Ep. 73: The Prodigal Son
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LUKE 15
There is a connection between the three parables here. They are concerned with ‘the recovery of the lost’, in the first instance through the unwearied labour; in the second, through the anxious care of the owner; and in the third through the never-ceasing love of the Father. To understand these parables, the circumstances must be kept in view. It has formerly been shown that the Jewish teaching concerning repentance was nothing like what was taught by Jesus. Theirs was not a Gospel to the lost; they had nothing to say to sinners.
In the parable of the lost sheep the main interest centres on the lost; in the second (that of the lost coin), it centres on the search. In the first, the danger of being lost arose from the natural tendency of the sheep to wander. In the second parable, it is no longer our natural tendency to which our loss is attributable. The drachma has been lost, but it is still in the house, not like the sheep that had gone astray. It is interesting to note the Jewish parallel to the first parable, where the motivation of the man following the straying animal is Pharisaic fear and distrust in case the Jewish wine that it carried should become mingled with that of the Gentiles.
The third parable, that of the lost son, is more popularly known as the story of the Prodigal Son. Rabbinic tradition supplies a parallel in that, while prayer may sometimes find the gate of access closed, it is never shut against repentance and it introduces a parable in which a king sends a tutor after his son, who, in his wickedness, had left the palace, with this message, ‘Return, my son!’ to which the latter replied. ‘With what face can I return? I am ashamed!’ To which the father sends this message, ‘My son, is there a son who is ashamed to return to his father and shall you not return to your father? You shall return.’
In the parable of ‘the lost son,’ the main interest centres in his restoration. Presumably, the father had only these two sons. The eldest would receive two portions, the younger the third of all movable property. The father could not have disinherited the younger son. On the other hand, a man might, during his lifetime, dispose of all his property to the disadvantage, or even the total loss, of the first-born, or of any other children; he might give all to strangers.
The next scene in the history is misunderstood by those who say that the young man’s misery is there represented as the result of God’s manoeuvrings rather than of his own misdoings. To begin with, his riotous living was fully his responsibility. Again, the main objective is to show that absolute liberty and indulgence of sinful desires and passions ended in anything but happiness. The Providence of God had an important part in this.
To a Jew, there was more than degradation in being reduced to feeding swine, since the keeping of swine was prohibited to Israelites under a curse. What perhaps gives additional meaning to the state this son found himself in is the Jewish saying: ‘When Israel is reduced to the carob-tree, they become repentant.’ It was this pressure of extreme want which first showed to the younger son the contrast between the country and the circumstances to which his sin had brought him and the plentiful provision of the home he had left and the kindness which provided bread enough and to spare for even the hired servants. There was only a step between what he said, ‘having come into himself’ and his resolve to return, though its difficulty seems implied in the expression, ‘I will arise.’
Here it deserves special notice, as marking the absolute contrast between the teaching of Jesus and Rabbinism, that we have in one of the oldest Rabbinic works, a parable exactly the reverse of this, when the son of a friend is redeemed from bondage, not as a son, but to be a slave, so that obedience might be demanded of him. The implication drawn is, that the obedience of the redeemed is not that of parental love of the pardoned, but the enforcement of the claim of a master. How different to the teaching of Christ!
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)