LOST SHEEP, LOST COIN, LOST SON
LOST SHEEP, LOST COIN, LOST SON
(CP Lu 15:1-32) Jesus told three parables in one here. They are three aspects of the one central truth Jesus was impressing upon the Pharisees in response to their murmuring about Him fraternising with sinners in V1-2. The Pharisees had no concept of a God who loved sinners and sought to restore them to fellowship with Himself. Their view was that God loved the righteous, but hated sinners. The discrepancy between Christ's actions and the Pharisees' concept of God raised the question of what God's attitude was toward sinners. The question was so vital that Christ went into great detail here to provide the answer, illustrating three aspects of how the Father heart of God is directed toward sinners.
In the parable of the lost sheep (V3-7), Jesus compares sinners to a sheep which has gone astray (CP Isa 53:6). The focus of the parable is on the effort expended by the shepherd, and the joy experienced when the sheep is found. In the context of the controversy over His relationship with sinners, Jesus illustrates by the parable that His ministry is one of seeking and saving sinners, and He emphasises the joy that abounds in heaven even if just one sinner repents and is saved. The friends and neighbours who rejoice with the shepherd when the lost sheep is found Symbolize the members of the local assembly whose joy also abounds when a sinner repents and is saved. The ninety-nine just persons in Luke 15:7 are the righteous who have already repented and been saved. This parable is also found in Mt 18 (CP Mt 18:11-14). In the parable of the lost coin Jesus once again shows how the Father heart of God is turned toward sinners, and how He diligently seeks to save them (CP Lu 15:8-10). Jesus uses a woman and a coin this time to make His point: just as the woman diligently sets about to find a lost coin, so too God diligently sets about to find a lost sinner, and just as the woman rejoiced at finding her lost coin, so too God rejoices over each sinner who repents and is saved (CP V11-24). This is the parable of the lost son, also known as the parable of the prodigal son - so-called because prodigal means recklessly wasteful, which is what the son was. This parable simply teaches another aspect of the same central truth illustrated in the two preceding parables - how the Father heart of God is directed toward the salvation of sinners and restoring them to fellowship with Himself.
The parable of the lost son proclaims the good news of the gospel. All that is taught throughout scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, is a running commentary on this parable. The father's compassion toward his repentant son in the parable portrays God's infinite love and forgiveness toward every sinner who repents, and as the father joyfully celebrated his son's return and restored him to his position of sonship in the family, so too God rejoices over every sinner who repents, and restores them to sonship with Him (CP Jn 1:12).
But the parable goes even further yet in its teaching (CP Luke15:25-32). This final section of the parable describes the attitude of the elder son. The elder son symbolizes the Pharisees and scribes who murmured against Jesus fraternising with sinners in V2 (CP V1-3). They had the same attitude toward sinners as the elder son had toward his brother, and the elder son's self-righteous claim to having obeyed all his father's commandments symbolized their self-righteous claim to having obeyed all of God's commandments (CP V31).
The elder son had no right to complain - the same privileges the younger son was now enjoying were always available to him, but he never availed himself of them. This symbolized the Pharisees and scribes never availing themselves of the kingdom benefits Jesus was offering them, and as the elder son refused to go in to the feast, they too refused to enter into the kingdom. Jesus was revealing to the Pharisees and scribes in this passage that the same privileges of sonship sinners receive when they repent and are restored to fellowship with God are available to them too, but sadly they rejected Christ's teaching and thus disqualified themselves from receiving God's blessings (CP Ac 13:46). Paul said that they judged themselves unworthy of salvation.
Some Bible scholars believe there is no blame attached to the elder son in this parable, that in fact he deserves our sympathy. He had never given his father a moment's worry, yet no fuss was ever made over him. They see him as someone who was never lost, representative of Christians who have been in Christ all their lives, having joined the church at a young age and never leaving it - growing up in the Lord through Sunday school and Bible college, etc. They do not agree that Jesus portrays the elder son as angry, bitter, unforgiving, and loveless toward his brother, and resentful and self-righteously indignant toward his father. They contend that he was always on hand, always dependable, but he did not like being taken for granted by his father. All this of course contradicts everything that Jesus Himself taught about love and mercy and forgiveness, and what the Bible teaches elsewhere about self-righteousness (CP Isa 64:6; Mt 5:7; 9:12-13; Lu 6:36-38). And to say that the elder son did not like being taken for granted by his father also contradicts what Jesus himself teaches about what God expects of His children in Lu 17.
UNJUST STEWARD
(CP Lu 16:1-13) This is an unusual parable which has been the subject of many and varied interpretations and explanations also, but it is simple to understand when we are clear in our minds what it does not teach. Firstly, it does not teach that Christ condones the cunning deceit of the steward - it is the steward's own lord who commends his ingenuity, not the Lord Jesus Christ (CP V8). Jesus simply contrasts the shrewd foresight of the steward in using present opportunities to ensure his future earthly well-being, with the lack of foresight by the children of God in not using their earthly resources for their future heavenly well-being. The point he makes is that worldly men in their sphere to scheme and provide for themselves are wiser than the children of God in their sphere; unbelievers are shrewder in handling their own temporal affairs than Christians are in handling the affairs of God. This should impress upon us how vital our stewardship is as a test of our relationship with God.
Secondly, the parable also does not teach that by using the mammon of unrighteousness we can buy our way into heaven. The mammon of unrighteousness refers to material wealth and Jesus is telling us to use what material wealth we have to win souls to Christ, so that when we get to heaven they will be there to welcome us. For Christians the "everlasting habitations" in V9 refers to the kingdom of heaven as our eternal home. Souls won through the deployment of our finances now will become our joy and crown of rejoicing in eternity (CP Dan 12:3; 1Th 2:19-20). The core teaching of the parable of the unjust steward is not that believers are to make friends of material wealth, but to make friends by means of it. We must use all the temporal resources at our command for God's purposes on earth in order to secure our place in heaven; if the people of the world know how to use worldly possessions and apply materialistic ways to ensure their earthly well-being, how much more should Christians use the resources at their command to ensure their eternal well-being. Our Lord is teaching us that the manifestation of common sense or prudence is the test of faithfulness. If what we have, whether much or little, is faithfully used as a servant, then it is capable of providing us with resources of eternal value. This is not teaching that Christians have to accumulate wealth for the purpose of extending God's kingdom. Nowhere in the Bible does God tell us that we need to accumulate money on His behalf - we are simply to make what we have available for His purpose.