Repentance and Faith

Luke 15:11-24

GOLDEN TEXT: “Repent ye, and believe in the Gospel.”—Mark 1:15

THE parable of the prodigal son teaches God’s love and sympathy toward the poor, fallen, degraded and lost. No interpretation is given, but we believe that the following will be found in harmony with the facts and a reasonable explanation of what the Master may have had in mind in giving the parable.

The elder brother well represents the Pharisees and Doctors of the Law, who outwardly and theoretically were in harmony with God. Paul, who had been one of this class, declares that with all good conscience he had served the God of his fathers as a Pharisee. Doubtless there were others of the class whose intentions and desires were to remain loyal and obedient to the Heavenly Father, who sought daily by obedience to the law to remain at home with God, and who did remain at home up to the time that our Lord addressed them in this parable.

The younger son would represent that portion of the nation of Israel which while aware of the oath-bound covenant and of the blessings and privileges of relationship with God, had nevertheless wandered off into the ways of sin as publicans and sinners and careless ones. These realized in large measure their own unworthiness, and sometimes smote upon their breasts saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

All of these publicans and sinners were repudiated by the Pharisees who declared them to be in no sense of the word participants in the promises, but regarded them as prodigals, sinners, and would not eat with them nor salute them, nor have any dealings with them. Our Lord, on the contrary, was willing to speak to these, willing to receive them and told them of the Father’s love.

The Pharisees, as the elder son, noting this divine favor to the poor common people, the publicans and sinners, were angry. They rejected the message of the Heavenly Father through the Son, they would not go to the same feast. They thus showed that they lacked a very important quality of heart, namely the spirit of loving kindness. For this reason they were not really prepared for the feast.

This Pharisee class as the parable indicates, then left the Father’s house, that is, they left their share in the oath-bound covenant and the wonderful favors connected therewith, because they had not the Father’s spirit, because they lacked the spirit of brotherly kindness, of love. The Lord as a result, cast them off as a nation, and they lost the privilege of the chief blessing and were blinded.—Rom. 11

The lesson for us all is that even after we have been favored of the Heavenly Father there are ways of departing from Him. One way is that of open sin and wantonness, another is a failure to attain to the divine likeness in our hearts. The parable seems to imply that there is more hope for those who have gone into sin and degradation returning to God and being accepted of Him and received into His blessing and becoming inheritors of His future favors, than there is for some who are outwardly moral and religious, yet fail to acquire the Lord’s spirit of love and mercy.

The thought everywhere held out in the Scriptures is that God’s mercy endures for ever—that is, to a completion. Only a small portion of the world of mankind at the present time has received God’s favor to the extent of being justified and made participators in the divine favors and mercies. In His dealings with these the Lord is very gracious, and so He also is with those who return from the ways of sin, and He is even patient with those who lack the spirit of love and forgiveness, and comes to them entreating them to join in His gracious plan and arrangements.

This loving kindness bestowed upon the believers of the present time illustrates the spirit of the Lord. It becomes an assurance to us of the fulfillment of His promise that in due time all the families of the earth shall be brought to a knowledge of His goodness, to an opportunity to know Him, whom to rightly know and appreciate, will mean to them everlasting life.

It is not in violation of the Lord’s declaration of mercy that we find the Scriptures clearly teaching that when mercy shall have fully accomplished its work, when it shall have accomplished all it can accomplish in the interest of the fallen and the sinful, its work will be at an end, and all those not favored will be those despite their knowledge of the divine character and the divine will, despite their opportunities for coming into harmony with the same, will have refused to enter into the Father’s gracious arrangements and plans.

Such willful sinners eventually will be destroyed and this will be not only for their own best interest but for the best interest also of all those who are in accord with the Lord. Thus the Lord will eventually bring to pass the promise that every creature in heaven and in earth and under the earth shall be heard acknowledging and praising the God of our salvation, for He is worthy. (Rev. 5:13) No discordant note shall then be heard throughout the universe of God. Every member of Adam’s race shall, through Christ, be granted a full opportunity for return to the relationship of the sons of God, and all the willing and obedient will receive the great blessing of life everlasting.

QUESTIONS:

Who is represented by the father and two sons in the parable of the prodigal son?

What lessons may we today learn from this parable?

Will God’s mercy continue to be shown toward willful sinners?

| Home Page | Table of Contents |