What is the meaning of the Parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin?

Now, in these verses that I have read for you, we find the shepherd presented to us in a deeply interesting stage of his gracious work; he is here seen in search of the sheep. The parable derives peculiar force from the fact that it was put forth, together with the parables of the lost piece of silver, and the lost son, as an argument in favour of God's gracious acting towards sinners. God, in the person of the Lord Jesus, had come so very near to the sinner, that legalism and Pharisaism, as represented by the scribes and Pharisees, took offence at it. "This man receives sinners, and eats with them." Here was the offence of which Divine grace stood charged at the bar 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 thus to receive sinners. It was for that He came down into a ruined world. He left not the throne of His Father to come down here to search for righteous people; for wherefore should He search for them? Who would think of going to look for anything but that which was "lost?" Surely the very presence of Christ in the world proved that he had come in search of something, and, moreover, that that something must have been "lost." "The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost." The soul should greatly rejoice in the fact that it was as a lost thing that it drew forth the grace and pity of the shepherd's heart. We may inquire what it was that could have drawn the heart of Jesus towards such as we are; yes, we may inquire, but eternity alone will unfold to us the answer to the inquiry. We might ask the shepherd in this parable why he thought more about the one solitary lost sheep than he did about the ninety and nine which were not lost at all. What would have been his answer? "The lost one is my object, it is valuable to me, and I must find it." So it was with the merchantman, who surely is no other than Jesus: he alone could see, in that which lay buried in the bowels of the earth, an object which was worth everything to him; Jesus alone could see, in a helpless sinner, an object for which He thought it worth stooping from His Father's bright throne to save: —

"Or, what woman having ten drachmas, if she lose one drachma,384 doth not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek carefully till she find it?" Now we find the lost creature is represented, not by a sheep, which, if it has life of a certain sort, has it only to go astray; not by a man, who is at last, after having perverted all that God gave him, brought into intelligent enjoyment of God; but in this parable the lost piece of money is an inanimate thing, and this is most fitted to express what a lost sinner is in the mind of the Spirit of God. He not only slipped aside, though capable of being the object of a new action by grace outside self to find him; but meanwhile the soul is but a dead thing spiritually, with no more power to return than the missing piece of silver. The propriety, therefore, of this coin being used to represent the sinner where there is evidently not the slightest power to go back to God, where it is utterly helpless, where only the Holy Ghost can avail, is manifest. But the woman does not so easily reconcile herself to the loss of her piece of silver. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and seeks diligently till she finds it. The lamp clearly sets forth the testimony of the Word of God; and this it is particularly in the use of the Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus Himself and God as such are thus spoken of. But it is the Spirit alone who, as we know, brings it home to the heart in conscience or peace, when we are brought to God. The Spirit has the character of agency very peculiarly, and in this agency employs the word. The lamp, therefore, is said here to be lit. But that is not all. The woman sweeps the house and searches diligently till she finds it. There is painstaking love, the removal of obstacles, minute working and searching. Do we not know that this is pre-eminently the part God's Spirit is wont to take? Do we not remember when truth was powerless to reach us? The Lord Jesus is rather the suffering Saviour; His mighty work assumes that form. The Holy Spirit of God is the active agent in the soul. The Father freely gave according to His infinite love and counsels. Having in Himself the deep enjoyment of love, He would bring others, in spite of their sins, to be righteously without them, in order to make themselves happy in the enjoyment of Himself. But the Spirit of God, just as beautifully, engages Himself in activity of effort and ceaseless painstaking, till the lost thing is found.

"And having found it, she calls together the friends and neighbours, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma, which I had lost." In every case, whether it be the Son, or the Father, or the Holy Ghost, there is communion. We know that our communion is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ; but it cannot be less familiar to the believer that there is the communion of the Holy Ghost. This is what appears to be set forth here at the close of the second parable: the spreading of universal joy among those who enter into the mind of God. "She calls together the friends and neighbours, saying, Rejoice with me." Thus on all sides is real delight, every person of the Godhead having His own appropriate place and part in the wonderful work of redemption, but, further, deep Divine joy in the result of redemption. "Thus I say unto you, There is joy before the angels of God for one repenting sinner." It is not here generally in heaven, but joy in the presence of the angels of God. They enter into it. They may not have the same immediate concern in it, but it is in their presence; and they delight in it ungrudgingly and unjealously without being the parties to derive direct or personal results from it. Their joy is in what God delights in, and hence in what He is to the creatures of God. What a new scene of enjoyment, too — joy among those who had been lost to God, and enemies to God! "There is joy before the angels of God for one repenting sinner."

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 an hundred sheep?" etc. The shepherd puts the sheep upon 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 publicans and sinners? This may not suit a moral man, but it suits God; it is His privilege to come amidst sin - to come near to ruined sinners - because He can deliver out of it. The shepherd lays the sheep upon his shoulders and rejoices; he goes out to seek it, charges himself with it; he takes the whole toil of it. It was his own interest to do it, because he valued the sheep; it was his, and he brings it home again rejoicing. Thus He presents the shepherd here. And thus it is with "the Great Shepherd of the sheep." He presents it as His interest to "seek and to save that which is lost": He even makes it His interest in the sense of love; the sheep is His own, and He brings it home rejoicing, bidding others to rejoice with Him. There is the strength and power of salvation.

First the parable of the lost sheep. Here we see in the shepherd a picture of the Lord Himself. The ninety and nine, who represent the Pharisee and scribe class, were left not in the fold but in the wilderness — a place of barrenness and death. The one sheep that was lost represents the publican and sinner class; those who are lost, and know it — the "sinner that repents." The Shepherd finds the sheep; the labour and toil is His. Having found it, He secures it and brings it home. His shoulders become its security. He brings it home, and then His joy begins. Never does He have to say, "Sorrow with Me, for I have lost My sheep which was found."

It is impossible to find on earth the "ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance," though sadly easy to find ninety and nine who imagine themselves to be such. Yet if they could be found there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than there could be over them. All the myriads of holy angels in heaven have never caused such joy as one repentant sinner. What astounding grace this is!

The parable of the lost piece of silver pursues the same general theme, but with a few special details. The woman with her operations in the house represents the subjective work of the Spirit in the souls of men, rather than the objective work of Christ. The Spirit lights a candle within the dark heart and creates the disturbance which ends in the finding of the silver. The joy is here said to be in the presence of the angels; that is, it is not the joy of the angels but of the Godhead, before whom they stand.

The cynical remarks of the religious classes in Israel rendered it necessary for the Saviour to justify His attitude towards the guilty and lost. The three parables of Luke 15 were accordingly given, in which is explained, in a manner calculated to move every true heart, the yearning of the divine Trinity over the erring, and the various parts played by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the blessing of such. In the parable of the lost sheep we have portrayed the work of the Son; in that of the lost piece of silver we have the work of the Spirit; while in the parable of the prodigal son we have graphically described the warmth of affection with which the Father welcomes the wanderer home.

The lost sheep illustrates the condition of the sinner who has run away from God. The Epistle to the Romans takes this up and makes it clear that man is actively living in sin. We were desperately lost and it required God to make all the effort to find and bring us back. The lost coin is a picture of man’s condition as spiritually dead. This is the teaching of the Epistle to the Ephesians. A dead person is entirely useless but, more than that, he cannot change his condition at all. This was our natural condition: useless for God and unable to do anything to change our situation.

The woman losing and seeking the silver coin illustrates the energy and grace of the Spirit of God in seeking the lost sinner. The woman is not a picture of the Spirit, but of the Church of God in which the power of the Spirit works in seeking the lost. The lamp being lit speaks of testimony. The sweeping of the house reminds us of the broadcasting of the gospel of grace; while the diligent search is the special care of personal concern for individual souls. Wonderful it is that the Church is given the great privilege of sharing with the living God in His care for souls, and in His rejoicing in the repentance of the lost, for the lost piece of silver is clearly a picture of a lost sinner who, when found, is said to be a sinner who repents. Of course the silver itself, being inanimate, has no such feelings, but it pictures the dormant state of the unbeliever -- valuable, yet lost, and worth the labor of seeking. The woman too expected others to rejoice with her in her finding the silver. So in the presence of the angels of God there is joy in the contemplation of one sinner repenting.

The Lord answers in a parable — indeed, in three. But the first of them is that which we will look at now. He puts the case of a man — of themselves — having a hundred sheep. "If he loses one of them, doth he not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness381 and go after that which is lost until he find it?" He appeals to them: not one of them but would go after his lost sheep and seek to recover it. With us, indeed, it is not a question here of our going in quest of Christ, but of the man Christ Jesus, the good Shepherd, going after us — that which was lost. Supposing a man has ninety-nine that did not so urgently call on his energetic efforts, he can leave the sheep that abide in comparative safety. The one that is in danger is that which draws out his love until he finds it. "And having found382 it, he lays it upon his own shoulders rejoicing." It is evidently the work of the Lord Jesus that is set forth here. Who can fail to recognize in it the mighty manifestation of Divine love which characterized Jesus? It was He Who came, He Who undertook 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; it is He Who lays it on His shoulders rejoicing. Whose joy can be compared with His? No doubt the sheep does reap the benefit; yet assuredly it was not the sheep that sought the Shepherd, but the Shepherd the sheep. It was not the sheep that clambered on His shoulders, but He that laid it there with His own hand. And who shall pluck it thence? It was all, all His work. It was the sheep that strayed; and, the longer it was left to itself, the farther it got away from the Shepherd. It was the work of the Lord Jesus, then, both to seek and to save.

The Saviour asked: "What woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one of them, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and search diligently till she find it?" (v. 8). Here that which is lost is lifeless, in contrast with the first parable, which represents a living thing as going astray (the lost sheep). These are the two points of view from which the epistles to the Romans and Ephesians respectively regard the sinner. Activity in sin is the point in Romans; death — spiritual death — is the point in Ephesians. The painstaking work of the Holy Spirit in seeking the lost is presented in a veiled form in our parable. It is a woman who acts. This suggests the Church of God, the individual members of which are the Spirit's instruments for reaching the souls of men. Many a dark heart needs the light of divine truth to be let into it, that its evil may be exposed, and its deep need of salvation be brought home. The woman's candle expresses this.

Unlike the sheep, which had strayed upon the mountains (Matt. 18:12), the piece of silver was lost in the house. The great professing mass called Christendom is likened in 2 Tim. 2:20 to "a great house" containing a mixed medley of the precious and the vile. Thus it is not only that the profligate and the wicked are lost, but many religious persons also. Perishing souls may be found in both tavern and "place of worship." The lost sheep is the image of the one; the lost coin is the image of the other.

He was rejoicing. The Pharisees were murmuring. But His joy would be shared in by others. The inhabitants of heaven could understand it, and in it they all will have part. "I say to you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance" (ver. 7). To expatiate at length on the parable would be foreign to our present purpose. Often as the gospel has been preached from it, its fulness has not been exhausted. Sufficient is it for the present to call attention to the unwearied 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 Lost Piece of Money. — Another parable now follows, drawn from domestic life. A woman, having lost one piece of money out of ten, is in earnest about finding it. She lights a candle. She sweeps the house. She seeks diligently for it, till she finds it. That done, she calls her friends and neighbours to rejoice with her, as having found that which she had lost. All perfectly natural. What diligence and painstaking for one coin of the value of eightpence! If the shepherd and the woman could in natural life be so concerned, the one for the sheep, the other for the coin, called in the original a drachma, was it surprising that the Lord should care for sinners, immortal creatures, of far more value than a drachma or a sheep? And if the finding of the lost piece of silver was a fitting occasion and ground for the woman to summon all her female friends and neighbours, as the original implies, to rejoice with her, joy might, and certainly would, take place in heaven before the angels of God over one sinner that repents. In the former parable the angels may be viewed as rejoicing. Here the joy is viewed as manifested in their presence. Whose joy then is it of which we read? Any surely can answer that question, and, as they do it, find their heart warmed by this announcement of God's joy over repentant sinners.

So far these parables have a great deal in common. In both, that which was lost, but a small part of that which remained — a tenth in the latter case, a hundredth in the former — aroused the anxiety and activity in the one case of the woman, in the other of the shepherd. So that personally they searched, till they found what was lost. In both too there is the joy of the finders, and which could not be satisfied unless others shared it with them. Seeking, finding, rejoicing, these are the great features in common. Is the second parable then but a repetition of the first? No. For though both tell us of Divine activity in grace, it may be, as has been often stated, that in the first we have the activity of the Lord under the similitude of the shepherd, and in the second the activity of the Holy Ghost under the simile of the woman. But men, sinners, are the objects of that activity; and the desire is to get hold of the lost. So both parables were needed to present the truth of fallen man's condition, as far as parabolic teaching could convey it. For men, we learn, are both guilty (Rom. 3:19), and by nature dead (Eph. 2:1). Guilty because they have sinned; dead too, being without spiritual life in the soul. The Epistle to the Romans treats of the former condition, that to the Ephesians of the latter. As each one who consciously shares in Divine grace was both guilty and dead, the lost sheep, which had wandered, illustrates the first of these conditions, and the money, a lifeless thing, can recall to us the second. Then the well-known parable which follows shows us that both conditions are true of the one who is to be a recipient of Divine grace. And, as we have had illustrated the seeking of the sinner, we are taught in the next parable, drawn from family life, of his welcome by the One against whom he had grievously sinned.