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25Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. 27And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. 28And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore [and] came his father out, and entreated him. 29And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve [so many years have I served] thee, neither transgressed I [have I transgressed] at any time thy commandment; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: 30But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. 31And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever 32with me, and all that I have is thine. It [But 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.
Luk_15:12. The younger.—The most light-minded, and as such the most easily led astray. The goods which come to him only after the death of the father, he wishes to possess already in his father’s lifetime, in order to be entirely free and his own master.— Ôὸ ἐðéâÜëëïí ìÝñïò , somewhat singular, but yet a genuinely Greek expression (see Grotius), to indicate what he of right can demand as his property out of his father’s possessions.—And he divided unto them, áὐôõῖò .—Therefore not only to the younger, but also to the elder, with the distinction however that the younger now received in hand his own portion, while the elder could regard his as his property, although the father yet administered it, and he still remained as the child in his father’s house.
Luk_15:13. Gathered together.—It very soon appears what the youngest one really meant to do. The false craving for freedom, which the father does not suppress by violence, drives him to seek his fortune abroad. All that he has received he gathers together, partly, probably, in natura (De Wette), and journeys as far as possible away. The far-distant land, an image of the sinner’s deep apostasy from God. The beauty of the parable is heightened still more by this fact, that with forbearing tenderness, the depth of his degradation is not depicted in many strokes, but afterwards, Luk_15:30, is for the first time learned somewhat more in detail from the mouth of the elder son. His mode of life is plainly enough characterized, as ἀóþôùò , a word which is found only here, but which is sufficiently explained by the use of the substantive, Eph_5:18; Tit_1:6; 1Pe_4:4. Then does the inward separation from the father become quite as great as the outward was. “Qui se a Christo separat, exul est patriœ, civis est mundi.” Ambrosius.
Luk_15:14. And when … a mighty famine.—The natural consequences of such a mode of life are only hastened by the famine that arises ( ἰó÷õñὰ ëéìüò , here feminine according to the Doric dialect and the latter usage; Luk_4:25, it still appears as masculine, and the reading of the Recepta, ἰó÷õñüò , is only an emendation, according to the customary usage). The external want which he now begins to suffer, becomes a transition to the turning-point of his inner life. But he does not yet come to this turning-point without a last desperate endeavor to remedy his own distress from his own means.
Luk_15:15. Joined himself, ἐêïëëÞèç , attached himself, as it were, to him by force, that he might assist him in his necessity. He has therefore remained a stranger in the land in which he has consumed all. “Quem reditus ad frugem manet, is sœpe etiam in medio errore suo quiddam a propriis mundi civibus distinctum retinet.” Bengel. But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. The citizen of the strange land sends him ( ἔðåìøåí , change of the subject of discourse) to his fields, ( ἀãñïýò in the plural), in order there to keep swine, where he should by no means lack the necessary sustenance: perhaps an intentional insult which the rich heathen put upon the suffering, necessitous Jew, but certainly a striking image of the inconceivable wretchedness into which sin drags man down. And yet this very deep leads up to the height, and among the ÷ïßñïéò it will soon fare better with the unhappy man than with the ðüñíáéò .
Luk_15:16. Have filled his belly.—An uncomely expression in itself, but entirely agreeable to the uncomeliness of the fact, and so far an additional beauty of the parable. Somewhat of ( ἀðü ) the swine’s fodder is now his highest desire, without however his being able even to obtain a part of that.—With the pods, êåñÜôéá , a wild fruit, found in Syria and Egypt, which was used for swine’s fodder. Perhaps the sweetish fruit of the Caratonia siliqua (Linnæus), which, on account of the great abundance of them, was of the least possible value, and although they tasted sweet were not wholesome. “The hull of the marrowy pod, one foot in length ( êåñÜôéá ), was thrown to the swine; but the kernel (Gerah, grain) passed for the smallest weight among the Hebrews.”—And no one gave unto him (therefrom).—“Either because the feeding of the swine was committed to others than him that pastured them, or because he saw the access to the swine-trough closed to him; perhaps because the steward under whom he served was avaricious and malicious.” De Wette. At all events, the only thing that could have reconciled him to his degrading employment, the satisfaction of his raging hunger, he saw still withheld from him in this way.
Luk_15:17. And when he came to himself.—An admirable expression for the inward change in the heart of the man who had been hitherto beside himself, but now awakes from the dream. Åἰò ἑáõôὸí äὲ ἐëèþí , Luther: da schlug er in sich. The sinner must first return unto himself, if he will be truly converted to God. He first compares his external condition with that of the more highly privileged. The ìßóèéïé have bread, and indeed ðåñéóóåýïõóéí ἄñôùí . He, the son of the family, has not even êåñÜôéá . By the ìßóèéïé , we have to understand laborers that are engaged from day to day. Among the ðáῖäåò . Luk_15:26, we have to understand the meanest of the permanent domestic servants, who stand without, without taking part in the feast; among the äïῦëïé , Luk_15:22, on the other hand, servants of higher rank, overseers of farms, vineyards, and the like, who personally took part in the joy of the feast. It appears therefore, that the Prodigal Son actually envies the good fortune of those who stood on the last step. Now, when the pride of his heart is broken, no false shame holds him longer back from considering his condition in its true light.
Luk_15:18. I will arise.—Not precisely the primordia pœnitentiæ (Bengel), for these are already indicated in the åἰò ἑáõôὸí ἐëèþí , but the transition from the inward to the now also outward change. In this especially is shown the sincerity of his repentance, that it is joined with the not yet extinguished trust in the love of his father, that he seeks not a single excuse, and without delay arises to carry out the resolution taken.—Against heaven and before thee; ἐíþðéïí óïῦ , that is, “in relation to thee.” Since however this relation is ordained by heaven (general indication of the dwelling-place of the higher spiritual world), he feels at the same time how this holy, heavenly world is injured by the fact, that he on earth has infringed in such a way upon the inalienable rights of his father. It is ever a token of the sincerity of repentance, when one views even the sins committed against others, as transgressions against the Heavenly Father.—Make me as one.—He wishes not only tractari tanquam mercenarius, but to be accounted on a level with such in every respect; on ὡò an emphasis is to be laid. He wishes that there may be no distinction between him and the least of the day-laborers, and promises thereby that he will diligently serve, and be obedient as a day-laborer. That he however hopes in this way once more to deserve the name of a son, he does not say a word of, and it is therefore perhaps much too refined (Stier) to remark in this entreaty a trace of self-righteousness. He wishes simply to be released at any price from his wretched condition, and with deeds to prove the sincerity of his confession of sin.
Luk_15:20. But when … his father saw him.—The father is represented as daily expecting the return of the strayed one, with longing desire; he is moved with compassion for the unfortunate one, at the view of the wretched garment, and the pitiable condition in which he sees him coming at a distance. The kiss which he impresses on his lips, comp. Gen_33:4; Mat_26:48, is the token of the prevenient love which is shown even before the confession of sin, which the father reads in the heart of the returned son, has had time to pass over his lips. The conclusion of the previously meditated address: “Make me,” &c., is in fact kept back “by the demeanor of fatherly love; the agitated son cannot bring these words out in view of such paternal love; a psychologically tender and delicate representation.” Meyer.
Luk_15:22. But the father.— Ôá÷Ýùò may certainly be added in though, even though it should not be inserted in the text.—See notes on the Greek text.—The father assures the son of his forgiveness, not by replying to his address, but by giving in his presence a definite command to the servants standing by. First, there must a garment, and that the best (see notes on the text), be brought out; the father cannot look on these hateful beggar’s rags. Thus is he again brought into his former position of honor; for the Talar was the long and white upper garment of the principal Jews, see Mar_12:38. The seal-ring and the shoes are to show that he was recognized as a free man (slaves went commonly barefoot). The ( ôü ) fatted calf, which stands in the stall already prepared for slaughter, can be destined for no more joyful occasion than this. Without delay must all the members of the family assemble at the feast-table, and it is as if now the inventiveness of love exhausted itself to prove to the returned wanderer how welcome he is to the happy father’s heart. The ground for all this is indicated in the assurance: For this my son, &c. Death and life is in the usage of the Scripture the designation of sin and conversion, see Eph_2:1; 1Ti_5:6, and other passages. The father means not only that the son has been dead for him (Paulus, De Wette), but that he in himself has risen in a moral respect from the condition of death to a new and higher life. What he has been and now is in the view of the father—once lost, now found,—is expressed in the second antithesis. The parallelism of the expression is therefore not to be taken tautologically.
Luk_15:24. And they began to be merry.—Of course at the feast, although, in itself, åὐöñáßíåóèáé is not to be taken in the sense of epulari (Kuinoel). The parable has here reached the point which is designated in the first parable in Luk_15:7, and in the second in Luk_15:10; for the joy in the father’s house corresponds perfectly to that in heaven and before the angels of God. Not impossible is it, however, that it was especially this third intimation of the same chief thought, which awakened a visible displeasure among the Pharisaic hearers, and that the Saviour therefore felt impelled so much the more to set forth yet more in detail, in the person of the second son, an intimation already given, Luk_15:7, by portraying his unloving selfishness. Here also we owe to human opposition and malice one of the most beautiful pages of the Gospel.
Luk_15:25. His elder son.—The less the Pharisees could recognize in the description of the younger son their own image, so much the more must their conscience hold up before them a mirror in the image of the eldest son. Even at the very beginning, the vividness and beauty of the representation is heightened by the fact, that the eldest son at the return of the youngest brother is not in the house, but has spent the day in hard, self-chosen, slavish service, and now first returns home at even-time, when the feast was already in progress.—Music and dancing.—Without the article. As to the customariness of this at the feasts of the ancients, comp. Mat_14:6. Even this fact, that such a thing had taken place in the dwelling entirely without his knowledge, secretly angers him, and with an astonishment which betrays displeasure, he calls one of the servants to him.
Luk_15:27. Thy brother is come.—Entirely without reason have some found (Berl. Bibl.) in the answer of the servant something secretly malicious. He gives to the returned son, after the example of his master, the rank befitting him & he does not relate in what condition the brother had come home, but only that he had returned in good health.—The slave speaks of ὐãéáßíåéí undoubtedly in the physical sense, as the father had before spoken of death and life in the moral sense; and at the same time mentions the fatted calf, which he had perhaps slaughtered with his own hand, and which was for him, as a servant, very likely the chief matter. In so good-natured an answer there lies nothing at all, in and of itself, which could have given the elder brother just ground for bitterness. It is rather the state of the case itself that is sufficient (in his temper of mind) to fill him with anger. This last stroke of the pencil also proves satisfactorily the unreasonableness of the singular interpretation, that by the elder brother we are to understand unfallen angels.
Luk_15:28. His father … entreated him, ðáñåêÜëåé . Luther: Begged him. Kuinoel: Called him to him. Meyer: Summoned him to come in. Only the last is somewhat too strong, since then the refusal of the son would have been, in contradiction to his own declaration, Luk_15:29, a direct disobedience. We prefer explaining it in the sense that the father with soft words sought to move him to judge otherwise, and then also to act otherwise, comp. Act_16:39. So much the more strikingly does the not-to-be wearied and long-suffering love of the father, who for his sake even leaves for a moment the feast of joy, contrast with the refractory and selfish disposition of the elder son.
Luk_15:29. These many years.—He addresses the father, yet the youngest son’s tender ðÜôåñ does not pass his lips. On the other hand, he brings up to him his external obedience and service for reward, with as little modesty as possible. Reward for it he has, according to his own opinion, never yet received, and indeed has not yet enjoyed the only true reward in his heart. It is noticeable (see the notes on the text) that his highest wish appears to have concentrated itself in a kid, ἐñßöéïí . (the he-goat, the image of lewdness) [There is not the slightest reason to suppose that any such reference is implied in ἐñßöéïí .—C. C. S.], while he looks down with contempt upon the immoral conduct of his brother. Ὁ õÀüò óïõ ïὗôïò . He visibly avoids giving him the brother’s name, which, however, the father does, Luk_15:32, but he tears the veil which was spread over his sinful life. For him the paternal love also concentrates itself in the fatted calf, that had far higher value than the vainly wished for ἐñßöéïí .
Luk_15:31. Son, thou art.—Although self-righteousness has already condemned itself by its own words, it is now even to redundance rebuked by the mild answer of the father. With an affectionate ôÝêíïí , he seeks once again to bring him to a kinder disposition, and show him that his uninterrupted dwelling with his father and his prospect of the whole paternal inheritance, Luk_15:12, should have raised him above so unloving a judgment. An entirely different disposition was now the natural one, and required by the course of events. To make merry and be glad was what one must now do, instead of bringing bitter imputations. The father does not say definitely that the eldest son also should now do this. The óÝ is now omitted; but he speaks in general of the ethical necessity that it now must be just thus, and not otherwise. In no event, therefore, will the feast of joy be for his sake interrupted, but he himself must judge whether he, after the explanation received, will yet longer stand without in displeasure. The father has the last word, and it is as if the Saviour asked therewith His Pharisaical listeners: Decide yourselves how the parable shall end; will you still refuse to take part in the joy of heaven over the conversion of sinners?
In relation to the parable as a whole, we must remark, in addition, that it belongs perfectly in the Pauline Gospel of Luke. “The Pauline representation of the incapacity of the íüìïò to confer the true äéêáéïóýíç , and of the necessity of another way of salvation through the ðßóôéò and ÷Üñéò , constitutes the best commentary on these parables.” Olshausen. But in a pitiable way has the Paulinistic and liberal character of this teaching of the Saviour been misused by the Tübingen school, to the support of their understanding of original Christianity, and of the peculiarity of the third Gospel. Ritzschl (formerly), Zeller, Schwegler, nor least, Von Baur, have, with different modifications, insisted on finding here a symbolical representation of the distinct relation in which Jews and Gentiles stood to the Messianic kingdom. The Prodigal Son then represents heathenism in its degeneracy, return, and restoration; the eldest son, on the other hand, represents the proud and hostile disposition of the Jewish Christians against these later-called and highly privileged. “Who does not here see the behavior of the Jewish Christians towards the Gentile Christians and the Pauline Christianity which we know from the Epistle to the Romans?” It is impossible to read this whole construction of the oldest church history without doing justice to the extra ordinary talent and the brilliant gift of combination of which it is the undeniable fruit. But even the noblest building must fall in ruin when it lacks the firm foundation. The latter is here the case, and it has, therefore, been justly remarked that Hilgenfeld and others confound the applicability of the parable to their darling theme, with its original occasion and intention. That a noticeable agreement exists between the Jewish Christians and the eldest son, between the Gentile Christians and the youngest, is plain, and should be willingly conceded; but that the Saviour’s design was to direct attention to this is in direct conflict with Luk_15:1-2; Luk_15:7; Luk_15:10. With the same right we might be able to find the antitype of the two sons, in the Catholic and in the Evangelical Church in their mutual relations. As to the rest, we already find a trace of the Tübingen idea in Vitringa and others.
2. Sin appears here before us not only in one but in a twofold form, as it develops itself not only in the widely wandering but also in the self-righteous man, who remains outwardly within the limits of obedience required by God. Against every theory which explains sin from the metaphysical imperfection of human nature, or interprets the fall as a kind of moral progress (Schiller), this parable utters the sentence of condemnation.
3. The essence of sin presents itself to us in the younger son as Self-seeking. This awakens in him discontent with the good that he enjoys in the house of his father, impels him to seek independent freedom, sensual enjoyment and honor, and makes him a wretched slave of his unfettered, passions. From the root of self-seeking grow two different branches, the sins of sensuality on the one hand and those of pride on the other. The former we see coming to mournful development principally in the younger, the latter in the elder, son. Sensuality degrades man, blinds him and leads him finally to the brink of the abyss, but God is far from abridging the sinner’s use of his freedom; He permits him, on the other hand, to walk his own ways, and makes even the bitter fruits of evil serviceable to his healing and recovery. Through false craving for freedom the Prodigal Son falls into unhappy wandering; through wandering into wretched slavery; through slavery into an unspeakable depth of misery.
4. Quite otherwise does moral corruption reveal itself in the elder son. Outwardly he remains in the house of his father and serves him, yet he is guided only by a mechanical obedience, to which the impelling power of love is wanting. He seeks his reward not in his father’s recognition, but in the kid for which he longs and for which he vainly hopes. He vaunts in his vain pride of his fancied fulfilment of duty, although to this there was lacking the heart, and with this everything, and betrays his inner character by his anger at the gracious reception of his deeply-fallen brother. He believes himself, in his blindness, never to have transgressed a commandment, and yet forgets precisely that which is weightiest in the law, mercy and love. Neither his father nor his brother does he love, and yet believes that he may demand all for himself. How self-righteousness stands related to God and mankind is here drawn from life. On the other side, the Saviour shows also how God demeans Himself towards such fools and blind. He endures them in His long-suffering; He addresses them kindly; He excludes them not at once from the enjoyment of His fatherly favor, but yet lets them feel that they are on the way to exclude themselves therefrom, and that if they persist in their error, the joy of heaven over the conversion of the lost sinner can, on their account, be by no means disturbed or postponed.
5. The nature of the conversion of which no one repents, is in the image of the younger son sketched for all following ages. Its beginning is to be found where the sinner comes to himself, and becomes acquainted, not only with his deep wretchedness, but, above all, with his inexcusable guilt. The consciousness of guilt is, according to this parable, by no means a subjective illusion of the sinner, but the expression of an everlasting truth of the voice of God which is heard in the conscience, and which the father in no wise contradicts, which he, on the other hand, answers with the overwhelming revelation of his forgiving love. The knowledge of the nature of sin—that it is not a weakness but an infinite debt—brings about an inward sorrow, 2Co_7:10; this sorrow impels to the confession of sin; this confession is joined with longing after immediate return. It is precisely in this that the nature of true repentance is here revealed; that it joins the deepest humility with not yet extinguished faith in the love of the Father; that the good resolution, how much soever it may cost, is without delay put into execution, and that the son will rather, if it is possible, take the last place in the house of his Father than even for a moment longer look around for a better lot outside of the Father’s house. With undoubted justice, it is true, the remark could be made that in this parable it is especially “human activity in the work of conversion that is portrayed.” (Olshausen.) However, it is also true, on the other side, that “the Divine activity also is not lacking in this parable.” Lange.
6. The grace of God for the Prodigal Son comes in this parable in its compassionate and all-restoring side before our eyes. The father does not this time seek for the lost son as the shepherd had sought for the sheep and the woman for the coin. For neither is it here an irrational being but a rational man, who must be brought himself to choose the way of conversion. Mediately the father has labored for his delivery, for while he has permitted him to bear all the consequences of the evil committed, he has, moreover, patiently waited and kept his house and heart open to him. Scarcely does the son take the first step homeward, when the father regards him with compassionate look, goes kindly towards him (prevenient grace), and refuses not, it is true, the confession of sin, but remits to him whatever it has of pain and humiliation. Ha not only testifies his joy over the returned wanderer, but he gives it active expression, and not only pardons the wanderer, but restores him again to the full possession and enjoyment of his forfeited filial rights. It is not, however, necessary to see in every feature of the parable, on this point, the intimation of a definite saving truth of the Gospel. Whoever (Olshausen) finds signified in the ring the seal of the Holy Spirit; in the sandals, the being shod as in Eph_6:15; in the Talar, the garment of the perfect righteousness of Christ, easily loses out of mind the distinction between parable and allegory—a point of view where nothing could reasonably withhold us from going a step farther, and, with Jerome, Augustine, and Melanchthon, seeing in the fatted calf the image of Christ. For other examples of arbitrary interpretation, see Lisco, ad loc. Here also we are carefully to distinguish between the practical applicability and the historical intention of the parable.
7. It is well known what consequences have been drawn from the fact that in this parable the Prodigal Son is received by the father without the intervention of any mediator. “All dogmatical imaginations of the supralapsarians and infralapsarians, nay, even of the demanders of bloody satisfaction, who have no sense of the heaven-wide distinction between Divine and human righteousness, vanish like oppressive nightmares before this single parable, in which Jesus reveals the heavenly secret of human redemption, not according to a mystical or criminal theory of punishment, but anthropologically, psychologically, and theologically to every pure eye that looks into the law of perfect liberty.” Von Ammon, L. J., iii. p. 50. But, with the same right, one from this parable might have been able to deduce a proof against the biblical Satanology, since, forsooth, the young man is allured and misled by sin alone; or against the doctrine of sanctification, since the parable adds nothing concerning the new life of the grateful son in his father’s house. Quod nimium, nihil probat. Silence is not necessarily contradiction, and it is entirely natural that the Saviour, months before His atoning death, before an audience of Pharisees and publicans, should have left this wholly a mystery. It is well known how little He, especially according to the Synoptical Gospels, spoke of the highest goal of His suffering and death even to His familiar disciples; it belonged to the things which He described, Joh_16:12, concerning which the Paraclete should afterwards instruct His church. Whoever uses this parable as a weapon against the Pauline doctrine of atonement, acts as foolishly as he who, pointing to the friendly morning light, would prove thereby the uselessness of the full mid-day sun. The demand that the Saviour must in a single parable have described the whole way of salvation, is excessively arbitrary; nor does the Gospel teach anywhere that the Father had to be, by the death of His Son, first moved to be gracious to sinners. “One parable cannot exhaust the whole truth; but in the parable of the Prodigal Son we may say that the Saviour and Mediator is concealed in the kiss which the father gives the son.” Riggenbach.
If we now, in conclusion, direct once again our view to this triad of parables, we find a rich variety, and yet an admirable agreement. The first parable depicts to us the sinner in his pitiable folly: the sheep exchanges voluntarily the green meadow for the barren waste. The second portrays to us the sinner in his wretched self-degradation: the coin falls down upon the earth, and lies, although the stamp is not erased, yet buried under the dust, from which it comes, only after much seeking and sweeping, again to the light of day. The third teaches us to know the sinner especially in his unthankfulness: the free love of the father is requited by the Prodigal Son with the squandering of his inheritance;—the sheep in the wilderness, the coin in the dust, the son at the swine-trough, all show us the image of the sinner’s deep wretchedness. But since that which is lost is a man only in the third parable, it is implied in the nature of the case that only here can a wandering soul’s conversion be placed before us in different gradations and transitions. The Divine love of sinners, on the other hand, is vividly portrayed to us in all three parables, although each time under a somewhat different character. In all it is God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (who, even in the Old Testament, is compared with a Shepherd and a Woman, Eze_34:28; Psalms 23; Isa_40:11), from whom the revelation of this love proceeds. But the shepherd is yet especially the image of seeking love, the woman that of restlessly laboring and careful love, while in the father this love comes before us as a prevenient, compassionate, and all-restoring love. In the representation of the value of what is lost there is an unmistakable climax: first one of a hundred, then one of ten, finally one of two: first a beast, then a coin, finally a man. [But the coin, according to the author’s own showing, is worth much less than a sheep. In the relative proportion of each to the wealth of the possessor, however, there is undoubtedly a climax.—C. C. S.] Even so there is found a beautiful harmony in the representation of the persons who rejoice with the finder: the neighbors who rejoice with the shepherd, the female friends who rejoice with the woman, the servants of the house who rejoice with the father, are necessary figures of the picture, and all represent the angels who take part in the joy of God in the conversion of even one that is lost. In the first and second parable all that the Divine love adventures and effects in order to find the lost is represented as on its own plane entirely natural. But on the other hand again the benignity, the beneficence, the sublimity of the Divine love to sinners strike the eye most strongly in the third, as it is here a man, whom love can adorn with robe and ring and sandals: features which in the two other parables could find no place. While, finally, coin and sheep are only passive towards the grace that seeks and recovers them, in the image of the Prodigal Son, on the other hand, the spontaneity of the sinner in his return to God comes into the foreground; yet so that it is by no means in a Pelagian sense the fruit of an isolated act of will, but in the sense that this resolution to return is occasioned by the course of circumstances into which he has come entirely against his own will under higher guidance, and in which he feels the bitterness of sin. The conclusion of the third parable not only adds to this a component part of admirable value over and above the first and second, but by it at the same time the whole triad of parables is applied to the shaming and rebuking of the Pharisaical hearers.
The younger son: 1. The descending way of destruction: a. pride, b. wandering, c. servile bondage, d. wretchedness. 2. the ascending way of redemption: a. humility, b. return, c. freedom, d. life.—The younger son: 1. In his father’s house; 2. in a far country; 3. among the swine; 4. on the homeward way; 5. at the feast.—Self-seeking as it reveals itself: 1. In false craving for freedom; 2. in shameless covetousness; 3. in unbounded craving for enjoyment.—The Prodigal Son first inwardly, soon outwardly also, separated from his father.—Selfishness desires only God’s gifts, true love God Himself.—The enjoyment of sin is short, remorse for it long.—The associates of sinful joy remain no longer than the soon-squandered goods.—Often external calamities have the work of hastening the revelation of the inward wretchedness of sin.—The child of the house constrained: 1. To attach himself to one of the citizens of the far country; 2. to keep the swine; 3. to crave their fodder; 4. to find that he cannot even get this.—To “come to himself”: 1. The end of the old sinful, 2. the beginning of the new penitent, life.—The awakening: 1. Of the conscience; 2. of the understanding; 3. of the sensibility; 4. of the will.—How infinitely better it fares with the meanest day-laborer of the Father than with the sinner at the swine-trough, and even at the riotous banquet.—He “began to be in want,” the last word of the wretched history of every sinner. He suffers lack: 1. Of that which he once enjoyed; 2. of that which the world enjoys; 3. of that which the meanest hirelings of his Father enjoy.—The decisive resolve: “I will arise”: 1. How much it says; 2. how hard it is to carry out; 3. how richly it rewards.—The consciousness of guilt no fancy, but the expression of a terrible truth; happy he who has learned at the right time to impute to himself his sins as so many debts to God.—Even sin against others is still as ever sin against God.—The confession of sin before God a necessity of the repentant child.—The first step on the way to conversion.—Even when we are yet far from Him the Father sees us.—God’s love to sinners: 1. A compassionate; 2. a prevenient; 3. a forgiving; 4. an all-restoring, love.—God Himself longs not less for the wandering sinner than the sinner for Him, and tears down all the walls of division.—Many a humiliation which the sinner deserves, and which the penitent will impose upon himself, is remitted to him by God’s love.—The Prodigal Son reinstated: 1. In the former possession; 2. in the old rank; 3. in the lost happiness.—The best in the father’s house is for the lost son not too good.—The children of God and members of His family must rejoice with the Father over the return of the sinner.—The service of sin, death; conversion, a birth unto life.—The joy in the Father’s house over the returned son is perfect, even though the self-righteous take no part therein.
The elder son: 1. How much better he appears than the younger: a. the younger forsook the father, he remains; b. the younger squandered the father’s goods, he administered and increased them; c. the younger sought the company of harlots, he contents himself with his friends even without a kid; d. the younger comes even now from the swine, he from the field. 2. How wretchedly lost he is: a. he serves the father with a selfish, not with a childlike, mind; b. he has enjoyed the father’s love, and complains of having received no reward; c. he asserts himself never to have transgressed a commandment, and has never yet fulfilled one; d. he vaunts himself of his virtue, and in the same moment his transgression has increased. 3. How immeasurably wretched he becomes: he is on the way to lose, a. the love of his father, b. the heart of his brother, c. the joy in the parental dwelling, d. nay even the repute of his seeming virtue.—Did he also forsake his father’s house, and how have we then to represent to ourselves the end of his history? Michaelis thinks that we might continue the image so: he forsook his father with indignation, went into a strange land, became there much more unhappy, more despised, more vicious than ever his brother had been; he was held as a slave, and finally captured in company with bands of robbers. [If the Saviour meant us to understand all this, we have a right to believe that He would have expressed it. It is quite as fair to suppose that the son might have been brought to a better mind by this tender admonition. But what He leaves ambiguous here, He probably meant to remain uncertain.—C. C. S.]—How the self-righteous man stands related to God, and how God stands related to the self-righteous man.—“My child, what is mine is thine, and what is thine is mine.”—There exists a moral necessity of rejoicing over the conversion of the sinner, which the proud Pharisee despises.—Whom, therefore, does the image of the elder son represent, and which is better, to be like him or like the youngest?
Starke:—Dissimilar brothers.—Quesnel:—How dangerous when one will live for himself on his own account, to be subject to no one and rule himself.—If the soul has departed from God, it departs more and more from Him.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Many a young man goes adventurously into strange lands to make his fortune, but let him look well to it that he does not come to harm.—Let one learn to manage frugally; times change; how good is it then to have a penny in need!—Voluptuous swine belong among the swine.—How holy are God’s judgments!—Whoever will not be called God’s child may become a swine-herd and slave of the world.
Hedinger:—Distress furthers self-knowledge, misfortune sharpens the wits. Jer_2:19.—Brentius:—God disciplines through love and sorrow. If love cannot help, distress and all manner of plagues must come.—To true repentance belongs especially a spirit in which there is no falsehood; tempt God not.—A penitent man holds himself unworthy of the grace of the Heavenly Father.—Bibl. Wirt.:—The door of grace stands ever open, and God is much more disposed to forgive us our sins than we to pray for grace.—Cramer:—God’s grace is great, but not so great that a sinner can be partaker of the same without repentance.—Canstein:—Joy in the Lord should be common to all true Christians when they hear of true conversions.—Whoever repents becomes living again and dies never, but lives unto eternity—Anger makes enmity and finally separation.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Hypocrites are ever imagining that wrong is done them.—To those that are penitent one must not be bringing up their former sins or troubling them anew.—Quesnel:—Let us have a brother’s heart towards our brother, as God has a Father’s heart towards His children.
Heubner:—The original relation of man to God is that of a son to the father.—God lets men try to live without God, that it may be for them a memorial to eternity.—“Omnis locus, quem patre incolimus absente, famis, penuriœ et egestatis est.”—Out of God everything is husks, though it is tendered thee in gold and silver vessels, and even though it were poundcake.—The sinner finds from the world and its lords no compassion.—No repentance is nobler, even though bitterer, than repentance for having contemned love.—The son, from shame and fear, went timidly; the father ran.—The conversion of the sinner a high feast of joy.—Pride of virtue is hard towards the fallen.—Even in long service for the kingdom of God there may creep in a lukewarm, reward-craving temper.—God’s grace is never exhausted or diminished.
We may compare the explanations and the homiletical expositions of the parable by Ewald, Arndt, Eylert, Lisco, as also an excellent Dutch one by M. Cohen Stuart, Utrecht, 1859.—Massillon, an excellent sermon upon Unchastity in his Lent sermons.—Palmer:—The parable contains, a. the history of us all, b. an admonition for us all, c. a consolation for us all.—The miracle of grace wrought on the sinner.—Beck:—The sinner’s way to life.—Maier:—That light hearts must become heavy heavy light.—Ahlfeld:—The Prodigal Son: Seven Sermons for the season between Easter and Whitsuntide, 1849, Halle, 1850.—Heubner:—Three Sermons upon the parable of the Prodigal Son, Halle, 1840.—Couard:—Sermons.—Carl Zimmermann:—Four Special Sermons.—Van Oosterzee:—(upon the three parables together) The worth of a single soul: 1. The harm that is wrought on a single soul; 2. the compassion that is felt on account of a single soul; 3. the care that is expended on a single soul; 4. the grace that is glorified in one soul; 5. the joy that is experienced on account of one soul.—From this follows: 1. That carelessness of our soul is the most terrible transgression; 2. care for the good of others’ souls the highest duty; 3. glorifying of the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls the most fitting thank-offering.—N. B. Luk_15:18 an excellent text preparatory for the communion, or for New Year’s Eve.
Footnotes:
Luk_15:17.—With Griesbach, Scholz, and Meyer, (Lachmann, Bleek, Tregelles, Alford, Cod. Sin.,] we believe that we must receive ῶ ̓ äå into the text, but place it before ëéìῷ .
Luk_15:19.—Rec.: êáὶ ïὐêÝôé åἰìὶ , ê . ô . ë ., without sufficient grounds; êáß may be omitted, and then the broken character of the soliloquy forms a beauty the more.
Luk_15:21.—See note 2.
Luk_15:22.— Ôὴí before óôïëÞí should he expunged, see Tischendorf; this makes the first mention of óôïëÞí quite indefinite, with ôὴí ðñþôçí afterwards added as apposition; see Winer, Grammatik, § 204. Although ôá÷ý (D., ôá÷Ýùò ) has some authorities of weight for it, B., [Cod. Sin.,] L., X., &c., yet it is probable that this word was interpolated later, in order to heighten yet more the force of the father’s word. [Lachmann, Meyer, Alford retain ôá÷ý ; Tregelles brackets it. Found in B., D., Cod. Sin., L., X.—C. C. S.]
Luk_15:29.— Áὐôïῦ ought, on the authority of A., B., D., P., and others, to be received in the text, as by Lachmann and Tischendorf, [Meyer, Tregelles, Alford.]