Chapter XVII: Part II: The Wedding Garment (6)

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]

[77] You may measure a square surface and find it to contain so many
feet of superficial area: suppose you discover afterwards that it
has depth as well as length and breadth; to take in also this new
measurement does not diminish the old. If we discover that, for his
own sake, the Redeemer accomplished his saving work, it was not on
that account less for our sakes.

[78] "In the centre of all lies the profound thought, that in God
and Christ love is one with self-interest, and self-interest one
with love; no such contrariety existing between them as is found in
the case of man."--_Stier, Words of the Lord_.

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" ([Greek: enôpion tôn angelôn]). 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" ([Greek: houtô].) 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 suggestion[79] 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.

[79] Made or adopted by Dr. Trench.

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.

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 three parables of this group, as has been already intimated, do not constitute a simple consecutive series of first, second, and third: the group consists of two parts, and the first part contains two parables. The saving of the lost is represented in the first division as it is seen from God's side, and in the second as it is seen from man's. In the first, the Saviour appears seeking, finding, and bearing back the lost; in the second, the lost appears reflecting, repenting, resolving, and returning to the Father.

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]

[80] Recognising in the lost coin mainly a repetition of the same
lesson which the lost sheep contained, but justly anticipating from
the mere fact of a repetition, that the second will present some
features which were not contained in the first, Dr. Trench finds the
expected difference in this,--that "if the shepherd in the last
parable was Christ, the woman in this may, perhaps, be the Church."
After suggesting as an alternative that the woman may represent the
Holy Spirit, he remarks that these two are in effect substantially
identical, and finally rests in the conclusion that it is "the
Church because and in so far as it is dwelt in by the Spirit, which
appears as the woman seeking her lost." This able expositor speaks
with evident hesitation when he represents the Church as the seeker
here; and accordingly we find him with a happy inconsistency
affirming in a subsequent paragraph that "as the woman, having lost
her drachm, will light a candle and sweep the house, and seek
diligently till she find it, even so the Lord, through the
ministrations of his Church, gives diligence to recover the lost
sinner," &c. I am willing to accept the phraseology of this
sentence, but it is obviously at variance with the view which he had
previously presented, and to which he recurs in the close, that in
this parable it is the Church which seeks the lost, while in the
preceding parable it is the Saviour. Further, if he maintain that
the woman seeking the lost coin represents the Lord seeking sinners
through the ministrations of the Church, he must also maintain that
the shepherd seeking the lost sheep represents the Lord seeking
sinners through the ministrations of the Church. If the Lord himself
is in both cases equally the seeker, there is no reason in the text
of Scripture, and Dr. Trench suggests none from any other quarter,
why he should be represented as seeking through the ministrations of
the Church in one case and not in the other. The letter of the word
and the nature of the case peremptorily demand that the
qualification regarding the instrumentality of the Church should be
attached to both or to neither. In either case it remains that, in
respect to the person who seeks the lost, these two parables teach
precisely the same lesson.

The house in which the coin is lost means, according to Dr. Trench,
the visible Church: the result is that the Church (invisible)
searches in the Church (visible) for sinners that have been lost
there, and restores them when found to the Church, but whether the
visible or invisible I cannot discover. The Church then calls upon
the angels to rejoice with her over the recovery of the lost. This
exposition seems confused and inconsistent; and it is a dim
mysterious conception of "the Church" that constitutes the
disturbing element.

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 ([Greek: ê]) 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]

[81] Nor do I see any force in the minute criticism by which Dr.
Trench endeavours to make out that while the sheep were the
shepherd's property, the money did not belong to the woman. He says,
"I have found my sheep which was lost;" while she says, "I have
found the piece which I had lost;" but these are nothing more than
varieties of expression. The absolute identity of the terms in which
the two cases are introduced, proves that these seemly and slight
variations of phraseology at the close, do not indicate a
substantial difference. "What man of you having an hundred sheep, if
he lose one of them?" and "What woman, having ten pieces of silver,
if she lose one piece?"--these questions, so carefully and
completely parallel, conclusively show that, after making allowance
for the necessary difference in the nature of the subjects, the two
cases, in relation to possession, loss, and finding, are precisely
the same.

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.

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.

Recall the relation that subsists between this parable on the one hand, and the two that immediately precede it on the other. These two divisions of the group contain two different and in some respects opposite representations. Both exhibit the salvation of lost men; but in the first, that deliverance appears as the effect of the Redeemer's sovereign love and care; in the second, it appears to spring in the depths of the sinner's own soul. There the wanderer is sought and found and borne back; here he spontaneously repents and returns. There the Saviour's part is revealed; and here the sinner's.

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]

[82] A curious illustration of the bondage to which an indurated
Erastianism has reduced many of the Protestant Churches of the
Continent, is incidentally afforded in a remark made by Stier
regarding the peculiar fulness and preciousness of this
parable:--"That this parable, which Lange beautifully terms a gospel
within a gospel, this universal text for preaching about the lost
and recovered sons of our heavenly Father (and the hopelessly lost
first-born to the rich possessions of the house), should be wanting
in the pericopæ of the Sunday Kalendar, is an omission which is
utterly unjustifiable on any ground whatever, which is not
compensated by the insertion of the previous similitudes, and which
of itself is ample reason for that reformation of the Kalendar which
Palmer desires."--_Words of the Lord Jesus, in loc_. The successors
of Luther must, it seems, tread the mill from year to year on the
same limited curriculum of texts which their Kalendar contains; and
those of them who are weary of the restraint long in vain for an
opportunity to preach on such a subject as the prodigal, for it is
not set down in the bond. That Church surely is greatly defective
both in godliness and manliness, that cannot or will not throw open
all the Word of God alike, at all times, to its ministers and
congregations in their Sabbath solemnities.

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_ ([Greek: to epiballon meros]) 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.