Luke 15:12
And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
The younger son demands the share of the estate that would fall to him while his father is still living, and the father divides his living and property between his two sons and gives the younger his portion to leave and do as he pleases. The father stands for God the heavenly Father who is sinned against, and the younger son pictures the straying, sinful soul who has known the Father's love but chooses separation and independence. His demand is wanting his own way free from loving guidance and restraint, treating God's gifts as his by right without gratitude, and seeking happiness apart from Him in a self-centered life. That course wastes life's powers and strength in selfish indulgence and ends in want, degradation and ruin far from home, yet the Father longs for him, waits in hope, and when he returns in humble confession runs to meet him, embraces him with pity and free forgiveness, and restores him as son without reproach. Therefore prodigals are to turn square about at once and come back to be cleansed and kept under the Father's care, and those who return are to be met not with cold resentment like the elder brother but with tender sympathy, gladness and help.
Parable Setting and Wording
Luke 15:12 opens Christ's answer to the scribes and Pharisees who murmured because He chose the companionship of publicans and sinners. Together with the lost sheep and the lost coin, it teaches mercy and forgiveness toward those who feel lost and undone and need a Saviour. It shows that His mission to the world is not to make miserable, to condemn and destroy, but to recover what was lost, which is why He does not shut Himself away from the sinful. By contrast, those who feel just in their own eyes and feel no need of repentance condemn His work of seeking to save the lost.
The story is drawn from familiar facts of life and daily experience to teach immortal truth and illustrate spiritual and unseen things. It shows openness to surroundings and delight in gathering spiritual teaching from them, directing thoughts from the seen to the spiritual. It has something to interest every mind and appeal to every heart, touching the heart, awakening sympathy, and commending truth to the conscience. It does not prove truth by long, farfetched, complicated reasoning nor force belief, but comes right to the point, reads every heart as an open book, draws things new and old from the treasure-house to enforce teaching, and leaves hearers free to accept or reject. So the daily task instead of being mere toil is brightened and uplifted by constant reminders of the spiritual and the unseen.
The younger son asks to receive before his father's death the inheritance that would fall to him at death, demanding it while his father is still living. He claims a child's privilege and right to his father's goods while showing no gratitude, no sense of obligation, and no acknowledgment of what he owes. He wants present enjoyment and freedom from what he wrongly sees as restraint, misreading his father's love and care as restriction on liberty. He is weary of the restraints of his father's house, desires to separate his interest and manage his share to suit his own inclination and pleasure, free from advice, reproof, counsel and mutual obligation, with no concern for the future. He braces his selfish, rebellious spirit with the thought that part of the property belongs to him, when rightfully he can claim nothing and should have had nothing, and the treasure he receives is wholly undeserved.
The father complies with the demand and divides his living and property between his two sons. He gives the younger his share with which to leave home, follow his own desires, and do as he pleased. This introduces the son's departure from his father's care and pursuit of independence, his selfish withdrawal so as not to be troubled with counsel, reproofs, advice or restraint, thinking he will be happy when he can use his portion according to his own pleasure. It also introduces God's pitying love toward those who turn away after knowing the Father's love but being led captive by temptation, and pictures how to treat those gone astray with loving, unselfish care that seeks to lead them to repentance rather than the elder brother's cold rejection.
The father is the heavenly Father, God, the one sinned against. The younger son pictures the sinful who feel lost and undone and need a Saviour, a straying soul and God's erring prodigal child who has known the Father's love but is led captive by temptation and chooses his own course and separation. Though they choose their own course, He does not leave them in misery but is tender, pitiful, and compassionate toward them, loves them, entreats them to return, longs for the return of the one who left Him, and waits in hope to welcome him home. When the wanderer repents and returns, the Father is ready to receive him with great joy, placing His arm about him, covering his rags with His garments, and placing the ring upon his finger as token of royalty.
The parable also represents God's loving relationship with Israel and His patience in bearing with a wayward child. It shows His love even as Israel resists mercy, His willingness to bear their guilt and bear with wrongdoing, and Christ's grief over Jerusalem and its coming destruction.
Son's Rebellion and Ruin
The younger son wanted his own way and independence, tired of his father's counsel and care, his reproofs and advice and restraint. He desired to separate his interest from his father's and to manage his share to suit his own inclination and pleasure, free from mutual obligation. He mistook loving guidance and care for a restriction on liberty, reading love as limits on freedom and weariness with home restraint as desire for immediate enjoyment without concern for the future. He claimed a child's privilege and right to his father's goods while acknowledging no obligation or gratitude. He believed that freedom from restraint would make him happy, that he would be happy when he could use his portion according to his own pleasure.
His leaving was willful disobedience and sin, rebellious and selfish and ungrateful. It grieved his father's love and was sin against Heaven and against his father, making him unworthy to be called son and dead to filial affection until suffering taught his need. He braced his selfish, rebellious spirit with the thought that a portion of the property belonged to him by due. Rightfully he could claim nothing and should have had nothing, and the treasure he received was wholly undeserved.
His demand shows sinners treating God's gifts as theirs by right, taking His blessings for granted without gratitude and seeking happiness apart from Him. It is forsaking the fountain of living waters and of true pleasure and hewing out broken cisterns that hold no water. It begins a life centered on self that wastes life's years and powers and strength and leads to spiritual and moral ruin. It is serving sin and the flesh, selfish indulgence that gives no profit and pays poor wages and brings a man low after ambitious hopes.
He selfishly withdrew, took his share and spent it in pleasure and sinful indulgence and riotous living, squandering it in self-indulgence. Evil companions and false excitement led him deeper into sin. When his money failed and famine came he was left without life's necessities, far from home and far from his father, friendless, in want and privation and hunger, emaciation and degradation and suffering, perishing with hunger. In that lost and perishing condition he is an object of compassion.
The verse is given for the instruction of youth, because many youth do as he did in a careless, pleasure-loving, spendthrift life. It also pictures professed commandment keepers and Christians who leave God while claiming to follow Him, transgressing the law, unthankful and unholy and without light, using entrusted talents to counterwork God instead of influencing souls, conformed to the spirit and principles of worldlings and on Satan's side, retaining the form of godliness while denying its power in practice. It describes children who become prodigal and wayward because parents indulge them at home and fail to restrain them. It describes one who has neglected the invitation of the Holy Spirit and is not fully on the Lord's side.
Father's Love and Welcome
The demand for the inheritance opens the revelation of pitying love toward those who have strayed and are exposed to temptation. The Father is kind and tender toward them and does not leave them in their misery even when they choose their own course and turn away. He takes the first step to seek them while they are still in rebellion, remaining full of lovingkindness toward all exposed to the temptations of the artful foe in order to save what is lost. Amazing sacrifice has been made for them, and Heaven expends labor and energy to reclaim the lost and bring them back to the Father's house. One imperiled by temptation calls forth tender sympathy and earnest effort for rescue.
The Father longs for the return of the one who has left Him and waits in hope to welcome him home. His love remains strong toward those who have known His love but separate from Him and are led captive by the tempter, and He works through influences to bring them back. Even while the sinner is still far away the Father longs for him, and the desire to return is the Holy Spirit drawing him back to the Father's love. God still loves the one who has left his heavenly Father and calls him to return. When the straying child repents and returns, He receives him with joy and covers him with the robe of righteousness.
When the humbled son feels his need, remembers his father's kindness and love, and returns by humble confession, the Father discerns His own image in him despite rags and degradation. He is stirred with tenderest pity and compassion and hastens to meet him at a distance, running to him, lifting him up, embracing and kissing him. He wraps his own rich robe about him, puts his garments over rags and a ring as token of royalty, prepares a feast, and takes him to breast and heart with proofs of love and tokens of free forgiveness. There is no reproach, no reminder of unworthiness, no arraying of past wrong, no denunciation and no accusation of wrath, for the past is forgiven and forgotten. He is restored as son rather than servant, covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness.
The welcome requires penitence, not sacrifice. The son becomes sensible of his great sin, appreciates his father's love, acknowledges his claims, and comes back because only the father can supply his need. His return brings the Father great joy, joy among the heavenly host, and shows heaven's warmth, courtesy and love. Coming back to God is not humiliating or degrading. It breaks the already subdued heart and gives a much deeper sense of the ungrateful course.
The story opens a revelation of what God really is, giving grand themes for thought and a solid foundation for faith. It reveals infinite love in the Father giving His beloved Son as sacrifice for the fallen race, making a channel for the outflow of infinite love so that all who believe are restored again to favor. Christ's love shown at Calvary assures the sinner of acceptance, peace and love, and He is ready to welcome the sinner and restore him to God's favor. Believing on Him leads to obedience to all commandments and life in Christ. This fatherly love must not be kept in the background but made known to the sinner, for this is the way of winning souls.
Treating the Repentant Tenderly
The joyful welcome given to the returning younger son stands in sharp contrast to the elder brother's cold resentment and complaint against that reception. That complaining attitude is natural but not right, and it must not be copied by brother toward brother. When the father rejoiced over the returned prodigal, the rejoicing exposed a spirit in the elder brother that is sorely displeasing to the Lord. It shows indifference and careless disregard for the perishing by refusing the seeking, rejoicing spirit that practices the lessons of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, and instead of seeking the lost it wounds and drives them away.
The lesson of the younger son's departure followed by repentance is that those who have gone astray and are turning back are to be met with tender sympathy, pity, gladness, love, acceptance, faith and compassion. They are not to be met with reproach, suspicion, harshness, condemnation or blame, nor left exposed to temptation nor driven to despair through harsh judgment. The repenting one needs pity, love, help, sympathy and above all free forgiveness, not efforts to make him feel his error and remind him of his mistakes, for he suffers in feeling and is desponding and discouraged. He needs room to recover from temptation, and a message of love and encouragement to grasp hope in Christ, with loving, unselfish care that seeks to lead him to repentance and with earnest work to cooperate with God in seeking the lost sheep and winning back the prodigal.
That same elder-brother spirit appears when members of the churches gossip and plant doubt, questioning, evil surmising and jealousy instead of seeking to save those that are lost. It appears when they expect to be constantly fed with sermons instead of reflecting the light of truth and carrying salvation to others by precept and example, burden for souls and sincere prayer, and when they do not do righteousness in their own homes and in the church. Those who claim to be co-workers with Christ yet stand by while the struggling soul fights the flood of temptation, stubborn, self-willed and selfish like the elder brother, and who say like the Pharisee that they are not as other men, are condemned by God's tenderness toward the repentant son whom He loves, entreats to return, clasps with His arm, covers with His garments, and marks with a ring as token of royalty. To look upon such a one with indifference or contempt is wrong.
The soul pictured here has known and enjoyed love and the guardianship of the compassionate Shepherd, yet has left pleasant pasture and gone from the fold through the deceiving, deluding power of Satan into darkness and confusion. He cannot find his way back without help, bewildered, miserable, dissatisfied and frightened, rushing farther from the gates of heaven and from the Shepherd's care into a wilderness of bewilderment. His state calls for tender and true shepherds who feel the burden, see the danger, endure storm, cold and roughness of the way, leave the ninety and nine, go into the dreary wilderness, search for him, find him, and bring him back to the fold. Harsh dealing, evil tempers, pride, selfishness, self-righteousness and cold unsympathetic treatment imperil souls and may thrust them upon Satan's battleground without wisdom until shipwrecked and lost, and by slovenly, unconsecrated character may keep those who have left out of the kingdom of God. Teachers and Christians must instead learn meekness and lowliness of heart, hide self in Christ, and deal with the erring with grace for their present and eternal good, while one imperiled by temptation calls forth tender sympathy and earnest effort and great rejoicing when he repents, and those thus rescued from sin can help bring other lost people back to the Father.
Call to Return Home
The asking for the share and the dividing of the living opens the departure of one who has known the Father's love but is led captive by temptation and chooses separation and independence from his care. That departure pictures a backslider returning to God's service, one who once loved and served the Lord but turned away, left the Father's house and blessing and service to enter Satan's service and sin. Sometimes that thorough backsliding comes through Satan's temptations and the simple errors of youthful indiscretion, which are not to be treated with great severity. Giving up obedience for worldly business and advantage grieves the heart of Christ, who loved him and died to redeem him, and places him in peril. Even so, God's pitying love goes out toward those who turn away, His love remains strong, and He works through influences to bring them back, still loving and calling the one who left his heavenly Father to return, and receiving him with joy and covering him with the robe of righteousness when he repents.
Prodigals who have left the Father's house are to be encouraged to return. Failure and sin do not disqualify anyone from prayer or from coming before the Lord. Jesus waits with outstretched arms to welcome the prodigal who returns, invites him to come that he may have life, to wear His yoke and learn His meekness, recognizes every effort to reach His ideal, will meet him, and will never disappoint trust nor abuse confidence. The sinner should go to Him, tell Him mistakes and failures, lay hold upon Him to be cleansed from sin, and ask strength for fresh endeavor. He must not flatter his soul with false hopes or neglect this work longer and perish in his sins, but turn without delay with humble heart, for all things are now ready, and God is even now ready to accept him and pardon all his transgressions if he will but come.
Returning means turning square about at once and coming back to family and to God with humble heart and full decision of soul. It calls for confessing backslidings, ceasing to do known sin, leaving sin and leaving any position or trade that prevents obedience, and making an immediate solemn decision to be a Christian and return to the Father's service. It means fixing the eye on Jesus, grasping Him by faith, casting oneself helpless on His mercy, giving heart and soul and the little remnant of life to Jesus, and being saved by His cleansing blood, because Jesus waits to be gracious. Such linking with God brings acceptance, blessing, evidence of pardon and love, purified thoughts, changed purposes, and thankful happiness. Jesus still invites the prodigal to wear His yoke, lift His burden, and learn His meekness and lowliness of heart, with rest to the soul as reward, and He works with the returned one to help other youth give their hearts to God and be converted, while the prodigal remains accountable for all the good Jesus died to enable him to do.
Though welcomed back into his father's house, enjoying the privileges of sonship requires meeting its conditions and living in accordance with the father's conditions. When the prodigal returns to claim a son's privileges he must also consent to accept a son's obligations and remain under his father's care. Like the found sheep remaining under the shepherd's care and not renewing its wanderings, he must remain in the fold and repay love by staying.
The return illustrates how people may come to seek a changed life and be saved. It pictures being led step by step by the Lord in the path of submission to His will and His way into a rich experience, and such a return brings praise to the Lord and weeping joy to those who hear of it. Though God's children err and stray from Him, if they repent and return He receives them with the joy of an earthly father receiving a long-lost son who comes back in penitence, showing His tender, loving, pitying care. Those rescued from sin can then help bring other lost people back to the Father. And it lays on men the earnest work of cooperating with God in seeking the lost sheep and winning back the prodigal.