In the third parable of Luke 15 we have not merely conversion or pardon but the full bringing of the soul to God and into fellowship with Him_the new and intimate relationship of a son by grace. Hence it is no longer a sheep or a piece of money, but a man. Here we find intelligence and conscience, and consequently so much the more guilt. Adam had a certain relationship to God. When he was formed out of the dust, God dealt with him in tender mercy and gave him special advantages in Eden, privileges of every suited sort. But man fell from God, as the prodigal here left his father’s house.

"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" (verses 11,12). Here is the point of departure, the first and main step of evil. The desire to have one’s own way at a distance from God is positive sin and the root of all other sin. Sin against man is sure to follow; but sin against God is the mainspring. What is a more evident denial of Him than to prefer one’s own will to His? The younger son wished to go away from his father. Likewise, man in general prefers to be at a distance from God in order to be the more at ease to do what he likes.

"And he divided unto them his living." Man is tried_he is responsible_but he is not hindered from having his own way. While God does keep the upper hand for the accomplishment of His own gracious purposes, still, as far as appearances go, He allows man to do what he pleases. This alone will tell what sin means, what the heart seeks, what man really is with all his pretensions, and the worse the more he pretends.

"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." There was eagerness to get away from his father. It was, as far as his will was concerned, a complete abandoning of his father to do his own pleasure. He wished to be so thoroughly at a distance as to act according to his own heart without restraint. There, in a far country, he wasted his substance with riotous living. It is the picture of a man left to himself, doing his own will in this world, with its ruinous consequences for the next as well as this.

"And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want." Such, again, is the picture not only of the active course of sin but of its bitter results. Sin indulged in brings misery and want. There is a void that nothing can satisfy, and the selfish waste of all means only makes this to be more felt in the end.

So in the extremity of distress, "He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine." Now we find the sinner’s degradation; for love is not there, but self is. The citizen did not treat him as a fellow-citizen, but as a slave. There is no slavery so deep or degrading as that of our own lusts. He was treated accordingly; and how must this sound to a Jewish ear? He was sent into the 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." He was reduced to the lowest degree of want and wretchedness; yet no man gave to him. God is the giver; man grudgingly pays his debts, if he pays them at all_never to God and only halfheartedly to man. This the prodigal found_no one gave unto him.

Now we begin the work of God’s goodness. "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!" He was convicted of God concerning his state. Hence his feeling was that even those who had the lowest place in his father’s house were amply provided for compared with him.

His mind was made up. "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." The last words betray the usual legal state. It is one who conceives that God must act according to his condition. He had wronged his father, he had been guilty of folly, excess, and lewdness; and he could not conceive of his father doing more for him at best than putting him in the lowest place before him, if he received him at all. He felt that he deserved humiliation. Had he judged more justly, he would have realized that he deserved much worse. He would have seen that the more favored he was, seeing he was so guilty, he must be put away_not merely go away, but be put into outer darkness where should be the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

But although there was this wrong reasoning, there was at least a real sense_however feeble_of his sin, and, what was more and better, a real sense of his father’s love. If he could only see him, hear him, be with him! He rose accordingly 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."

It was not the son who ran. But even though he was a long way off, the father saw him, then ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. The son would not have dared to have done so, still less would he have expected his father to do so. But grace always surprises the thoughts of men, and human reason can never comprehend it, but rather denies, opposes, enfeebles, and qualifies it, which only dishonors God and most surely injures man. The father, then, ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. Not a word about his wicked ways! and it was the father who had wrought secretly, producing the conviction of his son’s evil and the yearning after his own presence.

It is not true that our Lord implied that the father was indifferent to the evil, or that the prodigal son was not to feel his outbreaks or his fleshly nature. Surely this should have been all the more true since the son was allowed to judge himself and the past in the light of the unspeakable grace of his father.

"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." He cannot say more. It was impossible in the presence of the father to say, "Make me as one of thy hired servants." It was well, as far as it went, to acknowledge that he was no more worthy to be called his son. It was unqualifiedly right to say, "I have sinned against heaven and before thee." But it would have been still better if he had said not a word about anything of which he could be worthy or unworthy. The sad truth was that he was worthy of nothing but bonds or death. He deserved to be banished for ever_to be driven out from the presence of his father.

Grace, however, does not give according to what man deserves, but according to Christ. Grace is the outflow of love that is in God which He feels even towards His enemies. For this reason He sent His Son, and He acts Himself. All must now be of the very best because it must be in accordance with the grace of God and the gift of Christ. "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." The younger son had never worn the best robe before; the elder son never did wear the best robe at all. The best robe was kept for the display of grace.

The two sons (of course, the prodigal before his return) do not represent children of God in the sense of grace, but such as have merely the place of sons of God by nature. Thus Adam is said to be so (Luke 3:38). All men_even the heathen_are spoken of similarly in that sense (Acts 17:28) as being endowed with a reasonable soul as men and as having direct personal responsibility to God in presence of His favors and mercy. It is also doctrinally affirmed in "one God and Father of all" (Eph. 4:6).

But sin has completely separated man from God, as we have seen in this very parable. Grace brings into the nearer and better relationship of "children [literally, ‘sons’] of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26). The prodigal only entered this state when he at length came back to his father, confessing his sins and casting himself upon his father’s grace. The best robe, the ring on his hand, the shoes on his feet, the fatted calf all belong solely to the relationship of grace, to him who is born of God by believing in the name of Jesus. It is God magnifying Himself to the lost. "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry."

It is important to note this common joy. It is not only that there is personal blessing for the heart that is brought back to God, but there is the joy of communion which takes its strength from God, whose joy in love is as much deeper than ours as He is above us. Nor is it now only in heaven as we saw before, but there is the effect produced on earth, both individually and also in other hearts. And the great power of it all is communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, which by the Holy Spirit issues also in communion with one another. "They began to be merry."

(From Exposition of the Gospel of Luke.)