'And He said, A certain man had two sons: 12. And the
younger of them said to his father, Father, give me
the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he
divided unto them his living. 13. 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. 14. And when he had
spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land;
and he began to be in want. 15. And he went and joined
himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him
into his fields to feed swine. 16. And he would fain
have filled his belly with the husks that the swine
did eat: and no man gave unto him. 17. 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! 18. I will arise and go to my
father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned
against Heaven, and before thee, 19. And am no more
worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy
hired servants. 20. 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. 21. 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.
22. 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: 23. And bring hither
the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be
merry: 24. For this my son was dead, and is alive
again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to
be merry.'--LUKE xv. 11-24.
The purpose of the three parables in this chapter has to be kept in
mind. Christ is vindicating His action in receiving sinners, which
had evoked the murmurings of the Pharisees. The first two parables,
those of the lost sheep and the lost drachma, appeal to the common
feeling which attaches more importance to lost property just because
it is lost than to that which is possessed safely. This parable
rises to a higher level. It appeals to the universal emotion of
fatherhood, which yearns over a wandering child just because he has
wandered.
We note a further advance, in the proportion of one stray sheep to
the ninety-nine, and of one lost coin to the nine, contrasted with
the sad equality of obedience and disobedience in the two sons. One
per cent., ten per cent., are bearable losses, but fifty per cent.
is tragic.
I. The first part (vs. 11-16) tells of the son's wish to be his own
master, and what came of it. The desire to be independent is good,
but when it can only be attained by being dependent on him whose
authority is irksome, it takes another colour. This foolish boy
wished to be able to use his father's property as his own, but he
had to get the father's consent first. It is a poor beginning of
independence when it has to be set up in business by a gift.
That is the essential absurdity in our attempts to do without God
and to shake off His control. We can only get power to seem to do it
by misusing His gifts. When we say, 'Who is Lord over us?' the
tongues which say it were given us by Him. The next step soon
followed. 'Not many days after,' of course, for the sense of
ownership could not be kept up while near the father. A man who
wishes to enjoy worldly good without reference to God is obliged, in
self-defence, to hustle God out of his thoughts as soon and as
completely as possible.
The 'far country' is easily reached; and it is far, though a step
can land us in it. A narrow bay may compel a long journey round its
head before those on its opposite shores can meet. Sin takes us far
away from God, and the root of all sin is that desire of living to
one's self which began the prodigal's evil course.
The third step in his downward career, wasting his substance in riotous
living, comes naturally after the two others; for all self-centred life
is in deepest truth waste, and the special forms of gross dissipation
to which youth is tempted are only too apt to follow the first sense
of being their own masters, and removed from the safeguards of their
earthly father's home. Many a lad in our great cities goes through the
very stages of the parable, and, when a mother's eye is no longer on
him, plunges into filthy debauchery. But living which does not outrage
the proprieties may be riotous all the same; for all conduct which
ignores God and asserts self as supreme is flagrantly against the
very nature of man, and is reckless waste.
Such a 'merry' life is sure to be 'short.' There is always famine in
the land of forgetfulness of God, and when the first gloss is off
its enjoyments, and one's substance is spent, its pinch is felt. The
unsatisfied hunger of heart, which dogs godless living, too often
leads but to deeper degradation and closer entanglement with low
satisfactions. Men madly plunge deeper into the mud in hope of
finding the pearl which has thus far eluded their search.
A miserable thing this young fool had made of his venture, having
spent his capital, and now being forced to become a slave, and being
set to nothing better than to feed swine. The godless world is a
hard master, and has very odious tasks for its bondsmen. The unclean
animals are fit companions for one who made himself lower than they,
since filth is natural to them and shameful for him. They are better
off than he is, for husks do nourish them, and they get their fill,
but he who has sunk to longing for swine's food cannot get even
that. The dark picture is only too often verified in the experience
of godless men.
II. The wastrel's returning sanity is described in verses 17-20_a_.
'He came to himself.' Then he had been beside himself before. It is
insanity to try to shake off God, to aim at independence, to wander
from Him, to fling away our 'substance,' that is, our true selves,
and to starve among the swine-troughs. He remembers the bountiful
housekeeping at home, as starving men dream of feasts, and he thinks
of himself with a kind of pity and amazement.
There is no sign that his conscience smote him, or that his heart
woke in love to his father. His stomach, and it only, urged him to
go home. He did, indeed, feel that he had been wrong, and had
forfeited the right to be called a son, but he did not care much for
losing that name, or even for losing the love to which it had the
right, if only he could get as much to eat as one of the hired
servants, whose relation to the master was less close, and, in
patriarchal times, less happy, than that of slaves born in the
house.
One good thing about the lad was that he did not let the grass grow
under his feet, but, as soon as he had made the resolution, began to
carry it into effect. The bane of many a resolve to go back to God
is that it is 'sicklied o'er' by procrastination. The ragged
prodigal has not much to leave which need hold him, but many such a
one says, 'I will arise and go to my father to-morrow,' and lets all
the to-morrows become yesterdays, and is sitting among the swine
still.
Low as the prodigal's motive for return was, the fact of his return
was enough. So is it in regard to our attitude to the gospel. Men
may be drawn to give heed to its invitations from the instinct of
self-preservation, or from their sense of hungry need, and the
belief that in it they will find the food they crave for, while
there may be little consciousness of longing for more from the
Father than the satisfaction of felt wants. The longing for a place
in the Father's heart will spring up later, but the beginning of
most men's taking refuge in God as revealed in Christ is the gnawing
of a hungry heart. The call to all is, 'Ho, every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come
ye, buy, and eat.'
III. The climax of the parable, for which all the rest is but as
scaffolding, is the father's welcome (vs. 20_b_-24). Filial
love may die in the son's heart, but paternal yearning lives in the
father's. The wanderer's heart would be likely to sink as he came
nearer the father's tent. It had seemed easy to go back when he
acted the scene in imagination, but every step homewards made the
reality more difficult.
No doubt he hesitated when the old home came in sight, and perhaps
his resolution would have oozed out at his finger ends if he had had
to march up alone in his rags, and run the gauntlet of servants
before he came to speech with his father. So his father's seeing him
far off and running to meet him is exquisitely in keeping, as well
as movingly setting forth how God's love goes out to meet His
returning prodigals. That divine insight which discerns the first
motions towards return, that divine pity which we dare venture to
associate with His infinite love, that eager meeting the shamefaced
and slow-stepping boy half-way, and that kiss of welcome before one
word of penitence or request had been spoken, are all revelations of
the heart of God, and its outgoings to every wanderer who sets his
face to return.
Beautifully does the father's welcome make the son's completion of
his rehearsed speech impossible. It does not prevent his expression
of penitence, for the more God's love is poured over us, the more we
feel our sin. But he had already been treated as a son, and could
not ask to be taken as a servant. Beautifully, too, the father gives
no verbal answer to the lad's confession, for his kiss had answered
it already; but he issues instructions to the servants which show
that the pair have now reached the home and entered it together.
The gifts to the prodigal are probably significant. They not only
express in general the cordiality of the welcome, but seem to be
capable of specific interpretations, as representing various aspects
of the blessed results of return to God. The robe is the familiar
emblem of character. The prodigal son is treated like the high-priest
in Zechariah's vision; his rags are stripped off, and he is clothed
anew in a dress of honour. 'Them he also justified: and whom he
justified, them he also sanctified.' The ring is a token of wealth,
position, and honour. It is also a sign of delegated authority, and
is an ornament to the hand. So God gives His prodigals, when they
come back, an elevation which unforgiven beings do not reach, and
sets them to represent Him, and arrays them in strange beauty. No
doubt the lad had come back footsore and bleeding, and the shoes
may simply serve to keep up the naturalness of the story. But probably
they suggest equipment for the journey of life. That is one of the
gifts that accompany forgiveness. Our feet are shod with the
preparedness of the gospel of peace.
Last of all comes the feast. Heaven keeps holiday when some poor
waif comes shrinking back to the Father. The prodigal had been
content to sink his sonship for the sake of a loaf, but he could not
get bread on such terms. He had to be forgiven and bathed in the
outflow of his father's love before he could be fed; and, being thus
received, he could not but be fed. The feast is for those who come
back penitently, and are received forgivingly, and endowed richly by
the Father in heaven.