Luke 15:30
But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.
The verse gives the elder son's angry charge that his brother wasted the family's means in shameful indulgence, and his resentment that the father killed the fatted calf and made a feast for his return. By saying this thy son instead of my brother he contemptuously disowns the prodigal and refuses to share his father's joy. That charge of waste with harlots is the elder brother's complaint, not the father's judgment upon the returning son. The father is right to welcome and feast because the son was lost and is found, was dead in sin and is alive again, and he receives the repentant child with pity and forgiveness without reproach or taunting for the past. The elder son's selfish, proud, envious, self-righteous spirit represents unbelieving Israel and the Pharisees who murmured because Jesus received sinners, and it warns the church still against envying new converts and hindering the seeking and joyful welcoming of the lost.
Words and Setting
The words belong to the elder son, who accuses his returned brother of having consumed the family property in immoral living with prostitutes and resents that the father has killed the fatted calf and made a feast to celebrate his homecoming. The complaint charges the father with unfairness and stands in sharp contrast to the father's welcome of the lost son, for the honor given is right because one who was lost and dead in sin has returned and is alive again, and that fact outweighs all other considerations. He had stayed in the field faithfully doing a son's duties while his brother left home, threw the shared duties upon him, and wasted the father's means in wicked profligacy until reduced to want, yet on his return the wanderer is received with respect and honor beyond anything ever given the elder son. The elder son is indignant at the joyful welcome, refuses to go in and receive his brother, and sets his own many years of service without transgression and without even a young goat for merry-making against the feast prepared for one who consumed his living in such a way. His bitterness is self-justifying resentment at free forgiveness and a failure to share his father's joy over restoration, and it is answered by the father's entreaty to rejoice because the brother was lost and is found, was dead in sin and iniquity but is alive again and come to his moral senses abhorring sin. The celebration belongs to a story in which the father welcomes the returning son with yearning love rather than accusations of wrath, reflecting the joy over a lost person brought back to God.
By saying this thy son instead of my brother he contemptuously disowns the prodigal and refuses to share his father's joy. The form of address exposes selfishness, pride, envy, contempt, disrespect, jealousy, and a hard-hearted spirit that treats the father's kindness as an insult to himself and regards mercy shown to the returned sinner as injustice. In this he represents unrepenting, unbelieving Israel, which refused to recognize tax collectors and sinners as brothers who should be forgiven, sought, and led to everlasting life. The father answers patiently and tenderly, explains why celebrating the lost son's return is right, and seeks to awaken compassion in the elder brother, for repentant sinners are welcomed by the heavenly Father without reproach or taunts, and what is required is penitence.
The charge of waste with prostitutes is the elder brother's complaint, not the father's judgment of the younger son. The parable in which the charge occurs was given to answer the criticism of those who complained that Jesus associated with sinners, to teach mercy and forgiveness, and to show that His mission was to recover the lost. Christ drew the story from facts of life and experience familiar to His hearers in order to illustrate immortal truth and make the lesson of the spiritual and unseen accessible through daily life. His use of such surroundings shows openness to the influences of nature and delight in gathering spiritual teaching from everyday life, so that with His other parables and illustrations it was given to interest every mind and appeal to every heart, and the daily task instead of being a mere round of toil would be brightened and uplifted by constant reminders of the spiritual and unseen. He came right to the point with no long, farfetched, complicated reasoning, illustrating truth in all its bearings to commend truth to the conscience, touch the heart and awaken sympathy, as when the father sees his son afar off, runs to meet him, and rejoices that he who had been thought dead is indeed alive, and then He leaves hearers free to accept or reject it as they choose. The lesson means much and must be carefully studied together with the lost sheep and the lost piece of silver, considered more critically and obeyed with purpose by having the Spirit of Jesus in councils in going out to search for, find, and bring back those who have strayed from the fold, for practicing it involves eternal interests.
Younger Son's Wasteful Course
The younger son could rightfully claim nothing and should have had nothing, yet he selfishly demanded his portion of his father's estate in order to separate his interests from his father and manage it to suit his own inclination and live by his own wishes. He withdrew to a distance that he might not be troubled with counsel or reproofs and advice, correction and restraint, that he might even forget he had a father, feeling under no obligation and bracing his selfish rebellious spirit with the thought that part of the property belonged to him. He despised restraint and was determined to have pleasure in any way he chose, and after receiving treasure of which he was undeserving he spent all his father had given him in sinful indulgence and extravagant pleasure with harlots. His young years, strength, and spiritual aspirations and gifts received from God were consumed by lust, showing how a life devoted to sinful pleasure wastes what God has entrusted.
Famine brought pinching want and destitution and brought him down to feeding swine, far from his father's house and far from God and perishing with hunger. He had separated from God and stayed away from Him so long, serving sin and the flesh and the devil for poor wages with no profit. Even then God is ready to accept him and pardon all his transgressions if he will but come, meeting him even now, with the Majesty of Heaven inviting him to come that he may have life and with the message of mercy that all things are now ready. Christ is ready to cleanse him from sin and welcome him home, forgiven and restored, when he lays hold upon Him, and the way back is so humble that pride resists it, yet there is no other way, so that to neglect it with false hopes and perish in sins after so many convictions is to travel a road ending in death, and he must search his heart, turn, and live.
His wayward course could grow out of indulgence at home and a failure to restrain and train him. The verse also pictures the condition of those who claim to be commandment keepers while living as the prodigal, transgressing the law, unthankful and unholy. They flatter themselves that they are Christians while employing entrusted talents to counterwork God and use them against Him, and there is no light in them and their influence is not unto sanctification or holiness. Jesus yearns after these sons and daughters who are acting as the prodigal son and longs to do them the good He delights to do, but He cannot do it because of the perversity of their characters.
Father's Joyful Forgiving Welcome
The father meets the erring child who comes back in repentance with pity, compassion, tenderness and free forgiveness, and he does not meet him with reproach or taunts nor bring up the past against him. What is required is penitence, for the son recognizes his sin and neglect, values his father's love, acknowledges his claims, and returns because he needs help that only his father can give. The one who has erred and repented suffers in feeling and is often desponding and discouraged, and needs pity, help and sympathy, and above everything else free forgiveness rather than reminding of mistakes. A sinner who comes back to God in repentance is received with love, not rejected or degraded.
The killing of the fatted calf and the honor given to the returned brother are right and a cause for joy because the younger son was lost and is found, was dead in sin and iniquity but is alive again. He has come to his moral senses abhorring sin, and that fact overbears all other considerations, including the elder son's resentment at waste with harlots and at honor beyond anything his own faithful field service ever received. The parable thus answers self-justifying resentment at free forgiveness with the father's entreaty to rejoice that the brother was lost and is found.
The story shows God's pitying love for those who stray, for though they turn away He does not leave them in their misery but is kind and tender toward them amid temptation. He takes the first step to seek sinners while they are still rebelling, as a shepherd seeks a lost sheep, and His heart yearns for the wanderer while he is far off wasting what he has received. Longing to return is the Spirit's tender appeal drawing the wanderer back, yet even the parable's picture falls short of the Father's infinite compassion. When the lost are restored, and when even the poorest sinner returns in repentance, heaven rejoices with warmth, courtesy and love, and that joyful reception calls men to cooperate earnestly with God in seeking the lost sheep and winning back the prodigal.
God's dealing with erring people who come back in repentance reveals infinite love, shown in the Father giving His beloved Son as a sacrifice that opens a channel for His infinite love. Through that gift all who believe on Jesus Christ are restored again to His favor, obey all of God's commandments, and have life in Jesus Christ. The restoration is full and free, for the Father entreats the erring to return, puts His arm about him, covers his rags, gives him the ring of royalty and Christ's righteousness, and gives him a place at the Father's table as one who receives Christ as personal Saviour.
Christ is ready to accept, cleanse and restore the sinner who will but come, confess mistakes, lay hold upon Him, and link himself with God with full decision of soul. His love shown at Calvary and in His death on the cross assures the sinner of acceptance, peace and love, and none who comes is cast out. The way back is so humble that pride resists it, yet there is no other way, and to neglect it with false hopes and perish in sins after so many convictions is to travel a road ending in death, so he must search his heart, turn and live, and then God will work with the returned one to help other youth give their hearts to God and be converted. The father's welcome also illustrates God's loving patience toward Israel and Jesus' loving dealings with them, His willingness to suffer for their sins and bear their guilt despite their resistance to His grace and their neglect of His privileges and refusal of His invitations.
Elder Brother's Resentful Spirit
The elder son's words lay bare selfishness, pride, envy, jealousy, contempt and disrespect toward his father, a cold, jealous, self-righteous and hard-hearted spirit that treats the father's kindness to the returned sinner as an insult to himself. By calling him this thy son rather than my brother he contemptuously disowns the prodigal and refuses to share the father's joy over mercy shown. He accuses his father of unfairness and favoritism, complaining that one who wasted the family's wealth in profligacy is welcomed with a feast and the fatted calf while his own supposed faithfulness goes unrewarded. The father answers patiently and tenderly, explaining why celebration is right and seeking to awaken compassion in the elder brother. Those who welcome a repentant sinner are therefore to follow the father's gracious welcome with sympathy, forgiveness and joy rather than resenting it.
He stands by with indifference and contempt while a soul makes its struggle against the flood of temptation, complaining instead of helping. His stubborn, self-willed and selfish complaint condemns the returning son and resents the welcome, exposing how God regards hardness toward depraved, guilty, suffering souls. In heart he is like the Pharisee who says he is not as other men, claiming to be a co-worker with Christ yet refusing sympathy to the repentant. This stands in stark contrast to the Father who loves His erring child, entreats him to return, puts His arm about him, covers his rags and gives him the ring of royalty. God expects His servants to seek and rescue those who have strayed and rejoices when they are restored, rather than meeting them with cold rejection.
He represents unrepenting, unbelieving Israel, which refused to recognize publicans and sinners as brothers who should be forgiven, sought and led to everlasting life. Like the Pharisees he fails to share the Father's joy when the lost return, revealing jealousy and contempt. His complaint reflects the belief that long service and hardship entitled him to greater reward, for the Jews likewise treated service as earning salvation as though work must receive a set payment.
He contrasts his many years of faithful service without transgression with the feast for the profligate, indignant that he who stayed in the field doing a son's duties never received even a kid for merry-making while his brother who left, threw shared duties upon him and wasted the father's means in wicked profligacy until reduced to want is received with respect and honor beyond anything ever shown him. He refuses to go in and receive his brother, believing long hardship entitled him to greater reward. Even bearing hardships and burdens does not make such service Christlike when resentment spoils it, for fault-finding misunderstands God's way of dealing with people. His self-righteous confidence that his own course has been righteous and faithful in home duties, needing no repentance and deserving to be commended and honored, keeps him from sympathizing with the father's joy.
His faultfinding magnifies another's wrongs to excuse his own unforgiving heart, watching for faults, criticizing them and emphasizing them to justify himself. Though he stayed at home he focused on his brother's past wrongs and refused to forgive, and that accusation reflected Satan's spirit, not the forgiving spirit of the Lord. Such criticism of those struggling against temptation instead of showing them pity places accusers where they cannot receive God's favor. His feelings are a spirit of suspicion, censure and evil surmising toward the repentant, while Christlike love meets misery and repentance with compassion, sympathy and mercy. Those who judge another harshly should remember their own failings, humble themselves and put away such thoughts, for Christ alone can remove suspicion and help the erring be restored to God.
His complaint was natural but not right, picturing the frequent wrong course of brother toward brother in working to make the one who has erred feel where he has erred and keeping his error and mistakes before him. Those who have erred and repented suffer in feeling and are often desponding and discouraged, needing pity, help, sympathy and above everything else free forgiveness rather than reproach. His selfish unwillingness to receive the repenting brother and rejoice at his return itself proves his need of repentance. It reveals indifference and careless disregard for those ready to die and refusal to partake of God's shepherd heart toward the lost, though God Himself goes after the lost sheep, heals backsliding, loves freely and fills all heaven with joy at the finding.
The same jealousy appears in church members who envy the attention and care given to people newly brought into the faith instead of rejoicing that the Lord is gathering wandering souls. They murmur when ministers spend time hunting for lost souls and giving truth to those who do not know it instead of constantly preaching to and feeding the church, wanting all labor and attention for themselves to keep themselves alive. They count grace shown to a repentant sinner as neglect of themselves, gossip and plant doubt, questioning, evil surmising and jealousy instead of seeking to save the lost, and fail to do righteousness in their own homes and in the church. Instead of using strength and talents to help the minister carry the burden and make his labors a success in seeking perishing souls, they speak unjust sentiments as though the church had been robbed of labor it should have had. God is much displeased with that attitude and has heard their words, for those who love Christ will love those for whom Christ died, while the elder-brother spirit greatly hinders adding souls to the church. A living church with Christ formed within will instead rejoice and join in seeking the lost.
Seeking and Welcoming the Lost
The whole chapter of the lost belongs to the church as its charge to prize the work of heaven for reclaiming the lost, to go out to search for those who have strayed from the fold, to find them and bring them back into the fold and to the saving knowledge of the truth, and to rejoice when they are restored. The elder brother's condemnation of the returning son and resentment of the father's welcome warns that those who themselves need salvation may meet a struggling sinner with contempt instead of help, while God expects His servants to seek and rescue the straying. The lessons of the prodigal son with the lost sheep are to be considered more critically and obeyed with purpose, by having the Spirit of Jesus Christ in councils for this searching and restoring work.
Those who welcome a repentant sinner are to follow the father and not the elder brother, meeting him with sympathy, pity, help, tenderness, compassion, mercy, forgiveness and joy, and above everything else free forgiveness, not with cold rejection, reproach, censure, or constant reminding of mistakes. The elder brother's complaint that his profligate brother was honored while his own faithful service went unrewarded was natural but not right, and it pictures the frequent wrong course of brother toward brother in laboring to make the one who has erred feel where he has erred and keeping his error before him. One who has erred and repented suffers in feeling and is often desponding and discouraged, and the return itself is a source of the greatest joy to the Father who was sinned against, for He meets the erring, repentant child who recognizes his sin and neglect, values his father's love, acknowledges his claims, and comes because he needs help only his father can give, with compassion, pity and forgiveness. The prodigal needs a loving welcome rather than cold rejection, with the tenderness, love and sympathy due to the erring.
Criticism, faultfinding, censure, jealousy, self-righteousness and harshness toward youth who make mistakes in youthful indiscretion, and toward those who have done wrong, are displeasing to God, withhold due tenderness, drive wanderers away from God and from the truth, drive them farther from God, and can keep souls out of the kingdom. The prodigal's wrongs may be only the simple errors of youthful indiscretion, not sins of a character to be treated with great severity, as with one who has become a thorough backslider through discouragement, the temptation of Satan, and the mistakes of brethren who did not know how to deal with youth. The duty taught is to labor tenderly for the backslider and urge immediate return like the prodigal to his Father's house and his Father's service, leaving the service of Satan and of sin and giving God time, talent and influence instead of robbing Him, for to keep on in backsliding grieves the heart of Christ who loved the sinner and died to redeem him, and whose tender, compassionate love shines from the cross, so that a brother's mistake gives no excuse for grieving Christ and turning from Jesus. That return calls for immediate decision even at loss of position and trade, earnest prayer, and a decided promise before God and angels and witnesses to be a Christian from that day, which the Father evidences with pardon and love in a purified mind, changed purposes, and happy thankfulness.
Some called Seventh-day Adventists repeat the elder brother's spirit toward the returned prodigal, meeting him with suspicion, distrust, dislike, unkindness and retaliation instead of kind and tender welcome, and that same spirit will be shown toward those who need their help the most. Those who have learned by experience how it feels to be met with distrust and suspicion must not manifest the same spirit in return, must not treat others as they were treated, and must practice nothing of the kind in labor for others. They must keep Christ's prayer ever before the mind and answer it in daily attitude and practice, exercising patience and forbearance, refusing discouragement, trusting Jesus at the right hand, and becoming overcomers through the blood of the Lamb and the word of testimony by the way of escape Christ has made with every temptation.
The return of the prodigal to his father pictures sinners being brought back to God, and shows that prodigals far from the father and perishing with hunger can be restored to the Father, that those who have left God and those who have left the Father's house and blessing may be encouraged to return, and that people who turn back can be reached with truth and saved, for truth brought into life experience is a saving power. A wayward person should not delay returning to family and to God, but should come back at once with a humble heart, with humble confession and contrition under the Holy Spirit, confessing backslidings and entering the heavenward path, as with Arthur and Rosetta as prodigals who had left their Father's house and blessing. They are to be led step by step into submission, to be reached by a message of love, and to find in Christ sure help and tender compassion.
Conditions of Restored Sonship
The fatted calf killed for the returning son pictures the privileges of sonship claimed on coming home, but enjoying those privileges requires consenting to accept a son's obligations and living in accordance with the father's will. The welcome shows the father's readiness to receive, yet it does not remove the call to live as a son and to remain under the shepherd's care in the fold rather than renewing wandering. Claiming a son's place therefore means compliance with the conditions of sonship, not feasting while returning to former wandering.
Return demands unreserved surrender, the gift of the whole life and not money alone, repaying love with obedience and abiding faithfulness. It requires denying self, taking up the cross, obeying direction, and submitting to control. It is leaving the service of Satan and of sin and returning to the Father's service, for to keep on in backsliding grieves the heart of Christ who loved the sinner and died to redeem him. The severe charge of devouring the living with harlots need not always fit such a backslider, since one made a thorough backslider through discouragement, temptation of Satan, and mistakes of brethren who did not know how to deal with youth may have only the simple errors of youthful indiscretion rather than sins of a character deserving such great severity.
The return calls for immediate decision even at loss of position and trade, with earnest prayer and a decided promise before God and angels and witnesses to be a Christian from that day. The Father then evidences pardon and love with a purified mind, changed purposes, and happy thankfulness.