his neighbours to rejoice with him over his success. To this last
intimation of the parable the Lord immediately adds an express
exposition of its meaning,--Ver. 7, "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." In the parallel
explanation appended to the next parable (ver. 10), an additional
feature is expressed, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God
over one sinner that repenteth;" both obviously refer to the same fact,
and should be taken together as one announcement.
The kingdom of God recognises two successive homecomings in the history
of every citizen. The exile discovered and borne back by the
discriminating mercy of the Redeemer, comes home when through the
regeneration he enters a state of grace; and he comes home under the
leading of the same chief, when in the resurrection he enters a state of
perfect glory. It is instructive and comforting to observe that, while
both homecomings are joyful, it is of the first that the Lord expressly
speaks when he intimates that over it himself and the hosts of heaven
will rejoice. It is over the repentance of a sinner that a jubilee is
held in heaven; they do not wait till the ransomed one shall appear in
bodily presence near the great white throne. There is no need: the
entrance into grace ensures the entrance into glory. The children will
all get home. No slip can come between the cup of the Redeemer's glad
anticipation when a sinner is renewed, and the lip of his complete
satisfaction when he welcomes the ransomed at length into the mansions
of the Father's house.
In this brief but lucid exposition of his own similitude which the Lord
gave at the moment, and the evangelist has preserved for us, something
is taught first regarding the companions, and second regarding the
measure of his joy. Both present points of interest which require and
will repay more particular attention.
(1.) In regard to the participation of the angels, in the Redeemer's joy
over the salvation of the lost, the intimations bear that there is joy
"in heaven," and "in the presence of the angels of God." It seems
unaccountably to those who look carefully into the terms of the record,
to be universally assumed from these expressions that the angels, in the
exercise of their inherent faculties, are in some way cognisant of
conversion as it proceeds in human souls upon the earth, and that they
rejoice accordingly when another heart melts, and another rebel submits
to God. Capital has even been made out of this passage by Romanists in
support of prayers addressed to unseen created spirits. All this
proceeds upon an exegesis, which is, I believe, demonstrably erroneous.
In order to settle all questions that can arise here, nothing more is
necessary than a simple straight-forward examination of the terms. The
rejoicing takes place "in heaven," and "in presence of the angels"
([Greek: enôpion tôn angelôn]). This is not the form of expression
that would naturally be employed to intimate that the angels rejoiced.
Expressly it is written, not that they rejoice, but that there is joy in
their presence,--before their faces. The question then comes up, Who
rejoices there? In as far as the terms of the exposition go, the
question is not expressly decided; but its decision can be easily and
certainly gathered from the context. Both in the case of the lost sheep
and in that of the lost money the comparison is introduced by the term
"likewise" ([Greek: houtô].) In this manner there is joy before the
angels; in what manner? Obviously in the manner of the rejoicing which
took place after the strayed sheep was brought home, and the piece of
money found. He who sought and found the lost, rejoiced over his gain;
but, not contented therewith, he told his neighbours about his
happiness and its cause; he manifested his joy in their presence, and
invited them to rejoice in sympathy with himself. It is after this
manner that joy in heaven over a repenting sinner begins and spreads. We
are not obliged,--we are not permitted to guess who the rejoicers are,
or how they came by the news that gladdens them. The shepherd himself,
and himself alone, knows that the strayed sheep is safe in the fold
again, for he has borne it back on his shoulder: his neighbours did not
know the fact until he told them, and invited them to participate in his
joy. It is expressly in this manner, and none other, that there shall be
joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. The angels do not become
aware of the fact by a species of subordinate omniscience. He who saved
the sinner knows that the sinner is saved; rejoicing in the fact, he
makes it known to his attendants, and invites them to share in his joy.
The gladness that thrills in the angels is a secondary thing, caught by
sympathy from that which glows in the heart and beams in the countenance
of Jesus. The Son of God the Saviour having won a sinner by the power of
his love, and brought the wanderer back forgiven and renewed, rejoices
on his throne over this fruit of his soul's travail. Ere the ransomed
sinner has risen from his knees or wiped his tears away;--ere he has had
time to sing a hymn or sit down at the communion table on earth, the
Lord in heaven, feeling life flowing from himself into that living soul,
rejoices already in the fact, and calls upon his friends, whether the
spirits of just men or angels unfallen, or both in concert, to
participate in his joy. The Apocalyptic witness saw no sun in the new
heaven; "the Lamb is the light thereof:" from that sun the light streams
down on the sea of upturned faces that surround the throne, and the
sympathetic gladness that sparkles in the members is a reflection from
the gladness that first glows in the Head, as a separate sun glances on
the crest of every wavelet, when the breeze is gentle and the sky is
bright.
(2.) The intimation that there is greater joy in heaven over the return
of a single wanderer than over ninety and nine who never strayed,
presents indeed a difficulty; but here, as in many other similar cases,
the difficulty lies more in the way of the scientific expositor, whose
task is to express the meaning in the form of logical definitions than
in the way of the simple reader of the Bible, who desires to sit at the
feet of Jesus, and learn the one thing needful from his lips. In this,
as in many other portions of Scripture, a hungry labourer may live upon
the bread, while it may baffle a philosopher to analyze its
constituents, and expound its nutritive qualities. A devout reader may
get the meaning of the parable in power upon his heart, while the
logical interpreter expends much profitless labour in the dissection of
a dead letter.
Who are the just persons who need no repentance? The suggestion[79] that
they are the members of the Old Testament Church, who really possessed
the righteousness of the Law, although they had not attained the
righteousness of the Gospel, creates a greater difficulty than that
which it proposes to remove. There is not any such essential difference
between the righteousness of Abraham, who looked unto Jesus coming, and
the righteousness of Paul, who looked unto Jesus come.
[79] Made or adopted by Dr. Trench.
The true solution I apprehend to be that in the mind of the Lord this
declaration had a double reference. It expressed an absolute and
universal truth, known to himself and to his enlightened disciples; and
also, at the same time, took the Pharisees on their own terms,
condemning them out of their own mouth. The parable was spoken expressly
to the Pharisees, and spoken specifically in answer to their objection,
"This man receiveth sinners." They meant to intimate that it became the
Messiah to shun the evil and associate only with the good. From their
own view-point he exposes their mistake; even granting their assumption
that themselves were the righteous, their sentence was erroneous.
According to the principles of human nature, and the ordinary practice
of men, they might have perceived that the chief care of the shepherd
must be bestowed on the sheep that has gone astray, and his greatest joy
be experienced when it has been discovered and restored. The Saviour's
delight over a publican's return to piety should be more vivid than his
joy over a Pharisee, who, by the supposition, has been pious all his
days.
Had the Lord then and there intimated to the Pharisees that they were
deceiving themselves in regard to justifying righteousness,--that they
needed repentance as much as the publicans, his word would have been
true, but that truth, he perceived, was not suitable in the
circumstances. It pleased him at this time not to fling a sharp reproof
in their faces, but rather to drop a living seed gently into their ears,
that it might find its way in secret to some broken place in their
hearts. A certain portion of the truth he communicated to them; more
they would not have received. The whole truth on this subject, if it had
been bluntly declared, would have driven them away in disgust.
Elsewhere the Master expresses his mind very clearly, "Except your
righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven;" but it pleased him
on this occasion to teach another lesson, namely, that even although
they were as righteous as they deemed themselves to be, the recovery of
a lost one would afford the Redeemer a greater joy than the retention of
the virtuous. Beyond expression precious is the doctrine unequivocally
taught here that so far from receiving prodigals with a grudge, the
Saviour experiences a peculiar delight when a sinner listens to his
voice and accepts pardon at his hand. This doctrine we learn is divine;
we know it is also human: almost every family can supply an example of
the familiar principle that the mother loves most fondly the child who
has cost her most in suffering and care.
XXIII.
THE LOST COIN.
"Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece,
doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently
till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her
friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I
have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you,
there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner
that repenteth."--LUKE xv. 8-10.
The three parables of this group, as has been already intimated, do not
constitute a simple consecutive series of first, second, and third: the
group consists of two parts, and the first part contains two parables.
The saving of the lost is represented in the first division as it is
seen from God's side, and in the second as it is seen from man's. In the
first, the Saviour appears seeking, finding, and bearing back the lost;
in the second, the lost appears reflecting, repenting, resolving, and
returning to the Father.
The two parables which constitute the first division are generically
coincident, but specifically distinct. Both represent the side on which
the sinner is passive in the matter of his own salvation, and the
parable of the prodigal alone represents the aspect in which he is
spontaneously active; but while the first two agree in their main
feature, they differ in subordinate details. The second goes partly over
the same ground that has already been traversed by the first, and
partly takes a new and independent track of its own.[80]
[80] Recognising in the lost coin mainly a repetition of the same
lesson which the lost sheep contained, but justly anticipating from
the mere fact of a repetition, that the second will present some
features which were not contained in the first, Dr. Trench finds the
expected difference in this,--that "if the shepherd in the last
parable was Christ, the woman in this may, perhaps, be the Church."
After suggesting as an alternative that the woman may represent the
Holy Spirit, he remarks that these two are in effect substantially
identical, and finally rests in the conclusion that it is "the
Church because and in so far as it is dwelt in by the Spirit, which
appears as the woman seeking her lost." This able expositor speaks
with evident hesitation when he represents the Church as the seeker
here; and accordingly we find him with a happy inconsistency
affirming in a subsequent paragraph that "as the woman, having lost
her drachm, will light a candle and sweep the house, and seek
diligently till she find it, even so the Lord, through the
ministrations of his Church, gives diligence to recover the lost
sinner," &c. I am willing to accept the phraseology of this
sentence, but it is obviously at variance with the view which he had
previously presented, and to which he recurs in the close, that in
this parable it is the Church which seeks the lost, while in the
preceding parable it is the Saviour. Further, if he maintain that
the woman seeking the lost coin represents the Lord seeking sinners
through the ministrations of the Church, he must also maintain that
the shepherd seeking the lost sheep represents the Lord seeking
sinners through the ministrations of the Church. If the Lord himself
is in both cases equally the seeker, there is no reason in the text
of Scripture, and Dr. Trench suggests none from any other quarter,
why he should be represented as seeking through the ministrations of
the Church in one case and not in the other. The letter of the word
and the nature of the case peremptorily demand that the
qualification regarding the instrumentality of the Church should be
attached to both or to neither. In either case it remains that, in
respect to the person who seeks the lost, these two parables teach
precisely the same lesson.
The house in which the coin is lost means, according to Dr. Trench,
the visible Church: the result is that the Church (invisible)
searches in the Church (visible) for sinners that have been lost
there, and restores them when found to the Church, but whether the
visible or invisible I cannot discover. The Church then calls upon
the angels to rejoice with her over the recovery of the lost. This
exposition seems confused and inconsistent; and it is a dim
mysterious conception of "the Church" that constitutes the
disturbing element.
From the similarity of structure and the studied identity of expression
in the two cases, I gather surely that the persons who seek and find
the lost in those two parables both represent the same Seeker of lost
men, the Lord Jesus Christ. On any other supposition, I cannot find a
spot on which the foundation of a satisfactory exegesis can be laid. The
introduction of the second parable by the particle either ([Greek: ê])
in the eighth verse, prepares us to expect, not another subject, but
another illustration of the same subject; whereas, when the Prodigal Son
is introduced in the eleventh verse, the connecting link distinctly
indicates a change of theme.[81]
[81] Nor do I see any force in the minute criticism by which Dr.
Trench endeavours to make out that while the sheep were the
shepherd's property, the money did not belong to the woman. He says,
"I have found my sheep which was lost;" while she says, "I have
found the piece which I had lost;" but these are nothing more than
varieties of expression. The absolute identity of the terms in which
the two cases are introduced, proves that these seemly and slight
variations of phraseology at the close, do not indicate a
substantial difference. "What man of you having an hundred sheep, if
he lose one of them?" and "What woman, having ten pieces of silver,
if she lose one piece?"--these questions, so carefully and
completely parallel, conclusively show that, after making allowance
for the necessary difference in the nature of the subjects, the two
cases, in relation to possession, loss, and finding, are precisely
the same.
Assuming from the fact of its repetition that some feature or features
of the lesson must be contained in the second picture which the first
was not fitted to display; and finding in the possessors, with their
misfortune, their success and their joy, no difference, but on the
contrary, a studied balanced parallelism, I look for the distinction in
the nature of the property which, in the two cases respectively, was
lost and found. The sheep is an animated being, with desires, and
appetites, and habits, and locomotive powers; when it is lost, it is
lost in virtue of its own will and activity. The silver coin, on the
other hand, is a piece of inanimate matter; and when it is lost, it is
lost through its own gravity and inertia. When support fails, it falls
to the ground. Here lies an inherent and essential difference between
the two cases. It is through this opening mainly that light comes to me
regarding the specific difference between the lessons which these two
cognate parables respectively convey. The inquiry at present concerns
this difference only, for the doctrine which is taught in common by both
is abundantly obvious. While in both examples alike the property is lost
and found again, the manner of the loss and the finding corresponds in
each case to the nature of the subject. In the case of the living
creature, the loss is sustained through its spontaneous wandering; in
the case of the inanimate silver, the loss is sustained through its
inherent inertia. The one strays in the exercise of its own will, and
the other sinks in obedience to the laws of matter; the method of search
varies accordingly.
Both parables alike represent the sinner lost and the Saviour finding
him; but in the one case the loss appears due to the positive activity
of an evil will, and in the other to the passive law of gravitation. Not
that, in the spiritual sphere, one sinner departs from God by an
exercise of his corrupt will, and another is drawn away by the operation
of an irresistible law; it is one transaction represented successively
on two sides. The representations are different, but both are true. In
the fallen, sin is both active and passive. The sinful select their own
course and go astray in the exercise of a self-determining power; they
also gravitate to evil in virtue of an inborn corruption, which acts
like a law in their members. In connection with these two sides or
features of sin, the two doctrines opposite and yet not contrary, the
sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, meet and embrace each
other in the work of redemption. To the disease of sin in both its
phases,--as an active choice and an innate tendency,--the divine
physician has prepared an antidote; He brings the wanderer home, and
lifts the fallen up.
Compare once more the lost sheep and the lost coin: in both the sinful
are lost, and in both the Saviour saves; but there we see a spontaneous
error, and here the effect of inherited corruption. These, when kept
together like the right and left sides of a living man, constitute, in
this matter, the whole truth: to tear them asunder is to kill both.
The number of the coins is appropriately fixed at ten, while the number
of sheep was a hundred. Ten sheep would not have required or repaid the
care of a shepherd; and a hundred pieces of silver would not, in
ordinary circumstances, have been at one time in the hands of a working
woman. The difference of numbers is fully accounted for by the natural
circumstances, and no benefit is obtained by squeezing from it a
distinct spiritual signification. The numbers, I think, belong to the
adjuncts of the material pictures, and they constitute only elements of
disturbance when they are brought into the interpretation.
The lessons which some draw from the preciousness of the metal on the
one hand, and the image of the king which it bears on the other,
although attractive and useful in themselves, are not relevant here. It
is better to forego for the time even precious morsels of instruction,
than to obtain them by doing violence to those exquisite
analogies which the parables present.
XXIV.
THE PRODIGAL SON.
"And he said, A certain man had two sons; 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 not many days after the
younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far
country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And
when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and
he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen
of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And
he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine
did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he
said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and
to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my
father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven
and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me
as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father.
But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had
compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the
son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy
sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father
said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him;
and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring hither
the fatted calf, and kill it: and let us eat, and be merry: for this
my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And
they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field: and as
he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. And
he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.
And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath
killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.
And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out
and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these
many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy
commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make
merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which
hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the
fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and
all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and
be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was
lost, and is found."--LUKE xv. 11-32.
Recall the relation that subsists between this parable on the one hand,
and the two that immediately precede it on the other. These two
divisions of the group contain two different and in some respects
opposite representations. Both exhibit the salvation of lost men; but in
the first, that deliverance appears as the effect of the Redeemer's
sovereign love and care; in the second, it appears to spring in the
depths of the sinner's own soul. There the wanderer is sought and found
and borne back; here he spontaneously repents and returns. There the
Saviour's part is revealed; and here the sinner's.
These examples represent not two distinct experiences, but two sides of
the same fact. It is not that some of fallen human kind are saved after
the manner of the strayed sheep, and others after the manner of the
prodigal son; not that the Saviour bears one wanderer home by his power,
and another of his own accord arises and returns to the Father. Both
these processes are accomplished in every conversion. The man comes, yet
Christ brings him; Christ brings him, yet he comes. In the two pictures
which we have last examined, the sovereign love and power of the
Redeemer occupied the front, while the subjective experience of a
repenting man was thrown scarcely visible into the back-ground; in the
picture which is now under inspection the view is reversed--the
subjective experience of the sinning man is brought full size into the
centre of the field, while the compassion of a forgiving God, although
distinctly visible, lies in smaller bulk behind.