separately and received their answers. There is no reason to believe
that they met together and framed a plan to insult their entertainer.
They acted all on the same method, although they did not act in concert.
The creatures were of one kind, and though they answered separately they
answered similarly. Off one carnal instinct--[Greek: apo mias
(gnômês)]--the excuses were taken, and accordingly, although spoken by
different persons, and moulded by different circumstances, they were
all of the same type.
The first had bought a field and must go to examine his bargain; the
second had bought live stock for his farm and must see them tried
immediately; the third had married a wife, and held himself absolved for
the time from the ordinary rules of society. They are fair samples of
the things that occupy and engross men's hearts and lives.
The servant, having no authority to act, simply reported the facts to
his master. The master was angry, and immediately invited all the poor
of the neighbourhood to the feast. When many of the most destitute had
assembled, the householder, not satisfied as long as there was room at
the table, and a poor man within reach to occupy it, sent out another
message still more pressing, to sweep into the feast all the homeless
wanderers that could be found, the very dregs and outcasts of society.
Satisfied when his house at length was filled, the owner announced that
none of those who had made light of his invitation should now be
permitted to partake of the feast.
We are now ready to examine more directly the spiritual meaning of the
parable, and as the lesson is in the main coincident with that of the
royal marriage in its earlier portion, a brief exposition will suffice.
In the Gospel, God has provided a great feast. Israel, or his Church at
any period, are a privileged class, and enjoy, through his sovereign
goodness, a perpetual invitation,--a standing right. The charge which
the parable brings against this privileged people is, that they were
satisfied with the honour of being invited, and refused actually to
comply with the invitation. They were content with their name and their
outward privileges, and would not in their own hearts and lives obey the
Gospel; clinging to the form of godliness, they peremptorily denied its
power. Not they who are invited, but they who partake of the feast, are
blessed. To get the first invitation will be not a blessing but an
aggravation of guilt, if you despise the Giver and refuse his gifts. The
last invited shall be first in ultimate position if they accept the
invitation, and the first invited will be last and lowest if they refuse
to comply: the condition of men, ultimately, turns not on pardon to them
offered, but on pardon by them received.
The servant obviously represents the ministry of the Gospel in every
form and in all times. The message is addressed in the first instance to
them "that were bidden." The Gospel was not first proclaimed to the
heathen: begin at Jerusalem was the Master's command, and that command
was fulfilled in spirit and letter by his servants. To the lost sheep of
the House of Israel the Lord came in person, and to them the apostles
addressed their Lord's words at the beginning of their ministry. The
history of the event in the Acts of the Apostles corresponds exactly
with the prophetic delineation in this parable: it was when the Jews
rejected the Gospel, that the messengers turned to the Gentiles.
The invitation addressed to the favoured circle first is, "Come, for all
things are now ready;" all preceding dispensations were a preparation
for Christ. When the fulness of time had come, those who had been all
along brought up within the lines of the privileged people, were invited
to behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. This is
repeated in the experience of every generation, and every individual,
that grows up within the circle of Christian ordinances, as soon as the
mind comprehends the message of mercy. As each attains maturity, he is
informed that all things are now ready; he is invited and pressed to
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that he may be saved.
To "make excuse," does not here mean to invent an excuse, and falsely
state, as a reason, that which is, in point of fact, not the motive
of the act. To make excuse, both in the original Greek ([Greek:
paraiteisthai]) and in the English translation, signifies simply to
plead to be excused. The grounds on which the plea is urged, may in any
case be true or false; but in this case, it is highly probable that the
grounds stated were in themselves facts, and that they were, in part at
least, the true grounds of refusal. Whether the first would have gone
to the feast, if he had not at that time bought a property, we do not
certainly know. A man who is intensely unwilling to go, when one reason
fails, will find or make another; but in this case, the probability is,
that anxiety to see his purchase was the real, or at least, a real
obstacle. The same observation is applicable to the other two examples.
But although we concede that the obstacles are real, we do not thereby
help the case of those who neglect the Gospel; we must go one step
deeper into the strata of deceit that are piled over each other in a
human heart. A secret unwillingness to partake of the feast may induce
the invited to time his purchases, so that he may have a good excuse at
hand, or at least to abstain from effort to regulate the incidence of
other cares, so as to leave a time of leisure for the great concern.
Here in the highest matters, as elsewhere in lower, "Where there's a
will there's a way." If the desire were pure and true,--the desire to
attend the Giver, and receive his unspeakable gift, the field may be
inspected and the oxen proved early in the morning, or postponed till
the following day. Without supposing a conscious falsehood representing
that transactions which had no existence stood in the way, you have the
evil in all its bulk and all its virulence, when the deceitful heart
tries to persuade neighbours, and to persuade itself, that the emerging
necessities of earthly business interfered with the waiting on Christ
for the salvation of the soul.
We might be put on our guard against this species of deceit in the
highest matters, by observing how readily we glide into it, in things of
smaller moment. Deceits of every shade, from the lie direct to the most
attenuated equivocation, spring in the complicated intercourse of modern
society, like weeds in a moist summer on a fallow field. Assuredly,
unless our hand be diligent in digging out these bitter roots, we shall
not grow rich in the graces of the Spirit. You are invited to a
neighbour's house: you don't like to go, and you determine that you will
not go. Forthwith your wits go to work to discover an excuse, and you
soon find that which you seek for: you must travel on business that day;
or some other excuse equally convenient and plausible occurs. You are
invited to the house of another neighbour; difficulties unforeseen
spring up; but being bent on accepting this invitation, you brush them
all aside, and contrive to reserve the evening for the company that you
love. There is much danger of staining the conscience in affairs like
these. The Lord requires truth in the inward parts: watch and pray. But
the difficulty of the path should not make any disciple sad: the effort
to walk circumspectly, when honestly, prayerfully, lovingly made, is
pleasant and healthful exercise to the spirit.
Neither on the natural nor on the spiritual side does the expression,
"with one consent," intimate that the parties met and consulted together
regarding the terms of their answers. As birds of the same species build
their nests of the same material and the same form, without deliberation
or concert; so the carnal mind, being in its own nature enmity against
God, produces, wherever it operates, substantially the same fruits. In
an alienated heart there is an intense unwillingness to be or to abide
near to God; and there is, consequently, great fecundity in the
conception and production of partition walls to shield the conscience
from the glances of his holiness.
The three species[71] of thorns that grew up and choked the word in this
instance, are fair specimens of their class--fair samples from the heap.
These and such as these slay their thousands still in the Christian
Church. At this point, however, it is of very great importance to
observe that all the transactions which are represented in the parable
as having come between a sinner and the Saviour, are in themselves
lawful; to overlook this would be to miss half the value of the lesson.
In point of fact acts and habits of positive vice keep many back from
the Gospel; but it is not with these cases that the parable deals--it is
not to these persons that the Lord is here addressing his reproof.
Everything in its own place and time; the lesson here is not, "A
drunkard shall not inherit the kingdom," but "How shall we escape if we
neglect so great salvation?" When the material of the temptation is
lawful and honourable the temptation is less suspected, and the tempted
is more easily thrown off his guard. The field and the oxen must be
bought and used; the affections of the family must be cherished; but woe
to us if we permit these seemly plants to grow so rank that the soul's
life shall be overlaid beneath their weight!
[71] I do not set much value on the elaborate and minute discussions
which some expositors have raised regarding the distinct and
specific significance of the several excuses. It is enough for me
that they point to the possessions and the pleasures of life,--the
possessions being distinguished into two kinds, the field and oxen,
corresponding to the farm and the merchandise of the cognate
parable.
The mission of the servants successively to the streets and lanes of the
city, and to the highways and hedges, with the urgent invitation to poor
labourers and homeless beggars, the maimed, the halt, and the blind, is
a vivid picture, given in prophecy, of what the Gospel of Christ does
and will do in the world till the end of time. When many, and these the
most wretched, are brought in redeemed and sanctified, the Lord is not
satisfied; yet there is room, and the servants must go forth again to
new, and if possible, more needy objects, with new, and if possible,
more urgent appeals. "Whosoever will, let him come." It is thus that the
numbers are filled up in the kingdom of God; but let it be well observed
that to be in a spiritually wretched state does not confer a favour or
imply safety. These men were saved, not because they were spiritually
very low, but although they were spiritually very low: they were saved,
although the chief of sinners, because Christ invited them, and they
came at his call. The more moral, and more privileged, who were first
invited, would have been as welcome and as safe if they had come.
THE LOST SHEEP, THE LOST COIN, AND THE PRODIGAL SON.
LUKE xv.
The three parables of this chapter, like the seven in Matt. xiii.,
constitute a connected series. As soon as we begin to look into their
contents and relations, it becomes obvious that they have been arranged
according to a logical scheme, and that the group so framed is not
fragmentary but complete. We cannot indeed fully comprehend the
reciprocal relations of all until we shall have examined in detail the
actual contents of each; and yet, on the other hand, a preliminary
survey of the scheme as a whole may facilitate the subsequent
examination of its parts. A glance towards the group from a point
sufficiently distant to command the whole in one view may aid us
afterwards in making a minuter inspection of details; and, reciprocally,
the nearer inspection of individual features may throw back light on
what shall have been left obscure in the general outline.
The three parables, then, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the
prodigal son, refer all to the same subject and describe the same fact;
they contemplate that fact, however, from opposite sides, and produce,
accordingly, different pictures. It is important to notice at this stage
that the three parables of this group do not constitute a consecutive
series of three members. In the logical scheme the stem parts into two
branches, and the first of these is afterwards subdivided also into two:
the lost sheep and the lost coin contemplate the subject from the same
side, and in the main present the same representation.[72]
[72] While the evidence that the main division is twofold, not
threefold, lies chiefly in the nature of the several
representations, the minute formulae by which the transitions of the
narrative are effected, point in the same direction. The parable of
the lost sheep is introduced by the phrase, "And he spake this
parable," ([Greek: eipe de tên parabolên]), and that of the prodigal
by the corresponding, "And he said," ([Greek: eipe de]). These two
are thus balanced over against each other; but the only link between
the lost sheep and the lost silver is, Either ([Greek: ê]),
indicating that the second does not introduce a new subject, but
gives another illustration of that which was already expressed in
the first.
The repetition is profitable, for besides the intensity which
reiteration imparts, the two parables, although generically the same,
are specifically different. Together they represent one side of the fall
and the redemption of man, while the other and opposite side is
represented by the parable of the prodigal. But while the first two
represent the same aspect of the great event, they represent it with
specific varieties of feature. This will be more distinctly understood
when we shall have examined the parables in detail.
In further indicating the relations which subsist between the two
portions of the group, I shall, for the sake of shortness, speak only of
the lost sheep and the prodigal, including under the first term also its
twin parable of the lost money.
The sin and the salvation of man,--the fall and the rising again,
considered as one whole, is here contemplated successively from two
different, and in some respects opposite points of view. As the result,
we obtain two very dissimilar pictures; yet the pictures are both true,
and both represent the same object.
In as far as the departure is concerned, the two representations are
coincident: it is only in regard to the return that they are essentially
diverse. The sheep and the prodigal alike depart of their own accord,
the one in ignorance and the other in wilful wickedness. Man destroys
himself; but the hand of God must intervene for his salvation.[73]
[73] Bengel, in his usual pointed way, expresses the specific
varieties which characterize the three successive views of men's
sin, as stupidity, want of self-consciousness, and the positive
choice of evil by an intelligent but depraved being. "Ovis, drachma,
filius perditus: peccator stupidus, sui plane nescius, sciens et
voluntarius."
The conversion of a sinner is, on the contrary, represented by two
different pictures. You cannot convey a correct conception of a solid
body by one picture on a flat surface. The globe itself, for example,
cannot be exhibited on a map except as two distinct hemispheres. To the
right you have a representation of one side, and to the left a
representation of the other; the two pictures are different, and yet
each, as far as it goes, is a true picture of the same globe. In like
manner, the way of a sinner's return to God is too great and deep for
being fully set forth in one similitude. In particular its aspect
towards God and its aspect towards men are so diverse that both cannot
be represented by one figure. On one side the Redeemer goes
spontaneously forth to seek and bear back again the lost; on the other
side the wanderer repents, arises, and returns. Here, accordingly, you
see the shepherd following the strayed sheep, and bringing it back on
his shoulders to the fold; and there you see the weary prodigal first
coming to himself, and then coming to his Father. The first picture
shows the sovereign self-moving love of God our Saviour; and the second
shows the beginning, the progress, and the result of repentance in a
sinner's heart.
These two similitudes represent one transaction: first, you are
permitted to look upon it from above, and you behold the working of
divine compassion; next, you are permitted to look upon it from below,
and you behold the struggle of conviction in a sinner's conscience,--the
spontaneous return of a repenting man. Here is revealed the sovereign
outgoing of divine power; and there in consequence appears a willing
people (Ps. cx. 3). It is not that one sinner is brought back by Christ,
and another returns of his own accord: both features are present in
every example. Of every one who, from this fallen world, shall have
entered the eternal rest, it may be said, and will be said in the songs
of heaven, both that the Lord his Redeemer, of His own mere mercy, saved
him, and that he spontaneously came back to his Father's bosom and his
Father's house.[74]
[74] It is interesting to notice that the same twin doctrines which
the Master here exhibited in parables were afterwards taught in the
same relation by his servants. Take two examples, one a brief bold
allegory, and the other an autobiographic fragment, both from the
fervent heart and through the fruitful pen of the apostle Paul. (1.)
"Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal,
The Lord knoweth them that are his; and, Let every one that nameth
the name of Christ depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. ii. 19). The
engraving on the upper side of this seal represents God's part in a
sinner's salvation, and corresponds to the shepherd's generous act;
the engraving on its under side represents man's part, and
corresponds to the repenting and returning of the prodigal. (2.)
"Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect;
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am
apprehended of Christ Jesus" (Phil. iii. 12). The obscurity which
adheres to the sentence as it stands in the English Bible is removed
when, instead of "that for which," you substitute the more direct
and literal rendering, "for that," meaning "because" or "inasmuch
as." The sentence should be read, "I follow after, if that I may (if
so be that I may) apprehend, inasmuch as I also have been
apprehended by, Christ Jesus," ([Greek: diôkô de ei kai katalabô,
eph hô kai katelêphthên hypo tou Christoi Iêsou]). The apostle
intends to state two connected facts; and to intimate that the one
is the cause of the other. He is striving to grasp the Saviour; and
what impels or encourages him to make the effort? His own experience
that his Saviour has already in sovereign love laid hold of him.
Christ has already come to this sinful man, in loving saving power,
as the good shepherd came to the lost sheep; therefore the sinful
man will arise and go to the Father like the repenting prodigal. The
consciousness that like the lost sheep he has been grasped in the
Redeemer's arms does not induce him to abstain from effort as
unnecessary; on the contrary, by inspiring hope, it nerves his arm
and spurs him on. Because he feels that the Shepherd is bearing him,
therefore he will arise and go.
It is proper to notice here also the immediate occasion in our Lord's
history whence these instructions sprung, as it belongs not particularly
to the first parable, but generally to the whole group. This spark of
heavenly light, like many others of similar beauty, has been struck off
for us by a rude blow which the Jewish leaders aimed against the
character and authority of Jesus. The publicans and sinners of the
place,--the home-heathen of the day,--the people whether rich or poor,
who had neither the power of religion in their hearts nor the profession
of it on their lips,--came out in great numbers to hear this new
prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. The word was new: "never man spake like this
man" to these poor outcasts before. If at any time they sauntered into
the synagogue, and hovered for a few moments on the outskirts of the
congregation, the stray words that reached their ears from the desk of
the presiding scribe, were harsh supercilious denunciations of
themselves and their class. Hitherto their hearts had been like clay,
and the Pharisaic teaching, as far as it had reached them, had been like
fire: the clay in this furnace grew aye the harder. But now a new sound
from the lips of a public teacher saluted their ears. They could not
throw these words back in the speaker's face, if they would; and they
would not if they could. They permitted themselves to be taken, and
led. To them Jesus speaks "with authority, and not as the scribes." This
word had power; and its power lay in its tenderness: it went sheer
through their stony hearts, and made them flow down like water.
Nor did he gain favour among unholy men by making their sins seem
lighter than the scribes represented them to be: he made them heavier.
He did not convey to the profane and worldly the conception that their
sins were easily forgiven; but he fixed in their hearts the impression
that God is a great forgiver. Touched and won by this unwonted
tenderness, they came in clouds to sit at Jesus' feet.
The Pharisees counted their presence a blemish in the reputation of the
teacher. As for them, they had always so spoken as to keep people of
that sort effectually at a distance: the doctrine, they think, that
brings them round the preacher cannot be sound. "This man," they said,
"receiveth sinners and eateth with them;" and they said no more, for
they imagined that Jesus was convicted and condemned by the fact.
The occasion of the parables becomes in a great measure the key to their
meaning. These men, the publicans and sinners, are Abraham's seed, and
consequently, even according to the showing of the Pharisees themselves,
lost sheep,--prodigal sons; and the Redeemer's errand from heaven to
earth is to seek and find and bring back such as these to the Father's
fold. If they had not strayed, it would not have been necessary that the
shepherd should follow them in their wandering, and bear them home: if
they had not in a far country spent their substance in riotous living,
it would not have been necessary that they should return repenting to
their Father.
XXII.
THE LOST SHEEP.
"Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.
And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth
sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them,
saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of
them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go
after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found
it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh
home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto
them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I
say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner
that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which
need no repentance."--LUKE xv. 1-7.
Although by another saying of the Lord, it is rendered certain that
hired, and even in a sinister sense "hireling," shepherds were known at
the time in the country, the presumption that the flock which this
shepherd tended was his own property is favoured both by the specific
phraseology employed in the narrative, and the special circumstances of
this particular case. The size of this flock, consisting of only a
hundred sheep, points rather to the entire wealth of a comparatively
poor man, than to the stock of a territorial magnate. The conduct of the
shepherd, moreover, is precisely the reverse of that which is elsewhere
ascribed to the "hireling whose own the sheep are not." The salient
feature of the man's character, as it is represented in the parable,
constitutes a specific proof of his ownership,--"he careth for the
sheep," and that too with a peculiar and self-sacrificing
tenderness.[75]