YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)
Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
We got a little sidetracked by Grace yesterday and this was good because it is a subject much talked about but little understood; hopefully we gave it a bit more clarity. Grace is a subject that the Master never touches and the only context that we find Him using word charis in is one of thanks. Once in the parable from yesterday regarding thanking the servant: “Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him?” (Luke 17:9) and three times when explaining that we must go beyond what others do for us in our actions toward them saying: “For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again” (Luke 6:32-34). Similar verses are in the Gospel of Matthew but with the idea of reward and the actual question of “what do ye more than others” (Matthew 5:46-47). It is odd that, although we see that the Master does not teach on Grace nor use the word in the context of Grace, it has become such a big part of the teaching of some parts of the church.
We continue now with our next parable which today is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The parable goes thus: “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 saidto 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.29And 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 15:11-32).
A long story but told to drive home a most important point. We should remember that this is the third parable that the Master told regarding finding what was lost in response to the Pharisees murmuring against Him because He sat and ate with sinners. It also immediately follows Jesus profound statement of “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:10) and in this saying is the reality of the entire Parable of the Prodigal Son. This is probably the most well known of all the parables and it is interpreted in several ways. Some show the young son as rebelling against God, others render the idea that because the son asked for his inheritance that he was wishing his natural father dead. The older son is viewed in this interpretation as thinking he was more deserving. Still others go long on the idea that the younger son represents all sinners and play on the idea of God as favoring the younger with some also believing that the younger represents the Gentiles. Yet another says that this parable shows the nature of repentance and the Lord’s willingness to welcome and bless all that come to Him. There seems no end to the opinions and so we add ours.
Knowing the theme of the Master’s teaching before the telling of this story as He leads up to His statement above regarding the joy in heaven over one sinner that comes to the Lord, should dictate for us the place where an interpretation of this parable should begin. We need to view it in the context that it is given and to look away from the purely flesh aspects except as they serve to guide us through the stages of the story. Let us begin here to view this from our perspective and to try to gain an understanding of the depth of this parable and Jesus intent. We begin with the setting of the stage; Jesus tells two short parables about loss and finding in response to the negative thoughts of the Pharisees. The first is of the shepherd who loses one of his one hundred sheep and leaves the ninety nine in the wilderness to search for the one that is lost. The ninety nine are not lost they know where they are and the moral is that “….joy shall bein heaven over one sinner that repenteth , more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). The second short story is about a woman who has ten pieces of silver and loses one; she then diligently looks for the one lost until she finds it. This leads to the Master’s statement that He says before He tells our subject parable: “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth” which has little or no relationship to the idea of a lost silver coin but which, as we said, sets the stage for the subject parable.
The parable starts out with the thought of the son asking his father for his portion which we commonly think of as his inheritance. Vincent says that under Jewish law if there were two sons the younger would get a third of his fathers goods and the elder two thirds but this was not to be satisfied until the death of the father****. Let us say however that the idea of two sons is just for comparison and that the idea of the law need not be reckoned with insofar as inheritance as these things have little to do with the intent of this parable; they only tend to get one tied up in the minutia of the story. The son, representing our life in flesh, is asking the Father, representing our Spirit self, our True self, our immediate Father in Heaven, for leave to go and to be able to go with the confidence necessary to subsist in the world. This is the story of everyman; it is the story of birth in form, the gathering of what we need to live from education in the world to whatever insights we may gain from our Father through the course of growing up and then striking out on our own. This is as a child of today is wont to do in life as well; it is as the very nature of life in this spiritual picture we are painting. Taking with him his portion everyman breaks out from the house of his father and goes off into the world. How it was in Jesus’ day we do not really know but we just need to look at this as the son leaving the his father and perhaps the family business to go out on his own. We can paint this whatever way we like; the reality of the story is that the son leaves and for us it is the personality consciousness leaving the house of the Father, his spiritual home. This should not be looked upon as a sudden leaving but a gradual event that we are likely little aware of beginning as we start to learn the ways of the world.
Remember that this is a parable and the facts of the story need not be replicated on the spiritual side. We may say that the consciousness never knew the Father but we must realize that it is from the Father that we get life so in some way, we must know Him. It is also important to see that there is no evil intent in the son’s leaving; the riotous living begins after the fact as it does with us and our children if they should fall to such plight. We should also see that this story paints the problem as a great one but in the reality of life there is a great range of character and so a great range of difficulties that the son can encounter. The bottom line here is that he leaves the Father and, on his own, falls into sin and riotous living which is literally living unsavingly****; it is his older brother that refers the to the younger’s behavior as “devoured thy living with harlots“. What do we call riotous living today? hanging in bars, clubbing, hooking up, shacking up, and on the more unfortunate side getting involved with drugs and crime. What part of this have we not done and yet returned to the Father’s house? So the younger son leaves the father and falls into riotous living and wastes his Father’s goods. What are these goods? can they not be those things that he left with, those things of character which up to the point of leaving kept him from being vile. And then he becomes vile but this was not his nature; he wasted all he had and traveled so far from the Father’s house that he seldom even thinks of Him. He is lost in his world of riotous living.
Then famine strikes; this once thrill filled life no longer satisfies him to any degree. He hungers for something but he knows not what it is. He leaves the world of riotous living and joins himself to a stranger, a new thing, but it is not satisfying either and nothing that he touches gives him any satisfaction. Then he remembers what life was like in his Father’s house; how he had peace and calm before he relinquished it for the thrill of the lusts and greed that he thought would satisfy him. He thinks, “I will arise and go to my father” and, though he may never have really known Him before, he begins to get a sense of His Presence. This is the beginning of the journey home; he thinks about what to say and what to do and he knows that only repentance, true repentance, will bring him and his Father together. He commits himself to the changes necessary and humbly seeks his Father. The Father in the meantime sees the son coming back from afar off and runs to meet him with prompting and urging and insight that like never before. The robe and the ring and the shoes welcome him the the house and the promise is there of the continued love from the Father. Once together there is great joy and much cause for celebration for a son who was dead, in the carnal life of the flesh, is alive again…..is BORN AGAIN.
Now the part about the elder son is a separate lesson from the Master that is buried in this parable; it goes well with our theme from the last post….GRACE and the parable that we placed with it regarding duty. It is the Grace and Love of God that calls to us and that we but faintly hear until we are ready to listen. We need not go to through the trials and tribulations of the son in the parable but we need to come to that point where we are ready to listen. The elder brother was always listening; he never left but always maintained a relationship with his Father. This relationship however was not so deep as the relationship of the repentant son to the Father but was rather more of a surface awareness. This is evident in his reaction to seeing how his brother, who became a sinner, is received by the Father when he repents. There is no selfishness nor jealousy nor condemnation in the heart of one who is fully aware and the idea here is simply that there are those who believe that they are in right standing because they never strayed from their vision of the Path. For these should come the understanding that their vision may not be true and that they may not have been fully on the Path at all; that they need to shed their self righteousness,repent as become as the younger.
One last point here on the idea of “when he came to himself” which is, according to Vincent a striking expression, putting the state of rebellion against God as a kind of madness. It is a wonderful stroke of art, to represent the beginning of repentance as the return of sound consciousness****. In the grossness of leaving the Father’s house with the thoughts of doing evil from the beginning this is an overall sensible statement. But, if our premise is correct, if the son leaves, as we said, to just strike out on his own and then falls into the wayward ways of the world, we have an even clearer picture. When we think we have reached the bottom we begin to look up and this point varies with each person dependent on his character. For some the bottom is not so far before we see the senselessness of it and for others it may take a catastrophic event before we see and come to ourselves. For others still, they may never see because they know not where to look. In Jesus teaching on the Kingdom of God there is little room to play; He tells us that we are either in or we are without and while we may get some encouragement from the act of striving, we must realize that, in this, we are still without.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
Today’s Quote of the Day is an expression of the nature of God in the knowledge that we are sons. The Apostle says we do not know what our own nature will be until God is manifest to us or, we should say, in us and we shall be like Him.
- **** Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
