And he spoke to them this parable, saying,
In verse 2 the religious leaders grumble that this man receives sinners. Jesus answers them not with an argument but with a story — one parable, aimed at the very people who objected.
The complaint against Jesus was that grace makes room for evil. He could have replied in several ways, but the whole chapter takes one line only.
The Pharisee had accused Him of receiving sinners, as if His ministry did not secure righteousness but gave freedom to evil. He could have offered several answers to this. He could have defended His grace to sinners by pointing to the need of the case, or to God's glory. But in this chapter, from beginning to end, in each of these lovely parables, He defends it on one ground only: the joy that He, the Father, and all heaven itself were finding in it.
Another writer puts the reply in the Lord's own voice: "Yes, I receive sinners, but the reason is that God receives them. I am only showing among you the grace that is His!" (J. T. Mawson)
The Lord had just been in a Pharisee's house. The change of company changes everything.
The Lord holds Himself back in the Pharisee's house. He has gone through it and come out of it, and found nothing for His heart. Among tax collectors and sinners all reserve is dropped, and the grace of God... comes out in all its fullness, together with all that grace would bring in, seen in souls brought to God as a present reality. The murmuring of the religious leaders only served as the dark background that made this revelation stand out.
The critics had spoken. Now it is His turn, and He answers in a way anyone could follow.
Now He will speak, and open up something of the mind and heart of God. But He will do it in parables. In that way He brings home to everyone who listened, and to anyone who would read them with care, how natural it was for Him to act like this. He shows it with pictures from real life — from the life of a shepherd, of the home, and of the family.
The verse says "this parable" in the singular, though three stories follow. That one word holds the chapter together.
First of all we notice that the chapter contains just one parable. There are three parts to it, but it is one great lesson. The thread that runs through it is God seeking and finding lost and dead people and showing them grace.
The one parable still has three parts. A common reading finds each Person of the Godhead at work in rescuing one soul.
Notice that the whole chapter seems to be called one parable, although three distinct ones make it up. Each of them shows one of the persons of the Godhead seeking the lost.
Writers fill in that reading differently. One describes the second part as "the heart of the Spirit of God using a woman, a picture of the church" (Leslie M. Grant).
Preachers often take the last section on its own. One writer warns that this leaves the gospel unfinished.
Let me say here that only when we link the three parables in this way can we preach a full gospel from this chapter. If we preach from the last one only, someone may well ask, "On what basis can God, who is righteous, forgive the sinner?"
The word "them" points back to the objectors. The first part of the parable answers them.
When we study these parables we must not forget that the Lord first of all answers the murmuring Pharisees. This does not rule out the wider application to the gospel... In the parable of the Shepherd the ninety-nine do not stand for the unfallen angels, nor for people of other worlds, as some have suggested. They stand for the self-righteous Pharisees, who think they need no repentance. The one sheep, lost and helpless, pictures the tax collectors and sinners, who admitted they were lost.
- Charge. The accusation was that He welcomes sinners; the parable is His reply, and He never denies the charge.
- Defence. He does not argue from need or from God's glory. He points to the joy that He, the Father and all heaven find in receiving the lost.
- One. Luke calls the whole chapter one parable — one lesson, told in three scenes.
- Three. Many read the three parts as the Son, the Spirit and the Father, each seeking the same lost one. Keep them together, or the chapter no longer gives a full gospel.
- Them. Jesus spoke it to the murmurers first. The ninety-nine stand for those who think they need no repentance, and the one lost sheep for those who admit they are lost.
What man of you having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
Tax collectors and open sinners crowded in to hear Jesus. The religious leaders complained that He welcomed such people and ate with them. His reply is a question drawn from ordinary life: a man, his flock, and one missing animal.
The parable answers a complaint. It defends God's welcome of sinners before people who found that welcome offensive.
God, in the person of the Lord Jesus, had come so very near to the sinner that the legalism of the scribes and Pharisees took offence at it. "This man receives sinners, and eats with them." That was the charge laid against divine grace in the court of man's legal, proud, self-righteous heart. But it was the very glory of God — God manifest in the flesh — God come down to earth to receive sinners. He left His Father's throne not to search for righteous people; why would He search for them? Who would think of going to look for anything but what was lost?
This verse opens the first of three linked stories. Commentators see the Father, the Son and the Spirit each at work across them.
The parable of the lost sheep pictures the work of the Son. The parable of the lost coin shows the work of the Spirit. The parable of the prodigal son paints in vivid colours the warmth of love with which the Father welcomes the wanderer home.
Jesus asks His critics to judge the case by what they would do themselves with a missing sheep.
The first thing the Lord Jesus does is to justify God in being good to sinners. He appeals at once to the natural heart of man. "What man of you, having a hundred sheep?" The shepherd puts the sheep on his shoulder and brings it home rejoicing. Have I not a right to seek lost sinners? Is it not a right thing for God to come among tax collectors and sinners? This may not suit a moral man, but it suits God. It is His privilege to come where sin is, and to come near to ruined sinners, because He can deliver them out of it.
The sheep never goes looking for the Shepherd. Every verb of effort belongs to the one who goes after it.
With us it is not a question of our going in search of Christ. It is the man Christ Jesus, the good Shepherd, going after us — after what was lost… It was He who came, and He who took on the labour. It was His to endure the suffering unto death, even the death of the cross. It was He who found and saves the lost sheep… No doubt the sheep does reap the benefit. Yet it was not the sheep that sought the Shepherd, but the Shepherd the sheep.
The Shepherd keeps going until He finds it. Commentators dwell on what that cost Him.
And oh, what tireless grace breathes in the words "until he finds it"! Jesus, our gracious Shepherd, would not let anything defeat Him in the work He had taken up. He came ready to meet every obstacle in His way. He knew all that lay before Him before He could lay His hand on the lost one. He knew He had to face all the malicious opposition of Satan, who would dispute every step of the way with Him.
Notice where the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine. The ESV calls the place open country; older translations call it a wilderness.
The ninety-nine stand for the Pharisee and scribe class. They were left not in the fold but in the wilderness — a place of barrenness and death. The one lost sheep stands for the tax collector and sinner class: those who are lost, and know it.
Readers still ask who the ninety-nine really are. One writer answers that they are a reflection, not a real group.
The mistake is in treating as real what is only an image in a mirror. The Lord holds that mirror before His audience so that they may recognise themselves. So He must picture them as they themselves think they are — and He uses that estimate at once to convict the one side and to encourage the other.
- Cause — The parable answers a complaint. Jesus welcomed sinners, and religious men took offence that God had come that near.
- Seeker — God does the searching, not the sinner. The Shepherd here is the Son. The woman and the father in the next two stories show the Spirit and the Father at the same work.
- Question — The Lord appeals to His critics' own hearts. Any of them would go after a lost sheep. Why deny Him the right to seek lost people?
- Until — The search has no cut-off point. It runs through opposition and cost to the cross itself. The sheep adds nothing to it but its lostness.
- Mirror — The ninety-nine stand in barren open country, not safety. They picture people who think they need no rescue, and the Lord holds that picture up so they can see themselves in it.
and having found it, he lays it upon his own shoulders, rejoicing;
The Pharisees and scribes had grumbled that Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them. He answered with a picture: a man searching for one straying sheep out of a hundred. In verse 5 the search succeeds. Everything in it belongs to the shepherd — the finding, the lifting, the carrying, the joy.
Matthew tells the same parable, and the two accounts word the finding differently:
Luke has, "Having found"; Matthew has, "if it should come to pass that he find." The simple explanation is this. Luke's record views the matter from the standpoint of grace. Matthew's views it from that of responsibility.
The story gives the sheep one activity only — wandering. Everything else is the shepherd's, and the parable never even tells us how the sheep felt about it:
The sheep showed its activity in wandering, and in wandering far away. The shepherd showed his activity in going after it to bring it back. No effort was too great, no distance too far for him to go... All that we read of the sheep is its wandering, not a word of its feelings when found. The One who had come to seek and to save the lost draws attention only to the shepherd's feelings. The murmuring Pharisees did not understand what was going on. They did not see why the tax collectors and sinners were drawn to the Lord. They did not share His joy when such people found their way to Him.
Finding the sheep was only the first step.
He no sooner finds the sheep than he puts it in the most secure place — "he lays it on his shoulders." How? Complaining of the weight, or the trouble? Oh, no: he lays it on his shoulders "rejoicing." How little the sheep knew of the deep feelings of joy filling the shepherd's soul. It would probably add to his trouble by kicking, plunging, and struggling to tumble off its place of safety and rest. But no matter for that: the shepherd had hold of it, and in that he rejoiced. A loving heart and a powerful shoulder could overcome every obstacle.
One writer weighs the plural against a promise in Isaiah:
In the fifteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel the shepherd has the once lost sheep upon his shoulders. It is his "shoulders," mark, not his shoulder only. Christ is that shepherd, and the Christian is the sheep. The future government of the world is going to rest upon "His shoulder." "His shoulders" are beneath the helpless sheep (Isaiah 9:6; Luke 15:5). The shoulder is the symbol of strength. "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," Christ says.
The shepherd carries the sheep, so its safety never depends on its own grip.
As sheep, our security is the responsibility of our Shepherd (1 Peter 2:25). Of each saved sheep it is written, "When He has found it, He lays it on His shoulders, rejoicing." The sheep's struggles would not be to stay on, but to get off. We are not saved by our "holding on," for sheep have no hands to hold on by. The rejoicing Shepherd now carries all the Lord's sheep along on His shoulders, and so all are equally saved. The Shepherd will see to it that not one shall slip off His shoulders.
The word "rejoicing" attaches to the shepherd, and that is the point of the whole chapter:
In Luke 15 the great principle set out is that it is God's happiness when we are brought back to Him. Of course the joy of the restored one comes in, but it is not the primary thing. The object of all three parables is not to show our joy, but the joy of God in our restoration. The three parables all teach the same grace, but we get, I believe, the joy of the Son, of the Spirit, and of the Father.
In open country the shepherd had no one to share that joy with. So he holds on until he reaches home.
The shepherd could not bear to let the sheep off his shoulders until he got home. He knew there was no one in the desert who could share his joy... He had to wait until he and his precious charge were inside the quiet walls of his happy home. Then came the outburst of real joy.
- Found — Luke drops Matthew's "if" from the finding. This is the story told from the side of grace, where the search cannot fail.
- Lifted — the shepherd does not drive the sheep home. He puts it in the safest place he has, his own shoulders, and makes no complaint about the weight.
- Shoulders — both are under the sheep, while one carries the world's government. The shoulder stands for strength, and all of it works for the helpless.
- Held — sheep have no hands to hold on with. The Shepherd's responsibility, not the sheep's effort, keeps them safe on the way home.
- Rejoicing — the joy is the Shepherd's, and He carries it all the way home before He shares it. God's happiness over the lost is what the murmurers missed.
and being come to the house, calls together the friends and the neighbours, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.
The search ends and the celebration begins. But notice who throws the party and who gets invited. The shepherd's first act at home is not to show off the sheep. He calls in company to share his own gladness. So whose joy is salvation?
The shepherd carries the sheep the whole way home before anyone celebrates. One writer explains why the joy had to wait.
Finally, notice the words, "when he comes home." This is the high point of the story. There could be no calling together of friends and neighbours in the wilderness. The wilderness is the place that draws out Divine love in seeking and Divine power in saving the lost. It has to be the scene of the shepherd's worry and hard work, because it is a place of danger to the sheep. The shepherd could not bear to let the sheep off his shoulders until he got home. He knew there was no one in the desert who could share his joy. There were wolves there, but that was all.
The sheep is safe. But the story presses a different point.
One word stands out in this three-part story: "I have FOUND." The Shepherd found the sheep. The woman found the silver. The Father found the son. The sheep, the silver and the son were saved, and no one will question that. But that is not what the Lord is showing here. He is showing that they were lost and found. They were lost — to whom were they lost? To the Shepherd, the woman and the Father. But we do not talk of a thing as lost that has no value. We do not seek what is worth nothing; and when we have found what we had lost, the joy is ours.
The call is not "be happy for yourself" but "share my joy." One writer says worship begins right there.
Some suppose this is only about the sinner's need to be saved, or his joy when he is saved. That forgets the fullness of love in God and in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is a far deeper joy, and this is the foundation of all true worship. Our joy is not just the feeling of our own rescue. It is our appreciation of His delight in rescuing us, His joy in our salvation. This is communion, and there can be no worship in the Spirit without it.
The shepherd calls in those already close to him. That closeness is what the critics in front of Jesus lacked.
The Shepherd shares His joy with His friends and neighbours. He says to them, "Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep that was lost." Those who live in close communion with the Son of God know what this means, and are blessed by it. His interests are theirs. What He achieves in saving grace gives them material for holy triumph and delight. But where did these religious men stand with Him? Instead of rejoicing in His joy, they could only offer cold criticism of His goodness to the needy and lost.
One writer names who those friends are.
Then the reception, the gathering together of the friends, the angels, to tell them all to rejoice with Him!
The critics objected to the company Jesus kept. His answer was not an argument but a picture of God's own gladness.
Only think of that! Ask the Lord God for a reason for His ways of salvation with you and me, and He says that He takes delight in them. They make Him and His glorious dwelling rejoice. Would his neighbours complain at the shepherd's joy over his lost sheep now found? Would the woman's friends begrudge her pleasure? So it is with God. It is His own joy in the salvation of sinners that Jesus offers as His warrant. Let us hold this thought in our hearts: our God has done nothing less than make our salvation the scene of His own happiness.
Some link the shepherd, the woman and the father with the three Persons of the Godhead, each with a part in one recovery.
One writer has suggested that in verse 6 "Rejoice with me" may be the Father and the Holy Spirit rejoicing in the work of the Son. In verse 9 it would be the Father and the Son rejoicing in the work of the Spirit. And "let us eat and be merry" in verse 23 would be the Father, Son and Holy Spirit rejoicing together. No doubt we are brought into this joy too. But these verses seem to point to the joy that belongs to the Persons in the Godhead as They recover man for Their pleasure.
- Sought — the wilderness is where love searches and power saves. No one out there can share the joy.
- Carried — the shepherd keeps the sheep on his shoulders the whole way home, so the arrival is His work.
- Found — the word that stands out is "I have found." What is lost is lost to someone, and no one searches for what has no value.
- Shared — "Rejoice with me" widens His gladness into company: friends, neighbours, angels.
- Answered — the critics wanted a reason for His kindness to sinners. The reason is God's own delight, since He has made our salvation the scene of His happiness.
I say unto you, that thus there shall be joy in heaven for one repenting sinner, [more] than for ninety and nine righteous who have no need of repentance.
Religious leaders had complained that Jesus welcomed disreputable people and ate with them. He answers with the parable of the lost sheep, then tells them what heaven celebrates: one repenting sinner set against ninety-nine who need no repentance.
Two groups stood around Jesus: outcasts drawn to Him, and religious leaders who resented it.
There is a drawing power in the person of Christ that brings tax collectors and sinners to hear Him. The Pharisees and scribes resented this. In proud self-righteousness they condemned Him for receiving and eating with sinners. Sad indeed that they can discern the sin of others while blind to the sin of their own hearts.
The same moment produced two opposite feelings on earth. Heaven joins only one of them.
He was rejoicing. The Pharisees were murmuring. But others would share His joy. The inhabitants of heaven could understand it, and they all will have part in it. … It is enough for now to call attention to the untiring love of the true Shepherd in seeking, and to His unceasing joy at finding. The Lord was telling out secrets of His own heart.
The comparison is no compliment to a better class of people. It points straight at the men who were complaining.
The ninety-nine who need no repentance never know they are lost, so they will never be debtors to God's mere mercy. Such were those Pharisees who were finding fault with grace… What is the definition, then, that the Lord gives of a repenting sinner? A "lost sheep." You see, He was speaking to the heart — not mere doctrine. He spoke this way to lay hold of the souls around Him. These poor sinners, at least, would know that the lost sheep meant them. And these Pharisees would know that the ninety-nine who needed no repentance were themselves. In fact, there were no such persons.
But suppose such people could be found. Heaven's joy would still fall on the other side.
On earth you cannot find the "ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." But it is sadly easy to find ninety-nine who imagine themselves to be such. Yet even if they existed, there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over them. All the countless holy angels in heaven have never caused such joy as one repentant sinner. What astounding grace this is!
The joy has a precise object. It is not the rescue itself.
Notice, finally, that it is joy "over one sinner who repents," not exactly over his salvation. It is joy over a soul brought to confess its sin, judge itself, and vindicate God. We tend to be more occupied with the deliverance from immediate danger. In short, we tend to feel for the human side far more than we enter into God's moral glory or His grace. The joy in heaven is over the repenting sinner.
So everything turns on the word "repents." The usual definitions of it fall short.
Some say it is sorrow for sin. Some say it is a change of mind, resting on the literal meaning of the word. Others say it includes the decision to forsake sin and to do the will of God in the future. In truth it is none of these, nor all of them combined… Scriptural repentance is nothing less than our siding with God in His judgment of our sins. It is taking His part against ourselves, and so bowing in the dust before Him in true self-judgment.
One sinner outweighs everything the world calls great.
Empires may rise and fall. Kings may step down or be crowned. These things shake the world and fill the front pages of our newspapers, but they do not move heaven. Yet if one sinner repents and turns to God, if the Shepherd finds one sheep, there is joy in heaven. Incredible! Yes, we would say that, if Jesus had not told us — but He surely knows what heaven values.
Since the verse reports what heaven feels, it also exposes what we feel.
But man as such does not rejoice when his fellow turns in sorrow and self-judgment to God. This is not the feeling of the earth, where sin and selfishness reign. But it is certainly the mind of heaven… The Lord here assures us that a repentant sinner sets the keynote of joy on high. There are no murmurers there; it is universal delight in love. Is it so with us?
- Murmur — The verse answers a complaint. Religious men resented that Jesus received sinners. They saw sin in others and missed it in themselves.
- Mirror — The ninety-nine who need no repentance are those same complainers, as they saw themselves. No such person exists.
- Meaning — Heaven's joy is over a repenting sinner. That means one who sides with God against himself in true self-judgment, not just one pulled out of danger.
- Measure — Heaven's scale is not ours. Empires rise and fall without moving heaven. One returning sinner sets its keynote of joy.
- Match — Earth murmurs where heaven rejoices. There are no murmurers in heaven, so the test is simple: does our joy match heaven's?