiness, for penitence and contrition are required and then pardon is free. The past is treated as forgiven, shame is covered, and the wanderer who turns back is restored as a child with tenderness and signs of honor, clothed with the robe of righteousness into the Father's household and not shamed for former sins. God joyfully receives any sinner who returns to Him in this way.
Anyone who truly desires to return will be received, even the poorest, and failure and being betrayed into sin do not make a person unworthy to pray or to come before the Lord. Let him come, tell his mistakes and failures, ask for strength for fresh endeavor toward God's ideal, and trust that the Lord recognizes every effort to reach His ideal and never disappoints or abuses the confidence of the one who returns.
The parable reveals the Father's infinite love for the fallen race in the gift of His beloved Son as a sacrifice to die for the human race, making a channel for the outflow of infinite love so that all who believe are restored again to favor. Through Christ's mercy the prodigal is brought back to the Father's house, restored to favor and assured of acceptance, peace and love, giving grand themes for thought and a solid foundation for faith beyond which nothing more can be asked of God. Believing on Him brings obedience to all of God's commandments and life in Jesus Christ. That compassion for the lost, shown at Calvary in Christ's sacrifice for human sin and dying love, is the pledge that Christ welcomes the sinner who comes to Him.
The very desire to return is the pleading of God's Spirit drawing the wanderer back to the Father, whose compassion exceeds even the tenderness expressed in the story. Those convicted by the Spirit who have neglected the invitation and not yet given the life to God are being called back by that fatherly love.
When even the poorest comes to the Father in repentance, as the prodigal did, there is joy among the heavenly host, marked by heaven's warmth, courtesy and love and the warmth of God's welcome. Christ's joy over the repenting sinner, especially one endangered by temptation and for whom He feels tender sympathy and puts forth earnest effort, is greater than over the ninety-nine who need no repentance.
The father's loving treatment of the wayward son illustrates God's patient care for Israel, whom He loves as a father loves a son even while Israel resists mercy. He is willing to suffer for their sins and bear their guilt, and the parable helps show Christ's anguish over Jerusalem and the judgment He foresaw falling upon it.
Elder Brother's Complaint
The elder son stands for the self-righteous who feel no need of repentance, answering to the Pharisees who condemned Jesus for seeking the lost, and to unrepenting Israel unwilling to recognize publicans and sinners as brothers to be sought, forgiven and led to everlasting life. The Heavenly Father welcomes every truly penitent soul with joy and without reproach or reminders of unworthiness, yet penitence is required. He also pictures believers in an established church upon whom much labor has been bestowed, who ought to rejoice when the Lord brings wandering sheep into the fold through new work elsewhere with souls awakened and baptized. Instead he acts in envy and jealousy, murmuring and complaining that others receive the ministry of the Word while he is left without it, sorely displeasing the Lord by gossip, doubt, questioning and evil surmising rather than seeking to save the lost. Those so favored should know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, and if Christ is formed within as the hope of glory they will be an earnest working church carrying salvation, reflecting light by precept and example, by burden for souls and sincere prayer, stretching out hands all day long to hunt for souls and bring truth close to hearts, instead of selfishly expecting to be constantly fed with sermons while doing no righteousness at home or in church, which is a curse and not a blessing.
In contrast to the father's pity, gladness, love, tenderness and restoration with signs of honor, he is cold, jealous, unthankful, resentful, stubborn, selfish, indifferent and contemptuous, unwilling to receive his repenting brother or rejoice at his return. Though remaining in his father's house, he watches for faults, magnifies them while overlooking his own, refuses to forgive, accuses his brother, creates division, is blinded to his own faults and left unreceptive to light, acting in Satan's spirit rather than reflecting the Father's mercy. God still loves those who separate from Him and works to bring them back, receiving them with joy and covering the restored sinner with the robe of righteousness when they repent, and His people are to seek restoration, forgive as God forgives, and rejoice when sinners return.
He stands for those handling sacred things who show indifference and careless disregard for those ready to die instead of seeking the wandering sheep as the true Shepherd does. He feels his own course righteous and faithful in home duties, supposes he needs no repentance and deserves commendation and honor, contrasts himself with the prodigal, cannot sympathize with the father's joy in receiving back the wanderer, and thereby shows he himself is in need of repentance. His complaints are natural but not right, and the parable forbids his complaining attitude toward the returning one and calls for receiving the repentant with the father's joy. Those who have erred need pity, help, sympathy and above all free forgiveness rather than efforts to make them feel their error and repeated reminders of their mistakes, lest departing from this lesson wound and drive away the lost sheep instead of seeking it. The parable calls people to examine whether they follow the father's compassionate example or the elder brother's self-righteous spirit, and it was given for the benefit of those who claim to love God that they may properly represent Him by sharing heaven's rejoicing over the found lost with sympathy, mercy and personal care rather than censure, suspicion or reproach.
Seeking and Restoring Wanderers
The church bears responsibility to seek those who have wandered and bring them back into the fold, and failure to seek them is a wrong to be recognized and acknowledged, as in the case of George Lay. God still loves those who separate themselves from Him after knowing the Father's love, and He works to bring them back, receiving them with joy and restoring them when they repent. His people are to cooperate with Him and with heaven's work to reclaim the lost, seeking restoration, forgiving as God forgives, and rejoicing when sinners return rather than resenting forgiveness in a selfish, jealous, accusing spirit that magnifies another's faults while overlooking its own. Those who have themselves been sought and restored through Christ can understand how to seek the lost, and those who teach truth must make known the Father's waiting, yearning love, even His giving of His Son to die for the human race, to win souls and bring many prodigals to the Father.
Those who have erred need pity, help, sympathy and above all free forgiveness rather than efforts to make them feel their error, reminders of mistakes, harsh condemnation, anger, censure, suspicion or reproach. They should be treated with loving, unselfish, patient, compassionate interest and personal care to lead them toward repentance, since the returning one has suffered, felt need, become sensible of great sin and neglect, and come appreciating the Father's love and acknowledging His claims as the only one who can supply that need. The parable should shape heart, mind and conduct to replace severe judgment of a fallen brother with compassion and a desire to restore, whether dealing with the erring, the fallen, youth, students, or tempted people. To depart from this lesson and take the elder brother's cold, complaining attitude toward the returning one is to wound and drive away the lost sheep instead of seeking it, for those who go astray are souls needing help, not people to be driven further from God.
Youth are instructed that abandoning God for careless pleasure finds no lasting satisfaction, but that even after reckless spending and misery in a foreign country they can return humbly in repentance and be received with forgiveness and restoration to the Father's heart. The nearly hopeless are likewise to be offered encouragement and a message of love rather than blame, so that those who have wandered from God may come back to Him in contrition and penitence and grasp redemption through Christ. Those who have left the Father's house, turned from God, or once loved and served Him should be encouraged to return, leave sin, confess backsliding, come back to Jesus and receive pardon, love, help and eternal life. God still loves such a one and will accept him as His child if he returns, as illustrated by the call to Amos.
Prodigals who are sick and sinful in darkness, separated from God and perishing in need, are to be reached where they are, pointed to Christ as the great Healer, and encouraged to return to the Father. This seeking and restoring work belongs to medical missionary work through sanitariums, carried on by sympathetic, kind, straightforward, noble and upright workers who receive light and grace and love from Christ to impart to those in darkness.