Luke 15:11–24
11 And He said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
As always, context is important. This was not meant to be a nice little story told by Jesus to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. At the beginning of Luke 15, we read that Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son to the Pharisees. They would have been outraged at the message Jesus was teaching them, because the God they portrayed to the people was not a God of grace, but a vengeful, angry God. This parable in particular is not shrouded in mystery. This is not one of those which is difficult to understand, which is why the Pharisees were so upset.
The request of the younger son was for his share of the inheritance. According to the law in Deuteronomy 21, he was entitled to one-third of his father’s estate. His request was legal, because a man was able to divide his estate among his sons while he was still alive, but this was certainly the exception, rather than the norm.
In fact, it was a shocking thing to ask. When he asked for his father to divide the estate now, rather than wait until his father died, he was in effect saying, “I wish you were dead. I want to be free from you and, I want my money now.”
The lost sinner lives his life with that same attitude. He might as well say to God, “I wish you were dead!” Because people who live in rebellion against God live their lives as if He were dead.
The son in this parable was selfish. His focus is on himself. His life is all wrapped up within himself and he cares for no one else, especially his father. But his father is gracious. Back in Deuteronomy 21 again, it says, “If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.
They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death.” (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
Of course, such an instruction shocks and even offends us. But what these words are really doing is pointing us to the righteous wrath of God against rebellious sinners. We deserve punishment, not grace.
In our parable, if the father didn’t want to go to such extremes, he at the very least was quite entitled to refuse and kick his son out, but he doesn’t. He merely does what his son asks him to do and gives him what he asks for.
He has worked his entire adult life to build his estate so that he might have something to hand down to his sons.
The younger son wanted what the father could give him, but he did not want the father. This is another picture of the lost sinner. The lost don’t give God a second thought. They want His air, His food, His water, His time, His world, but they don’t want Him involved in their lives.
Every day that we live, we live on the gifts and resources God has blessed us with, yet so many want nothing to do with God. They want what He can give them, but they don’t want Him. And in order to justify this rebellious attitude, they come up with this ridiculous notion that God doesn’t exist, because if we can fool ourselves with that lie, we are free to live however we want. Just look at our world today and the way it is heading.
As Psalms 14 and 53 both say, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
If you want to live your life like there is no God, then He will allow you to do exactly that. If you want to take all that He can give you without acknowledging Him, He will let you do that too, but you need to know what the reward of that kind of life will be: A Christ-less eternity.
And so, the son in the parable gets what he wants, but he soon finds out that all that glitters is not gold. He takes his father’s grace and he squanders it by living a wicked, self-indulgent life of sin and wickedness.
James 1:14-15 warns us, “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
For the lost son, eventually the money ran out as well as the friends who helped him spend it. The far country, a land of wine, women and song had become a land of weeping, worry and sorrow.
The first lesson he learned was that sin brings separation. He is broke, alone and miles away from a father who had done nothing but love him.
This is what sin does. It separates us from our loving Father.
This is where the younger son found himself. Because of his foolish decisions, his life was a mess, and then comes the shame.
Here is this young Jewish man who finds himself feeding pigs. For a Jewish man to stoop to this level would mean that he had reached the very bottom of the barrel. You can only imagine the reaction of the Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking.
To suggest that a Jew had resorted to not only feeding pigs, but even wanted to eat the swill he was feeding to them, was an outrageous thing to say.
But this is how far his sin had taken him. He has no home, no help and no hope. No one cares for him, he is starving and would have eaten the pigs’ food if he could. He is suffering because of the choices he has made. No one cares whether he lives or dies. He is alone, he is hungry, and he is broken.
But this is when the story begins to turn.
Brokenness, and facing the consequences of his bad choices were the first steps in getting him home. Someone said that no-one ever wandered off into sin and came back glad they did. They all returned broken, defeated and humbled, but at least they came home.
The first step in getting out of sin is to realise that we are in sin in the first place. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That is the first step, the first realisation we have to reach on the path to repentance, forgiveness and restoration.
The son makes up his mind to go home. He misses home. He misses his father, and he wants to return to where he can be loved and cared for, but of course, he is full of remorse because of the way he’s made a mess of his life.
Before, he didn’t want to be under the father’s authority, but now he is willing to be a slave, if that is what it takes to go back home.
And so the son returns home. He doesn’t know what awaits him. He may be rejected, he may be humiliated, he may even be put to death, but he has reached the point where he has nowhere else to turn.
Incredibly, He found a father who had been waiting and longing for his return. He found a father filled with love, compassion and grace who received him and loved him back into his family. He didn’t even let his son finish his little speech. He just loved him back into a right relationship.
In those days, especially with the long, flowing robes that men wore, it was considered undignified for a man to run, so why did the father in the parable run to the son and embrace him?
This is such an important detail in the story. It is because God runs to meet the sinner to quickly extend mercy and prevent any further danger. Remember that the neighbours, who were fully aware of what had happened, would have been not only within their rights, but bound by the law to stone this young man as soon as they realised just who this was shuffling along the road, so the father gathered up his robes and ran towards him and embraced him. If they had thrown stones, they would have hit the father first.
What happened at Calvary? Jesus puts Himself between us and the wrath of the Father. He comes to us and protects us, while at the same time He is our atoning sacrifice. At the cross the rocks were still thrown, so to speak, but they were thrown at Christ, not us. That is what the Gospel and the doctrine of justification is all about. As Jesus faces the full fury of God’s righteous anger at our sin, He protects us from that wrath, while at the same time He clothes us with His righteousness.
The son, as he returned home, stood in the rags of his sins. He doesn’t look like a child of the father, but his father orders the best of his robes to be brought and to be put on him.
This robe covered the stains and dirt of the pigsty. It made him look like his father once more. The robe he had been given erased all the signs of his sinful past.
As Jesus bore your sins on the cross and clothed you in His own righteousness, the signs of your sins were erased.
When a lost sinner comes home, they receive a robe from the heavenly Father.
When we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, all the pain and the stain of our past is washed away forever.
After the robe came the ring. The ring was a symbol of sonship and authority. The one with the ring could speak for the father. The one wearing the ring had access to all that belonged to the father.
When lost sinners repent of their sins and come home to the Father, they are given the great privilege of being recognised as His sons. They are given the privilege of speaking on behalf of the Father, and they are given access to all that belongs to the Father. When we come to the Father, He opens the storehouses of His grace and gives us everything He has.
Then the father calls for shoes to be brought for his son. Only the slaves went barefoot. Sons wore shoes.
This young man was prepared to be made a slave, but the father recognised his position as a son.
When you are saved by grace, you became a child of God. If you have believed, repented and accepted salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, then you need to know this: You are a son or a daughter of the King, and this is why Heaven rejoices as Jesus finds and restores the lost.
11 And He said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
As always, context is important. This was not meant to be a nice little story told by Jesus to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. At the beginning of Luke 15, we read that Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son to the Pharisees. They would have been outraged at the message Jesus was teaching them, because the God they portrayed to the people was not a God of grace, but a vengeful, angry God. This parable in particular is not shrouded in mystery. This is not one of those which is difficult to understand, which is why the Pharisees were so upset.
The request of the younger son was for his share of the inheritance. According to the law in Deuteronomy 21, he was entitled to one-third of his father’s estate. His request was legal, because a man was able to divide his estate among his sons while he was still alive, but this was certainly the exception, rather than the norm.
In fact, it was a shocking thing to ask. When he asked for his father to divide the estate now, rather than wait until his father died, he was in effect saying, “I wish you were dead. I want to be free from you and, I want my money now.”
The lost sinner lives his life with that same attitude. He might as well say to God, “I wish you were dead!” Because people who live in rebellion against God live their lives as if He were dead.
The son in this parable was selfish. His focus is on himself. His life is all wrapped up within himself and he cares for no one else, especially his father. But his father is gracious. Back in Deuteronomy 21 again, it says, “If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.
They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death.” (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
Of course, such an instruction shocks and even offends us. But what these words are really doing is pointing us to the righteous wrath of God against rebellious sinners. We deserve punishment, not grace.
In our parable, if the father didn’t want to go to such extremes, he at the very least was quite entitled to refuse and kick his son out, but he doesn’t. He merely does what his son asks him to do and gives him what he asks for.
He has worked his entire adult life to build his estate so that he might have something to hand down to his sons.
The younger son wanted what the father could give him, but he did not want the father. This is another picture of the lost sinner. The lost don’t give God a second thought. They want His air, His food, His water, His time, His world, but they don’t want Him involved in their lives.
Every day that we live, we live on the gifts and resources God has blessed us with, yet so many want nothing to do with God. They want what He can give them, but they don’t want Him. And in order to justify this rebellious attitude, they come up with this ridiculous notion that God doesn’t exist, because if we can fool ourselves with that lie, we are free to live however we want. Just look at our world today and the way it is heading.
As Psalms 14 and 53 both say, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
If you want to live your life like there is no God, then He will allow you to do exactly that. If you want to take all that He can give you without acknowledging Him, He will let you do that too, but you need to know what the reward of that kind of life will be: A Christ-less eternity.
And so, the son in the parable gets what he wants, but he soon finds out that all that glitters is not gold. He takes his father’s grace and he squanders it by living a wicked, self-indulgent life of sin and wickedness.
James 1:14-15 warns us, “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
For the lost son, eventually the money ran out as well as the friends who helped him spend it. The far country, a land of wine, women and song had become a land of weeping, worry and sorrow.
The first lesson he learned was that sin brings separation. He is broke, alone and miles away from a father who had done nothing but love him.
This is what sin does. It separates us from our loving Father.
This is where the younger son found himself. Because of his foolish decisions, his life was a mess, and then comes the shame.
Here is this young Jewish man who finds himself feeding pigs. For a Jewish man to stoop to this level would mean that he had reached the very bottom of the barrel. You can only imagine the reaction of the Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking.
To suggest that a Jew had resorted to not only feeding pigs, but even wanted to eat the swill he was feeding to them, was an outrageous thing to say.
But this is how far his sin had taken him. He has no home, no help and no hope. No one cares for him, he is starving and would have eaten the pigs’ food if he could. He is suffering because of the choices he has made. No one cares whether he lives or dies. He is alone, he is hungry, and he is broken.
But this is when the story begins to turn.
Brokenness, and facing the consequences of his bad choices were the first steps in getting him home. Someone said that no-one ever wandered off into sin and came back glad they did. They all returned broken, defeated and humbled, but at least they came home.
The first step in getting out of sin is to realise that we are in sin in the first place. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That is the first step, the first realisation we have to reach on the path to repentance, forgiveness and restoration.
The son makes up his mind to go home. He misses home. He misses his father, and he wants to return to where he can be loved and cared for, but of course, he is full of remorse because of the way he’s made a mess of his life.
Before, he didn’t want to be under the father’s authority, but now he is willing to be a slave, if that is what it takes to go back home.
And so the son returns home. He doesn’t know what awaits him. He may be rejected, he may be humiliated, he may even be put to death, but he has reached the point where he has nowhere else to turn.
Incredibly, He found a father who had been waiting and longing for his return. He found a father filled with love, compassion and grace who received him and loved him back into his family. He didn’t even let his son finish his little speech. He just loved him back into a right relationship.
In those days, especially with the long, flowing robes that men wore, it was considered undignified for a man to run, so why did the father in the parable run to the son and embrace him?
This is such an important detail in the story. It is because God runs to meet the sinner to quickly extend mercy and prevent any further danger. Remember that the neighbours, who were fully aware of what had happened, would have been not only within their rights, but bound by the law to stone this young man as soon as they realised just who this was shuffling along the road, so the father gathered up his robes and ran towards him and embraced him. If they had thrown stones, they would have hit the father first.
What happened at Calvary? Jesus puts Himself between us and the wrath of the Father. He comes to us and protects us, while at the same time He is our atoning sacrifice. At the cross the rocks were still thrown, so to speak, but they were thrown at Christ, not us. That is what the Gospel and the doctrine of justification is all about. As Jesus faces the full fury of God’s righteous anger at our sin, He protects us from that wrath, while at the same time He clothes us with His righteousness.
The son, as he returned home, stood in the rags of his sins. He doesn’t look like a child of the father, but his father orders the best of his robes to be brought and to be put on him.
This robe covered the stains and dirt of the pigsty. It made him look like his father once more. The robe he had been given erased all the signs of his sinful past.
As Jesus bore your sins on the cross and clothed you in His own righteousness, the signs of your sins were erased.
When a lost sinner comes home, they receive a robe from the heavenly Father.
When we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, all the pain and the stain of our past is washed away forever.
After the robe came the ring. The ring was a symbol of sonship and authority. The one with the ring could speak for the father. The one wearing the ring had access to all that belonged to the father.
When lost sinners repent of their sins and come home to the Father, they are given the great privilege of being recognised as His sons. They are given the privilege of speaking on behalf of the Father, and they are given access to all that belongs to the Father. When we come to the Father, He opens the storehouses of His grace and gives us everything He has.
Then the father calls for shoes to be brought for his son. Only the slaves went barefoot. Sons wore shoes.
This young man was prepared to be made a slave, but the father recognised his position as a son.
When you are saved by grace, you became a child of God. If you have believed, repented and accepted salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, then you need to know this: You are a son or a daughter of the King, and this is why Heaven rejoices as Jesus finds and restores the lost.