I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
The verse is the resolve of the humbled prodigal, brought to want and misery by his own selfish departure and sinful waste, to arise and go back to his father confessing his guilt and unworthiness. Arising means a decisive turning from the service of sin and rebellion to return to the Father's house and service, confessing sin against God and others and seeking pardon, restoration and reconciliation. That longing to return is awakened by the Spirit, for God's love and goodness lead to repentance and grace already goes forth to meet even the feeble first desire before the prayer is spoken. The Father sinned against sees the son while still far away and hastens to receive him with compassion, pity and forgiveness, welcoming him without reproach or reminders of unworthiness. He receives him not as a hired servant but as a son, covering his shame, pardoning and forgetting the past, clothing him with righteousness and restoring him to favor and a child's place, with great joy in heaven over the one who was dead and is alive again.
Parable Setting and Figures
Luke 15:18 belongs to the parable of the prodigal son, one of the parables told in response to the complaints of the scribes and Pharisees about association with publicans and sinners, to teach mercy and forgiveness toward those who have sinned. The way back to the Father's house is through Christ, who saves from sins and not in sins, and whose light makes the path a path of holiness. Even the scribes and Pharisees can be saved, but only through faith in Jesus Christ.
The parable belongs together with the lost sheep and the lost coin as lessons on seeking the lost that must be studied together, studied carefully, and obeyed, for practicing them involves eternal interests. The church had failed to seek the lost and bring them into the fold and needed to recognize and acknowledge this failure. Those in councils with the Spirit of Christ must go out to search for, find, and bring back souls strayed from the fold instead of leaving them unrecovered in darkness and confusion, wounding them and driving them away.
The younger son's departure from his father's home pictures sinners separating themselves from God into a self-serving life apart from Him. That separation wastes the blessings received through self-indulgence, wastes life itself, and leaves the person spiritually impoverished and enslaved to sin. Far from his father's house and perishing with hunger, the prodigal represents people perishing in sin who need compassion and the saving knowledge of truth. His story illustrates the lost being reclaimed and brought back to the Father's house through the saving grace of Christ, whose love seeks to restore the lost.
God regards those wanderers with love, having sent His Son at Calvary to be the propitiation for their sins and not for theirs only but for the sins of the whole world, and He calls His people to cooperate with Him in rescuing them. The parable shows His tender pity for those who have turned away and welcomes those led back from straying. It presents His dealing with those who have known the Father's love but have been led captive by the tempter. Though they turn away and follow their own course, He does not leave them in misery but with pitying love reaches those exposed to temptation with tenderness, compassion, sympathy, and earnest labor rather than severe judgment.
The son's recognition that his wrong is sin against God and his father and his resolve to return and confess it illustrates how sinners who know they are lost need a Saviour, for Christ's mission is to recover the lost, not to condemn and destroy them. The parable also represents God's loving relationship with Israel as mercy offered though resisted. Like a loving father, God was willing to suffer for His people's sins and bear their guilt, repeatedly sending warnings, appeals, and invitations calling them back.
The prodigal also pictures professed commandment keepers who are in reality transgressors of the law, unthankful and unholy, employing entrusted talents to counterwork God, having no light in them but darkness, with influence not unto sanctification or holiness, whom Jesus yearns after and longs to bless but cannot because of perversity of character. He further pictures a person ruined by selfish indulgence and fallen from former ambition and success into sin and discouragement, whom Christ meets with tender sympathy and words suited to need. The same figure applied to Amos as one who had left his Father's house with a history like the prodigal's own, and to a man degraded by liquor who was deeply moved by the story of turning toward the father and wanted to become fully converted.
Christ loved to use this story to teach lessons of truth and immortal truth, with a spirit open to the influences of nature and delight in gathering spiritual teaching from the surroundings of daily life. Like His other illustrations it is drawn from facts of life and facts of experience familiar to the hearers, with something to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. Thus familiar scenes from daily life and everyday events become reminders of the spiritual and unseen, so that the daily task instead of being a mere round of toil bereft of higher thoughts is brightened and uplifted.
Departure Into Want and Misery
The departure began when the son selfishly asked for his share of the estate and left to live apart from his father's counsel, correction, advice, reproof, restraint, and mutual obligation. He selfishly demanded his share when he had no rightful claim to anything, wanting to separate his interest to manage it to suit his own inclination, and he withdrew to a distance to forget his father, despised restraint, and was determined to have pleasure in any way he chose.
He wasted the undeserved treasure in sinful indulgence, extravagant pleasure, and pleasure-loving spendthrift living until it was all spent and his portion expended, forsaking the fountain of living waters for broken cisterns that hold no water. He was brought from indulgence to friendlessness in a strange country, clad in rags, hungry and longing even for the refuse fed to swine, destitute and deprived of decent clothing until reduced to feeding swine. Famine brought pinching want and destitution that led him to regret his sinful course.
His separation, suffering, and misery resulted from his own disobedience, sin, and folly. The deception that had held him was broken when he recognized this. Many become prodigals through indulgence at home and failed home training: too much freedom with will and inclination indulged, parental neglect to restrain and command education at the dawn of reason in the fear and love of God, lack of firm sanctified principles enforced with consistency, affection, and example, and parents permitting self-chosen ways while not doing the Word.
Resolve to Return Confessing
Humbled by want and adversity after wasting everything, the son comes to recognize his condition, need and guilt, seeing that his separation, suffering and misery came from his own disobedience, sin and folly, and the deception that held him is broken. Destitute in a strange country, friendless, clad in rags, hungry and longing even for the refuse fed to swine, deprived of decent clothing until reduced to feeding swine, he is brought by pinching want and famine to regret his course and to remember that there is food in his Father's house. He decides to arise and go to his father, resolving to return and confess that his wrongdoing is sin against God and against his father. His return shows how sinners who know they are lost need a Saviour, for Christ's mission is to recover the lost, not to condemn and destroy them. His request for only a hired servant's place, admitting he is no longer worthy to be called a son, shows he has not yet grasped the full measure of his father's love and still has too limited a view of it, though the assurance of his father's love gives him hope and draws him home.
Returning begins with confessing sin against heaven and against the Father and against others, asking the Father for pardon, admitting dishonor and broken commandments, acknowledging unworthiness to be called a son, and seeking restoration and reconciliation in God's appointed way. Even after abusing the Father's love and squandering His blessings, the sinner may come back asking only to be treated as a hired servant, and the Father receives the returning wanderer with compassion, tender joyful care, forgiveness and forgetfulness of the past. God's love and goodness lead sinners to repentance, and the longing to return, even the feeble desire, is awakened by the Spirit drawing the wanderer, pleading with him while he is still far off wasting what was given. Grace is already at work to meet the first desire before the prayer is spoken, for God hears the contrite heart, every faltering prayer, secret tear and sincere desire, and His Spirit goes forth to meet it. Even one step toward God in repentance is met by His loving welcome, for He hastens to receive the contrite; the sinner need not make himself better before coming, and no sinner who comes to God in contrition is beyond hope despite Satan's efforts to make God seem unwilling to forgive.
What is required is penitence expressed in a broken and contrite heart and honest confession, turning from pride and folly with enlightened conscience and humbled heart, with full decision of soul through repentance and prayer, returning to God whose mercy and love have been neglected. Arising means turning square about from thorough backsliding, leaving the service of Satan and sin and rebellion to return to the Father's house and to the Father's service on God's ground, not one's own. It means personal surrender to God and receiving Jesus as Saviour and King, so that a new life from above may begin through the Spirit, walking in accordance with His Word under His dominion and reign. One who has long been separated, stayed away, denied Jesus and by denial pierced Him and put Him to open shame can still arise and come back, grasping Christ by faith, fixing the eye upon Him, casting himself helpless upon His mercy, ceasing to do known sin and giving the little remnant of life to Jesus to be saved by His cleansing blood, because heaven must not be lost. God is ready to accept and pardon all transgressions if he will but come, the Majesty of Heaven invites him now to come that he may have life and Christ is ready to cleanse him when he lays hold upon Him, for serving sin and the flesh and the devil brings no profit but only poor wages, so he must not linger with false hopes or neglect but turn and live rather than perish, leaving rebellion behind with immediate response.
The resolve must be immediate and not delayed for worldly advantage such as keeping employment or finishing a trade, even if keeping the Sabbath costs the position, because staying away grieves the heart of Christ who died to redeem the sinner, and harsh treatment or mistakes by brethren give no excuse or reason to stay away from Christ. The return is made in a definite promise before God and angels and witnesses to be a Christian from that day, with earnest prayer, putting the person in a new channel with purified thoughts and changed purposes, a solemn sense of responsibility, and happy thankfulness for evidenced pardon and love. Backsliders return when they seek the Lord with confession and contrition of soul under the convicting power and deep movings of the Holy Spirit, coming to Jesus and turning toward heaven from a backslidden condition, met by the tender compassion and pitying love of Christ who died to save sinners, in firm trust that He will do all He has promised for those who believe, so that none who seek Him seek in vain. The verse means turning from wandering to confess wrong and come back to God for forgiveness and restoration, fulfilled when backslidden souls are awakened by the Lord, make confessions, and are baptized again as wandering sheep brought to the fold. The prodigal was welcomed home, but enjoying a son's privileges requires complying with its conditions with cordial assent and willing obedience: claiming privileges means accepting obligations, remaining under the Father's care in the fold and not renewing wanderings, renouncing the world's favor and friendship, receiving Christ as Saviour and King, walking by His Word under His reign, and repaying love by staying through the gift of the whole life in self-denial, obedience and submission to control and care. The verse illustrates the invitation to come back and respond to God's love, showing that those who have failed may come, tell God their mistakes and seek strength and help found in Jesus to begin again, and those willing to receive truth may be guided toward salvation through wise spiritual care and the longing to return to the Father's house.
Father's Compassionate Forgiving Welcome
The one sinned against sees the returning son while still far away and meets him with compassion, pity, forgiveness and tender embrace, with great joy that the son believed dead to all filial affection has become sensible of his great sin and neglect and has come back appreciating his love and acknowledging his claims. The son who has pursued a course of sin comes because he has suffered and felt his need and knows his Father as the only one who can supply that great need. His degradation does not hide him from his Father's love.
God is a waiting Father who yearns for the wanderer even while he is far off wasting what was given, cherishes him, and hastens to receive the contrite without meeting him with accusations of wrath, but welcoming his return with a feast. He hears the sinner's cry and knows every faltering prayer, secret tear and feeble sincere desire for Him, and His Spirit goes forth to meet it, so that even the first step toward God is met by His love. The longing to return is itself the pleading of His Spirit drawing the wanderer back, for He has already taken the first step to seek the sinner while still in rebellion and brings back to the Father's house everyone who lets Him do so.
The repentant soul is welcomed without reproach or reminders of unworthiness, without contempt, punishment or accusations of wrath. What is required is penitence expressed in a broken and contrite heart and honest confession that sin has been committed against heaven and before the Father, with acknowledgment of unworthiness to be called a son. That confession is met with compassion and welcome, for God longs to receive the sinner who returns, forgives and forgets the past, and welcomes the repentant with fatherly love.
He fully pardons and welcomes with pitying love the one who confesses and returns, restoring the one who comes back, and no sinner who comes to God in contrition is beyond hope, for the Father is ready to meet the returning sinner with love and compassion and to forgive. This is His invitation to His children to return and repent, and His willingness to pardon their sins and transgressions. The son is received as a son, not made a servant, though humbled enough to ask only for a servant's place.
The Father covers his rags, shame and nakedness, covers him with the robe of righteousness, which is Christ's righteousness, restores him with a ring as a sign of his standing as a son, and restores him to the place of a beloved child at His table despite past separation and errors. God's love remains strong for the sinner, and coming to God in sorrow is not degrading. Though departure caused grief, the Father still loves him and receives him when he repents.
Through Christ's goodness and mercy the sinner is restored to divine favor, and God in Christ is ready to receive and welcome the sinner, with Christ's dying love on Calvary assuring acceptance, peace and love. This return is made possible by the Father's infinite love in the gift of His beloved Son as a sacrifice, which made a channel for the outflow of His love to the fallen race. All who believe on Jesus Christ are restored to favor, made obedient to all of God's commandments, and have life in Jesus Christ, for Christ has purchased him with His blood, and faith in Christ, learning from Him and following Him, lead to eternal life and heaven's imperishable riches.
The return brings joy in heaven and rejoicing over the son thought dead but alive, with praise to God and the Lamb for mercy and loving-kindness when a person is brought back to God. The prodigal's return in repentance, acknowledging his sin, brings joy among the heavenly host. There is greater joy over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine needing no repentance, and heaven rejoices when even the poorest person comes to God.
Seeking and Welcoming the Lost
Those who have themselves been rescued from sin can understand the lost and help them find their way back to the Father, for the resolve to arise and return marks the turning point where the sinner recognizes guilt and decides to come home. A backslider's leaving of a backslidden condition to return to God and to His service comes about through earnest Christian labor bestowed on the erring.
Those who have strayed and left the Father's house are to be encouraged to come back to Him. Those willing to receive truth can likewise be guided toward salvation through wise, spiritual care.
The resolve to return illustrates the repentance erring people need, and it calls for meeting the fallen with Christlike compassion and helping them toward the sin-pardoning Saviour rather than abandoning or condemning them so harshly that they lose hope of restoration. The awakening to sin and degradation and the decision to return call for tender sympathy, encouragement, hope, pardon, pity, love, and rejoicing over the return, following the father's example rather than the elder brother's coldness, cold rejection, and condemnation. Fallen people who have come under temptation need sympathy and prayer in view of Jesus' love and tenderness, not severe judgment, and a soul trying to return needs Christlike pity and sympathy rather than censure, reproach, suspicion, or jealousy. Harsh treatment by Christians can keep those who have gone astray from the kingdom instead of helping them.
The one who has pursued a course of sin and now repents comes suffering, feeling need, desponding and discouraged, as one who can be supplied only by the Father, and needs pity, love, help, sympathy, and free forgiveness. He is not to be made to feel where he erred by repeated reminders of mistakes, as the elder brother did, whose complaints were natural but not right, and resentment at such a welcome is wrong. The father's welcome rather than the elder brother's cold rejection is the right response to those gone astray, giving tempted people room to recover from the enemy's snare instead of treating them harshly or condemning them.
Those who claim to love God must properly represent Him by receiving the returning wanderer with joy rather than wounding and driving away the lost instead of seeking them. All heaven rejoices in the finding of the lost, and those who handle sacred things must partake of that spirit and rejoice over the returning wanderer instead of manifesting indifference, careless disregard, and an elder-brother spirit that refuses to sympathize and rejoice. The lessons of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son belong together, mean much, must be carefully studied, and involve eternal interests in the practicing of them.
Those already in the church ought to rejoice when backslidden souls are awakened, confess wrong, come back to God for forgiveness and restoration, and are baptized again as wandering sheep brought to the fold. When instead they are envious and jealous because more labor is given to new interests than to them, they act out the elder son of the same parable. That resentful, jealous, complaining spirit in members who resent rejoicing and labor for the returned and the lost sorely displeases the Lord.
A living church is not a gossiping church planting doubt, questioning, evil surmising, and jealousy, but an earnest, working church whose members know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. If Christ is formed within as the hope of glory they will seek to save the lost as chosen vessels carrying salvation, bearing light and reflecting truth to all they contact by precept and example. They stretch out hands all day in burden for souls and sincere prayer, hunt for souls and bring truth close to hearts, and do righteousness in their own homes and in the church rather than expecting to be constantly fed with sermons while ministers should be giving truth to those who know it not.
Harsh treatment of youthful errors by brethren does not excuse leaving Christ, whose tender love and received pardon call the backslider back to the Father's service in a decisive turn away from Satan and sin. The call to come back with humble heart, confessing sin and waywardness and seeking forgiveness, finds deliverance through Jesus' strength and not one's own, and applies also to reconciliation such as Charley's relationship with his parents.
The verse is the resolve of the humbled prodigal, brought to want and misery by his own selfish departure and sinful waste, to arise and go back to his father confessing his guilt and unworthiness. Arising means a decisive turning from the service of sin and rebellion to return to the Father's house and service, confessing sin against God and others and seeking pardon, restoration and reconciliation. That longing to return is awakened by the Spirit, for God's love and goodness lead to repentance and grace already goes forth to meet even the feeble first desire before the prayer is spoken. The Father sinned against sees the son while still far away and hastens to receive him with compassion, pity and forgiveness, welcoming him without reproach or reminders of unworthiness. He receives him not as a hired servant but as a son, covering his shame, pardoning and forgetting the past, clothing him with righteousness and restoring him to favor and a child's place, with great joy in heaven over the one who was dead and is alive again.
Parable Setting and Figures
Luke 15:18 belongs to the parable of the prodigal son, one of the parables told in response to the complaints of the scribes and Pharisees about association with publicans and sinners, to teach mercy and forgiveness toward those who have sinned. The way back to the Father's house is through Christ, who saves from sins and not in sins, and whose light makes the path a path of holiness. Even the scribes and Pharisees can be saved, but only through faith in Jesus Christ.
The parable belongs together with the lost sheep and the lost coin as lessons on seeking the lost that must be studied together, studied carefully, and obeyed, for practicing them involves eternal interests. The church had failed to seek the lost and bring them into the fold and needed to recognize and acknowledge this failure. Those in councils with the Spirit of Christ must go out to search for, find, and bring back souls strayed from the fold instead of leaving them unrecovered in darkness and confusion, wounding them and driving them away.
The younger son's departure from his father's home pictures sinners separating themselves from God into a self-serving life apart from Him. That separation wastes the blessings received through self-indulgence, wastes life itself, and leaves the person spiritually impoverished and enslaved to sin. Far from his father's house and perishing with hunger, the prodigal represents people perishing in sin who need compassion and the saving knowledge of truth. His story illustrates the lost being reclaimed and brought back to the Father's house through the saving grace of Christ, whose love seeks to restore the lost.
God regards those wanderers with love, having sent His Son at Calvary to be the propitiation for their sins and not for theirs only but for the sins of the whole world, and He calls His people to cooperate with Him in rescuing them. The parable shows His tender pity for those who have turned away and welcomes those led back from straying. It presents His dealing with those who have known the Father's love but have been led captive by the tempter. Though they turn away and follow their own course, He does not leave them in misery but with pitying love reaches those exposed to temptation with tenderness, compassion, sympathy, and earnest labor rather than severe judgment.
The son's recognition that his wrong is sin against God and his father and his resolve to return and confess it illustrates how sinners who know they are lost need a Saviour, for Christ's mission is to recover the lost, not to condemn and destroy them. The parable also represents God's loving relationship with Israel as mercy offered though resisted. Like a loving father, God was willing to suffer for His people's sins and bear their guilt, repeatedly sending warnings, appeals, and invitations calling them back.
The prodigal also pictures professed commandment keepers who are in reality transgressors of the law, unthankful and unholy, employing entrusted talents to counterwork God, having no light in them but darkness, with influence not unto sanctification or holiness, whom Jesus yearns after and longs to bless but cannot because of perversity of character. He further pictures a person ruined by selfish indulgence and fallen from former ambition and success into sin and discouragement, whom Christ meets with tender sympathy and words suited to need. The same figure applied to Amos as one who had left his Father's house with a history like the prodigal's own, and to a man degraded by liquor who was deeply moved by the story of turning toward the father and wanted to become fully converted.
Christ loved to use this story to teach lessons of truth and immortal truth, with a spirit open to the influences of nature and delight in gathering spiritual teaching from the surroundings of daily life. Like His other illustrations it is drawn from facts of life and facts of experience familiar to the hearers, with something to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. Thus familiar scenes from daily life and everyday events become reminders of the spiritual and unseen, so that the daily task instead of being a mere round of toil bereft of higher thoughts is brightened and uplifted.
Departure Into Want and Misery
The departure began when the son selfishly asked for his share of the estate and left to live apart from his father's counsel, correction, advice, reproof, restraint, and mutual obligation. He selfishly demanded his share when he had no rightful claim to anything, wanting to separate his interest to manage it to suit his own inclination, and he withdrew to a distance to forget his father, despised restraint, and was determined to have pleasure in any way he chose.
He wasted the undeserved treasure in sinful indulgence, extravagant pleasure, and pleasure-loving spendthrift living until it was all spent and his portion expended, forsaking the fountain of living waters for broken cisterns that hold no water. He was brought from indulgence to friendlessness in a strange country, clad in rags, hungry and longing even for the refuse fed to swine, destitute and deprived of decent clothing until reduced to feeding swine. Famine brought pinching want and destitution that led him to regret his sinful course.
His separation, suffering, and misery resulted from his own disobedience, sin, and folly. The deception that had held him was broken when he recognized this. Many become prodigals through indulgence at home and failed home training: too much freedom with will and inclination indulged, parental neglect to restrain and command education at the dawn of reason in the fear and love of God, lack of firm sanctified principles enforced with consistency, affection, and example, and parents permitting self-chosen ways while not doing the Word.
Resolve to Return Confessing
Humbled by want and adversity after wasting everything, the son comes to recognize his condition, need and guilt, seeing that his separation, suffering and misery came from his own disobedience, sin and folly, and the deception that held him is broken. Destitute in a strange country, friendless, clad in rags, hungry and longing even for the refuse fed to swine, deprived of decent clothing until reduced to feeding swine, he is brought by pinching want and famine to regret his course and to remember that there is food in his Father's house. He decides to arise and go to his father, resolving to return and confess that his wrongdoing is sin against God and against his father. His return shows how sinners who know they are lost need a Saviour, for Christ's mission is to recover the lost, not to condemn and destroy them. His request for only a hired servant's place, admitting he is no longer worthy to be called a son, shows he has not yet grasped the full measure of his father's love and still has too limited a view of it, though the assurance of his father's love gives him hope and draws him home.
Returning begins with confessing sin against heaven and against the Father and against others, asking the Father for pardon, admitting dishonor and broken commandments, acknowledging unworthiness to be called a son, and seeking restoration and reconciliation in God's appointed way. Even after abusing the Father's love and squandering His blessings, the sinner may come back asking only to be treated as a hired servant, and the Father receives the returning wanderer with compassion, tender joyful care, forgiveness and forgetfulness of the past. God's love and goodness lead sinners to repentance, and the longing to return, even the feeble desire, is awakened by the Spirit drawing the wanderer, pleading with him while he is still far off wasting what was given. Grace is already at work to meet the first desire before the prayer is spoken, for God hears the contrite heart, every faltering prayer, secret tear and sincere desire, and His Spirit goes forth to meet it. Even one step toward God in repentance is met by His loving welcome, for He hastens to receive the contrite; the sinner need not make himself better before coming, and no sinner who comes to God in contrition is beyond hope despite Satan's efforts to make God seem unwilling to forgive.
What is required is penitence expressed in a broken and contrite heart and honest confession, turning from pride and folly with enlightened conscience and humbled heart, with full decision of soul through repentance and prayer, returning to God whose mercy and love have been neglected. Arising means turning square about from thorough backsliding, leaving the service of Satan and sin and rebellion to return to the Father's house and to the Father's service on God's ground, not one's own. It means personal surrender to God and receiving Jesus as Saviour and King, so that a new life from above may begin through the Spirit, walking in accordance with His Word under His dominion and reign. One who has long been separated, stayed away, denied Jesus and by denial pierced Him and put Him to open shame can still arise and come back, grasping Christ by faith, fixing the eye upon Him, casting himself helpless upon His mercy, ceasing to do known sin and giving the little remnant of life to Jesus to be saved by His cleansing blood, because heaven must not be lost. God is ready to accept and pardon all transgressions if he will but come, the Majesty of Heaven invites him now to come that he may have life and Christ is ready to cleanse him when he lays hold upon Him, for serving sin and the flesh and the devil brings no profit but only poor wages, so he must not linger with false hopes or neglect but turn and live rather than perish, leaving rebellion behind with immediate response.
The resolve must be immediate and not delayed for worldly advantage such as keeping employment or finishing a trade, even if keeping the Sabbath costs the position, because staying away grieves the heart of Christ who died to redeem the sinner, and harsh treatment or mistakes by brethren give no excuse or reason to stay away from Christ. The return is made in a definite promise before God and angels and witnesses to be a Christian from that day, with earnest prayer, putting the person in a new channel with purified thoughts and changed purposes, a solemn sense of responsibility, and happy thankfulness for evidenced pardon and love. Backsliders return when they seek the Lord with confession and contrition of soul under the convicting power and deep movings of the Holy Spirit, coming to Jesus and turning toward heaven from a backslidden condition, met by the tender compassion and pitying love of Christ who died to save sinners, in firm trust that He will do all He has promised for those who believe, so that none who seek Him seek in vain. The verse means turning from wandering to confess wrong and come back to God for forgiveness and restoration, fulfilled when backslidden souls are awakened by the Lord, make confessions, and are baptized again as wandering sheep brought to the fold. The prodigal was welcomed home, but enjoying a son's privileges requires complying with its conditions with cordial assent and willing obedience: claiming privileges means accepting obligations, remaining under the Father's care in the fold and not renewing wanderings, renouncing the world's favor and friendship, receiving Christ as Saviour and King, walking by His Word under His reign, and repaying love by staying through the gift of the whole life in self-denial, obedience and submission to control and care. The verse illustrates the invitation to come back and respond to God's love, showing that those who have failed may come, tell God their mistakes and seek strength and help found in Jesus to begin again, and those willing to receive truth may be guided toward salvation through wise spiritual care and the longing to return to the Father's house.
Father's Compassionate Forgiving Welcome
The one sinned against sees the returning son while still far away and meets him with compassion, pity, forgiveness and tender embrace, with great joy that the son believed dead to all filial affection has become sensible of his great sin and neglect and has come back appreciating his love and acknowledging his claims. The son who has pursued a course of sin comes because he has suffered and felt his need and knows his Father as the only one who can supply that great need. His degradation does not hide him from his Father's love.
God is a waiting Father who yearns for the wanderer even while he is far off wasting what was given, cherishes him, and hastens to receive the contrite without meeting him with accusations of wrath, but welcoming his return with a feast. He hears the sinner's cry and knows every faltering prayer, secret tear and feeble sincere desire for Him, and His Spirit goes forth to meet it, so that even the first step toward God is met by His love. The longing to return is itself the pleading of His Spirit drawing the wanderer back, for He has already taken the first step to seek the sinner while still in rebellion and brings back to the Father's house everyone who lets Him do so.
The repentant soul is welcomed without reproach or reminders of unworthiness, without contempt, punishment or accusations of wrath. What is required is penitence expressed in a broken and contrite heart and honest confession that sin has been committed against heaven and before the Father, with acknowledgment of unworthiness to be called a son. That confession is met with compassion and welcome, for God longs to receive the sinner who returns, forgives and forgets the past, and welcomes the repentant with fatherly love.
He fully pardons and welcomes with pitying love the one who confesses and returns, restoring the one who comes back, and no sinner who comes to God in contrition is beyond hope, for the Father is ready to meet the returning sinner with love and compassion and to forgive. This is His invitation to His children to return and repent, and His willingness to pardon their sins and transgressions. The son is received as a son, not made a servant, though humbled enough to ask only for a servant's place.
The Father covers his rags, shame and nakedness, covers him with the robe of righteousness, which is Christ's righteousness, restores him with a ring as a sign of his standing as a son, and restores him to the place of a beloved child at His table despite past separation and errors. God's love remains strong for the sinner, and coming to God in sorrow is not degrading. Though departure caused grief, the Father still loves him and receives him when he repents.
Through Christ's goodness and mercy the sinner is restored to divine favor, and God in Christ is ready to receive and welcome the sinner, with Christ's dying love on Calvary assuring acceptance, peace and love. This return is made possible by the Father's infinite love in the gift of His beloved Son as a sacrifice, which made a channel for the outflow of His love to the fallen race. All who believe on Jesus Christ are restored to favor, made obedient to all of God's commandments, and have life in Jesus Christ, for Christ has purchased him with His blood, and faith in Christ, learning from Him and following Him, lead to eternal life and heaven's imperishable riches.
The return brings joy in heaven and rejoicing over the son thought dead but alive, with praise to God and the Lamb for mercy and loving-kindness when a person is brought back to God. The prodigal's return in repentance, acknowledging his sin, brings joy among the heavenly host. There is greater joy over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine needing no repentance, and heaven rejoices when even the poorest person comes to God.
Seeking and Welcoming the Lost
Those who have themselves been rescued from sin can understand the lost and help them find their way back to the Father, for the resolve to arise and return marks the turning point where the sinner recognizes guilt and decides to come home. A backslider's leaving of a backslidden condition to return to God and to His service comes about through earnest Christian labor bestowed on the erring.
Those who have strayed and left the Father's house are to be encouraged to come back to Him. Those willing to receive truth can likewise be guided toward salvation through wise, spiritual care.
The resolve to return illustrates the repentance erring people need, and it calls for meeting the fallen with Christlike compassion and helping them toward the sin-pardoning Saviour rather than abandoning or condemning them so harshly that they lose hope of restoration. The awakening to sin and degradation and the decision to return call for tender sympathy, encouragement, hope, pardon, pity, love, and rejoicing over the return, following the father's example rather than the elder brother's coldness, cold rejection, and condemnation. Fallen people who have come under temptation need sympathy and prayer in view of Jesus' love and tenderness, not severe judgment, and a soul trying to return needs Christlike pity and sympathy rather than censure, reproach, suspicion, or jealousy. Harsh treatment by Christians can keep those who have gone astray from the kingdom instead of helping them.
The one who has pursued a course of sin and now repents comes suffering, feeling need, desponding and discouraged, as one who can be supplied only by the Father, and needs pity, love, help, sympathy, and free forgiveness. He is not to be made to feel where he erred by repeated reminders of mistakes, as the elder brother did, whose complaints were natural but not right, and resentment at such a welcome is wrong. The father's welcome rather than the elder brother's cold rejection is the right response to those gone astray, giving tempted people room to recover from the enemy's snare instead of treating them harshly or condemning them.
Those who claim to love God must properly represent Him by receiving the returning wanderer with joy rather than wounding and driving away the lost instead of seeking them. All heaven rejoices in the finding of the lost, and those who handle sacred things must partake of that spirit and rejoice over the returning wanderer instead of manifesting indifference, careless disregard, and an elder-brother spirit that refuses to sympathize and rejoice. The lessons of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son belong together, mean much, must be carefully studied, and involve eternal interests in the practicing of them.
Those already in the church ought to rejoice when backslidden souls are awakened, confess wrong, come back to God for forgiveness and restoration, and are baptized again as wandering sheep brought to the fold. When instead they are envious and jealous because more labor is given to new interests than to them, they act out the elder son of the same parable. That resentful, jealous, complaining spirit in members who resent rejoicing and labor for the returned and the lost sorely displeases the Lord.
A living church is not a gossiping church planting doubt, questioning, evil surmising, and jealousy, but an earnest, working church whose members know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. If Christ is formed within as the hope of glory they will seek to save the lost as chosen vessels carrying salvation, bearing light and reflecting truth to all they contact by precept and example. They stretch out hands all day in burden for souls and sincere prayer, hunt for souls and bring truth close to hearts, and do righteousness in their own homes and in the church rather than expecting to be constantly fed with sermons while ministers should be giving truth to those who know it not.
Harsh treatment of youthful errors by brethren does not excuse leaving Christ, whose tender love and received pardon call the backslider back to the Father's service in a decisive turn away from Satan and sin. The call to come back with humble heart, confessing sin and waywardness and seeking forgiveness, finds deliverance through Jesus' strength and not one's own, and applies also to reconciliation such as Charley's relationship with his parents.