Luke 15:22, commentary and pictures

The father orders his servants to take the returning son in rags and nakedness and clothe him with honor as a son, with the finest garment and a ring and shoes, instead of leaving him as a hired servant to be mocked.
The father is God and the son is the sinner ruined by selfish separation from Him, whom God meets from afar with pity and tender embrace without reproach, anger, or reminders of unworthiness, forgiving and forgetting his sin.
The finest garment is Christ's righteousness given to cover self-righteousness and sin, which no effort of the sinner can supply, but which is received by coming just as he is and trusting in Christ as personal Saviour.
The ring is the token of royalty and restored standing as a son, so that he is treated as though he had always been obedient though he asked only for a servant's place, and this undeserved love breaks his heart with a deeper sense of sin and of the father's goodness.
What is required is true heart-sorrow, hunger of soul, confession and full turning back to the Father without delay, and those who follow Christ must receive such erring ones with pity, help and free forgiveness rather than with the cold condemning spirit of the elder brother.

Parable Context and Figures

Luke 15:22 belongs to the parable of the prodigal or lost son, a most pathetic and touching illustration of mercy and forgiveness. Christ drew it from familiar daily life and familiar events to illustrate immortal truth, to brighten ordinary life with reminders of spiritual things and help people recognize spiritual realities in everyday experience. He used it to come right to the point without long, farfetched, complicated reasoning, drawing things both new and old from His treasure-house to illustrate and enforce truth, to touch the heart, awaken sympathy, and commend truth to the conscience. He left hearers free to accept or reject it without force.

In the parable the father represents God, the heavenly Father, who receives the repentant sinner without reproach and treats him as His child. The son represents a person ruined by selfish indulgence and separation from God, whose wasted life and bondage to sin show that a life centered on self squanders God-given years and powers. The account also illustrates how a child's wayward course can be shaped by indulgence at home and how parental indulgence can contribute to waywardness.

The child had left home and squandered his inheritance, falling into misery far from his father's house and perishing with hunger as an object of compassion. His lost condition is shown by distance from home and hunger, by rags, nakedness, and bondage to sin. After wasting his inheritance he returns penitent and humbled to his father's care and restoration.

The father sees his returning son from afar, runs to meet him, and rejoices that the one thought dead is alive. He welcomes him with yearning love and generous care, preparing a feast to follow rather than meeting him with accusations of wrath. That welcome carries the restoration to the family shown in the order for the best robe, a ring, and shoes.

Father's Forgiving Restoration

The father welcomes the penitent, humbled son back into the household with restored honor and belonging, giving him the best robe and a ring and shoes. He is received again as a son and not accepted as a hired servant, though that is all he asks for and though he still bears the marks of his sinful life. The father restores him to his place in the family, honors him and provides for his need, orders the household to treat him with respect and serve him, and prepares a feast with rejoicing over his return. He will not leave him in a servant's place and will not allow him to be mocked for his rags, for the gifts picture full compassion toward the returning sinner when sin is forgiven. The past is blotted out and not held against him.

That welcome comes without reproach, taunts, blame, anger, suspicion, or reminders of unworthiness. God receives the repentant sinner as His child, forgives him, blots out the sin, and remembers it no more. Penitence is what is required, and joy awaits every repentant soul who returns to the heavenly Father.

The father hastens to meet the son while he is still in beggar's rags, with naked feet and hunger and shame, and does not stand on dignity or wait afar off. He pities him, lifts him up, kisses him, and takes him to his breast and heart with tenderest pity and compassion. He wraps his own rich robe about his nearly naked, emaciated, soiled form, and meets him with forgiveness and great joy because the son has become sensible of his sin and neglect, has felt his need, values his father's love, and comes to his father as the only one who can supply that need.

The servants are ordered to pay him special tokens of respect, to clothe him as though he had remained an obedient son, and to serve him. He is clothed in the best the household can provide, though he knows he does not deserve it. This leaves no room for contempt toward his misery and rags, for the robe and the other tokens express love and forgiveness.

This undeserved reception, love, and honor breaks the already subdued heart. It gives a much deeper sense of sin and of having grieved such love, and leaves no doubt of the father's goodness and love.

Meaning of Robe Ring Shoes

The best robe placed on the returning son pictures Christ's righteousness given to those who turn to God, covering the prodigal's rags and replacing the filthy garments of self-righteousness. It is God's gift of acceptance and pardon to the repentant sinner who comes back to Him, whom He hastens to meet and receive with joy into His protection and fellowship. The welcome restores the fallen to the household, clothing them in the robe of righteousness when they receive Christ as Saviour. God's grace in this clothing is freely available to all who come to Him.

That robe cannot be prepared by the sinner's own efforts to cover deformity and sin. If Satan stands between the soul and Jesus Christ, the love and acceptance and pardon of Christ is eclipsed, and man must not constantly strive to make a robe of righteousness of his own. The sinner must come to Christ just as he is and believe in Him as personal Saviour to receive the Father's robe.

The ring placed on his finger is a token of royalty and of restored standing as a son, not a hired servant. The best robe, ring, and shoes together honor him and provide for his need, covering his rags and ensuring the household treats him with respect despite his sin and ragged condition. This tender care entreats the erring child to return and encourages him as he comes home, in contrast to treating the struggling soul with contempt.

He is ordered to be clothed as though he had remained an obedient son, with special tokens of respect and proofs of love and forgiveness. Though he knows he does not deserve such honor and asks only to be made a hired servant, he is not left in beggar's rags, naked feet, hunger and shame. The father does not stand on dignity, reproach him, or set past wrong and sin before him to make him feel how low he has sunk, but hastens to meet him, lifts him up, kisses him, takes him to his breast and heart with tenderest pity and compassion, and wraps his own rich robe about his nearly naked form. This undeserved love and honor breaks the already subdued heart and gives a much deeper sense of sin and of the father's goodness and love, leaving no doubt of that goodness and of having grieved such love.

The father's joyful welcome also stands by itself as the picture of God's continuing love in receiving as His child the one who returns to Him, knowing his trials and sins and calling him to return. In that setting the earlier departure, wasted life, and bondage to sin illustrate the sinner's separation from God and a self-centered life squandering God-given years and powers. The robe, ring, and shoes are there left without separate explanation, the emphasis resting on welcome and restored sonship.

God's Love for Sinners

The parable sets forth pitying, tender, loving care for those who have strayed from God and are exposed to temptation, and He does not abandon them in their misery but shows them kindness and tender pity. When His children repent and return He receives them with joy as a father welcomes a long-lost child, clothing the penitent prodigal with robe, ring, and shoes as the expression of that welcome. He takes the first step toward people still in rebellion, seeking to bring every willing wanderer home and, like the true shepherd, going after the lost.
His purpose in that welcome is to recover the lost rather than to condemn or destroy them, for those who recognize their need of a Saviour are the ones Christ came to save. That love was shown in the gift of His beloved Son, which made a channel for the outflow of infinite love so that all who believe on Jesus may be restored again to His favor. Calvary proves how He regards those wandering far from the Father's house and perishing with hunger, for He sent His Son to be the propitiation for their sins, and not for theirs only but for the sins of the whole world, that sinners might be brought to saving knowledge of the truth, saved from sin, and made one with God. The lost condition of distance from home and hunger marks man as an object of compassion, and the one who advances toward God, submits his will to supreme wisdom, assents to the terms of salvation, receives Christ as personal Saviour and believes in His name is reconciled to the Father through the great atoning sacrifice and dying love, placed under the Father's protection, made one with God, covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness, given power to become a son of God and a place at His table in obedience, fellowship, and keeping of all the commandments. Christ receives the lost sinner with outstretched arms and restores him to God's favor, and His dying love shown at Calvary assures the sinner of acceptance, peace, and love and gives grand themes for thought and a solid foundation for faith leading to obedience to all of God's commandments and to life in Jesus Christ. Even this tender picture of the Father's compassion toward the returning sinner falls short of expressing a love so great.
The return brings joy in heaven and shows the warmth of the Father's grace toward sinners, for the parable of the lost son illustrates the joy when someone is brought back to God. When a sinner comes to the Father in repentance, heaven responds with joy, warmth, courtesy, and love, and the repentant son is welcomed with warmth, courtesy, and love that brings joy among the heavenly host. One especially endangered by temptation brings pain to Christ and calls forth His tender sympathy and earnest effort, and Christ rejoices more over one sinner who repents than over many who need no repentance.
The same yearning love was shown toward Israel, for the loving father's welcome to his returning son represents God's love toward them even when they resisted repeated offers of mercy, while Christ still yearned over them and grieved at the judgment He foresaw for Jerusalem. Jesus yearns after sons and daughters acting as the prodigal, professed commandment-keepers who transgress the law and are unthankful and unholy, using entrusted talents to counterwork God, with no light in them but darkness, whose influence does not lead to sanctification or holiness; He longs to do them the good He delights to do, but the perversity of their character prevents Him. Like a father willing to suffer for his son, God was willing to bear the guilt of His wayward people and continued to send warnings, appeals, and invitations, though they resisted His grace and wasted the privileges He gave them. The father's welcoming of his lost son home illustrates Heaven's labor to reclaim the lost and bring them back to the Father's house.

Returning and Remaining Children

Penitence is what is required for the welcome of Luke 15:22, true heart-sorrow for sin and hunger and felt need leading to humble confession and full decision of soul to turn back to the Father as the only one who can supply that need. The returning son is freely and fully pardoned when he returns and confesses, his disgrace covered by pitying love without making sin seem less grievous. Deliverance from sin depends on Jesus' strength and not one's own, and restoration comes through the Father's welcome to the one who comes back with a humble heart and does not delay. The one who links himself with God and gives heart and soul to Him with full decision is accepted and blessed.

To the mourning sinner God's love runs faster than the sinner's feet, meeting him on the way with peace, kissing his shame into silence, putting the best robe on him, and giving the liberty of the sons of God. This is the comfort of mourning when guilt leads the sinner to flee to Christ, to come in true contrition to the foot of the cross, to leave burdens there, and to be set free from the bondage of sin. The call therefore is to return now without delay and without lingering in sin's poor wages, for though the sinner has been a prodigal long separated from God and has received only poor wages from serving sin and the flesh and the devil, the Majesty of Heaven even now invites him to come that he may have life. None who seek Him do so in vain, for if he will come in the one humble way God will pardon all his transgressions and Christ will cleanse him from sin when he lays hold upon Him, while to neglect this mercy and linger is to perish in sin. Returning to God is a privilege with hope for those who turn and take Jesus as personal Saviour, and those who turn to Him after sin can come to Him, tell Him their failures, and ask for strength to begin again, and are to be encouraged to come home.

A thorough backslider leaving the service of Satan and of sin returns like the prodigal to his Father's house and service by turning square about at once with a decided promise before God to be a Christian from that day, even if keeping the Sabbath costs position and trade. Mistakes and severity by brethren and simple errors of youthful indiscretion give no reason to stay away and grieve Christ who loved him and died to redeem him. The Father evidences pardon and love to the one who so returns, placing him in a new channel with purified thoughts, changed purposes, and a solemn sense of responsibility, bringing happiness and thankfulness. The prodigal's return is in this way the model for a backslider turning from sin and returning to God's service, brought about through labor in Christ, with the young man urged to return as the prodigal did. Named prodigals such as Arthur and Rosetta, described as prodigals from their Father's house and blessing, are urged to turn back to God, confess their backsliding, and enter the heavenward path, and the call to come back to the Father's house presents the prodigal as the example of turning back to God. People who so turn back may become receptive to truth, can be wisely helped and saved, and truth brought into their lives is a saving power making the receptive wise unto salvation.

Enjoying a son's privileges requires meeting sonship's conditions, for the welcome does not remove them. Returning to the Father means accepting a son's obligations, staying under His care in obedience and fellowship, and not returning to former wandering. The returning sinner must meet God on God's ground and not his own, with cordial assent and willing obedience, walking according to His Word, acknowledging Christ as King, submitting to His authority and dominion, making His law the rule of life and His life the pattern, denying self and being ready to part with all and make any sacrifice for His sake, receiving Him to reign in the soul if He is received at all. This means receiving Christ as Saviour, renouncing the world's favor and friendship to make Him the all, walking according to His word, submitting the will to supreme wisdom, giving cordial assent to the terms of salvation, receiving Christ as personal Saviour and believing in His name, keeping all His commandments, with unreserved surrender and the gift of the whole life in self-denial and obedience rather than partial giving. The one so reconciled to the Father through the great atoning sacrifice and Christ's dying love is placed under the Father's protection, made one with God, covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness, given power to become a son of God, heartily welcomed, and given a place at His table. The one so accepted is accountable for all the good Jesus died to make it possible for him to do, and having known the Saviour's love and his own need of help, he is blessed and works with God to guide other lost youth and other lost people to give their hearts to God, be converted, and come back to the Father.

Welcoming the Erring Ones

Those who have erred and return in repentance are to be received as the father in Luke 15:22 receives the prodigal, with compassion, pity, forgiveness and great joy. The one sinned against is the one who meets the returning son, though that son had been counted dead to love for his father, and now has become sensible of his sin and neglect, values his father's love, owns his father's claims, suffers in feeling, and comes as one who has felt his need to the only one who can supply it. Because the erring are often downcast, discouraged and desponding and need forgiveness above everything else, they are to be given pity, help, sympathy and above all free forgiveness, not made to feel where they erred by reminders of mistakes and keeping error before them. They must be sought and welcomed rather than wounded and driven away, met with tenderness and efforts to restore them rather than harsh condemnation, abandonment, severe judgment or unwise treatment.

The elder brother's complaints against that welcome were natural but are not right. That cold, complaining, condemning spirit stands in contrast to the loving Father who welcomes the prodigal rather than rejecting him, receiving the lost son with pity, gladness and love, accepting his repentance and rejoicing over his return. It is a wrong spirit to resent the rejoicing, to refuse the Father's joy, to show envy and jealousy instead of rejoicing when wandering people are brought back to the fold, to murmur over work done for the lost, or for brother to pursue brother by trying to make him feel his error. The same spirit displeases the Lord when church members murmur instead of rejoicing with heaven.

God's tender mercy in Luke 15:22 restores the returning son by covering his rags with His own garments and placing the ring on his finger as a token of restored standing and royalty. The Father loves His erring child, entreats him to return, puts His arm about the repentant son, encourages the erring to return home, and shows His readiness to receive the repentant. That mercy rebukes indifference and contempt toward the prodigal and condemns treating a soul struggling against the flood of temptation with contempt, Pharisee-like harshness, or stubborn, self-willed, selfish elder-brother harshness, even in those who claim to work with Christ. Those who need salvation should instead help bring the wanderer back.

Parents are to follow that pattern by pardoning a returning, confessing child freely and fully, covering disgrace with pitying love and tenderness as the best robe, ring and shoes are ordered for the son, while not making sin seem less grievous or less serious. Followers of Christ are to cooperate with Him in seeking the lost and winning back those who have wandered, helping and encouraging those returning to God. This cooperation calls for denying self, refraining from needless selfish spending, and bringing an offering in righteousness to advance His enterprise of mercy with power so sinners far from the Father's house and perishing with hunger may be brought to saving knowledge of the truth, saved from sin and made one with God. Those who have had labor bestowed on them are to know God and Jesus Christ whom He sent, and when Christ is formed within as the hope of glory they will seek to save the lost, showing the Spirit of Christ in councils toward those who stray from the fold and carrying the message of salvation as light-bearers rather than gossiping, doubting and cherishing jealousy.