XIX. THE RICH FOOL.

 XIX.
THE RICH FOOL.

“And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”—Luke xii. 16–21.

In regard to the matter in dispute between himself and his brother, this man probably had both an honest purpose and a righteous cause. For aught that we know to the contrary, he may have been violently or fraudulently deprived of his share in the inheritance of the family. In the answer of the Lord there is not a word that calls in question the justice of his claim. The question of right and wrong as between the brothers does not constitute an element of the case as it is presented to us; it is intentionally and completely omitted. Dishonesty is a simpler affair, and can be settled in very few words. Elsewhere  it is disposed of in a very brief sentence,—“Thou shalt not steal.” But here a far more subtle sin is analyzed and exposed. The lesson is not, Take heed and beware of Injustice; but, “Take heed and beware of Covetousness.” The warning is directed not against the sin of obtaining wealth by unjust means, but against the sin of setting the heart upon wealth, by what means soever it may have been obtained: this reproof was doubtless a word more in season for the assembly of well-conducted Jews who listened that day to the preaching of Jesus, as it is a word more in season for the members of Christian Churches in this land, than an exhortation to beware of theft.

The appeal so inopportunely made, shows incidentally that the people had begun to look on Jesus as a prophet, and to pay great deference to his word. Had he not been already in some sense recognised as an authority, this man would not have applied to him for relief. He was well aware that Jesus of Nazareth could bring no civil constraint to bear upon his brother; it was the moral influence of the prophet’s word that he counted on as the means of accomplishing his purpose: “Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.” He had, perhaps, observed an amazing effect produced by a word from those meek lips; he had, perhaps, himself seen wicked men subdued by it, and heard from others that it had silenced a stormy sea. He may have marked its power in healing the sick and raising the dead. Forthwith he conceived the plan of enlisting this mysterious and mighty word on his own side of a family quarrel. If that word, he thought within himself, were exerted in my behalf, it would induce my brother to give to me the half or the third of the paternal estate, which I claim as my right.

 We cannot cast the first stone at this poor simpleton, who had no other use for the Redeemer’s word than to gain by means of it a few more acres of the earth for himself: in every age, some men may be found who hang on the skirts of the Church for the sake of some immediate temporal benefit. Nor is it difficult to understand the phenomenon: “No man can serve two masters;” practically each chooses one, and in the main serves him faithfully. If Christ is chosen as Lord and Master, Mammon and all other things are compelled to serve: if Mammon is chosen and seated on the throne, he will not scruple to lay heaven and earth under contribution for the advancement of his designs;—Mammon, when master, will take even the word of Christ and employ it as an instrument wherewith he may rake his rags together.

How simple and helpless is the man who has allowed wealth to become his chief good! Here is an example of ungodly simplicity. Without any apprehension of a reproof from the Lord or his disciples, the poor man betrays all: in the public assembly he unwittingly turns his own heart inside out. Instead of addressing to the preacher the question, What must I do to be saved? showing that the truth had taken effect on his conscience, he preferred a request regarding a disputed property, showing that while the words of Jesus fell on his ears, his heart was going after its covetousness. He attended to the sermon for the purpose of watching when it should be done, that he might then do a stroke of business.

We must not too complacently congratulate ourselves on our superior privileges and more reverent habits. If those who wait upon the ministry of the word in our day were as simple as this man was, some requests savouring as much of the earth as his would be preferred at the  close of the solemnity. If human breasts were transparent, and the thoughts that throng them patent to the public gaze, many heads would hang down.

From this untimely and intensely earthly interruption the parable springs: thus the Lord makes the covetousness as well as the wrath of man to praise him, and restrains the remainder thereof. A fissure has been made in the mountain by some pent-up internal fire that forced its way out, and rent the rock in its outgoing; in that rent a tree may now be seen blooming and bearing fruit, while all the rest of the mountain-side is bare. “Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came forth sweetness.” This word of Jesus that liveth and abideth for ever is a green and fruitful tree to-day; but it was the outbursting of a scathing, scorching covetousness that formed the cavity, and supplied the soil in which the tree might grow.

“The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully,” &c.

The ground was his own: no law, human or divine, challenged his right. The ground was eminently fruitful; the unconscious earth gave forth its riches, making no distinction between one who used it well and one who abused it. On the fields of the covetous man the rain fell and the sun shone: God makes his sun to shine on the evil and on the good. It is not here—it is not now that he judges the world in righteousness. He giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.

Mark now what effect the profusion of nature and the beneficence of God produced on the mind of this prosperous man. It set him a thinking: so far, so good. The expression in the original indicates a dialogue, and a dialogue is a discourse maintained between two. Dialogue  is, indeed, the original word transferred bodily into the English language: διελογιζετο εν ἑαυτῳ—he dialogued in himself: his soul and he held a conversation on the subject. This was a proper course. When riches increase it is right and necessary to hold a consultation with one’s own soul regarding them: in like manner, also, when riches take themselves wings and fly away, a conversation between the same parties should take place regarding their escape.

He said, “What shall I do, I have no room where to bestow my fruits?” The process advances most hopefully: hitherto, no fault can be found with this man’s conduct. So great had been his prosperity that he was at a loss for storage. His cup was not only full, but running over, and so running waste; his solicitude now turned upon the question how he might profitably dispose of the surplus. Taking it for granted, as any sensible man in the circumstances would, that something should be done, he puts the question, “What shall I do?” A right question, addressed to the proper person, himself. No other person was so well qualified to answer it,—no other person understood the case, or possessed authority to determine it.

Listen now to the answer: “He said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater,” &c. This is the turning-point, and on it the poor man turns aside into error. When God’s goodness was showered upon him in such abundance, he should have opened his treasures and permitted them to flow: for this end his riches had been bestowed upon him. When rain from heaven has filled a basin on the mountain-top, the reservoir overflows, and so sends down a stream to refresh the valley below: it is for similar purposes that God in his providential government  fills the cup of those who stand on the high places of the earth—that they may distribute the blessing among those who occupy a lower place in the scale of prosperity.

But self was this man’s pole star: he cared for himself, and for none besides. Self was his god; for to please himself was practically the chief end of his existence. He proposed to pull down his barns, and build a larger storehouse on the site, in order that he might be able to hoard his increasing treasures. The method that this ancient Jewish self-seeker adopted is rude and unskilful. We understand better the principles of finance, and enjoy more facilities for profitably investing our savings: but the two antagonist principles retain their respective characters under all changes of external circumstances—the principle of selfishness and the principle of benevolence; the one gathers in, the other spreads out.

The method of reserving all for self, is as unsuccessful as it is unamiable: it cannot succeed. The man who should hoard in his own granary all the corn of Egypt, could not eat more of it than a poor labourer—probably not so much. It is only a very small portion of their wealth that the rich can spend directly on their own personal comfort and pleasure: the remainder becomes, according to the character of the possessor, either a burden which he is compelled to bear, or a store whence he daily draws the luxury of doing good.

The dialogue proceeds: the man has something more to say to his soul: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years,” &c. He counts on riches and time as if both were his own, and at his disposal. The big barn is not yet built; the golden grain that shall fill it has not yet been sown: and even although no accident should mar the material portion of the plan, how shall he secure  the “many years” that constitute its essence on the other side? Does he keep Time under lock and key in his storehouse, that he may at pleasure draw as much as he requires? Many years! These years lie in the future,—that is, in the unseen eternity. They are at God’s right hand—they are not within your reach. Why do you permit an uncertain element to go into the foundation of your hope?

There is, indeed, nothing strange here. It is according to law: those who are taught of the Spirit understand it well. The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not. “Thou hast goods laid up for many years! take thine ease, soul; eat, drink, and be merry!” What simplicity is here! The case is in degree extreme; the letters are written large that even indifferent scholars may be able to read the lesson; but the same spiritual malady, in some of its forms and degrees, is still epidemic in the world: those are least exposed to infection who have their treasures laid up at God’s right hand.

It is a useful though a trite remark, that there is great stupidity in the proposal to lay up in a barn the portion of a soul. The soul, when it is hungry, cannot feed on musty grain. Material treasures cannot save a soul from death. The representation in the parable, however, is true to nature and fact: it would be a mistake to attribute to a miser a high appreciation of the dignity of man. Covetousness, in its more advanced stages, eats the pith out of the understanding, and leaves its victim almost fatuous.

This man, in a dialogue with his own soul, had settled matters according to his own mind. The two had agreed together that they would have a royal time on earth, and a long one. The whole business was comfortably arranged. But at this stage another interlocutor, whom they  had not invited, breaks in upon the colloquy: “God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then, whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?” This is the writing on the wall that puts an end to Belshazzar’s feast, and turns his mirth into terror.

The terms run literally, “Unwise, this night they demand from thee thy soul.” Those ministering angels and providential laws, represented by the drawers of the net in another parable, to whom the Supreme Governor has committed the task of gathering gradually the generations of men from this sea of time, and casting them for judgment on the borders of eternity—those ministering spirits, and principles pervading nature, arrive in their course this night at your door, and send the message into the midst of the merry festival, The master of this house is wanted immediately; he must arise and go, in obedience to the summons; he can neither resist nor delay. He may weep, tremble, rage; but he must go, and go on the instant. It is not the whole man, but only his soul that is wanted: his body will be left behind. But the body, though left behind, cannot claim, cannot use the goods. When the soul is summoned over into eternity, it cannot carry the hoarded treasures with itself, and the body left behind has no further use for them. A grave to rest in while it returns to dust is all that the body needs or gets; and the deserted wealth must advertise for an owner—whose shall it be?

Our Lord Jesus has spoken these piercing words, not for the sake of the pain which they are fitted to inflict. He is the Healer68 of diseased humanity, and when he  makes an incision he means to cure. This sharp instrument, at whose glance we wince and shrink precisely in proportion to the measure of our malady, he wields for the purpose of piercing the deadly tumour, and so saving the threatened life. “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (ver. 15); and the man who places his life therein, loses his life. That is not his life; and if he take that for his life, he is cheated: when a merchant has given all for what seemed a goodly pearl, he has not another fortune in reserve wherewith to begin anew, if that for which he paid all his possessions turns out to be a worthless toy of glass. Our time, our life—this is our fortune, on which we trade for the better world: if these be spent,—be thrown away for what is not life, then life is lost.

Riches are truly enjoyed when they are wisely employed in doing good; but hoarded as the portion of their possessor, they burden him while they remain his, and rend him at the parting.

By way of contrast, the Lord mentions another kind of treasure, which satisfies now, and lasts for ever. Those who are “rich toward God,” are rich indeed, and all besides are poor: and this wealth is, in Christ, offered free,—offered to all.

Seeing that an evil spirit possessed this man, the Lord in mercy applied his word to cast the evil spirit out, and make room for his own indwelling. When the spirit of the world refuses to go out at his word, he sometimes interferes as Ruler in providence, and tears out the intruder by his mighty hand: the kingdom of heaven that is “within you” also suffereth violence; and He who is most mighty comes sometimes with merciful strokes to take it by force. “Even so: come, Lord Jesus.”
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 XX.
THE BARREN FIG-TREE.

“There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.”—Luke xiii. 1–9.

 The Lord expressly denied the truth of their silent, hidden inference, and fortified his teaching by reference to another analogous case,—the sudden death of some men through the fall of a tower. Leaving untouched the general doctrine that mankind suffer for sin, he clearly and emphatically teaches, that particular calamities do not measure or prove the particular guilt of those who suffer in them. Otherwise, it is obvious that God’s government begins and ends in this life; there is neither the necessity nor the evidence of a judgment to come. He indicated to the Jews that the sudden and unexpected destruction of those sacrificing Galileans, was but an emblem of the sudden and unexpected destruction that would overtake themselves if they were not converted in time, and shielded in mercy from the judgment that sin entailed. To repeat, expand, and enforce this lesson the parable is spoken: “He spake also this parable,”—the similitude is given in addition to the more direct instruction which had gone before, and for the same purpose.

“A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard.” This was not a seedling that had sprung accidentally within the fences of the vineyard, and through carelessness been permitted to grow: the language is precise, and indicates that the fig tree had been planted within the vineyard by a deliberate act of the owner. The husbandman planted the fig-tree that he might enjoy its fruit; and in order more effectually to secure his object, he selected for the tree the most favourable position. It is obvious both from the structure and design of the parable that the position of the fig-tree was the best that it could possibly have obtained.

In countries where the vine is cultivated, not by a few wealthy proprietors with a view to an export trade, but  by each family on a small scale with a view to the food of the household, to plant some fruit trees of other kinds within the same enclosure is the rule rather than the exception. The vineyard is not the luxury of the few, but a common necessity of life with the many. It becomes the most cherished possession of the permanent rural population. Its aspect is sunward, its soil is good, its fences are in order. Within this favoured spot the owner is willing to make room for one or more fig-trees, for the sake of the fruit which in such favourable circumstances he expects them to bear.69

When the tree had reached maturity the owner expected that it should bear fruit; but that year, the next, and a third it continued barren. Having waited a reasonable time, he gave orders that it should be destroyed; since it produced nothing, he desired to utilize in another way the portion of ground which it occupied.

The dresser of the vineyard is a person who has the entire charge, subject to the general instructions of the proprietor. He has long occupied this position, and is acquainted with the fig-tree from its infancy; he knows it, as a shepherd in a similarly primitive state of society knows his sheep. He has formed for it a species of attachment; and a sentiment akin to compassion springs up in his heart, when he hears its sentence pronounced. “Woodman, spare that tree,” is a species of intercession thoroughly natural and human.

The intercession of the dresser, however, is not sentiment  merely; it is sentiment completely directed and controlled by just reason. He does not plead for the indefinite prolongation of a useless existence. He asks only another year of trial: he intends and promises to take in the interval the most energetic measures for stimulating the barren tree into fruitfulness. If under these appliances it bear fruit, he knows the owner will gladly permit it to retain its place; if not, he will abandon it to the fate which it deserves and invites.

No peculiar difficulty attends the exposition of this parable: the main features of its meaning are so distinctly marked, that it is hardly possible to miss them. The lesson is easily read; and when read, it is unspeakably solemn and tender.

God is the owner of the vineyard and the fig-tree within its walls. Abraham’s seed, natural and mystical, are the fig-tree; and the Mediator between God and man is the Dresser of the vineyard, the intercessor for the barren tree. These points are all so obvious that there can hardly be any difference of opinion regarding them. One point remains, demanding some explanation indeed, but presenting very little difficulty,—the vineyard. The fig-tree was planted within the vineyard, and what is the doctrine indicated by this circumstance in the material frame of the parable? The suggestion that the vineyard means the world, in the midst of which Israel were planted, although supported by some honoured names, does not merit much consideration. In no sense is there any likeness between the vineyard and the world. The essential circumstances involved in the fact that the fig-tree grew within the vineyard are, that in soil, south exposure, care and defence, it was placed in the best possible position for bearing fruit. The one  fact that it was planted in the vineyard indicates, and was obviously intended to indicate, that the owner had done the best for his fig-tree. The meaning is precisely the same as that which is more fully expressed in the analogous parable: “Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard,” &c. (Isa. v. 1–7). In the prophet’s allegory, while in general the vineyard represents the house of Israel, the vine trees more specifically represent the people, and south exposure, soil, care, and defence, represent the peculiar providence and grace of God displayed in their history and institutions. “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant” (ver. 7); the plants represent the men, and all that the proprietor did in their behalf represents the goodness of God to Israel in redeeming them from bondage and giving them his covenant. On the same principle in our parable the fig-tree represents the people who were favoured, and the advantages of the vineyard represent the privileges which the people enjoyed. The intimation that this barren fig-tree grew within a vineyard, is a short method of informing us that it enjoyed a position on a very fruitful hill, and was there fenced, watched, and watered with the most patient care. Now, obviously, none of these things, in their spiritual signification, were enjoyed by Israel simply in virtue of their existence in this world. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Persians were placed in the world too, and yet they enjoyed no peculiar privileges,—could not be compared to a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. This feature of the parable, so far from merely intimating that Israel were placed in the world, teaches us that they were separated from it; they were protected by special providences in their history, and cherished by  the ordinances of grace. The place of the fig-tree within the vineyard indicates that the people to whom God looked in vain for the fruits of righteousness, were distinguished from the nations by the peculiar religious privileges which they enjoyed: the favourable circumstances of the tree aggravated the guilt of its barrenness.

Three successive years the owner came seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and found none. In regard to the specified period of three years, I do not think we gain much by a particular reference to the well-known natural process by which the fig develops simultaneously the fruit of this season and the germs of the next; for we do not know in this case whether the germs were never formed, or fell off before they reached maturity. I am not able to perceive that the number three has any necessary reference to the peculiarities of the fig; I think the same number would have been employed for the purposes of the spiritual lesson, although a fruit tree of another species had been taken as an example. Three years was a reasonable period for the owner to wait, that he might neither on the one hand rashly cut down a tree that might soon have become profitable, nor on the other permit a hopelessly barren tree indefinitely to occupy a position which might otherwise be turned to good account.

While the lesson of the parable bears upon the Church at large, both in ancient and modern times, it is to individuals that it can be most safely and most profitably applied. Most certainly we enjoy at this day the advantages set forth under the figure of the favoured fig-tree. Besides the life and faculties which we possess in common with others, we have spiritual privileges which are peculiar to ourselves. Civil and religious liberty, the Scriptures, the Sabbath, the Church, place us in the  position of the fig-tree within the vineyard, while other nations are more or less like a tree rooted in the sand, or exposed on the wayside. The God in whom we live has conferred these advantages upon us, that we might bear fruit unto holiness; and if we remain barren, notwithstanding all his kindness, he will give forth the decree to cut us down. In some he finds bad fruit, and in some no fruit, and even in the best, little fruit. He has not cast out the unfruitful, but has tenderly spared them.

As the fig-tree greedily drank in the riches of earth and air, and wasted all in leaves, so the unconverted in a land of Christian light enjoy God’s goodness and employ it in ministering only to their own pleasures. The line of justice, stretched to the utmost,—to the utmost and more, snaps asunder at last: the sentence goes forth, Cut the barren tree down, and cast it out. This is the doom which guilt deserves and justice proclaims: if the sinful were under a government of mere righteousness, it would be inexorably executed upon all.

Here is the turning point: here an intercessor appears,—an Intercessor who cares for man and prevails with God. The first part of his plea is, Spare: he appeals for a respite of definite and limited duration,—one year: less would not afford an opportunity for amendment, and more would in the circumstances confer a bounty on idleness. All who have under the Gospel reached the age of understanding, and are still living without God in the world, enjoy the present respite in virtue of Christ’s compassionate intercession. If that Mediator had never taken up the case, or should now abandon it, the sentence already pronounced would descend like the laws of nature and inexorably execute itself. It is Christ’s intercession  alone, that stands between the unpardoned on earth, and the punishment which is their due.70

But the Intercessor does more than secure for the sinful a space for repentance: He who obtains the respite takes means to render it effectual. The two chief applications employed in husbandry to stimulate growth and fruitfulness are digging and manuring: these accordingly the dresser of the vineyard undertakes to apply in the interval to the barren fig-tree. I think something may be gained here by descending into the particulars. One of these agricultural operations imparts to the tree the elements of fruitfulness, and the other enables the tree to make these elements its own. Digging gives nothing to the tree; but it makes openings whereby gifts from another quarter may become practically available. The manure contains the food which the plant must receive, and assimilate, and convert into fruit; but if the hardened earth were not made loose by digging, the needed aliment would never reach its destination.

Similar processes are applied in the spiritual culture: certain diggings take place around and among the roots of barren souls, as well as of barren fig-trees. Bereavements and trials of various kinds strike and rend; but these cannot by themselves renew and sanctify. They may give pain, but cannot impart fertility: the spirit much distressed may be as unfruitful as the spirits that are at ease in Zion. These rendings, however, are most precious as the means of opening a way whereby the elements of spiritual life conveyed by the word and the Spirit may reach their destination. The Lord who pours  in the food for the sustenance of a soul, stirs that soul by his providence, so that grace may reach the root and be taken in. As the constituents of fruit, held in solution by air and water, cannot freely reach the plant whose roots lie under a long unbroken and indurated soil, so the grace of God contained in the preached Gospel is kept at bay by a carnal mind and a seared conscience. It is when afflictions rend the heart, as a ploughshare tears up the ground, that the elements of life long offered are at length received. It is thus that providence and grace conspire to achieve the purpose of God in the salvation of men. In this work mercy and judgment meet; and saved sinners, on earth and in heaven, put both together in their song of praise (Ps. ci. 1.)

But a feature appears in the close, well fitted to arouse those who have hitherto presumed upon impunity and neglected Christ. Even this kind Intercessor does not propose that the unfruitful tree should be allowed indefinitely to maintain its place without changing its character: He spontaneously concedes that if this trial prove ineffectual, justice must take its course; “After that thou shalt cut it down.” When Jesus lets a sinner go, who shall take him up? But there is love even in this last stern word. Love intercedes for a time of trial,—an opportunity of turning; and love, too, after securing sufficient opportunity, lets go its hold and leaves all hopeless beyond. It is the terrible concession, “thou shalt cut it down,” issuing from the Intercessor’s lips, that gives power to the invitation, “Now is the accepted time.” To warn me now that if I let the day of grace run waste, even Jesus on the morrow of the judgment will not plead for me any more, is surely the most effectual means of urging me to close with his offer to-day.
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 XXI.
THE EXCUSES.

“Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.”—Luke xiv. 16–24.

Touched by the solemn teaching of the Lord Jesus, one of the company, well-meaning, but dim and confused  in his conceptions, made the remark, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” Observing that this man and the Pharisees around him were clinging to the notion that to be invited to enter the kingdom is the same thing as to be in it, he spoke the parable to point out the difference, and to show that the invitation will only aggravate the doom of those who refuse to comply with it. He intends to teach the Jews, and through them to teach us, that those who are near the kingdom may in the end come short of it—that those who stand high in spiritual privileges may be excluded—may exclude themselves from the kingdom of God.

Both in the natural objects employed, and the spiritual lessons which they convey, there is, at some points, a marked resemblance between this parable and that of the royal marriage; but the two, though similar, are manifestly distinct.

“A certain man made a great supper and bade many.” In this case it is not a king but a person in a private station who provides the feast; and the occasion of the rejoicing is not the marriage of the entertainer’s son. It is an ordinary example of hospitality exercised by an affluent citizen.

Both here and in the analogous parable of the royal marriage it is assumed, as at least not altogether incongruous with custom, that invitations should be issued some days before, and that the invited guests should a second time be warned by a messenger to repair to the banqueting house when the time drew near. This summons to attend immediately was sent out at supper time. We know that the term δειπνον was in ancient times employed generally to signify the principal meal, without reference to a particular period of the day; and, from the  circumstances of this case, it plainly appears that the feast was a dinner at an early hour, and not a supper in our sense of the word. At the moment when the warning reached him, the man who had bought a field intended to go and see it, and the man who had bought five yoke of oxen intended on that same afternoon to try whether they would go well in harness; these excuses, although not sincere, must in the nature of the case have appeared plausible, and consequently the feast must have been ready at an early hour of the day.

It is implied that these men had tacitly, or in some other well-understood way, accepted the first invitation. They gave no intimation that they intended to decline—they gave the provider of the feast reason to expect their presence. Probably they were well pleased to be invited; if they met any of their poorer neighbours in the interval, it is probable they would take occasion to show their own importance. These common people in the town, and these labourers in the country, are not admitted as we are into good society. When the moment arrived they were unwilling; or rather they were so intently occupied with their own affairs, that the attractions of the feast were not powerful enough to tear them away.

“With one consent” they all made excuses. The servant saw them separately and received their answers. There is no reason to believe that they met together and framed a plan to insult their entertainer. They acted all on the same method, although they did not act in concert. The creatures were of one kind, and though they answered separately they answered similarly. Off one carnal instinct—απο μιας (γνωμης)—the excuses were taken, and accordingly, although spoken by different persons,  and moulded by different circumstances, they were all of the same type.

The first had bought a field and must go to examine his bargain; the second had bought live stock for his farm and must see them tried immediately; the third had married a wife, and held himself absolved for the time from the ordinary rules of society. They are fair samples of the things that occupy and engross men’s hearts and lives.

The servant, having no authority to act, simply reported the facts to his master. The master was angry, and immediately invited all the poor of the neighbourhood to the feast. When many of the most destitute had assembled, the householder, not satisfied as long as there was room at the table, and a poor man within reach to occupy it, sent out another message still more pressing, to sweep into the feast all the homeless wanderers that could be found, the very dregs and outcasts of society. Satisfied when his house at length was filled, the owner announced that none of those who had made light of his invitation should now be permitted to partake of the feast.

We are now ready to examine more directly the spiritual meaning of the parable, and as the lesson is in the main coincident with that of the royal marriage in its earlier portion, a brief exposition will suffice.

In the Gospel, God has provided a great feast. Israel, or his Church at any period, are a privileged class, and enjoy, through his sovereign goodness, a perpetual invitation,—a standing right. The charge which the parable brings against this privileged people is, that they were satisfied with the honour of being invited, and refused actually to comply with the invitation. They were  content with their name and their outward privileges, and would not in their own hearts and lives obey the Gospel; clinging to the form of godliness, they peremptorily denied its power. Not they who are invited, but they who partake of the feast, are blessed. To get the first invitation will be not a blessing but an aggravation of guilt, if you despise the Giver and refuse his gifts. The last invited shall be first in ultimate position if they accept the invitation, and the first invited will be last and lowest if they refuse to comply: the condition of men, ultimately, turns not on pardon to them offered, but on pardon by them received.

The servant obviously represents the ministry of the Gospel in every form and in all times. The message is addressed in the first instance to them “that were bidden.” The Gospel was not first proclaimed to the heathen: begin at Jerusalem was the Master’s command, and that command was fulfilled in spirit and letter by his servants. To the lost sheep of the House of Israel the Lord came in person, and to them the apostles addressed their Lord’s words at the beginning of their ministry. The history of the event in the Acts of the Apostles corresponds exactly with the prophetic delineation in this parable: it was when the Jews rejected the Gospel, that the messengers turned to the Gentiles.

The invitation addressed to the favoured circle first is, “Come, for all things are now ready;” all preceding dispensations were a preparation for Christ. When the fulness of time had come, those who had been all along brought up within the lines of the privileged people, were invited to behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. This is repeated in the experience of every generation, and every individual, that  grows up within the circle of Christian ordinances, as soon as the mind comprehends the message of mercy. As each attains maturity, he is informed that all things are now ready; he is invited and pressed to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that he may be saved.

To “make excuse,” does not here mean to invent an excuse, and falsely state, as a reason, that which is, in point of fact, not the motive of the act. To make excuse, both in the original Greek παραιτεισθαι and in the English translation, signifies simply to plead to be excused. The grounds on which the plea is urged, may in any case be true or false; but in this case, it is highly probable that the grounds stated were in themselves facts, and that they were, in part at least, the true grounds of refusal. Whether the first would have gone to the feast, if he had not at that time bought a property, we do not certainly know. A man who is intensely unwilling to go, when one reason fails, will find or make another; but in this case, the probability is, that anxiety to see his purchase was the real, or at least, a real obstacle. The same observation is applicable to the other two examples.

But although we concede that the obstacles are real, we do not thereby help the case of those who neglect the Gospel; we must go one step deeper into the strata of deceit that are piled over each other in a human heart. A secret unwillingness to partake of the feast may induce the invited to time his purchases, so that he may have a good excuse at hand, or at least to abstain from effort to regulate the incidence of other cares, so as to leave a time of leisure for the great concern. Here in the highest matters, as elsewhere in lower, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” If the desire were pure and true,—the  desire to attend the Giver, and receive his unspeakable gift, the field may be inspected and the oxen proved early in the morning, or postponed till the following day. Without supposing a conscious falsehood representing that transactions which had no existence stood in the way, you have the evil in all its bulk and all its virulence, when the deceitful heart tries to persuade neighbours, and to persuade itself, that the emerging necessities of earthly business interfered with the waiting on Christ for the salvation of the soul.

We might be put on our guard against this species of deceit in the highest matters, by observing how readily we glide into it, in things of smaller moment. Deceits of every shade, from the lie direct to the most attenuated equivocation, spring in the complicated intercourse of modern society, like weeds in a moist summer on a fallow field. Assuredly, unless our hand be diligent in digging out these bitter roots, we shall not grow rich in the graces of the Spirit. You are invited to a neighbour’s house: you don’t like to go, and you determine that you will not go. Forthwith your wits go to work to discover an excuse, and you soon find that which you seek for: you must travel on business that day; or some other excuse equally convenient and plausible occurs. You are invited to the house of another neighbour; difficulties unforeseen spring up; but being bent on accepting this invitation, you brush them all aside, and contrive to reserve the evening for the company that you love. There is much danger of staining the conscience in affairs like these. The Lord requires truth in the inward parts: watch and pray. But the difficulty of the path should not make any disciple sad: the effort to walk circumspectly, when  honestly, prayerfully, lovingly made, is pleasant and healthful exercise to the spirit.

Neither on the natural nor on the spiritual side does the expression, “with one consent,” intimate that the parties met and consulted together regarding the terms of their answers. As birds of the same species build their nests of the same material and the same form, without deliberation or concert; so the carnal mind, being in its own nature enmity against God, produces, wherever it operates, substantially the same fruits. In an alienated heart there is an intense unwillingness to be or to abide near to God; and there is, consequently, great fecundity in the conception and production of partition walls to shield the conscience from the glances of his holiness.

The three species71 of thorns that grew up and choked the word in this instance, are fair specimens of their class—fair samples from the heap. These and such as these slay their thousands still in the Christian Church. At this point, however, it is of very great importance to observe that all the transactions which are represented in the parable as having come between a sinner and the Saviour, are in themselves lawful; to overlook this would be to miss half the value of the lesson. In point of fact acts and habits of positive vice keep many back from the Gospel; but it is not with these cases that the parable deals—it is not to these persons that the Lord is here addressing his reproof. Everything in its own place and time; the lesson here is not, “A drunkard shall not inherit the kingdom,”  but “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” When the material of the temptation is lawful and honourable the temptation is less suspected, and the tempted is more easily thrown off his guard. The field and the oxen must be bought and used; the affections of the family must be cherished; but woe to us if we permit these seemly plants to grow so rank that the soul’s life shall be overlaid beneath their weight!

The mission of the servants successively to the streets and lanes of the city, and to the highways and hedges, with the urgent invitation to poor labourers and homeless beggars, the maimed, the halt, and the blind, is a vivid picture, given in prophecy, of what the Gospel of Christ does and will do in the world till the end of time. When many, and these the most wretched, are brought in redeemed and sanctified, the Lord is not satisfied; yet there is room, and the servants must go forth again to new, and if possible, more needy objects, with new, and if possible, more urgent appeals. “Whosoever will, let him come.” It is thus that the numbers are filled up in the kingdom of God; but let it be well observed that to be in a spiritually wretched state does not confer a favour or imply safety. These men were saved, not because they were spiritually very low, but although they were spiritually very low: they were saved, although the chief of sinners, because Christ invited them, and they came at his call. The more moral, and more privileged, who were first invited, would have been as welcome and as safe if they had come.
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 THE LOST SHEEP, THE LOST COIN, AND
THE PRODIGAL SON.

Luke xv.

The three parables, then, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son, refer all to the same subject and describe the same fact; they contemplate that fact, however, from opposite sides, and produce, accordingly, different pictures. It is important to notice at this stage that the three parables of this group do not constitute a  consecutive series of three members. In the logical scheme the stem parts into two branches, and the first of these is afterwards subdivided also into two: the lost sheep and the lost coin contemplate the subject from the same side, and in the main present the same representation.72

The repetition is profitable, for besides the intensity which reiteration imparts, the two parables, although generically the same, are specifically different. Together they represent one side of the fall and the redemption of man, while the other and opposite side is represented by the parable of the prodigal. But while the first two represent the same aspect of the great event, they represent it with specific varieties of feature. This will be more distinctly understood when we shall have examined the parables in detail.

In further indicating the relations which subsist between the two portions of the group, I shall, for the sake of shortness, speak only of the lost sheep and the prodigal, including under the first term also its twin parable of the lost money.

The sin and the salvation of man,—the fall and the rising again, considered as one whole, is here contemplated successively from two different, and in some respects opposite points of view. As the result, we obtain  two very dissimilar pictures; yet the pictures are both true, and both represent the same object.

In as far as the departure is concerned, the two representations are coincident: it is only in regard to the return that they are essentially diverse. The sheep and the prodigal alike depart of their own accord, the one in ignorance and the other in wilful wickedness. Man destroys himself; but the hand of God must intervene for his salvation.73

The conversion of a sinner is, on the contrary, represented by two different pictures. You cannot convey a correct conception of a solid body by one picture on a flat surface. The globe itself, for example, cannot be exhibited on a map except as two distinct hemispheres. To the right you have a representation of one side, and to the left a representation of the other; the two pictures are different, and yet each, as far as it goes, is a true picture of the same globe. In like manner, the way of a sinner’s return to God is too great and deep for being fully set forth in one similitude. In particular its aspect towards God and its aspect towards men are so diverse that both cannot be represented by one figure. On one side the Redeemer goes spontaneously forth to seek and bear back again the lost; on the other side the wanderer repents, arises, and returns. Here, accordingly, you see the shepherd following the strayed sheep, and bringing it back on his shoulders to the fold; and there you see the weary prodigal first coming to himself, and then coming to his Father. The first picture shows the sovereign self-moving love of God  our Saviour; and the second shows the beginning, the progress, and the result of repentance in a sinner’s heart.

These two similitudes represent one transaction: first, you are permitted to look upon it from above, and you behold the working of divine compassion; next, you are permitted to look upon it from below, and you behold the struggle of conviction in a sinner’s conscience,—the spontaneous return of a repenting man. Here is revealed the sovereign outgoing of divine power; and there in consequence appears a willing people (Ps. cx. 3). It is not that one sinner is brought back by Christ, and another returns of his own accord: both features are present in every example. Of every one who, from this fallen world, shall have entered the eternal rest, it may be said, and will be said in the songs of heaven, both that the Lord his Redeemer, of His own mere mercy, saved him, and that he spontaneously came back to his Father’s bosom and his Father’s house.74

 It is proper to notice here also the immediate occasion in our Lord’s history whence these instructions sprung, as it belongs not particularly to the first parable, but generally to the whole group. This spark of heavenly light, like many others of similar beauty, has been struck off for us by a rude blow which the Jewish leaders aimed against the character and authority of Jesus. The publicans and sinners of the place,—the home-heathen of the day,—the people whether rich or poor, who had neither the power of religion in their hearts nor the profession of it on their lips,—came out in great numbers to hear this new prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. The word was new: “never man spake like this man” to these poor outcasts before. If at any time they sauntered into the synagogue, and hovered for a few moments on the outskirts of the congregation, the stray words that reached their ears from the desk of the presiding scribe, were harsh supercilious denunciations of themselves and their class. Hitherto their hearts had been like clay, and the Pharisaic teaching, as far as it had reached them, had been like fire: the clay in this furnace grew aye the harder. But now a new sound from the lips of a public teacher saluted their ears. They could not throw these words back in the speaker’s face, if they would; and they would not if they could. They permitted themselves to  be taken, and led. To them Jesus speaks “with authority, and not as the scribes.” This word had power; and its power lay in its tenderness: it went sheer through their stony hearts, and made them flow down like water.

Nor did he gain favour among unholy men by making their sins seem lighter than the scribes represented them to be: he made them heavier. He did not convey to the profane and worldly the conception that their sins were easily forgiven; but he fixed in their hearts the impression that God is a great forgiver. Touched and won by this unwonted tenderness, they came in clouds to sit at Jesus’ feet.

The Pharisees counted their presence a blemish in the reputation of the teacher. As for them, they had always so spoken as to keep people of that sort effectually at a distance: the doctrine, they think, that brings them round the preacher cannot be sound. “This man,” they said, “receiveth sinners and eateth with them;” and they said no more, for they imagined that Jesus was convicted and condemned by the fact.

The occasion of the parables becomes in a great measure the key to their meaning. These men, the publicans and sinners, are Abraham’s seed, and consequently, even according to the showing of the Pharisees themselves, lost sheep,—prodigal sons; and the Redeemer’s errand from heaven to earth is to seek and find and bring back such as these to the Father’s fold. If they had not strayed, it would not have been necessary that the shepherd should follow them in their wandering, and bear them home: if they had not in a far country spent their substance in riotous living, it would not have been necessary that they should return repenting to their Father.
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 XXII.
THE LOST SHEEP.

“Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.”—Luke xv. 1–7.

We assume, therefore, according to the terms of the narrative in their literal acceptation, that this is a man “having an hundred sheep,”—that the sheep are his own. He is feeding them on pasture land far from cultivated fields and human dwellings. Hills impervious to the plough, and patches of vegetation interspersed through rugged stony tracts, have in all countries and ages constituted the appropriate pasture for flocks of sheep. These are indicated here by one word, “the wilderness.” The term is obviously used not in a strict but in a free popular sense; it means simply the region of pasturage, consisting generally of hills and moors, not suitable for being ploughed and sown.

A flock of a hundred sheep, although small, is yet sufficiently considerable to render it impossible for the shepherd to detect the absence of one by merely looking to them in the lump and from a distance; he must have minutely inspected them ere he discovered that one was  amissing. Knowing them all individually, he knows the one that has strayed; he loves them all as his children, and grieves when one goes out of sight.

It was no mark of carelessness in the shepherd, as some have erroneously imagined, to leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness while he went to seek the one that was lost. The main body of the flock was left in its own proper place, where it is often left from morning till night by the most careful shepherd, even when he is not employed on the urgent duty of recovering wanderers.

The shepherd knows the nature of the country in which the sheep is straying; and also the nature of the sheep that is straying there. He knows the roughness of the mountain passes, and the silliness of the solitary truant sheep; he divines accordingly what track it will take. He conjectures beforehand, with a considerable measure of accuracy, the pit in which it will be found lying, or the thicket in which it will be seen struggling. He follows and finds the fugitive. Wearied by its journey, and perhaps wounded by its falls, the sheep, when discovered, cannot return to the fold even under the shepherd’s guidance; he takes it on his shoulders and bears the burden home. He does not upbraid it for its straying; he does not complain of its weight. He is glad that he has gotten his own again, after it was “ready to perish.” Happy while he bears it homeward, and happy when he has gotten it home, he invites all his neighbours to share in his joy.

Such is the simple and transparent outline of this ancient eastern pastoral scene; let us now endeavour to see in the symbol those lessons which it at once veils and reveals.

The parable is spoken expressly for the purpose of  determining and manifesting the character and work of the Son in the salvation of sinful men; it declares the design, the method, and the terms of the incarnate Redeemer in his intercourse with the creatures whom he came to save. But in the fact of accomplishing this its immediate object, it strikes also a chord which runs through the centre—constitutes, as it were, the medulla of the divine government in all places and all times. The parable spoken in order to afford a glance into the heart of Jesus, incidentally at the same time sketches the outline of God’s universal rule; as in drawing the figure of a branch you necessarily exhibit, in its main features and proportions, an image of the tree. This wider subject, certainly and accurately outlined, although incidentally introduced, demands some notice at our hand.

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Ever since scientific observation discovered the true system of the material universe, and so, as it were, changed those twinkling sparks of light into central suns, the rulers of tributary worlds, philosophy apart from faith has been, more or less articulately, scattering the question, at once a fruit and a seed of unbelief, How could the Creator of so vast a universe bestow so much of his care on one small spot? Some have been disposed to say, and perhaps more have been disposed to think, with fear or joy according to their predilection, that modern discovery is gradually putting the Bible out of date. A feeling, if not a judgment, has in some quarters arisen, that in view of the vastness of creation, the Scriptures ascribe to this globe and its concerns a share of its Maker’s interest disproportionately great.

This phase of unbelief is refuted both by the necessary attributes of God and by the written revelation of his  will. What relation, capable of being appreciated or calculated, subsists between material bulk and moral character? The question between great and small is totally distinct from the question between good and evil. Number and extension cannot exercise or illustrate the moral character either of God or of man. We should ourselves despise the mischievous caprice which should give to the biggest man in the city the honours that are due to the best. Right and wrong are matters that move on other lines and at higher levels than great and small, before both human tribunals and divine.

There is, perhaps, as much reason for saying that this earth is too large, as for saying that it is too small, for being the scene of God’s greatest work. The telescope has opened a long receding vista of wonders, where the observer is lost in the abyss of distance and magnitude; the microscope has opened another long receding vista of wonders, where the observer is lost in the abyss of nearness and minuteness equally beyond his reach. Between the great and the small, who shall determine and prescribe the centre-point equidistant from both extremes, which the Infinite ought to have chosen as a theatre for the display of His greatest glory?

In the divine government generally, as well as in revealed religion particularly, the aim is not to choose the widest stage, but on any stage that may be chosen to execute the Creator’s purpose, and achieve the creature’s good. A battle is fought, an enemy crushed, and a kingdom won on some remote and barren moor: no man suggests, by way of challenging the authenticity of the record, that a conflict waged between hosts so powerful, and involving interests so momentous, could not have taken place on an insignificant spot, while the continent  contained many larger and more fertile plains: neither can the loss incurred by the sin of men, and the gain gotten through the redemption of Christ, be measured by the size of the world in which the events emerged. It is enough that here the first Adam fell and the second Adam triumphed;—that here evil overcame good, and good in turn overcame evil. There was room on this earth for Eden and for Calvary; this globe supplies the fulcrum whereon all God’s government leans. The Redeemer came not to the largest world, but to the lost world: “even so, Father.”

“He took not on him the nature of angels.” In aggregate numbers they may, for aught we know, be the ninety and nine, while we represent the one that strayed; but though all these shining stars were peopled worlds, and all their inhabitants angels who kept their first estate, he will leave them in their places in the blue heaven afar, like sheep in the wide moorland, and go forth in search of this one shooting star, to arrest and bring it back. It is his joy to restore it to law and light again. Rejoice with great joy, O inhabitants of the earth! the Saviour Almighty has passed other worlds and other beings, some of whom do not need, and some of whom do not get, salvation,—has passed them and come to us. He has taken hold of the seed of Abraham, that we who partake of Abraham’s sinful flesh may partake also of Abraham’s saving faith. There is much in this mystery which we do not know, and in our present state could not comprehend; but we know the one thing needful regarding it,—that “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.”76

 Having noticed cursorily that grand characteristic feature of God’s universal government to which the principle of the parable is applicable, we proceed now to examine more particularly the recovery of lost men by the Lord our Redeemer, to which the lesson of the parable is, in point of fact, specifically applied.

1. The shepherd misses one when it has strayed from the flock. The Redeemer’s knowledge is infinite; He looks not only over the multitude generally, but into each individual. When I stand on a hillock at the edge of a broad meadow, and look across the sward, it may be said in a general way that I look on all the grass of that field; but the sun in the sky looks on it after another fashion,—shines on every down-spike that protrudes from every blade. It is thus that the Good Shepherd knows the flock. Knowing all, he misses any one that wanders. He missed a world when it fell, although his worlds lie scattered like grains of golden dust on the blue field of heaven,—the open infinite. When the light of moral life went out in one  of his worlds, he missed its wonted shining in the aggregate of glory that surrounds his throne. With equal perfectness of knowledge he misses one human being who has been formed by his hand, but fails to hang by faith upon his love. The Bible speaks of falling “into the hands of the living God,” and calls it “a fearful thing” (Heb. x. 31); but an equally fearful thing happened before it,—we fell out of the bosom of the living God. He felt, so to speak, the want of our weight when we fell, and said, “Save from going down to the pit.” But the omniscience of the Saviour does not stop when it passes through the multitude, and reaches the individual man; it penetrates the veils that effectually screen us from each other, and so knows the thoughts which congregate like clouds within a human heart, that he misses every one that is not subject to his will. When the mighty volume is coursing along its channel towards the ocean, he marks every drop that leaps aside in spray. It is a solemn thought, and to the reconciled a gladsome one, that, as the shepherd observed when one sheep left the fold, the Shepherd of Israel, who slumbers not nor sleeps, detects every wandering soul, and in that soul every wandering thought. The Physician’s thorough knowledge of the ailment lies at the very foundation of the patient’s hope.

2. The shepherd cared for the lost sheep; although he possessed ninety and nine, he was not content to let a unit go. A species of personal affection and the ordinary interest of property, combine to cause grief when the sheep is lost, and to contribute the motive for setting off in search of the wanderer.

In attempting to apply the lesson at this point, we very soon go beyond our depth. Our own weakness  warns us not to attempt too much; but the condescending kindness of the Lord, in speaking these parables, encourages us to enter into the mystery of redeeming love on this side as far as our line can reach. In that inscrutable love which induced the Owner of man to become his saviour when he fell, there must be something corresponding to both of the ingredients which constituted the shepherd’s grief. There was something corresponding—with such correspondence as may exist between the divine and the human—to the personal affection, and something to the loss of property. When we think of the Redeemer’s plan and work as wholly apart from self-interest, and undertaken simply for the benefit of the fallen race, we form a conception of redemption true as far as it goes, but the conception is not complete. The object which we, from our view-point, strive to measure, has another and opposite side. For his own sake as well as for ours, the Redeemer undertook and accomplished his work.77 “For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.” When he wept over Jerusalem, mere pity for the lost was not the sole fountain of his tears. Those tears, like some great rivers of the globe, were supplied from two sources lying in opposite directions. As the possession of the ransomed when they are brought back affords the Redeemer joy, the want of the lost, while they are distant, must cause in his heart a corresponding and equivalent grief. It is true, that if we too strictly apply to the divine procedure the analogy of human affairs at  this point we shall fatally dilute our conception of the generosity displayed in the Gospel; but on the other hand, if do not apply this analogy at all, we shall inevitably permit some of our sweetest consolation to slip from our grasp. To be merely pitied does not go so kindly or so powerfully about our hearts as to be loved; Christ’s regard for fallen men is not merely the compassion of one who is loftily independent. When an infant is lost in a forest, and all the neighbours have, at the mother’s call, gone out in search of the wanderer, it would be a miserably inadequate conception of that mother’s emotion to think of it as pity for the sufferings of the child: her own suffering for want of her child is greater than the child’s for want of his mother; and by the express testimony of Scripture, we learn that the Saviour’s remembrance of his people is analogous to the mother’s remembrance of her child. If you press the likeness too far, you destroy the essential character of redemption, by representing it as a self-pleasing on the part of the Redeemer; but if you take away the likeness altogether, you leave me sheltered, indeed, under an Almighty arm, but not permitted to lie on a loving breast. My joy in Christ’s salvation is tenfold increased, when, after being permitted to think that he is mine, I am also permitted to think that I am his. If it did not please him to get me back, my pleasure would be small in being coldly allowed to return. No: the longing of Christ to get the wanderer into his bosom again, for the satisfaction of his own soul, is the sweetest ingredient in the cup of a returning penitent’s joy.78

 3. The shepherd left the ninety and nine for the sake of the one that had wandered. I find no difficulty in the interpretation of the parable here. The doctrinal difficulty which some have met at this point, has been imported into the field by a mistake in regard to the material scene. The leaving of the ninety and nine in the wilderness, while the shepherd went out to seek the strayed sheep, implied no dereliction of the shepherd’s duty,—no injury to the body of the flock. In this transaction neither kindness nor unkindness was manifested towards those that remained on the pasture;—it had no bearing upon them at all. Nor is it necessary, at this stage, to determine who are represented by the ninety and nine. Be they the unfallen spirits, or the righteous in the abstract, or those who, in ignorance of God’s law, count themselves righteous, the parable is constructed for the purpose of teaching us that the mission of Christ has for its special object, not the good, but the evil. As the specific effort of the shepherd, which is recorded in this story, had respect not to the flock that remained on the pasture, but to the one sheep that had gone away, the specific effort of the Son of God, in his incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection, has respect, not to the worthy, but the unworthy.

Thus the Pharisees were entirely at fault in regard to the first principle of the Gospel. They assumed that, because the publicans and sinners had gone astray, Jesus, if he were the true Messiah, would not have any dealings with them; without either conceding or expressly denying their assumption of superior righteousness—that being precisely the point on which he determined that then and there he would give no judgment—he intimates that the strayed sheep is the peculiar object of his care, and  that because it is the strayed sheep, and he is the Good Shepherd;—he intimates, taking the Pharisees at their own word, that the sinners are the objects whom a Saviour should follow, and seek, and find, precisely because they are sinners. It concerns us more to know who are represented by the strayed sheep, than to know who are represented by the sheep that did not stray, for to the former class, and not to the latter, we most certainly belong.

4. How does the shepherd act when he overtakes the wanderer? He does not punish it—he does not even upbraid it for straying; his anxiety and effort are concentrated on one point—to get it home again. Would that guilty suspicious hearts could see through this glass the loving heart of Jesus, as he has himself presented it to their view! He takes no pleasure in the death of them that die. His ministry in general, and this lesson in particular, proclaim that Christ’s errand into the world is to win the rebellious back by love. You may suppose the truant sheep to have dreaded punishment when it was overtaken by the injured shepherd; but his look and his act when he came must have immediately dispelled the helpless creature’s fears. The Lord has held up this picture before us that in it we may behold his love, and that the sight of his love may at length discharge from our hearts their inborn obdurate suspiciousness.

5. The shepherd lays the sheep upon his shoulders. This feature of the picture affords no ground for the doctrine which has sometimes been founded on it, that the Saviour is burdened with the sinners whom he saves. His suffering lies in another direction, and is not in any form represented here. He weeps when the sinful remain distant and refuse to throw their weight on him; he  never complains of having too much of this work in hand. The parable here points to his power and victory, not to his pain and weariness.

The representation that the shepherd bore the strayed sheep home upon his shoulder, instead of going before and calling on it to follow, is significant in respect both to this parable and its counterpart and complement, the Prodigal Son. In as far as the saving of the lost is portrayed in this similitude, the work is done by the Saviour alone. First and last the sinner does nothing but destroy himself: all the saving work is done for him, none of it by him. This is one side of salvation, and it is the only side that is represented here. It seems hard to conceive how any converted man can be troubled by doubt or difficulty concerning this doctrine. Every one whom Christ has sought and found, and borne to the fold, feels and confesses that, if the Shepherd had not come to the sheep, the sheep would not have come to the Shepherd. If any wanderer still hesitates on the question, Who brought him home? it is time that he should begin to entertain another question, Whether he has yet been brought home at all? The acknowledgment of this fundamental truth, that salvation is begun, carried on, and completed by the Saviour alone, does not, of course, come into collision with another fundamental truth, which expatiates on another sphere, and is represented in another parable, that except the sinful do themselves repent, and come to the Father, they shall perish in their sins.

6. Far from being oppressed by the burden of his strayed sheep, the shepherd rejoices when he feels its weight upon his shoulder. His joy begins not when the work is over, but when the work begins. While the lost  one is on his shoulder, and because it is on his shoulder, the shepherd is glad. The doctrinal equivalent of this feature is one of the clearest of revealed truths, and yet it is one of the last that a human heart is willing to receive. The work of saving, far from being done with a grudge in order to keep a covenant, is a present delight to the Saviour. This lesson falls on human minds like a legend written by the finger on dewy glass, which disappears when the sun grows hot; but when it is graven on the heart as by the Spirit of the living God, it is unspeakably precious. When I habitually realize not only that Christ will keep his word in receiving sinners, but that he has greater delight in bearing my weight than I can ever have in casting it on him, I shall trust fully and trust always. There is great power in this truth, and great weakness in the want of it. Let even an experienced Christian analyze carefully the working of his own heart, not in the act of backsliding towards the world, but in its best efforts to follow the Lord, and he will discover among the lower folds of his experience a persistent suspicion that the great draft which a sinner makes on the Saviour’s mercy will, though honoured, be honoured with a grudge because of its greatness. Look on the simple picture of his love which Jesus has in this parable presented—look on the words, “He layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing,”—look till you grieve for your own distrust, and the distrust melt in that grief away.

7. The shepherd on reaching home not only himself rejoiced, but invited his neighbours to rejoice with him over his success. To this last intimation of the parable the Lord immediately adds an express exposition of its meaning,—Ver. 7, “I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than  over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.” In the parallel explanation appended to the next parable (ver. 10), an additional feature is expressed, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth;” both obviously refer to the same fact, and should be taken together as one announcement.

The kingdom of God recognises two successive homecomings in the history of every citizen. The exile discovered and borne back by the discriminating mercy of the Redeemer, comes home when through the regeneration he enters a state of grace; and he comes home under the leading of the same chief, when in the resurrection he enters a state of perfect glory. It is instructive and comforting to observe that, while both homecomings are joyful, it is of the first that the Lord expressly speaks when he intimates that over it himself and the hosts of heaven will rejoice. It is over the repentance of a sinner that a jubilee is held in heaven; they do not wait till the ransomed one shall appear in bodily presence near the great white throne. There is no need: the entrance into grace ensures the entrance into glory. The children will all get home. No slip can come between the cup of the Redeemer’s glad anticipation when a sinner is renewed, and the lip of his complete satisfaction when he welcomes the ransomed at length into the mansions of the Father’s house.

In this brief but lucid exposition of his own similitude which the Lord gave at the moment, and the evangelist has preserved for us, something is taught first regarding the companions, and second regarding the measure of his joy. Both present points of interest which require and will repay more particular attention.

 (1.) In regard to the participation of the angels, in the Redeemer’s joy over the salvation of the lost, the intimations bear that there is joy “in heaven,” and “in the presence of the angels of God.” It seems unaccountably to those who look carefully into the terms of the record, to be universally assumed from these expressions that the angels, in the exercise of their inherent faculties, are in some way cognisant of conversion as it proceeds in human souls upon the earth, and that they rejoice accordingly when another heart melts, and another rebel submits to God. Capital has even been made out of this passage by Romanists in support of prayers addressed to unseen created spirits. All this proceeds upon an exegesis, which is, I believe, demonstrably erroneous. In order to settle all questions that can arise here, nothing more is necessary than a simple straight-forward examination of the terms. The rejoicing takes place “in heaven,” and “in presence of the angels” (ενωπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων). This is not the form of expression that would naturally be employed to intimate that the angels rejoiced. Expressly it is written, not that they rejoice, but that there is joy in their presence,—before their faces. The question then comes up, Who rejoices there? In as far as the terms of the exposition go, the question is not expressly decided; but its decision can be easily and certainly gathered from the context. Both in the case of the lost sheep and in that of the lost money the comparison is introduced by the term “likewise” (ὅυτω.) In this manner there is joy before the angels; in what manner? Obviously in the manner of the rejoicing which took place after the strayed sheep was brought home, and the piece of money found. He who sought and found the lost, rejoiced over his gain; but, not contented therewith, he told his neighbours about his happiness  and its cause; he manifested his joy in their presence, and invited them to rejoice in sympathy with himself. It is after this manner that joy in heaven over a repenting sinner begins and spreads. We are not obliged,—we are not permitted to guess who the rejoicers are, or how they came by the news that gladdens them. The shepherd himself, and himself alone, knows that the strayed sheep is safe in the fold again, for he has borne it back on his shoulder: his neighbours did not know the fact until he told them, and invited them to participate in his joy. It is expressly in this manner, and none other, that there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. The angels do not become aware of the fact by a species of subordinate omniscience. He who saved the sinner knows that the sinner is saved; rejoicing in the fact, he makes it known to his attendants, and invites them to share in his joy.

The gladness that thrills in the angels is a secondary thing, caught by sympathy from that which glows in the heart and beams in the countenance of Jesus. The Son of God the Saviour having won a sinner by the power of his love, and brought the wanderer back forgiven and renewed, rejoices on his throne over this fruit of his soul’s travail. Ere the ransomed sinner has risen from his knees or wiped his tears away;—ere he has had time to sing a hymn or sit down at the communion table on earth, the Lord in heaven, feeling life flowing from himself into that living soul, rejoices already in the fact, and calls upon his friends, whether the spirits of just men or angels unfallen, or both in concert, to participate in his joy. The Apocalyptic witness saw no sun in the new heaven; “the Lamb is the light thereof:” from that sun the light streams down on the sea of upturned faces that surround the  throne, and the sympathetic gladness that sparkles in the members is a reflection from the gladness that first glows in the Head, as a separate sun glances on the crest of every wavelet, when the breeze is gentle and the sky is bright.

(2.) The intimation that there is greater joy in heaven over the return of a single wanderer than over ninety and nine who never strayed, presents indeed a difficulty; but here, as in many other similar cases, the difficulty lies more in the way of the scientific expositor, whose task is to express the meaning in the form of logical definitions than in the way of the simple reader of the Bible, who desires to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn the one thing needful from his lips. In this, as in many other portions of Scripture, a hungry labourer may live upon the bread, while it may baffle a philosopher to analyze its constituents, and expound its nutritive qualities. A devout reader may get the meaning of the parable in power upon his heart, while the logical interpreter expends much profitless labour in the dissection of a dead letter.

Who are the just persons who need no repentance? The suggestion79 that they are the members of the Old Testament Church, who really possessed the righteousness of the Law, although they had not attained the righteousness of the Gospel, creates a greater difficulty than that which it proposes to remove. There is not any such essential difference between the righteousness of Abraham, who looked unto Jesus coming, and the righteousness of Paul, who looked unto Jesus come.

The true solution I apprehend to be that in the mind of the Lord this declaration had a double reference. It expressed an absolute and universal truth, known to himself  and to his enlightened disciples; and also, at the same time, took the Pharisees on their own terms, condemning them out of their own mouth. The parable was spoken expressly to the Pharisees, and spoken specifically in answer to their objection, “This man receiveth sinners.” They meant to intimate that it became the Messiah to shun the evil and associate only with the good. From their own view-point he exposes their mistake; even granting their assumption that themselves were the righteous, their sentence was erroneous. According to the principles of human nature, and the ordinary practice of men, they might have perceived that the chief care of the shepherd must be bestowed on the sheep that has gone astray, and his greatest joy be experienced when it has been discovered and restored. The Saviour’s delight over a publican’s return to piety should be more vivid than his joy over a Pharisee, who, by the supposition, has been pious all his days.

Had the Lord then and there intimated to the Pharisees that they were deceiving themselves in regard to justifying righteousness,—that they needed repentance as much as the publicans, his word would have been true, but that truth, he perceived, was not suitable in the circumstances. It pleased him at this time not to fling a sharp reproof in their faces, but rather to drop a living seed gently into their ears, that it might find its way in secret to some broken place in their hearts. A certain portion of the truth he communicated to them; more they would not have received. The whole truth on this subject, if it had been bluntly declared, would have driven them away in disgust.

Elsewhere the Master expresses his mind very clearly, “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the  Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven;” but it pleased him on this occasion to teach another lesson, namely, that even although they were as righteous as they deemed themselves to be, the recovery of a lost one would afford the Redeemer a greater joy than the retention of the virtuous. Beyond expression precious is the doctrine unequivocally taught here that so far from receiving prodigals with a grudge, the Saviour experiences a peculiar delight when a sinner listens to his voice and accepts pardon at his hand. This doctrine we learn is divine; we know it is also human: almost every family can supply an example of the familiar principle that the mother loves most fondly the child who has cost her most in suffering and care.
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 XXIII.
THE LOST COIN.

“Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”—Luke xv. 8–10.

The two parables which constitute the first division are generically coincident, but specifically distinct. Both represent the side on which the sinner is passive in the matter of his own salvation, and the parable of the prodigal alone represents the aspect in which he is spontaneously active; but while the first two agree in their main feature, they differ in subordinate details. The second goes partly over the same ground that has already  been traversed by the first, and partly takes a new and independent track of its own.80

From the similarity of structure and the studied identity of expression in the two cases, I gather surely that  the persons who seek and find the lost in those two parables both represent the same Seeker of lost men, the Lord Jesus Christ. On any other supposition, I cannot find a spot on which the foundation of a satisfactory exegesis can be laid. The introduction of the second parable by the particle either (η) in the eighth verse, prepares us to expect, not another subject, but another illustration of the same subject; whereas, when the Prodigal Son is introduced in the eleventh verse, the connecting link distinctly indicates a change of theme.81

Assuming from the fact of its repetition that some feature or features of the lesson must be contained in the second picture which the first was not fitted to display; and finding in the possessors, with their misfortune, their success and their joy, no difference, but on the contrary, a studied balanced parallelism, I look for the distinction in the nature of the property which, in the two cases respectively, was lost and found. The sheep is an animated being, with desires, and appetites, and habits, and locomotive powers; when it is lost, it is lost in virtue of its own will and activity. The silver coin, on the other hand, is a piece of inanimate matter; and when it is lost, it is lost through its own gravity and inertia.  When support fails, it falls to the ground. Here lies an inherent and essential difference between the two cases. It is through this opening mainly that light comes to me regarding the specific difference between the lessons which these two cognate parables respectively convey. The inquiry at present concerns this difference only, for the doctrine which is taught in common by both is abundantly obvious. While in both examples alike the property is lost and found again, the manner of the loss and the finding corresponds in each case to the nature of the subject. In the case of the living creature, the loss is sustained through its spontaneous wandering; in the case of the inanimate silver, the loss is sustained through its inherent inertia. The one strays in the exercise of its own will, and the other sinks in obedience to the laws of matter; the method of search varies accordingly.

Both parables alike represent the sinner lost and the Saviour finding him; but in the one case the loss appears due to the positive activity of an evil will, and in the other to the passive law of gravitation. Not that, in the spiritual sphere, one sinner departs from God by an exercise of his corrupt will, and another is drawn away by the operation of an irresistible law; it is one transaction represented successively on two sides. The representations are different, but both are true. In the fallen, sin is both active and passive. The sinful select their own course and go astray in the exercise of a self-determining power; they also gravitate to evil in virtue of an inborn corruption, which acts like a law in their members. In connection with these two sides or features of sin, the two doctrines opposite and yet not contrary, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, meet and embrace each other in the work of redemption. To the disease of  sin in both its phases,—as an active choice and an innate tendency,—the divine physician has prepared an antidote; He brings the wanderer home, and lifts the fallen up.

Compare once more the lost sheep and the lost coin: in both the sinful are lost, and in both the Saviour saves; but there we see a spontaneous error, and here the effect of inherited corruption. These, when kept together like the right and left sides of a living man, constitute, in this matter, the whole truth: to tear them asunder is to kill both.

The number of the coins is appropriately fixed at ten, while the number of sheep was a hundred. Ten sheep would not have required or repaid the care of a shepherd; and a hundred pieces of silver would not, in ordinary circumstances, have been at one time in the hands of a working woman. The difference of numbers is fully accounted for by the natural circumstances, and no benefit is obtained by squeezing from it a distinct spiritual signification. The numbers, I think, belong to the adjuncts of the material pictures, and they constitute only elements of disturbance when they are brought into the interpretation.

The lessons which some draw from the preciousness of the metal on the one hand, and the image of the king which it bears on the other, although attractive and useful in themselves, are not relevant here. It is better to forego for the time even precious morsels of instruction, than to obtain them by doing violence to those exquisite analogies which the parables present.
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 XXIV.
THE PRODIGAL SON.

“And he said, A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. 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. 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. 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; and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it: and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”—Luke xv. 11–32.

These examples represent not two distinct experiences, but two sides of the same fact. It is not that some of fallen human kind are saved after the manner of the strayed sheep, and others after the manner of the prodigal son; not that the Saviour bears one wanderer home by his power, and another of his own accord arises and returns to the Father. Both these processes are accomplished in every conversion. The man comes, yet Christ brings him; Christ brings him, yet he comes. In the two pictures which we have last examined, the sovereign love and power of the Redeemer occupied the front, while the subjective experience of a repenting man was thrown scarcely visible into the back-ground; in the picture which is now under inspection the view is reversed—the subjective experience of the sinning man is brought full size into the centre of the field, while the compassion of a forgiving God, although distinctly visible, lies in smaller bulk behind.

Among the parables that of the prodigal is remarkable for the grandeur of the whole, and the exquisite beauty of the parts. The sower is the only one that can be compared with it in comprehensive completeness of outline and articulate distinctness of detail. These two greatest parables, however, are thoroughly diverse in kind. The two chief elements which generally go into the composition of a parable are the processes of nature and the actions of living men—parables, in short, as to  their constituents, are composed of history and natural history. In the tares, for example, both these elements are combined in nearly equal proportions. In the malicious sowing of the darnel, the zealous proposal of the servants, and the cautious decision of the master, you have threads of human motive and action running through the whole; but in the growth of the darnel, its likeness to the wheat in spring, and the decisive difference between them in the harvest, you have the processes of nature profusely intertwined. A parable is ordinarily woven of human action and the unconscious development of nature, as warp and woof. In the two greatest parables those twin ingredients are in a great measure separated: the sower is almost wholly composed of processes in nature, the prodigal almost wholly of human motive and act.

This parable reveals one of the brightest glimpses of God’s character and way that men in the body can obtain. There are greater and less among the parts of God’s word as well as among the parts of his creation. Taking the discourses of the Lord Jesus, as the little child took the stars, for “gimlet-holes in heaven to let the glory shine through,” we find in the prodigal the largest of them all. It differs from other stars in the same firmament by its bulk and its brightness. Never man spake like this man; and nowhere else has even this man spoken more fully or more winsomely of man’s need and God’s mercy. Both the departure and the return—both the fall and the rising again, are depicted here. The lesson sweeps the whole horizon of time from the unfallen state at first to the glory that shall at last be revealed. The way is laid open with marvellous precision from the lowest state of sin and misery to a  heavenly Father’s heart and home. Here a gate is opened by the Mediator’s hand, and no man can shut it, until the angel shall proclaim that time shall be no more. Here resounds a voice clear, human, memorable—a voice that all the hum of the world cannot drown, proclaiming to the lowest, furthest outcasts, and to the latest generations, “Whosoever will, let him come.”82

It is not necessary in this case to submit a sketch of the material frame-work: there it lies, and the simplest may see it for himself. The least learned may go round without a guide, and not miss any essential feature of the scene. In this case the bare reading of the story from the Bible leaves the image sharply outlined, and permanently impressed upon the reader’s mind. Assuming that the body of the lesson may be easily seen, let us proceed at once to seek for its soul in the spiritual meaning, which the picture covers and yet reveals.

“A certain man had two sons:” one of the greatest difficulties meets us in the first line. It is evident that  God, as specially manifested in the Gospel, is represented by the father; but who are represented by the two sons,—the elder, who remained at home, and the younger, who went away? On this point three distinct interpretations have been suggested: the two brothers of the parable may represent angels and men, Jews and Gentiles, or Pharisees and publicans. I do not think it is a profitable method to send these three into the field to fight until two are destroyed, and one is left in undisputed possession. I am convinced that we shall more fully and more correctly ascertain the mind of the Lord by employing them all than by selecting one.

In representing the human figure, an artist may proceed upon either of two distinct principles, according to the object which, for the time, he may have in view. He may, on the one hand, delineate the likeness of an individual, producing a copy of his particular features, with all their beauties and all their blemishes alike: or he may, on the other hand, conceive and execute an ideal picture of man, the portrait of no person in particular, with features selected from many specimens of the race, and combined in one complete figure. The parable of the prodigal is a picture of the latter kind. It is not out and out the picture of any man; but it is, to a certain extent, the picture of every man. This prophecy of Scripture is not of private construction; and therefore it is not of private interpretation. As the ideal portrait is in one feature the likeness of this man, and in another the likeness of that man, while it is not throughout the likeness of any; so the elder and younger sons of this parable find at one point their closest counterpart in angels and men, at another in Jews and Gentiles, at a third in Pharisees and publicans, and indefinitely in as many pairs of corresponding  characters as have been, or may yet be, found in the world.

In the first act of the drama,—the departure of the younger son, the case of angels and men, presents by far the most exact counterpart to the case of the two brothers. Man is the youngest child of God’s intelligent family. Elder and younger remained together in the house awhile. You may observe sometimes in human families that the children who have reached the years of understanding at the birth of the youngest rejoice over the infant with a fondness second only to that of the mother. Thus the elder brother angels of our Father’s house,—the morning stars of creation, sang together over the advent of man. But the younger son did not remain in the house: having become alienated in heart from the Father, he was uneasy in his presence, and sought relief by going out of sight.

In the description of the younger son’s conduct, we find a picture both of the first fall and of the actual apostasy of each separate sinner. “The younger said to his father, Father give me the portion,” &c. Only his words are preserved in the record; but we know that thoughts unseen in his soul were the seeds whence these words sprang. He desired to please himself, and therefore grew unhappy under the restraints of home. Bent on enjoying the pleasures of sin, he determined to avoid the presence of his father: alienated in heart, he becomes vicious in life.

The same two elements go to constitute the character and condition of the sinful before he is reconciled to God. There is a lower and a higher link in the chain that binds the slave. There is a body of this death, and a soul: there is a spiritual wickedness in high places, and a bodily wickedness in low places. The one is guilt, the other sin: the heart is at enmity, and the life is disobedient.

 The younger son did not humbly sue for a gift from his father’s bounty: he claimed a share of the property as of right. The terms are significant; “Give me the portion of goods that falleth (τὸ ἐπιβάλλον μέρος) to me.” The phrase faithfully depicts the atheism of an unbelieving human heart; the fool hath said in his heart, “No God.” He has become brutish: as swine gather the acorns from the ground, heedless of the oak from which they fell; alienated men snatch God’s gifts for the gratification of their appetites, and forget the giving God. This seeing eye, and this hearing ear, and these cunning hands, the irreverent son counts his own, and determines to employ them in ministering to his own pleasure.

The father might justly have refused to comply with his son’s demand: although a certain part of the property might by law “fall” to the younger son at the death of the father, there was no law or custom that gave the youth a right to any of it during his father’s life. In this case, however, the father saw meet to let the young man have his own way; he threw the reins loose upon the neck of the prodigal. Although the father of his flesh could not see the end from the beginning, the Father of his spirit, in permitting his departure, already planned the glad return.

“Not many days after:” weary of paternal restraint, he made off as soon as possible. He gathered all; for he needed all as a price in his hand to pay for his pleasure. He went into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. Even a large substance may in this manner soon be consumed; money and health waste away quickly when they are employed as fuel to feed the flame of lust. An interesting parallel to this portion of the parable occurs in Luke xii. 45. A servant  to whom much had been intrusted thought his master was at a great distance, and would remain a long time away; then and therefore he began “to beat the men-servants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken.” It is when a man is, or imagines himself to be, far from God that he dares to indulge freely his vicious propensities: and conversely, those who are secretly bent upon a life of sin, put God far from their thoughts, in order that they may not be interrupted in their pleasures.

The crisis came. The “season” of pleasure did not last long; and the man who had “sowed to the flesh” was compelled to fill his bosom with an early harvest of misery. The hunger, nakedness, and shame that accumulated on the head of this wayward youth aptly represent the bitter fruits which sin, even in this life, bears as an earnest of the full wages in the second death, which it promises to pay its servants.

His sufferings did not in the first instance turn him from his sin: human sorrow is not all or always godly sorrow. Although the prodigal was in want, he did not return to his father. Convictions and terrors in the conscience seldom bring the wanderer at once to the door of mercy: he generally tries in succession several other methods in order to obtain relief. As the prodigal attempted to keep body and soul together by the most desperate and loathsome expedients, rather than throw himself on his father’s compassion; so an alienated human soul, conscious of having wantonly offended a good God, and therefore hating deeply the Holy One, will bear and do the will of the wicked one to the utmost extremity of misery rather than come home a beggar, and be indebted for all to a father’s love. The picture,  although drawn by the Master’s own hand, is necessarily drawn in the colours of external nature, and therefore it comes far short of the original, which is a spiritual wickedness. The cherished son of an affluent and honourable house in Israel has become the swineherd of a stranger in a famine-stricken land: the transition is as great as could be displayed on the limited stage of the present world; but when he who was made in God’s image and treated as God’s child is bound by the chain of his own passions, and indentured as a slave in the devil’s service, the fall is greater, as heaven is higher than the earth, and the world of spirit deeper than the world of flesh. “No man gave unto him:” when a son deserts the Father of lights, from whom every good gift comes down, his soul cannot be satisfied from other sources: the world’s breasts are dry, or yield only poison to the eager drawing of the famished child.

There is a blank in the history here. The later stages of the prodigal’s misery are not exhibited in the light: fully exposed, they might have been shocking rather than impressive. Every height has its opposite and corresponding depth: as eye has not seen nor ear heard in all its fulness the blessedness that God hath prepared for them that love him; so neither can our faculties measure the miseries of sin, in their foretastes here and their fulness hereafter. How the prodigal fared under that veil, as his misery day by day increased to its climax, we know not; but at length he suddenly emerges another man. “He came to himself:” the wild foul stream that had sunk into the earth and flowed for a space under ground, bursts to the surface again, agitated still indeed, but now comparatively pure. We learn for the first time that the man has been mad, by learning that his reason  is restored. It is a characteristic of the insane that they never know or confess their insanity until it has passed away: it is when he has come to himself that he first discovers he has been beside himself. The two beings to whom a man living in sin is most a stranger are himself and God; when the right mind returns, he becomes acquainted with both again. The first act of the prodigal, when light dawned on his darkness, was to converse with himself, and the second to return to his father.

A man can scarcely find a more profitable companion than himself. These two should be well acquainted, and deal frankly with each other; in the case of the prodigal how disastrous was the estrangement, how blessed the reconciliation between them! The young man, during the period of his exile, was as much a stranger to himself as to his father. His return to himself became the crisis of his fate; from the interview sprang the burning thought, “I will arise and go to my father,” and the resolute deed, “he arose and went.”

When he had determined to return, he returned at once, and returned as he was. Emaciated by prolonged want,—naked, filthy, hungry, he came as he was. He did not remain at a distance until by efforts of his own he should make himself in some measure worthy to resume his original place in the family; he came in want of all things, that out of his father’s fulness all his wants might be supplied. The signification of this feature on the spiritual side is obvious; it exhibits a cardinal point in the way of a sinner’s return to God.

But while the repenting youth did not pretend to bring anything good to his father’s house, neither did he presume to bring thither anything evil: his poverty and hunger were brought with him, but the companions and  instruments of his lusts were left behind. This is a distinctive discriminating feature of true repentance. In the act of fleeing to his father the prodigal leaves his associates, and his habits, and his tastes behind: and conversely, as long as he clings to these he will not—he cannot return to his father.

In the narrative it is made evident that a return to his father was the son’s last resort; he did not adopt it—he did not even entertain it, until all others had failed. The grief which he must have known his unnatural exile caused in the bosom of the family at home did not move him: even want, when it came upon him like an armed man, failed to overcome his stubborn spirit. He will be the servant of a stranger rather than his father’s son; he would live on swine’s food, if it had power to sustain a human life, rather than sit at his father’s table. It was not till death stared him in the face that he consented to return. He encountered all extremities of privation rather than come home; no thanks to him, then, for coming at last. Yet he was received with an ardent welcome, and without upbraiding. The son’s sullen, obdurate, desperate resistance becomes a measure and a monument of the father’s forbearing, forgiving love. It is thus that sinful men return to God in Christ to-day; and thus that God in Christ to-day receives sinful men. Prodigals returning deserve nothing, and yet obtain all. Of even the last rag of merit that the imagination can conjure up—the merit of being willing to receive favour—they are utterly destitute. Though we do not come back to our father until all other resources have failed—although we come, as it were, only when we cannot help coming, he receives us with open arms; he takes the sin away, and does not cast it up.

 “When he was yet a great way off his father saw him.” He must have been looking out. Often, doubtless every day, his eye turned and strained wistfully in the direction of his son’s retiring footsteps. While that son was starving in a foreign land, his father was weeping at the window, longing for his return; when at last the prodigal appeared, the watchful father caught sight of his form in the distance, and ran to meet him. Behold again in this glass another feature of redeeming love! Jesus, looking down on Jerusalem, wept for sorrow, because its giddy multitude would not turn and live; if they had with one accord come forth to accept the pardon which he offered, he would have wept again for joy. In his tears, as well as in his teaching he showed us the Father.

The reconciliation is immediate and complete. The parable reveals an extraordinary outburst of paternal tenderness. The son, melted, and in some measure confused by the undeserved, unexpected warmth of his reception, bethought of the speech which, at the turning point of his repentance, he had resolved to address to his father, and began to recite it as he had conned the words in exile:—“Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;” but there stopped short, omitting the portion about being content with the position of a hired servant. Bengel suggests that the father may have cut the prodigal’s speech short by giving aloud an order to the servants for the kind and honourable reception of his child; but another thought, also suggested by the same acute and experimental expositor, brings out, I think, more truly the deep significance of the omission:—The son lying on the father’s bosom, with the father’s tears falling warm on his upturned face, is some degrees further advanced in the  spirit of adoption than when he first planned repentance beside the swine in his master’s field. There and then the legal spirit of fear because of guilt still lingered in his heart; he ventured to hope for exemption from deserved punishment, but not for restoration to the place of a beloved sen. Now the spirit of bondage has been conclusively cast out by the experience of his father’s love; the fragments of stone that had hitherto remained even in a broken heart are utterly melted at last, as if by fire from heaven. He could not now complete the speech which he had prepared; its later words faltered and fell inarticulate. He could not now ask for the place of a servant, for he was already in the place of a son.83

 The father’s command regarding the son’s reception represents the complete reconciliation of the Gospel—the total oblivion of the prodigal’s past sins, and his admission into the favour and the family of God, as a dear child. Even the details at this point have been framed after the pattern of spiritual privileges as they are elsewhere represented in the Scriptures; and they admit, consequently, of being minutely examined and applied. The best Robe points to the Redeemer’s righteousness which the believer puts on, and wherein he is justified; the Ring is the signet of a king, the seal of the Spirit in the regeneration; the Shoes suggest that the sinner, forgiven and renewed, shall walk with God in newness of life; the Feast indicates the joy of a forgiving God over a forgiven man, and the joy of a forgiven man in a forgiving God.

These two lessons Christ has tenderly and plainly taught in this parable,—first, that God receives and forgives a sinner who comes back repenting; and second, that he delights in the act of so forgiving repentant sinners: on these points no ambiguity is left, and no room for controversy. These features of our Father’s character, if they were fully perceived and frankly accepted, would soon change the face of the world. Guilt makes the guilty suspicious and distrustful. For the chief ailment of humanity the parable supplies a specific antidote: let the aspect of God’s character, which is here displayed, take possession of a sinful heart, and it is forthwith won.

A young person is in want of employment; and a great man lives in the neighbourhood who could give him both work and wages. To this man the youth is advised in his distress to apply; but this is the man whom the youth has injured and offended,—the man whose just resentment he dreads. But it is known and reported that this possessor  of great wealth is kind, generous, forgiving; that he does not retain resentment for injuries received; that he delights to bestow favour on those who have offended him. Convinced by these representations, the youth determines to venture, and accordingly sets out on his journey toward the great man’s house. As he approaches it, however, his limbs grow feeble, his heart beats high, and he lacks courage to go near and knock. He halts, and is about to turn back in despair. What would suffice to encourage the trembler at that moment, and bear him through? If then and there he could in any way be thoroughly convinced that the man whom he formerly injured, and therefore now dreads, is not only in general tender-hearted and open-handed, but is at that moment specifically thinking of this individual transgressor, grieving over his impenitence, watching from his window for his coming, yearning to receive his confession, and enjoy the blessedness in his own heart of forgiving and satisfying the penitent; this will be effectual; the youth will go forward to the door now with a firm step.

It is such a conviction regarding the mind of God towards erring men that is needed, in order to bring them in clouds to his mercy-seat, like doves to their windows; and it is in order to work this conviction in our hearts that Jesus, who has authority to declare the Father, has given us the parable of the Prodigal Son. May the Spirit take this word, and make it in us quick and powerful.

Here we are not left to deal with curious or doubtful speculation. Nothing in heaven or earth can be truer, surer, plainer than this. The view that Jesus gives is the true view of the Father, as he turns his face to-day toward the children of men.

Here is a youth who has discovered suddenly that a  disease has fatally stricken him, deep in the springs of life. After struggling some days against conviction, and clinging to false hopes, he has at length acknowledged that sentence of death has been passed. When the first tumult subsides, a species of calm succeeds,—the calm of earnest occupation with one over-riding and absorbing theme. The world, with its hopes and fears, is conclusively cut off: his business with time is closed. He has bidden farewell to the crowd that he has left behind, and has entered the solemn vestibule which at the other end opens on eternity. With all the energy of his being, he applies himself now to the question, Am I lost or saved?

He looks alternately backward on his own life, and upward to God’s throne; both prospects trouble him. Backward he sees only sin; forward, only judgment. Himself seems the stubble, and the Judge a consuming fire. As these two approach, and their meeting seems near, he fears with an exceeding great fear, and cries with an exceeding bitter cry. He greatly wonders, meanwhile, that he never saw things in this light before. Now, in man’s extremity, is God’s opportunity to show him the Father. While the eyes of the body are closed in weariness, the mental vision remains active; and a picture appears, as if it were hung in light upon the wall. To the soul’s eye Christ appears, and appears in the act of revealing the Father. The Father whom Christ reveals runs forth to meet his prodigal son, falls on his neck, weeps, and kisses him. There is no upbraiding, no bargaining for terms. The returning son is forgiven, accepted, clothed, honoured, loved. He has all, and abounds. This is doubtless a true picture, the dying youth reflects, for it is Christ that displays it; but, alas, it brings no hope to me. I have  stifled convictions, and lived for my own pleasure; and though I often heard of mercy, I never sought it, until I found that death was on my track. How can I expect that God should receive me, when I make him a do-no-better, for I never thought of seeking him until all my chosen idols had forsaken me, and I was left destitute?

Brother, look; what good thing was in the lost son, that served to recommend him to his father? He would not remain at home; he could not enjoy his abundance as long as the father, whose face he loathed, abode under the same roof. He went away, that he might enjoy the pleasures of sin. He did not return while he had enough; he did not return when he began to be in want; he endured the extreme of misery and shame rather than return; he came back to his father only when all other resources failed;—and yet his father received him with great gladness. Sinner, look on this love,—look on it till you live in its light. It is not him that never departed, or came back while he yet had plenty, or came back soon, or came back with an improved heart,—it is, “Him that cometh I will in no wise cast out.”

Those who from this parable conclude that God receives sinners into favour without a propitiation, and those who endeavour to escape from that conclusion by affirming that the father in the parable represents Christ, err equally, although on opposite sides.84

 The notion that a mediator is not needed, because a mediator is not here specifically represented, proceeds upon the assumption, obviously and inexcusably erroneous, that all truth must be taught in every parable. While occasionally visiting the printing works of the publishers as these sheets are passing through the press, I have observed the process of printing coloured landscapes by lithograph. One stone by one impression deposits the outline of the land; another stone, by another impression, fills in the sea; and a third stone, on a different machine, subsequently adds the sky to the picture. No observer is so foolish as to complain, while he sees the process in its earlier stages, that there is no sea or no sky in the landscape. It is thus with the parables in general, and with this group in particular. By the two first, certain portions and aspects of the scene are represented; and by the last one, when it is impressed on the same field, the remaining features are completed.

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Hitherto we have been occupied exclusively with the younger of the two sons; but the notice given in the first  sentence of the parable prepares us for meeting with the elder in some significant capacity ere it close; and here, accordingly, he comes up to sustain his part.

At the moment of the prodigal’s return, his elder brother was in the field, whether for his father’s profit or his own pleasure we are not informed. When he came home in the evening, and before he had entered the house, he heard the sound of the festival within. Surprised and displeased that a feast on so large a scale should have been instituted without his privity and participation, he assumed and maintained an attitude of haughty reserve. Instead of going in at once and seeing all with his own eyes as a son, he went to a servant, and in the spirit of an alien, inquired the reason of the mirth. Having learned the leading facts, instead of imitating his father’s generosity, he abandoned himself to selfish jealousy, and went away in a pet. The father, on every side true to his character, came out and pleaded with him to enter and share the common joy. Hereupon the true character of the soi-disant model son is revealed; he peevishly casts it in his father’s face, as a reproach, that he had never provided such a feast for his immaculate and superlatively dutiful child.

The elder son, in his statement of the case, introduces an elaborately constructed double contrast between his brother’s experience and his own, which is peculiarly interesting in relation to the mercy of God and the methods of the Gospel. To the jaundiced eye of this sour-tempered pharisaic youth, it seemed that his father gave much to him that deserved least, and little to him that deserved most: to the profligate son, the fatted calf; to the eminently dutiful child, not even a kid. Here the hard, self-satisfied formalist, like Pilate and Caiaphas,  preaches the Christ whom he did not know. The envious contrast portrayed by the elder son is a dark shadow which takes its shape from the Light of life. It is a law of the Gospel that nothing is given to the man in reward for the righteousness which he brings forward as his boast; but all is given to the man who has flung away his own righteousness with loathing as filthy rags, and come, “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked,” to cast himself on the mercy of God. The greatest gift is bestowed on the most worthless; for “God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. v. 8).

At this point the line of our parable touches that of the lost sheep, and thenceforth runs coincident with it to the close: it points to the same features of human character, and teaches the same principles of divine truth. In the first place, it repeats the answer already given in the two preceding parables to the question embodied in the complaint of the Pharisees,—“This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.” The father announces with great clearness and fulness, the grounds on which he rejoiced more that day over the prodigal restored than over the elder son, who had never left home. It is a rule in human experience, universally understood and appreciated, that though a son never lost is as precious as one who has been lost and found, parents experience a more vivid joy in the act of receiving the exile back than in the continuous possession of a son who has been always in their sight.85

 In the meantime, it is very sweet to learn from the lips of Jesus that this law, which may be clearly traced on earth, penetrates to heaven, and there prepares for repenting sinners, not a bare escape from wrath, but an abundant entrance into the joy of their Lord.

But while the parable thus demonstrates that even though the claim of the Pharisees were granted their objection falls to the ground, it most certainly does not grant that claim. So far from conceding that they needed no repentance, the Lord makes it evident that they kept company with the publicans in sin, and only differed in this, that they did not repent and forsake it. The elder brother, towards the close of the parable, presents a life-likeness of the Pharisees; in him they might have seen their own shadow on the wall.

The self-righteousness, the pride, the peevishness, the jealousy of the elder brother in the close of the parable represent, in its most distinctive features, the character of the Jewish people and their leaders, in the beginning of the Gospel. One of their leading reasons for refusing to own Jesus as the Messiah was his manifested willingness to extend the blessings of redemption to the needy of every condition and every name. When the Lord reminded them that Elijah was sent past many suffering widows in Israel to relieve a stranger at Sarepta, and that Elisha left many lepers uncured among his own countrymen when he healed the Syrian soldier, they were so exasperated  by the suggestion that God’s favour had already flowed out to the Gentiles, and might flow in the same direction again, that they “rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong” (Luke iv. 29). The same spirit burst forth when they were touched on the same tender point in the ministry of the apostles. Paul was permitted from the stairs of the fortress attached to the temple at Jerusalem to address an excited multitude on the faith as it is in Jesus. Loving the Hebrew tongue in which he spoke better than the Greek, which they had expected him to employ, they listened with interest and in silence to the story of his conversion through the appearing of the risen Jesus; but when in the progress of the narrative he found it necessary to inform them that the Lord his Saviour gave him a commission to preach the Gospel beyond the boundaries of Israel, saying, “Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles, they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live” (Acts xxii. 21, 22). In this inveterate prejudice of the Pharisaic Jews against the admission of persons or communities other than themselves into the privileges of Messiah’s kingdom, we see the reason why the Lord gave his parable the turn which it takes in the extraordinary conduct of the elder brother. Counting that the kingdom belonged exclusively to themselves, the Jewish hierarchs violently resented every suggestion that pointed to the reception of strangers. It was to them that this series of parables was addressed; and to them, in immediate relation to their stupid and impudent cry, “He receiveth sinners!”

 But we have not exhausted this portion of the lesson when we have pointed out that those whom the elder brother represents fret proudly and peevishly against the admission of their neighbours into the kingdom: by that very fact they unconsciously but surely demonstrate that themselves have not entered yet. The spirit that in regard to self is satisfied, before God unhumbled, and towards men unloving, has no part with Christ: this is the proud whom God knoweth afar off, not the meek whom he delights to honour.

Ah, woe to the man who serves God as that son served his father, with a mercenary mind and an unbroken heart,—who thinks his obedience praiseworthy, and would be surprised if it should go without reward. The elder son was lost as well as the younger; but as far as the parable reveals his history, he was not like him found again: he, like his brother, went astray; but unlike him, refused to come back. The father was grieved as much by the sullen, dry, hard, cold, dead formality of his elder son, as by the prodigal wastefulness of the younger, without getting the sorrow balanced by a subsequent joy. Whited sepulchre! what will thy residence in the house, and thy constant and punctilious profession avail thee while thou art planting daggers in thy father’s heart, and nursing vile hypocrisy in thy own? It is the empty open vessel that gets itself filled when it is plunged into a well of living water; the vessel that is full and shut, although it is overflowed by rivers of privileges, does not receive and retain a drop. Before God and under the Gospel, the turning-point of each man’s destiny is not the number or the aggravation of his sins, but the discovery of his own guilt, and the consequent cry out of the depths for mercy. That which really in the last resort hinders a man’s salvation  and secures his doom is not his sin, but his refusal to know and own that he is a sinner. All the excesses of the prodigal will not shut him out of heaven, for he came repenting to the father; but all the virtues of the elder brother will not let him into heaven, for he cherished pride in his heart, and taunted his father for overlooking his worth. The ground on which the Laodiceans were condemned was not the sinfulness of their state, but their stolid satisfaction with the state they were in. “Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. iii. 17). What although they were not rich;—if they had known their poverty, all the treasures of the Godhead were at their disposal: what although they were wretched;—all the blessings that are at God’s right hand were theirs for the asking. What although this son was prodigal;—there is a place for him in God’s favour,—a place for him in the mansions of the Father’s house for ever when he comes back repenting, confiding; but what although he never strayed—never missed a diet of worship or a deed of alms, the elder brother by holding to his own righteousness, rejects the righteousness which is of God by faith, and shuts himself out of the kingdom. Him who thought he was poor and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked, the father runs to meet with kisses of love and tears of joy: but him who thought himself rich and increased with goods, and in need of nothing, the father puts away, with the most piercing expressions of loathing which the whole Scriptures contain, “I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
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