Luke 15:11–24

The Saviour adds a third parable to complete and confirm the truth of God's grace in saving the lost who repent. The first showed the sinner carelessly straying by his own act. The second showed him dead and unfeeling until the Spirit works through the living word. The third uses the figure, not of a sheep or a coin, but of a man. It points to a work done inside the conscience, and to the welcome the returning soul finds in the Father's love and in the privileges of grace.

But in blessed contrast with man's awful condition, we get the activity of God — the Son, the Spirit, and the Father. The Son seeks the lost sheep. The Spirit frees the wanderer from the death that lies upon him. The Father receives the lost one when he comes back. We have there not three parables, but one. "He told them this parable," it says. Why? Because He was bringing out the activity of the love of God to man, the lost sinner.

Now in the third parable we have the effect produced. The work is not only conversion or pardon. Nothing done in this way would be enough without the full bringing of the soul to God, and into fellowship with Him too — the new and close relationship of a son by grace. This is what the third parable sets forth. And so it is no longer a sheep or a coin, but a man. It is there that we find intelligence and conscience, and so much the more guilt.

So the parable of the lost son takes man from the very start. It traces the beginning of his leaving, then the course and character of a sinner's misery on the earth, then his repentance, then his final peace and joy in the presence of God — who Himself rejoices as truly as man objects. In practice this is true of every sinner. It begins with a little yielding to sin, or a wish to be independent of God, and in every person's history the evil goes deeper and deeper.

In verse 11 the two sons of a certain man do not picture true believers as sons of God. They picture those who by creation are God's offspring (Acts 17:28). In the younger son we see the tax collectors and sinners of verse 1. In the elder son we see the self-righteous Pharisees... The elder son's nearness to his father was only outward, just as was that of the Pharisees in relation to God.

The Saviour now pictures two sons — one wasteful, the other self-righteous (Luke 15:11-32). These represent the lawless and the religious classes... In the same way most men live with no regard at all for Him whose offspring they are. They squander His rich gifts — health, money, and abilities — on their own desires. The first man aimed at independence of God, and the love of this has marked all his descendants since.

This is man, all men, without exception. Every man desires to have his own way. In this the self-righteous Pharisee is quite as determined as the sinner. The elder son disputes his father's right to receive the repentant prodigal. God's ways, whether in grace or in judgment, never please the natural man.

A third parable is necessary. We need not only a strayed sheep and a lost, lifeless piece of money, but also the moral history of man away from the presence of God, and coming to Him again. So the parable of the lost son takes man from the very first. It traces the beginning of his departure. It follows the course and character of a sinner's misery on the earth, his repentance, and his final peace and joy in the presence of God... In other words, there is a little yielding to sin, or a desire to be independent of God. Then comes a further and further depth of evil in every person's history.

It is the principle of distrust in God, and it results in every form of self-will. I like my own way and not God's. I am determined to have my own will and my own way, whether God wills it or not... This is the very essence of sin, and the root of all other sins. It comes from the unbelieving thought that we can do better for ourselves than God is willing to do for us. So we do not count on Him, we do not wait for Him, but take things into our own hands and follow our own way. "Give me the share of property that is coming to me" is the language of self-will — the worst sin of the prodigal son.

He is not content that his father should keep his portion, but will have it to enjoy himself, independent of the hand from which it comes. It is no surprise that in a little while he would be freer still. The far country is for him an escape from his father's eye, just as the independent portion had been an escape from his father's hand.

"And he divided his property between them." Man is tested — he is responsible; but in fact he is not stopped from having his way, God only keeping the upper hand for the carrying out of His own gracious purposes. Still, as far as appearances go, God allows a man to do what he pleases. This alone will tell what sin means, what the heart seeks, and what man is with all his pretensions — and the worse the more he pretends.

His father richly endowed him with goods. He gave him enough to enable him to make a great and honourable success in life. But he had other plans, and as soon as he got possession he turned his back on his father.

In the younger son we see the tax collectors and sinners of verse 1, and in the elder son the self-righteous Pharisees. The younger son demanded what he could get, and went far from the father to enjoy it. Yet notice that the father divided his property between the two sons. The elder received his full share, but stayed close to his father, where that share would not be wasted. Yet he had no real heart for his father, let alone for his brother. His nearness to his father was only outward.

This is simply our history, as men. Whether living in vice or not, we have all turned our backs on God. The son here was far happier, as a man, going from home than returning; he was doing his own will. This is the secret of all sin. The prodigal was just as completely a sinner when he stepped, rich, across his father's doorway. He was no more a sinner later, feeding with the pigs in the far country.

There was eagerness to get away from his father. As far as his will was concerned, it was a complete abandoning of his father to do his own pleasure. He wished to be so far away that he could act according to his own heart without restraint. There, in a far country, he squanders his property in reckless living. It is the picture of a man left to himself, doing his own will in this world, with ruinous results for the next world as well as this one.

He is not content to let his father keep his portion. He will have it for himself, to enjoy independently of the hand it comes from. You do not wonder to learn that in a little while he would be freer still. The far country is his escape from his father's eye, just as the portion in his own hands was an escape from his father's hand.

The "property" that he gets and squanders is his portion in natural things. God has in fact divided it among people. They may use it as answerable to Him who gave it, or perhaps abuse it in complete forgetfulness of Him. The far-off country he seeks puts him at once among the many who habitually turn their backs on God.

"And there," having reached the far country, he went on cheerfully in his own will as long as he could. He "squandered his property in reckless living." Anyone who lives beyond his means looks rich for a time. In the same way the sinner, wasting his soul, seems happy. But if he thinks himself happy, it is because he has got to a distance from God, where nothing restrains his will. Yet after all he is in the devil's country, and enslaved to him. Liberty of will is just slavery to the devil.

So it is with a sinner. You will see one wasting health, talents and energies chasing some bubble that long escapes his grasp. When he reaches it at last, it vanishes from his sight and gives no satisfaction to his craving heart.

It was not the "reckless living" that made this younger son a prodigal, but the heart that was in him, and God looks at the heart. He asked his father for his share of the property, and his father gave him goods in plenty. He gave him enough to make a great and honourable success of life. But he had other plans. As soon as he had possession, he turned his back on his father. He broke loose from all restraint, travelled far from home, and lived for his own pleasure without any reference to his father's will.

When the prodigal left his father's house, he was as wicked as he was later. He was glad to get away from his father and do his own will... When he crossed his father's doorstep he was as guilty as when he was eating husks in the far country — only not as degraded.

It is the picture of a man left to himself, doing his own will in this world. The ruin runs on into the next world as well as this one. "And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need." Again this is the picture. It shows not only the active course of sin, but its bitter results. Sin indulged in brings misery and want. There is a void that nothing can satisfy, and the selfish waste of all means only makes this felt more in the end.

He had left the only place where all his need could be supplied — his father's house. He had treated his portion and his father's as two separate things. So he had to learn that his own could run out. We can get to the bottom of all human circumstances and resources. Every cup of human or earthly happiness, however deep and however full of good things, can be drained to the bottom.

He has spent everything, and then a severe famine arises in the land. It is not only that his own resources are at an end; the whole land of his choice is stripped and empty. This comes true for us when we have not only lost what was our own. We also come to find that in all the world there is nothing to supply ourselves from. This is not just our own experience, unusual as ours might seem; the cry of want is everywhere. How can we even beg from beggars?

There is in many a heart the sense that there is a famine in the world. Why are there so many concerts and great exhibitions? Because of the famine. They try to keep their spirits up, to do without God, but it is all in vain; they cannot. They would not have to take such pains to make themselves happy if they really were happy.

He "began to be in need," but his will was not touched yet, as we shall see shortly. Many a heart is uneasy in the world, but that alone never brings anyone back to God... A man of the world says you must have everything the world holds to know that the world can never satisfy you. But knowing that the whole world cannot satisfy would never turn a man to God. He must know more — that he is perishing; not merely unsatisfied, but ruined.

Take the prodigal, for instance. When he was brought to his last penny and began to be in want, he came to himself. This was the beginning of the compelling, when the poor prodigal opened his eyes to his condition... The Holy Spirit makes you willing when He makes you see your need.

"He began to be in need" — the experience sooner or later of every sinner... It is a blessed beginning when it throws us on the boundless love and infinite resources of the God of all grace... This parable does not tell us how all this is done in righteousness. We learn that elsewhere. Christ suffered, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. The forgiveness of sins and eternal blessing are for His sake and in Him.

When the famine came, he began to be in want. That never turns the heart to God. Instead he joined himself to a citizen of that country, and was sent into his fields to feed pigs. Drinking and pleasure and excitement did not satisfy, and no one gave to him. There is no giving there; there is selling oneself. When the heart is away from God, want never turns it to Him, but to whatever satisfies the flesh.

But the prodigal "began to be in want." And what then? Did he think of the father? No. As long as he had any other resource, he would not think of returning home. So he joined himself to a citizen of that country instead. This was terrible. This is how Satan crushes those who serve him.

Then he goes and joins himself to a citizen of that far-off land — one who belongs to it as, in this story, even the prodigal did not. Men have come into this condition, but they are not looked on as hopelessly caught in it. Elsewhere there is a Father's heart that travels after them; there is the step of One who goes after what is lost. But the citizen of that far-off land has no ties — not even, one may say, broken ties elsewhere. The devil is certainly such a citizen. The herd he is feeding and fattening for destruction speaks plainly about him.

That certain citizen is the devil. Who ever found any pity in the devil's heart? He disguises himself as an angel of light, as the Bible says he does, but there is no mercy in him. He is "a murderer from the beginning." Yet as surely as a man runs from God, he runs into the arms of the devil.

Now we see the sinner's degradation, because love is not there; self is. The citizen does not treat him as a fellow citizen, but as a slave. There is no slavery so deep or so degrading as the slavery of our own desires. So he is treated as a slave: sent into the fields to feed pigs. How must that have sounded to a Jewish ear?

Everyone who is not walking in communion with God and in subjection to the gospel of Christ is serving Satan in this way. There is no middle ground. Reader, who are you serving? Are you serving Christ or Satan?

He was brought to a sense of his guilt; and what was it? Feeding with the pigs? No, that was the fruit of it. His guilt was in leaving his father's house, turning away from God.

A sad picture of Satan's service: waiting on men who are wholly given up to their own desires, longing even to be as they are. Thank God, it is all in vain. That failure is simply His mercy and the door of hope.

The pigs had food — the fruit of the carob, or locust tree. It was food for pigs, and only the poorest people ate it. The pigs had enough; he had not. He could not even add the husks, or pods, of that tree to his own small share, much as he wanted to. The reason given is this: no one gave him anything. The pigs had everything they needed, but no one cared for him.

He went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs. Now we find the sinner's degradation; for love is not there, but self is. The citizen does not treat him as a fellow-citizen, but as a slave. There is no slavery so deep or degrading as that of our own lusts.

There is no giving in the "far country," not even of husks. Satan sells all, and dearly — our souls are the price. You must buy everything. The world's principle is "nothing for nothing"; everything must bring its price. Your gratifications there must be bought at the cost of reputation and soul. If you sell yourself to the devil, you will get husks: he will never give you anything. If you want to find a giver, you must come to God.

He has sunk to the lowest depth of want and misery; yet no one gives to him. God is the giver, man grudgingly pays his debts, if he pays them: never to God, only half-heartedly to man. But no one gives: so the prodigal found.

He "began to be in want"; but his will was not touched yet. Many a heart is not easy in the world; but that alone never brings anyone back to God. Very few people reach a certain age without having "begun to be in want." But then they go looking for satisfaction in pleasure or in vice — in one thing or another, it does not matter what — and last of all in God. A man of the world says you must have everything the world offers to know that the world can never satisfy you. But knowing that the whole world cannot satisfy would never turn a man to God. He must know more — that he is perishing; not merely unsatisfied, but ruined.

A sad picture of Satan's service — waiting on men who are wholly given up to their own lusts, and longing even to be like them. Thank God, that longing is in vain. This is simply His mercy, and the door of hope.

In this last of the three parables the Lord follows the sinner all the way down to his lowest degradation: eating husks with the pigs. We should remember here what pigs meant to the people He was speaking to. And he is there by his own choice. Why was the picture drawn like this? To show that nothing could put the sinner beyond the reach of grace.

Oh, the dreadful slavery of sin! What wretchedness! And no man can give relief. And yet this very wretchedness and self-loathing is what God is using to bring this poor prodigal to himself. He came to himself. Yes — is not the slavery of sin, rushing wilfully, madly, to certain everlasting misery, is it not madness?

The prodigal had shown quite a few signs of an unsound mind. First, he was a servant of swine; yet, being a Jew, he should have despised swine as unclean. God has passed His sentence on swine. This insane young man was setting his own opinion against God's, in a practical way.

Following the work of Christ seen in the shepherd, we have the work of the woman, which pictures the movements of the Spirit of God. The words in verse 17 — "when he came to himself" — would point to the inward effect of the Spirit's work in the heart of the believer. The first movement in any one of us towards God was not from ourselves; there was a complete change from the moment when "he came to himself".

Now the work of God's goodness begins. He comes to himself, before he comes to God. It is God giving him the conviction of his state. So he feels that even those with the lowest place in his father's house are well, even amply, provided for compared with him.

When he comes to himself, he says the servants have more than enough bread, while he perishes with hunger. There is goodness in God, and badness in me. However wise and clever a man may be, no work of conscience has begun until he reaches that point. And without that, there is no real work at all: There is goodness in God, and badness in me.

"When he came to himself," there is a total change. He was like a madman before, identified with the place where the famine was. The goodness of God comes into his heart. It is not, I shall get it, or, How will I be received? But the sense of goodness is awakened in the soul, and this produces a want of another kind — a sense of the blessedness of God!

Wisdom and philosophy never found out God. He makes Himself known to us through our need; necessity finds Him out. Who is it that really discovers the value of bread? The chemist? No; a hungry man. The sinner's heart — yes, and the saint's heart too — is put in its right place in this way.

He says, "How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread!" And there is not even one hired servant in his father's house!... But in His house He has only children at His table: as it was said of the passover-feast, the type of it, "No foreigner or hired servant may eat of it." (Ex. 12:45.)

He is brought to a sense of his guilt; and what was it? Feeding with the swine? No, that was the fruit of it; his guilt was in leaving his father's house, turning away from God... But the father does not give him time for that. We hear nothing more about hired servants.

His conscience wakes up, but his heart is drawn: "I will arise and go to my father." That is everything. He had turned his back on his father and left God behind him. He has not reached his father yet. But he has turned his face towards him, and his heart too, and that is an immense thing! He has not peace yet; but it is an immense thing when God and the soul meet.

Repentance is the sinner's return to the Father. … Faith makes the return possible.

Heaven is God's throne, and earth is His footstool. So we can easily see why that highest place of divine glory is tied to every thought of purity, love, and worship. But heaven is not the same as God. The son names heaven as the spotless seat of His honour, set against this earth that man's will and sin and lusts have defiled. Then he names someone else: "you," "Father."

Who would have thought that our salvation would come from heaven? That is the last place we would have expected it from, because heaven is what we had sinned against. "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you," cried the repentant prodigal, and that is true of us all. Our sins were an insult to God's majesty, a challenge to His supremacy, and a proof that we hated Him. We might have expected judgment from heaven — wrath, fire, and brimstone — but not love and salvation.

Repentance implies self-judgment in the presence of God. It is a change of mind about myself, about others, and about God. It is a change that humbles me in the dust and puts me in my true and proper place before Him. I say then, like the prodigal, "I have sinned against heaven and before you, and am no more worthy to be called your son."

"I have sinned," said the prodigal. Have you known the moment when you found that you have sinned? When you found that you were undone, and lost, and naked? When you went down before God with the words, "Father, I have sinned"? I call this the grandest moment of a sinner's experience on earth, when he gets before God, and finds out — what? That the One he has offended and sinned against, the One he thought was against him, is for him. He is waiting in grace to receive him. He is on his side.

He knew that there was goodness there, and that it was all over with him where he was. His need, everything, told him he must get back. But he did not yet know how great that goodness was. We see the same thing in Peter (Luke 5); he goes and falls at the feet of Jesus, and says, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" What an inconsistency! at the knees of Jesus, and yet telling Him to go away!

"I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you" — that is confession. "And am no longer worthy to be called your son" — that is repentance. He judges himself. That causes joy in heaven, for when man repents heaven rejoices.

Hired servants were different from the house servants, who were usually slaves. They worked by the day and received their pay at the end of the day. A priest's hired servant did not count as one of the family, and could not eat the holy things. The slaves, though, counted as part of the family.

The last words betray the usual legal state. It is one who thinks God must act according to his condition. Grace never does this. He had wronged his father. He had been guilty of folly, excess, and lewdness. The most he could imagine was his father giving him the lowest place — if he received him at all. He felt that he deserved humiliation. Had he judged more rightly, he would have seen that he deserved much worse.

The prodigal son no doubt thought it would be very humble of him to say, "Make me as one of your hired servants." But this was pride and legality still left in his heart, not humility... The prodigal had no more right to a servant's place than to a son's. He had forfeited all claim on the ground of righteousness. He had only one plea to offer: his pressing need. Only grace could receive him.

This "make me as one of your hired servants" will not do for the father, even if it would do for the son. To receive him and treat him like this would be constant misery to the father's heart, and degradation to the son. His very place in the house would be a constant reminder of his sin! Nor would it be a testimony to the servants in the house about the father's love. The father cannot have sons in his house as servants.

The prodigal had not yet come to feel that it must be grace or nothing. But the father did not give him time to say, "Make me as one of your hired servants." He let him tell out the confession of his sin, but no more — his father was on his neck, kissing him! How could he say, "Make me a hired servant," when his father was on his neck, making him conscious that he was still a son? The prodigal drew his judgment about his father's heart from what the father actually was to him, and not from any abstract reasoning about it.

"I will arise and go to my father." Many times he may have said, "I ought to go to my father," or, "I must go to my father." But he never reached his father until he actually got up. It took the energy of faith to arise.

There was certainly repentance in the prodigal. He says, "Make me as one of your hired servants." But there was no such thought in God's heart at all, though it is what the prodigal's experiences bring him to. But his father meets him in all his rags. The proofs of his reckless living are on him. Until he met his father, he did not know his father's heart.

"While he was still a long way off" — the word is the same as the far country — "his father saw him." How keen are the eyes of love! "And felt compassion" — How tender is the heart of love! "and ran" — How swift are the feet of love! "and embraced him and kissed him." Love cannot be held back. He covered him with kisses, for that is the word.

The father's heart had kept his image. That is why he could recognise him in the distance, coming home so different from the way he had set out. He seems to have been watching for him too. When he saw him, he forgot everything except that this was his son returned... This is a picture of God Himself!

The word translated compassion only occurs in Matthew, Mark and Luke. There are twelve references. It refers eight times to the Lord (Matt. 9:36; Matt. 14:14; Matt. 15:32; Matt. 20:34; Mark 1:41; Mark 6:34; Mark 8:2; Luke 7:13), once in a request made to Him (Mark 9:22), and twice in parables that speak of Him (Matt. 18:27; Luke 10:33). The only other reference is in Luke 15:20, where it refers to the Father.

But his father saw him coming from a great distance and ran to meet him. He embraced him and covered him with kisses before the son had said a word. This is the only indication in Scripture of God running.

He does not send out a servant to tell the son who went astray to turn aside into one of the outbuildings. He does not send him off to the kitchen, or even shut him up in his own room. No; he himself runs. He lays aside, you might say, his fatherly dignity to show his fatherly love. He is not satisfied with simply taking the wanderer back. He must prove that his whole heart is in the reception.

It is not the son who runs. Even though the son was still a long way off, the father saw him. It was the father who ran, embraced him and kissed him. The son would not have dared to do that, still less would he have expected his father to do so. But grace always surprises the thoughts of men... Not a word about his wicked ways! And yet the father was the one who had worked in secret. He produced in the son the conviction of his own evil and the longing to be in his father's presence.

The prodigal had no more right to be received as a servant than as a son. He had forfeited all claim on the ground of righteousness. He had only one plea to offer: his pressing need. He could only be met in grace. Had he been met in righteousness, he would have been condemned for ever. But grace reigns; there is no mention of his sins. The question of sin was settled between God and Christ on the cross... Grace steps in first; the Father ran to meet him, embraced him and kissed him. Reconciliation is expressed and accomplished the moment they meet. He receives the kiss of peace at once; grace is free.

Heaven is Jehovah's throne, and earth is His footstool. So we can easily see how that highest region of divine glory is linked with every thought of purity, love, and worship. But heaven is not the same as God Himself. On the contrary, the prodigal names heaven as the unstained seat of His honour, in contrast with this wholly defiled earth of man's will and sin and lusts. Then he marks out someone distinct: "you," "Father."

Who would have thought that our salvation would come from heaven? That would be the last place we would expect it from, because it was against heaven that we had sinned. "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you," cried the penitent prodigal, and that is true of us all. Our sins were a slur on God's majesty, a challenge to His supremacy, and a proof that we hated Him. We might have expected judgment from heaven — wrath, fire, and burning sulfur — but not love and salvation.

Now it was time for the prodigal to speak. His own need and his father's love made his words direct and short… Here was sincerity and true repentance. He made no excuses; he did not cast the blame on others; he did not even plead for mercy. In that sacred, solemn hour he forgot everyone else. Only his father and himself were left — his sin and his father's love. This is how the sinner comes to God, and love greater than his sin welcomes him.

He was not yet in the full liberty of grace, so he says to himself, "make me as one of your hired servants." He is brought to a sense of his guilt. And what was that guilt? Feeding with the pigs? No, that was the fruit of it. His guilt was in leaving his father's house, turning away from God… But the father does not give him time for that. We hear nothing more about hired servants… He could not have been a servant with the father's arms round his neck.

The prodigal comes back to his father, and there is not a word about "Make me as one of your hired servants." What made the difference? His idea of his position now flowed from his father's thoughts, not his own. Why? The father was on his neck, kissing him. It was not a question of what would be, but the settled awareness of what already was.

It was the father who made the son feel all that was in himself far more deeply, now that the prodigal had come to him. Our Lord leaves the evil unmentioned here. That does not mean the father was indifferent to it… "I have sinned against heaven and before you" was right without question. But it would have been better still if he had said nothing at all about anything he could be worthy or unworthy of. The sad truth was that he was worthy of nothing but chains or death.

Many men in Scripture take the place of saying, "I have sinned." It is very remarkable that not all of them get cleansing. David, Nehemiah, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Micah, the prodigal son, and the thief on the cross all took the place of sinners. They all received cleansing or blessing. But look at Pharaoh, Balaam, Achan, Saul, Shimei, and Judas. These all confess they have sinned, yet they perish… There was no hatred of the sin. There was no desire to turn from it and give it up. There was no true repentance.

Now, in a different spirit from the one that first prompted it, he can pour out his confession. "Make me a hired servant," he cannot say, for shame. And his rightful admission of unworthiness is cut short by the father's insistent joy. The father orders the best robe brought out and put on him, with a ring for his hand and sandals for his feet. He could never have claimed this, even if he had never wandered. It is his now, because the father delights to have him back.

God shows His love towards us as wretched sinners, but then clothes us with Christ. His love welcomes us while we are still in our rags, but here the same love acts in another way. He brings us into the house as He would have us be there, with His mind expressed about the value of a son. The father's mind was that a son of his was worth it all, and that it was worthy of him to give it. How little worthy it would have been of a father acting in grace to keep him as a servant in the house!

It has been well said that the best robe put on the prodigal was ready in the Father's house before he ever got there. He did not add a single stitch to it. It wrapped him in its folds and gave him entry, fit for the Father's house.

God makes coats of skin and clothes them. Life had to be given up to provide those skins. So from Eden we may hear the gospel preached: "Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him." The best, the most costly robe, comes through the Lord Jesus Christ giving up His life.

He is clothed in "the best robe." Like Joshua the priest in Zechariah 3, off come the filthy garments and on go festival robes. The ring would suggest status and relationship, but lasting for ever: "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world." The shoes (or sandals) show the full privileges and rights of sonship: "And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God."

The ring joins the working hand to God for ever, and the feet are given shoes for the whole road ahead, whatever it may be.

When the prodigal walked into the father's house at his father's side, nothing in that house was more splendid than he was. He was dressed in the best the house could produce. What servant in the house could say he was not fit to be there? But who can tell all that the Father has done, and will yet do, for everyone who believes?

"Bring quickly the best robe," He says to the servants — and that is my part of the work. That is the evangelist's work: to tell you of Christ, and to try to show you how attractive He is. It is to tell you that you have nothing to do, and that Christ has done it all for you. Christ Himself is the best robe. There is the best robe for the worst sinner.

Rich people kept a calf ready for any special meal. Abraham presented such a calf, tender and good, to the angels, Genesis 18:7. It is also described as "the fatted calf" in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Luke 15:23.

The fatted calf — the thing reserved. The greater the depth to which God goes down in mercy, the greater the height to which His grace will rise. If God has cleared the ground, He occupies it.

They killed the fatted calf to satisfy his hunger, and so that others too might eat in fellowship with him. The calf pictures Christ, the perfect sacrifice on whom we are privileged to feed, the solid food that gives sustenance and strength. The whole house rejoiced that the son was restored. But the food of that rejoicing is a picture of Christ and Him crucified, for this is the basis of all blessing to mankind.

The fatted calf would perhaps suggest a peace offering, which, as we know, is the fellowship offering. For the remarkable thing is that we can actually enjoy fellowship with the Father and with the Son, and so enter this circle of holy joy that the words "Let us eat, and be merry" would suggest.

Who are the "us" here invited to "eat and celebrate"? It is the Father and the returned prodigal son. God says, "I have found My delight in Him, and now you come and find your delight in Him too." So at His own invitation I feed on what the Father feeds on.

No doubt it is joy to the sinner to be received, but it is the joy of God to receive him. "It was fitting to celebrate and be glad" — and not merely fitting that the child should be glad to be back in the house. The father is the happy one. The return of the prodigal is joy to heaven, whatever men, whatever Pharisees may think about it.

It sets out the joy of God reproducing itself in all who are there. It is not a sketch of what we shall taste when we go to heaven. It is the spirit of heaven made real now on earth, in the worship of those who are brought to God. It is not at all a question of what we were, except to heighten what grace gives and makes us. Everything turns on the excellent efficacy of Christ and the Father's own joy.

Feasting had to take place, so the fatted calf was to be killed; and throughout the house gladness was to reign. "They began to be merry." But there was no end to it. We learn what caused it, and when it began, but never when it ceased.

It may help to see what "dead" really means. The father was not saying that his son had been physically dead and buried, but had been dead to him all the time he was in the far country. So it was with us. We were very much alive in this world — Scripture says we "walked" in it — but quite dead in relation to God, without one movement in our souls towards Him.

But who, and what are such? The lost and dead (Luke 15:24). That is the description given us by Him who came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). How many answer to this? All of Adam's race. By nature, none of his children are morally in any other class. God offers a share in His favour to such people. On the lost and dead He can freely bestow it.

Verse 24 proves that this case is one of a lost and ruined soul being brought to God and saved. He was dead, having no spiritual life, but now alive. He was lost, totally away from God, but now found. You could not say these things of a believer who simply needed restoration. "And they began to celebrate." Such joy begins with conversion and goes on for eternity. Eight points describe the conversion of the young man: revived, remembering, resolved, repentant, returning, received, restored, and feasted.

Grace brings us into the nearer and better relationship of "sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26). The prodigal only enters this state when he finally comes back to his father, confessing his sins and casting himself upon divine grace. The best robe, the ring on his hand, the shoes on his feet, the fatted calf — all these belong to the relationship of grace, and to nothing else. They belong to the person who is born of God by believing in the name of Jesus. It is God magnifying Himself to the lost.

Christ is the fatted calf of Luke 15. God says, "Bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate." Who are the "us" here invited to "eat and celebrate"? It is the Father and the returned prodigal son. God says, I have found my delight in Him, and now do you come and find your delight in Him too. So at His own invitation I feed on what the Father feeds on.

When the son comes to the father, you never hear a word about the son — plenty about him while he is coming, but now you hear about the father and his joy in having him. The poor prodigal was happy enough. Yet it is not said to be "fitting to make him happy" — he already had the best robe. What is fitting is to celebrate and be glad, for this son of mine was lost and is found. He tells it to us so that we should know it.

The wayward and repentant son pictures both in one — he was lost and found, dead and alive again! In the third part we see fullness of joy reached. The once repentant sinner, now clothed in the best robe, stands in his Father's presence and calls Him "Father" in a new way. We are then told, "They began to celebrate!" Earlier it says, "He began to be in need!" That beginning ended when he came to his father, but the other knows no ending.