The Prodigal God - A Brief Study on Luke 15

The Prodigal God

Read Luke 15

Who is the audience around Jesus?

The audience around Jesus is comprised of “tax collectors and sinners” as well as “Pharisees and the scribes.”(15:1-2)

How are these two categories of people in the audience the same? How are they different? Each of these people are living for something and by something. Everybody has “rules” that they live by whether they make them up themselves as they go or they conform to a set of rules outside of themselves based on some sort of formal religion. Hence, they all want something out of life but how they get there is where they differ.

Broadly speaking, Keller makes the point that these people represent two different ways of living: the way of immorality and the way of morality; the way of religion and the way of irreligion, respectively. Why? The tax collectors and sinners are still worshipers of something; tax collectors were often traitors to their nations but still wanted to be Jewish in religion. So they somehow thought they could mingle the corrupt practices of that came with the office of a tax collector (extortion). “Sinners” could be people who have abandoned the Jewish faith altogether for immoral lifestyles, including prostitution or Gentiles. Remember Jesus taught in a predominantly Jewish context and areas so these categories always include some Jews.

What was it that prompted Jesus to teach the parables that he did?

It was the words and attitude of the Pharisees and Scribes who mocked Jesus with the words, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

They mocked Jesus for receiving sinners. Their attitude about God was that God does not associate with sinners at all. They used their words to justify themselves and their attitude toward Jesus. In other words, it made them feel more confident that Jesus was not from God because if, in their view, God does not receive sinners, and Jesus does, then Jesus could not be from God. And worse, Jesus “ate” with them. Eating with someone is always a means of fellowship. So when they said, “he…eats with sinners” they were mocking his fellowship with tax collectors and sinners.

How could we sum up the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:3-7?

Joy over finding what is lost

How could we sum up the parable of the lost coin in Luke 15:8-10?

Joy over finding what is lost

Jesus then tells the longer parable, of the two sons. What element is missing from this parable that is in the parable of the lost coin and the lost sheep?

The search!

Excursus: Jesus is using the parable to address the attitude of the Pharisees and the scribes and everything that these religious people think that they know about God. The Pharisees and Scribes think that they have the monopoly on who God is and who can come to him. Jesus uses the “lost son” to represent the “tax collectors and sinners” and the older son to represent the “Pharisees and Scribes.” The attitude of the older brother toward the return of the lost, younger brother is damning to say the least! These tax collectors and sinners are their own kin, at the very least, of their own nation. Their attitude toward their repentance is appalling to say the least!

What do we learn about “younger brother” types: We learn that they wish God was dead so they could do what they want.

Hear me out. When the younger son ask for an early inheritance, he is wishing his father was already dead so that he could get what he wants. He wants freedom. He is tired of life at home under the father’s house. He want to see, like Reba MacIntyre, if there is life out there!! He gets lost in sin and hits rock bottom and reasons that life was better with his father. He reasons he think he can get back in with his father by being hired as a slave. He wants to work his way back home with some sort of obedience.

What does this tell us about what “lostness” looks like?

2 kinds of lostness; one that looks very bad and another that looks very good!

This tells us something about “older brother” types: They do not believe certain kinds of people are welcomed into their own presence much less God’s! Remember they mocking Jesus’ eating with these people!

But this tells us something important about the Gospel as well: The Gospel is not about your own morality or good behavior.

You see, some people want to control God through their morality and religious lifestyle. How does that work? Well we make our own private deals with God: “God, if I obey you, then you will owe me salvation.” Or “God if I obey you, then you will owe me a good life.” “God, if I do this for you, you owe me prosperity.” These are all the same thing. These all use the things of God to get things from God like the older son did. Do you see that? Luke 15:25-30. The older son is complaining about what he thought he should have had access to but never did; The older son is angry because of what he thought he deserved that he never got , but the younger brother did. The Father is quick to point out that the father was always available to him but the older son choose to obey so he could get the inheritance when the Father died….what about when the father was alive?

What do we learn about the father, who represents God, in the parable?

We learn that God will let “younger brothers” go if they wish. Sin is always available and God wants willing obedience. Both the younger brother and the older brother teach us this in different ways. God wants our hearts, not merely our service. The “younger brother” had no heart for his father and did not want to serve. The “older brother” had no heart for his father either, but plenty of service (“...these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command…’). We also learn that God will let people serve without a heart for a time. But God always confronts both of these types because neither of these are proper ways of relating to God.

We learn that with younger brother types, there is no sin so bad that God cannot forgive. The image of the father running would have stunned the audience listening. Why? Because middle-eastern fathers never “ran.” Running involved “girding your loins” which was to pick up the dress-like clothing and exposing your legs which was taboo for older men in that culture. In other words, the father was willing to have an “abandon” when it came to receiving his repentant son. God’s love is not for “older brothers” (good two-shoes types) only! God loves extends toward sinners of all kinds.

We learn that with older brother types, God will still plead with them to stop acting like slaves and simply come to him (15:31). The older brother misunderstood his relationship with the father and older brother types do as well. “Older brothers” believe that God only relates to them favorably because of their good behavior. But the focus on your own good behavior actually blinds one to the reality of the Fatherhood of God and treats God like a boss instead who owes you a paycheck and pension. It becomes a purely commercial transaction and relationship. This is not how God wants us to relate to him.

Ultimately, Jesus is presenting himself as the one who is seeking the lost younger brother types. He is filling the role of the missing element from the story! He is doing the work that the Pharisees and Scribes should have been about! Jesus is the one who leaves “home” to go search. He, being fully and eternally God with the Father, took on a human nature to come to our sin-infested planet to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). He dealt us into his inheritance giving us eternal life and all the benefits of his obedient life to us through his own behavior so that we cannot use our behavior to manipulate God for good or for ill with regards to our inheritance.

That is, at the heart of the gospel is the person and work of Jesus. He is the one by whom we are all perfectly and equally made acceptable to God by. It is by his perfect life that he lived that we have a righteousness before God. It is by his perfect sacrificial death that no younger brother or older brother sinner ever gets what they truly deserve as punishments. Jesus’ resurrection life is now he new life for “older brothers” and “younger brothers.”

Final Comments or questions:

Come home. Whether you are a younger brother or an older brother. Come home. If you are a younger brother type, stop that sin and realize that you are hurting yourself. If you won’t stop now, then know that there is a God who has already demonstrated his willingness to “run” to you and welcome you home when he gave his son to die on the cross. You have a place in the kingdom of God.

If you are an older brother type, stop slaving for God. You are a son or daughter of God. Quit acing like you have to work to maintain that. God is pleased by his son and when we understand that we are united to him, God is pleased with us by our union with him through faith alone. Don’t work for God’s approval. You work from God’s approval. You don’t work for God’s love; you work because God already loves you. Those are two different motives. When you see others get what you think you have worked for, you will always stay outside the party because its all about you. Come home. Jesus invites you inside to celebrate, not as a slave, but as a son or daughter.