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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Luke 15:20 - 15:24
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The return:
v. 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.
v. 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.
v. 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;
v. 23. and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it; and let us eat and be merry;
v. 24. for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry.
True repentance is not satisfied with resolutions, its sincerity must be proved by actions. The young man therefore carried out his intention without delay. As a proud and haughty, disobedient and unfilial youth he had left home; with a humble, broken, and contrite heart he crept back through the familiar scenes. But the merciful goodness and the cheerful forgiveness of his father was even greater than he had dared to expect after the treatment which the boy had accorded him. The love of a father is not so easily destroyed. Day after day he had been on the lookout for the son of his old age; never had he given up the hope of seeing him return some time. The father's loving eye therefore was the first to espy the boy, although the half-starved, tattered tramp may have resembled only distantly the well-nourished young man that had so flippantly turned his back upon his home a short time ago. All this the father saw in a glance, but it did not fill him with repulsion, but only with the deepest sympathizing pity. To walk was too slow; he ran down to meet his boy, he fell on his neck, he kissed him most tenderly. Before the boy even opened his mouth, the father read in his eyes, in his entire appearance what motive had brought him back home. He indeed accepted the confession of sins which the boy made, but would hear nothing more. As the young man's repentance and confession were unrestricted, so the father's forgiveness was unconditional. The love of the father here pictured is but a weak type and picture of the love of God toward sinners, of His manner of dealing with repentant sinners. His eyes search for them; His Word pleads with them to return from the path of transgression; His heart overflows with commiserating sympathy at their blindness and foolishness, by which they cast themselves into misery, grief, and anguish. He is reconciled to all sinners through the death of Jesus Christ; in the Redeemer He has forgiven them all their trespasses. When He therefore sees the evidences of repentance, His heart goes out to them, and He showers upon them the fullness of His mercy, grace, and kindness. He gives' them the assurance, confirmed with a solemn oath, that all their sins are forgiven, that their transgressions are cast into the depths of the sea. And His promises then give to the fainthearted, penitent sinner new trust and courage, by which the belief is engendered that he has again been accepted as a child of the heavenly Father.
The father, in the overwhelming joy of his heart, reinstates the son into all the rights of son-ship. To some servants that came hurrying up he gave the command to make haste that the wretched rags might be taken from his son and he be clothed in the dress becoming to his station, with a golden ring on his finger and with proper sandals on his feet. They should then take the calf which was being fattened for the slaughter and use its meat to prepare a great feast, since the entire household was to take part in the joy of this occasion. All the symbols of the filial state, all the honors due to the son of the house, should here be brought out. And the father hurriedly explains that this wanderer, if they had not known him before or had not recognized him in his rags, was his son. Dead indeed he had been, lost to all good, given to all evil; but now he had returned to real life, now he was in truth the son of the house, since he had found himself and stood in the relation of a true son to his father. And so the feast was made ready at once, and the celebration went ahead with great joy. Thus the lost children of God that return to Him with penitent hearts are not admitted to heaven in such a way as barely to enter. No, the forgiveness of God is complete. There is joy in heaven over every sinner that comes to repentance.