Prodigal
Info
The best robe was a sign of position and the ring also, especially if, as many hold, a signet ring is meant (cf. Gen 41:42; Esth 3:10; 8:2; [Zech 3:4]).… In his destitution his son went barefoot. But this was fitting only for a slave and the [sandals] marked him out as a freeman
Filled with love and compassion, the father welcomed him as he embraced, kissed, and forgave his wayward son (15:20)
Captain Sir W. E. Parry observes, “There is nothing even in the whole compass of Scripture more calculated to awaken contrition in the hardest heart than the parable of the Prodigal Son
It is the prince of parables, a gospel within the gospel, a mirror of man, an artless yet profound little drama of human ruin and recovery.
He is already feeling the pinch of wrong-doing. “And he began to be in want.” The fruit of evil deeds is revealing its poison. He finds himself in the grasp of premonitory pangs
Ever since he left his father’s house his inclinations have descended lower and lower. He tried to fill, to satisfy himself with them, but he could not. They merely stayed his hunger. There was a bitterness in their flavour which something in his palate nauseated. The pleasure of eating was gone. The food of a beast cannot satisfy the soul of a man
Sin creates a sort of moral insanity
When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him.” He had not seen his father, but “his father saw him.” Unconsciously to the son, the love of the father has been drawing him all the way. If he had lost the image of his father from his memory, he would never have attempted to return
Ran,”—willingness is too feeble an epithet to denote the impulse. There is eagerness in “ran.” God is hasting to save and bless
The father is not going to treat his son as an “hired servant.” God’s forgiveness must be God-like. God’s love is always greater in experience than in our most sanguine wishes and brightest hopes
For every step the sinner takes towards God, God takes ten towards him
The robe stands for honour; the ring for authority, for if a man gave to another his signet ring it was the same as giving him the power of attorney; the shoes for a son as opposed to a slave, for children of the family wore shoes and slaves did not. (The slave’s dream in the words of the spiritual is of the time when ‘all God’s chillun got shoes’, for shoes were the sign of freedom.) And a feast was made that all might rejoice at the wanderer’s return.
Once Abraham Lincoln was asked how he was going to treat the rebellious southerners when they had finally been defeated and had returned to the Union of the United States. The questioner expected that Lincoln would take a dire vengeance, but he answered, ‘I will treat them as if they had never been away.’
It is the wonder of the love of God that he treats us like that.
God was plainly active in the ministry of Jesus, forgiving and restoring sinners like the prodigal son, who had slipped into the greatest shame and degradation and had no claim on the father’s resources. Divine grace was not appreciated by the critics, who wanted to earn God’s favor and had no sympathy for those like the prodigal, who had to come back humbly to seek the Father’s mercy when they didn’t deserve it.
This parable, then, was clearly a weapon of controversy used by Jesus to challenge his critics to acknowledge the error of their ways, to see in his ministry God’s beneficent grace for sinners, and to enter with joy and celebration into life in the heavenly Father’s Kingdom, sharing in the party. Would they come in or stay outside? The choice was theirs, and the parable does not answer the question. If the Kingdom of God were like a party, would it not be tragic to remain outside? Jesus’ critics were given a choice.
The old legs started churning. Arms stretched out. Lips reached for a kiss
The son must be properly dressed for the party. Servants dashed off as they were commissioned to get the best robe, a ring, sandals—things all lost long before the pigpen.
