Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Calvin Complete Commentary - Luke 15:20 - 15:20
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
20.And while he was still afar off. This is the main point of the parable. If men, who are by nature prone to revenge, and too tenacious of their own rights, are moved by fatherly love kindly to forgive their children, and freely to bring them back, when they are sunk in wretchedness, God, whose boundless goodness exceeds all the affection of parents, (536) will not treat us more harshly. (537) And certainly nothing is here attributed to an earthly father which God does not promise with respect to himself. Before they call, says he, I will answer, (Isa_65:24.) That passage too of David is well known,
I said, I will acknowledge against me my unrighteousness to the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin,
(Psa_32:5.)
As this father, therefore, is not merely pacified by the entreaties of his son, but meets him when he is coming, and before he has heard a word, embraces him, filthy and ugly as he is, so God does not wait for a long prayer, but of his own free will meets the sinner as soon as he proposes to confess his fault.
It is wretched sophistry to infer from this, that the grace of God is not exhibited to sinners until they anticipate it by their repentance. “” say they, “ held out to us a father ready to pardon, but it is after that his son has begun to return to him; and therefore God does not look, and does not bestow his grace, on any but those who begin to seek him.” It is, no doubt, true that, in order to his obtaining pardon, the sinner is required to have grief of conscience, and to be dissatisfied with himself; but it is wrong to infer from this, that repentance, which is the gift of God, is yielded by men from their own movement of their heart. And in this respect it would be improper to compare a mortal man to God; for it is not in the power of an earthly father to renew the stubborn heart of his son, as God changes hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. In short, the question here is not whether a man is converted by himself, and returns to him; but only under the figure of a man is commended the fatherly gentleness of God, and his readiness to grant forgiveness.
(536) “L’ de tous les peres de ce monde;” — “ love of all the fathers in the world.”
(537) “Sera bien pour le moins aussi debonnaire envers nous;” — “ be at least as gentle towards us.”