Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming close to him to hear him. The Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, “This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.”
He told them this parable. “Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance. Or what woman, if she had ten drachma coins, if she lost one drachma coin, wouldn’t light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost.’ Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting.”
He said, “A certain man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of your property.’ He divided his livelihood between them. Not many days after, the younger son gathered all of this together and traveled into a far country. There he wasted his property with riotous living. When he had spent all of it, there arose a severe famine in that country, and he began to be in need. He went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs. He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough to spare, and I’m dying with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.” ’
“He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe, and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let’s eat, and celebrate; for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’ Then they began to celebrate.
“Now his elder son was in the field. As he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants to him, and asked what was going on. He said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and healthy.’ But he was angry, and would not go in. Therefore his father came out, and begged him. But he answered his father, ‘Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this your son came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’
“He said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’ ”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 11, 17, 18, 21, 25 Or, draw near.
Or, draw near.
We must not despair of them, which have gone out of the way, but according to the example of Christ, we must take great pains about them.
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Some Publicans and sinners came to Christ from all quarters.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–32 1 Then drew near unto him all the publicans…
1 Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.
Ver. 1. All the publicans and sinners] Christ familiarized himself with these despised persons, and thereby much won upon them. Affability easily allureth, austerity discourageth; as it did that honest citizen, which having in himself a certain conflict of conscience, came to Master Hooper the martyr’s door for counsel; but being abashed at his austere behaviour, dared not come in, but departed, seeking remedy of his troubled mind at other men’s hands.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 8, 11, 17, 18, 21, 22, 25 I have so often taken notice, that the term…
I have so often taken notice, that the term all in the New Testament is very often used to signify, not all the individuals of that species, or order of men, to which it is applied, but only a great and considerable number of them, that it is needless again to repeat it. None can imagine, that every individual publican and sinner in those parts, where Christ now was, came to hear Christ, but only many of them, or some of every sort. Thus publicans and harlots entered into the kingdom of God, while the children of the kingdom, and such as appeared to lie fairer for it, were cast out. The scribes, who were the interpreters of the law, and the Pharisees, who were the rigid observers of their decrees and interpretations, murmured, they were disturbed and troubled at it; thinking that because the law appointed no sacrifice for bold and presumptuous sinners, therefore there was no mercy in God for them, or those of whom they had such a notion, and that they were ipso jure excommunicated, and therefore Christ sinned in eating or drinking with them, or in any degree receiving of them; and from hence concluding he was no prophet: as if because ordinarily persons are known by their companions with whom they converse, therefore it had been a general rule; as if one might have concluded, that their doctorships were ignorant, because they conversed with them that were so, for their instruction; or could conclude, that the physician is sick, because his converse is with the sick, for their cure and healing. A man is not to be judged to be such as he converses with necessarily, or in order to their good, which was the end of all our Saviour’s converse with these sinners. Besides, were they themselves without sin? The root of their uncharitableness was their opinion of their own righteousness, from the works of the law, according to their own jejune interpretation of it. But let us hear our Saviour’s reply.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 8, 11, 25 The publicans and sinners, as they had done several…
The publicans and sinners, as they had done several times before, came to hear our Saviour’s instructions; he treated them very kindly, and conversed familiarly with them; at this the Pharisees were displeased and murmured, censured our Saviour for too much familiarity with those men, whom they looked upon as scandalous to converse with; not considering that he conversed with them as their physician, not as their companion; and therefore his proper work and employment lay among his patients: and that he might give all possible encouragement to the repentance of the greatest sinners, he sets forth at once the tender care of God in recovering such lost sinners, and the inexpressible joy that is found in heaven at the welcome news of their recovery; for thus it follows in the parables.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 11 Here is, I. The diligent attendance of the publicans…
Here is, I. The diligent attendance of the publicans and sinners upon Christ's ministry. Great multitudes of Jews went with him (Luk 14:25), with such an assurance of admission into the kingdom of God that he found it requisite to say that to them which would shake their vain hopes. Here multitudes of publicans and sinners drew near to him, with a humble modest fear of being rejected by him, and to them he found it requisite to give encouragement, especially because there were some haughty supercilious people that frowned upon them. The publicans, who collected the tribute paid to the Romans, were perhaps some of them bad men, but they were all industriously put into an ill name, because of the prejudices of the Jewish nation against their office. They are sometimes ranked with harlots (Mat 21:32); here and elsewhere with sinners, such as were openly vicious, that traded with harlots, known rakes. Some think that the sinners here meant were heathen, and that Christ was now on the other side Jordan, or in Galilee of the Gentiles. These drew near, when perhaps the multitude of the Jews that had followed him had (upon his discourse in the close of the foregoing chapter) dropped off; thus afterwards the Gentiles took their turn in hearing the apostles, when the Jews had rejected them. They drew near to him, being afraid of drawing nearer than just to come within hearing. They drew near to him, not, as some did, to solicit for cures, but to hear his excellent doctrine. Note, in all our approaches to Christ we must have this in our eye, to hear him; to hear the instructions he gives us, and his answers to our prayers.
II. The offence which the scribes and Pharisees took at this. They murmured, and turned it to the reproach of our Lord Jesus: This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them, Luk 15:2. 1. They were angry that publicans and heathens had the means of grace allowed them, were called to repent, and encouraged to hope for pardon upon repentance; for they looked upon their case as desperate, and thought that none but Jews had the privilege of repenting and being pardoned, though the prophets preached repentance to the nations, and Daniel particularly to Nebuchadnezzar. 2. They thought it a disparagement to Christ, and inconsistent with the dignity of his character, to make himself familiar with such sort of people, to admit them into his company and to eat with them. They could not, for shame, condemn him for preaching to them, though that was the thing they were most enraged at; and therefore they reproached him for eating with them, which was more expressly contrary to the tradition of the elders. Censure will fall, not only upon the most innocent and the most excellent persons, but upon the most innocent and most excellent actions, and we must not think it strange.
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III. Christ's justifying himself in it, by showing that the worse these people were, to whom he preached, the more glory would redound to God, and the more joy there would be in heaven, if by his preaching they were brought to repentance. It would be a more pleasing sight in heaven to see Gentiles brought to the worship of the true God than to see Jews go on in it, and to see publicans and sinners live an orderly sort of life than to see scribes and Pharisees go on in living such a life. This he here illustrates by two parables, the explication of both of which is the same.
1. The parable of the lost sheep. Something like it we had in Mat 18:12. There it was designed to show the care God takes for the preservation of saints, as a reason why we should not offend them; here it is designed to show the pleasure God takes in the conversion of sinners, as a reason why we should rejoice in it. We have here,
(1.) The case of a sinner that goes on in sinful ways. He is like a lost sheep, a sheep gone astray; he is lost to God, who has not the honour and service he should have from him; lost to the flock, which has not communion with him; lost to himself: he knows not where he is, wanders endlessly, is continually exposed to the beasts of prey, subject to frights and terrors, from under the shepherd's care, and wanting the green pastures; and he cannot of himself find the way back to the fold.
(2.) The care the God of heaven takes of poor wandering sinners. He continues his care of the sheep that did not go astray; they are safe in the wilderness. But there is a particular care to be taken of this lost sheep; and though he has a hundred sheep, a considerable flock, yet he will not lose that one, but he goes after it, and shows abundance of care, [1.] In finding it out. He follows it, enquiring after it, and looking about for it, until he finds it. God follows backsliding sinners with the calls of his word and the strivings of his Spirit, until at length they are wrought upon to think of returning. [2.] In bringing it home. Though he finds it weary, and perhaps worried and worn away with its wanderings, and not able to bear being driven home, yet he does not leave it to perish, and say, It is not wroth carrying home; but lays it on his shoulders, and, with a great deal of tenderness and labour, brings it to the fold. This is very applicable to the great work of our redemption. Mankind were gone astray, Isa 53:6. The value of the whole race to God was not so much as that of one sheep to him that had a hundred; what loss would it have been to God if they had all been left to perish? There is a world of holy angels that are as the ninety-nine sheep, a noble flock; yet God sends his Son to seek and save that which was lost, Luk 19:10. Christ is said to gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, denoting his pity and tenderness towards poor sinners; here he is said to bear them upon his shoulders, denoting the power wherewith he supports and bears them up; those can never perish whom he carries upon his shoulders.
(3.) The pleasure that God takes in repenting returning sinners. He lays it on his shoulders rejoicing that he has not lost his labour in seeking; and the joy is the greater because he began to be out of hope of finding it; and he calls his friends and neighbours, the shepherds that keep their flocks about him, saying, Rejoice with me. Perhaps among the pastoral songs which the shepherds used to sing there was one for such an occasion as this, of which these words might be the burden, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost; whereas they never sung, Rejoice with me, for I have lost none. Observe, he calls it his sheep, though a stray, a wandering sheep. He has a right to it (all souls are mine), and he will claim his own, and recover his right; therefore he looks after it himself: I have found it; he did not send a servant, but his own Son, the great and good Shepherd, who will find what he seeks, and will be found of those that seek him not.
2. The parable of the lost piece of silver. (1.) The loser is here supposed to be a woman, who will more passionately grieve for her loss, and rejoice in finding what she had lost, than perhaps a man would do, and therefore it the better serves the purpose of the parable. She has ten pieces of silver, and out of them loses only one. Let this keep up in us high thoughts of the divine goodness, notwithstanding the sinfulness and misery of the world of mankind, that there are nine to one, nay, in the foregoing parable there are ninety-nine to one, of God's creation, that retain their integrity, in whom God is praised, and never was dishonoured. O the numberless beings, for aught we know numberless worlds of beings, that never were lost, nor stepped aside from the laws and ends of their creation! (2.) That which is lost is a piece of silver, drachmēn - the fourth part of a shekel. The soul is silver, of intrinsic worth and value; not base metal, as iron or lead, but silver, the mines of which are royal mines. The Hebrew word for silver is taken from the desirableness of it. It is silver coin, for so the drachma was; it is stamped with God's image and superscription, and therefore must be rendered to him. Yet it is comparatively but of small value; it was but seven pence half-penny; intimating that if sinful men be left to perish God would be no loser. This silver was lost in the dirt; a soul plunged in the world, and overwhelmed with the love of it and care about it, is like a piece of money in the dirt; any one would say, It is a thousand pities that it should lie there. (3.) Here is a great deal of care and pains taken in quest of it. The woman lights a candle, to look behind the door, under the table, and in every corner of the house, sweeps the house, and seeks diligently till she finds it. This represents the various means and methods God makes use of to bring lost souls home to himself: he has lighted the candle of the gospel, not to show himself the way to us, but to show us the way to him, to discover us to ourselves; he has swept the house by the convictions of the word; he seeks diligently, his heart is upon it, to bring lost souls to himself. (4.) Here is a great deal of joy for the finding of it: Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I had lost, Luk 15:9. Those that rejoice desire that others should rejoice with them; those that are merry would have others merry with them. She was glad that she had found the piece of money, though she should spend it in entertaining those whom she called to make merry with her. The pleasing surprise of finding it put her, for the present, into a kind of transport, heurēka, heurēka - I have found, I have found, is the language of joy.
3. The explication of these two parables is to the same purport (Luk 15:7, Luk 15:10): There is joy in heaven, joy in the presence of the angels of God, over one sinner that repenteth, as those publicans and sinners did, some of them at least (and, if but one of them did repent, Christ would reckon it worth his while), more than over a great number of just persons, who need no repentance. Observe,
(1.) The repentance and conversion of sinners on earth are matter of joy and rejoicing in heaven. It is possible that the greatest sinners may be brought to repentance. While there is life there is hope, and the worst are not to be despaired of; and the worst of sinners, if they repent and turn, shall find mercy. Yet this is not all, [1.] God will delight to show them mercy, will reckon their conversion a return for all the expense he has been at upon them. There is always joy in heaven. God rejoiceth in all his works, but particularly in the works of his grace. He rejoiceth to do good to penitent sinners, with his whole heart and his whole soul. He rejoiceth not only in the conversion of churches and nations, but even over one sinner that repenteth, though but one. [2.] The good angels will be glad that mercy is shown them, so far are they from repining at it, though those of their nature that sinned be left to perish, and no mercy shown to them; though those sinners that repent, that are so mean, and have been so vile, are, upon their repentance, to be taken into communion with them, and shortly to be made like them, and equal to them. The conversion of sinners is the joy of angels, and they gladly become ministering spirits to them for their good, upon their conversion. The redemption of mankind was matter of joy in the presence of the angels; for they sung, Glory to God in the highest, Luk 2:14.
(2.) There is more joy over one sinner that repenteth, and turneth to be religious from a course of life that had been notoriously vile and vicious, than there is over ninety-nine just persons, who need no repentance. [1.] More joy for the redemption and salvation of fallen man than for the preservation and confirmation of the angels that stand, and did indeed need no repentance. [2.] More joy for the conversion of the sinners of the Gentiles, and of those publicans that now heard Christ preach, than for all the praises and devotions, and all the God I thank thee, of the Pharisees, and the other self-justifying Jews, who though that they needed no repentance, and that therefore God should abundantly rejoice in them, and make his boast of them, as those that were most his honour; but Christ tells them that it was quite otherwise, that God was more praised in, and pleased with, the penitent broken heart of one of those despised, envied sinners, than all the long prayers which the scribes and Pharisees made, who could not see any thing amiss in themselves. Nay, [3.] More joy for the conversion of one such great sinner, such a Pharisee as Paul had been in his time, than for the regular conversion of one that had always conducted himself decently and well, and comparatively needs no repentance, needs not such a universal change of the life as those great sinners need. Not but that it is best not to go astray; but the grace of God, both in the power and the pity of that grace, is more manifested in the reducing of great sinners than in the conducting of those that never went astray. And many times those that have been great sinners before their conversion prove more eminently and zealously good after, of which Paul is an instance, and therefore in him God was greatly glorified, Gal 1:24. They to whom much is forgiven will love much. It is spoken after the manner of men. We are moved with a more sensible joy for the recovery of what we had lost than for the continuance of what we had always enjoyed, for health out of sickness than for health without sickness. It is as life from the dead. A constant course of religion may in itself be more valuable, and yet a sudden return from an evil course and way of sin may yield a more surprising pleasure. Now if there is such joy in heaven, for the conversion of sinners, then the Pharisees were very much strangers to a heavenly spirit, who did all they could to hinder it and were grieved at it, and who were exasperated at Christ when he was doing a piece of work that was of all others most grateful to Heaven.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–32 And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured,.... When they saw…
And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured,.... When they saw the easy access these wicked men had to Christ; and that he stopped and stayed with them, and very freely imparted instructions to them: saying,
this man receiveth sinners. The Persic version reads, "publicans and sinners", as in the preceding verse: the word "man" is not in the original text, it is only "this"; which is to be understood not by way of eminence, as this great person, this prophet, this master in Israel; but by way of diminution and reproach, this fellow; as it is sometimes supplied: the word "man" be very rightly inserted, for they took him to be a mere man; though it is certain he was more than a man, even the true and mighty God; and therefore was able to save those sinners that came to him: and great condescension and grace did he show in receiving them who were "sinners", not only by nature, but by practice; and not merely guilty of common infirmities, but were notorious sinners, covetous, extortioners, oppressors of the poor, and very debauched persons; and such as these Christ "receives": hence no man should be discouraged from coming to Christ, on account of sin; all that do come to him, should come as sinners, for he receives them as such; nor does he receive any for any worthiness there is in them: these persons he received first at his Father's hand, as he did all the elect, as his portion, and to be preserved and saved by him; with all gifts, grace, blessings, and promises for them; and in consequence of this, he receives them upon their coming to him as sinners, into his open love and affection, into his arms; which denotes communion and protection; into his house and family, and not only to hear him preach, or preached, but to converse and eat with him at his table, and even to live by faith upon him; and when he has freed them from all their sins, he will receive them to himself in glory. And there is the greatest reason imaginable to believe, that Christ still does, and will receive sinners; since he came to save the chief of sinners; and has bore their sins, and died for them; and now makes intercession for transgressors; and by the ministers of the word calls sinners to repentance.
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And eateth with them; as he did in the houses of Matthew the publican, and of Zaccheus; see Mat 9:10 each of which occasioned great murmurings among the Pharisees; and who therefore traduced him as a friend of publicans and sinners; and he is indeed so in the best sense: and not only did he eat with them corporeally, but in a spiritual sense, as he still does; admitting them into his house to eat of the provisions of it, to live on him the bread of life, to sup with him, and he with them; and feeding and delighting himself in the exercise of those graces, which he himself is the donor and author of, in them.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32 All the publicans - That is, all who were…
All the publicans - That is, all who were in that place. It seems our Lord was in some town of Galilee of the Gentiles, from whence he afterward went to Jerusalem, chap. xvii, 11.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 Publicans and sinners draw near to hear our Lord,…
CHAPTER XV.
Publicans and sinners draw near to hear our Lord, at which the
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Pharisees are offended, 1, 2.
Christ vindicates his conduct in receiving them by the parable
of the lost sheep, 3-7.
The parable of the lost piece of money, 8-10;
and the affecting parable of the prodigal son, 11-32.
NOTES ON CHAP. XV.
Verse 1. Publicans and sinners] τελωναι και αμαρτωλοι, tax-gatherers and heathens; persons who neither believed in Christ nor in Moses. See Clarke on Lu 7:36. Concerning the tax-gatherers, See Clarke on Mt 5:46.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 8, 11, 13, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 29, 32 Luk 15:1. Then drew near unto him all the…
Luk 15:1. Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners — That is, some of all the different classes of publicans, or all those of that place, and some other notorious sinners; for to hear him — Being influenced to do so through the condescension and kindness which he manifested toward all descriptions of persons, the most abandoned not excepted. Some suppose they came by a particular appointment from all the neighbouring parts. But as Luke goes on in the story, without any intimation of a change, either in the time or the scene of it, it is most probable that these discourses were delivered the same day that Christ dined with the Pharisee, which, being the sabbath day, would give the publicans, who on other days were employed in their office, a more convenient opportunity of attending. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, &c. — Thinking this behaviour of our Lord inconsistent with the sanctity of a prophet, they were much displeased with him for it, and murmured at that charitable condescension, which ought rather to have given them joy.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31 Publicans and sinners - See the notes at Mat…
Publicans and sinners - See the notes at Mat 9:10.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 22, 24, 25, 29 What man, &c. Christ left the ninety-nine in the…
What man, &c. Christ left the ninety-nine in the desert, when he descended from the angelic choirs, in order to seek last man on the earth, that he might fill up the number of the sheepfold of heaven, from which his sins had excluded him. (St. Ambrose) --- Neither did his affection for the last sheep make him behave cruelly to the rest; for he left them in safety, under the protection of his omnipotent hand. (St. Cyril in St. Thomas Aquinas)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Luke Chapter 15
Luke Chapter 15
Having thus unfolded the difference in character between the two dispensations, and the circumstances of the transition from the one to the other, the Lord turns (chap. 15) to higher principles-the sources of the one that was brought in by grace.
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It is indeed a contrast between the two, as well as the chapters we have been going through. But this contrast rises to its glorious source in God’s own grace, contrasted with the miserable self-righteousness of man.
The publicans and sinners draw near to hear Jesus. Grace had its true dignity to those who needed it. Self-righteousness repulsed that which was not as contemptible as itself, and God Himself at the same time in His nature of love. The Pharisees and the scribes murmured against Him who was a witness of this grace in fulfilling it.
I cannot meditate on this chapter, which has been the joy of so many souls, and the subject of so many testimonies to grace, from the time that the Lord pronounced it, without enlarging upon grace, perfect in its application to the heart. Nevertheless I must confine myself here to great principles, leaving their application to those who preach the word. This is a difficulty that constantly presents itself in this portion of the word.
First, the great principle which the Lord exhibits, and on which He founds the justification of God’s dealings (sad state of heart that requires it! marvellous grace and patience that gives it!)-the great principle, I repeat, is that God finds His own joy in shewing grace. What an answer to the horrid spirit of the Pharisees who made it an objection!
It is the Shepherd who rejoices when the sheep is found, the woman when the piece of money is in her hand, the Father when His child is in His arms. What an expression of that which God is! How truly is Jesus the one to make it known! It is on this that all the blessing of man can alone be founded. It is in this that God is glorified in His grace.
But there are two distinct parts in this grace-the love that seeks, and the love with which one is received. The first two parables describe the former character of this grace. The shepherd seeks his sheep, the woman her piece of money: the sheep and the piece of silver are passive. The shepherd seeks (and the woman also) until he finds, because he has an interest in the matter. The sheep, wearied with its wanderings, has not to take one step in returning. The shepherd lays it on his shoulders and carries it home. He takes the whole charge, happy to recover his sheep. This is the mind of heaven, whatever the heart of man on earth may be. It is the work of Christ, the Good Shepherd. The woman sets before us the pains which God takes in His love; so that it is more the work of the Spirit, which is represented by that of the woman. The light is brought-she sweeps the house until she finds the piece she had lost. Thus God acts in the world, seeking sinners. The hateful and hating jealousy of self-righteousness finds no place in the mind of heaven, where God dwells, and produces, in the happiness that surrounds Him, the reflex of His own perfections.
But although neither the sheep nor the piece of silver does anything towards its own recovery, there is a real work wrought in the heart of one who is brought back; but this work, necessary as it is for the finding or even the seeking of peace, is not that on which the peace is grounded. The return and the reception of the sinner are therefore described in the third parable. The work of grace, accomplished solely by the power of God, and complete in its effects, is presented to us in the first two. Here the sinner returns, with sentiments which we will now examine-sentiments produced by grace, but which never rise to the height of the grace manifested in his reception until he has returned.
First his estrangement from God is depicted. While as guilty at the moment that he crosses the paternal threshold, in turning his back upon his father, as when he eats husks with the swine, man, deceived by sin, is here presented in the last state of degradation to which sin conducts him. Having expended all that fell to him according to nature, the destitution in which he finds himself (and many a soul feels the famine which it has brought itself into, the emptiness of all around without a desire after God or holiness, and often into what is degrading in sin) does not incline him towards God, but leads him to seek a resource in that which Satan’s country (where nothing is given) can supply; and he finds himself among the swine. But grace operates; and the thought of the happiness of his father’s house, and of the goodness that blessed all around it, awakes in his heart. Where the Spirit of God works, there are always two things found, conviction in the conscience and the attraction of the heart. It is really the revelation of God to the soul, and God is light and He is love; as light, conviction is produced in the soul, but as love there is the attraction of goodness, and truthful confession is produced. It is not merely that we have sinned, but that we have to do with God and desire to have, but fear because of what He is, yet are led to go. So the woman in chapter 7. (See page 240.) So Peter in the boat. This produces the conviction that we are perishing, and a sense, feeble it may be, yet true, of the goodness of God and the happiness to be found in His presence, although we may not feel sure of being received; and we do not remain in the place where we are perishing. There is the sense of sin, there is humiliation; the sense that there is goodness in God; but not the sense of what the grace of God really is. Grace attracts-one goes towards God, but one would be satisfied to be received as a servant-a proof that, though the heart be wrought in by grace, it has not yet met God. Progress, moreover, although real, never gives peace. There is a certain rest of heart in going; but one does not know what reception to expect, after having been guilty of forsaking God. The nearer the prodigal son drew to the house, the more would his heart beat at the thought of meeting his father. But the father anticipates his coming, and acts towards him, not according to his son’s deserts, but according to his own heart as a father-the only measure of the ways of God towards us. He is on his son’s neck while the latter is still in rags, before he has had time to say, “Make me as one of thy hired servants.” It was no longer time to say it. It belonged to a heart anticipating how it would be received, not to one who had met God. Such an one knows how it has been received. The prodigal arranges to say it (as people speak of an humble hope, and a low place); but though the confession is complete when he arrives, he does not then say, Make me a hired servant. How could he? The father’s heart had decided his position by its own sentiments, by its love towards him, by the place his heart had given him towards himself. The father’s position decided that of the son. This was between himself and his son; but this was not all. He loved his son, even as he was, but he did not introduce him into the house in that condition. The same love that received him as a son will have him enter the house as a son, and as the son of such a father should be. The servants are ordered to bring the best robe and put it on him. Thus loved, and received by love, in our wretchedness, we are clothed with Christ to enter the house. We do not bring the robe: God supplies us with it. It is an entirely new thing; and we become the righteousness of God in Him. This is heaven’s best robe. All the rest have part in the joy, except the self righteous man, the true Jew. The joy is the joy of the father, but all the house shares it. The elder son is not in the house. He is near it, but he will not come in. He will have nothing to do with the grace that makes the poor prodigal the subject of the joy of love. Nevertheless, grace acts; the fathergoes out and entreats him to come in. It is thus that God acted, in the Gospel, towards the Jew. Yet man’s righteousness, which is but selfishness and sin, rejects grace. But God will not give up His grace. It becomes Him. God will be God; and God is love.
It is this which takes the place of the pretensions of the Jews, who rejected the Lord, and the accomplishment of the promises in Him.
That which gives peace, and characterises our position, is not the sentiments wrought in our hearts, although they indeed exist, but those of God Himself.
Luke Chapter 15
Having thus unfolded the difference in character between the two dispensations, and the circumstances of the transition from the one to the other, the Lord turns (chap. 15) to higher principles-the sources of the one that was brought in by grace.
It is indeed a contrast between the two, as well as the chapters we have been going through. But this contrast rises to its glorious source in God’s own grace, contrasted with the miserable self-righteousness of man.
The publicans and sinners draw near to hear Jesus. Grace had its true dignity to those who needed it. Self-righteousness repulsed that which was not as contemptible as itself, and God Himself at the same time in His nature of love. The Pharisees and the scribes murmured against Him who was a witness of this grace in fulfilling it.
I cannot meditate on this chapter, which has been the joy of so many souls, and the subject of so many testimonies to grace, from the time that the Lord pronounced it, without enlarging upon grace, perfect in its application to the heart. Nevertheless I must confine myself here to great principles, leaving their application to those who preach the word. This is a difficulty that constantly presents itself in this portion of the word.
First, the great principle which the Lord exhibits, and on which He founds the justification of God’s dealings (sad state of heart that requires it! marvellous grace and patience that gives it!)-the great principle, I repeat, is that God finds His own joy in shewing grace. What an answer to the horrid spirit of the Pharisees who made it an objection!
It is the Shepherd who rejoices when the sheep is found, the woman when the piece of money is in her hand, the Father when His child is in His arms. What an expression of that which God is! How truly is Jesus the one to make it known! It is on this that all the blessing of man can alone be founded. It is in this that God is glorified in His grace.
But there are two distinct parts in this grace-the love that seeks, and the love with which one is received. The first two parables describe the former character of this grace. The shepherd seeks his sheep, the woman her piece of money: the sheep and the piece of silver are passive. The shepherd seeks (and the woman also) until he finds, because he has an interest in the matter. The sheep, wearied with its wanderings, has not to take one step in returning. The shepherd lays it on his shoulders and carries it home. He takes the whole charge, happy to recover his sheep. This is the mind of heaven, whatever the heart of man on earth may be. It is the work of Christ, the Good Shepherd. The woman sets before us the pains which God takes in His love; so that it is more the work of the Spirit, which is represented by that of the woman. The light is brought-she sweeps the house until she finds the piece she had lost. Thus God acts in the world, seeking sinners. The hateful and hating jealousy of self-righteousness finds no place in the mind of heaven, where God dwells, and produces, in the happiness that surrounds Him, the reflex of His own perfections.
But although neither the sheep nor the piece of silver does anything towards its own recovery, there is a real work wrought in the heart of one who is brought back; but this work, necessary as it is for the finding or even the seeking of peace, is not that on which the peace is grounded. The return and the reception of the sinner are therefore described in the third parable. The work of grace, accomplished solely by the power of God, and complete in its effects, is presented to us in the first two. Here the sinner returns, with sentiments which we will now examine-sentiments produced by grace, but which never rise to the height of the grace manifested in his reception until he has returned.
First his estrangement from God is depicted. While as guilty at the moment that he crosses the paternal threshold, in turning his back upon his father, as when he eats husks with the swine, man, deceived by sin, is here presented in the last state of degradation to which sin conducts him. Having expended all that fell to him according to nature, the destitution in which he finds himself (and many a soul feels the famine which it has brought itself into, the emptiness of all around without a desire after God or holiness, and often into what is degrading in sin) does not incline him towards God, but leads him to seek a resource in that which Satan’s country (where nothing is given) can supply; and he finds himself among the swine. But grace operates; and the thought of the happiness of his father’s house, and of the goodness that blessed all around it, awakes in his heart. Where the Spirit of God works, there are always two things found, conviction in the conscience and the attraction of the heart. It is really the revelation of God to the soul, and God is light and He is love; as light, conviction is produced in the soul, but as love there is the attraction of goodness, and truthful confession is produced. It is not merely that we have sinned, but that we have to do with God and desire to have, but fear because of what He is, yet are led to go. So the woman in chapter 7. (See page 240.) So Peter in the boat. This produces the conviction that we are perishing, and a sense, feeble it may be, yet true, of the goodness of God and the happiness to be found in His presence, although we may not feel sure of being received; and we do not remain in the place where we are perishing. There is the sense of sin, there is humiliation; the sense that there is goodness in God; but not the sense of what the grace of God really is. Grace attracts-one goes towards God, but one would be satisfied to be received as a servant-a proof that, though the heart be wrought in by grace, it has not yet met God. Progress, moreover, although real, never gives peace. There is a certain rest of heart in going; but one does not know what reception to expect, after having been guilty of forsaking God. The nearer the prodigal son drew to the house, the more would his heart beat at the thought of meeting his father. But the father anticipates his coming, and acts towards him, not according to his son’s deserts, but according to his own heart as a father-the only measure of the ways of God towards us. He is on his son’s neck while the latter is still in rags, before he has had time to say, "Make me as one of thy hired servants." It was no longer time to say it. It belonged to a heart anticipating how it would be received, not to one who had met God. Such an one knows how it has been received. The prodigal arranges to say it (as people speak of an humble hope, and a low place); but though the confession is complete when he arrives, he does not then say, Make me a hired servant. How could he? The father’s heart had decided his position by its own sentiments, by its love towards him, by the place his heart had given him towards himself. The father’s position decided that of the son. This was between himself and his son; but this was not all. He loved his son, even as he was, but he did not introduce him into the house in that condition. The same love that received him as a son will have him enter the house as a son, and as the son of such a father should be. The servants are ordered to bring the best robe and put it on him. Thus loved, and received by love, in our wretchedness, we are clothed with Christ to enter the house. We do not bring the robe: God supplies us with it. It is an entirely new thing; and we become the righteousness of God in Him. This is heaven’s best robe. All the rest have part in the joy, except the self righteous man, the true Jew. The joy is the joy of the father, but all the house shares it. The elder son is not in the house. He is near it, but he will not come in. He will have nothing to do with the grace that makes the poor prodigal the subject of the joy of love. Nevertheless, grace acts; the fathergoes out and entreats him to come in. It is thus that God acted, in the Gospel, towards the Jew. Yet man’s righteousness, which is but selfishness and sin, rejects grace. But God will not give up His grace. It becomes Him. God will be God; and God is love.
It is this which takes the place of the pretensions of the Jews, who rejected the Lord, and the accomplishment of the promises in Him.
That which gives peace, and characterises our position, is not the sentiments wrought in our hearts, although they indeed exist, but those of God Himself.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 11 2. The Lost Sheep and the Lost Piece of…
2. The Lost Sheep and the Lost Piece of Money (Luk_15:1-10)
(Gospel for the 3d Sunday after Trinity.—In part parallel with Mat_18:12-14.)
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1Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. 2And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with 3them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 4What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilder ness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 5And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found mysheep which was lost. 7I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just [righteous] persons, which need no [have no need of] repentance.
8Either [Or] what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth notlight a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? 9And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours [τὰς φίλας καὶ γείτονας, fem.] together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.10Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Luk_15:1. All the publicans and sinners.—ΙΙάντες, not in the sense of all manner of (Heubner, a. o.), but a popular way of speaking, with which the collective mass of all the there present publicans and sinners is designated. Comp. Luk_4:40.—Drew near unto Him.—The common explanation: were wont to draw near unto Him (De Wette), is grammatically not necessary, and has this disadvantage, that thereby the connection with that which precedes is unnecessarily given up. Better: They were at this moment occupied with this matter of coming to Him, and that with the distinct intention of hearing Him. We have therefore to represent to ourselves an audience which, at the time of the Saviour’s departure from Galilee, had apparently streamed together in a public place, and the majority of which consisted of publicans and sinners, who, at the moment, had pressed before the Pharisees, and by that fact excited their bitterness.
Luk_15:2. Murmured, διεγόγγυζον. Διά indicates the murmuring of a number among themselves, which for that reason became also plainly audible to others. The cause of this dissatisfaction is, in general, that the Saviour benevolently receives and accepts men of evil name and repute (ἁμαρτωλούς without article). (ΙΙροςδέχεσθαι in the sense of comiter excipere. Comp. Rom_16:2; Php_2:29.) This is the general accusation, while the following συνεσθίει αὐτοῖς states a special grievance. He receives not only, but permits Himself also to be received. We need not assume that the Saviour on this very day had taken part in a feast of publicans, as, e. g., Sepp will have it, who, without any ground, l. c. ii. 169, asserts that the parables here following were delivered immediately after the calling of Matthew, at the feast given by him on that occasion. The Pharisees are now thinking of what the Saviour was often wont to do, and utter their dissatisfaction with it publicly. By such a course of conduct they believed the Master lowered Himself, inasmuch as He showed to the worst part of the nation an undeserved honor, and at the same time injured the Pharisees, who previously had, indeed, now and then, allowed Him the distinction of being received at their table, but who now would have to be ashamed of such a guest.
Luk_15:3. And He spake this parable.—When we consider that the chief parable, Luk_15:11-32, is introduced only by a simple εἶπεν δέ, and that the two examples from daily life, Luk_15:3-7 and Luk_15:8-10, bear less than the narrative of the Prodigal Son the character of a thoroughly elaborated parable, we are then disposed to assume that Luk_15:3-10 constitute only the introduction to the actual parable, παραβολή, which is announced in Luk_15:3, but not begun until Luk_15:11. On the other hand, however, it is not to be denied that Luke uses the word παραβολή in a wider sense also, and that to designate not only an invented narrative, but also a parabolic expression, or an example from daily life; see, e. g., Luk_4:23; Luk_5:36; Luk_6:39; Luk_14:7-11. It will therefore probably be simplest to assume that the παραβολή announced in Luk_15:3 is actually uttered, Luk_15:4-7; that the Saviour immediately after that expresses the same thought, Luk_15:8-10, in a second παραβολή, and finally, Luk_15:11, after a brief interval, takes up the word again in order once more to present this cardinal truth in more perfect parabolic form.
Luk_15:4. What man of you.—From this commencement, as also from Luk_15:8, it immediately appears that the Saviour appeals to that universal human feeling which impels, as well the man as the woman, to seek what is lost, and to rejoice with others over what is found again. With this He introduces the first of the three parables contained in this chapter—that of the Lost Sheep. It cannot well be doubted that this triplet belongs together, and that we have, therefore, here no chrestomathic combination of parabolic discourses of the Saviour, but a well-connected didactic deliverance, which has as its purpose to express the same main thought in different ways. As to the question whether the first of the here-given parables and that communicated by Matthew, Luk_18:12-14, are one and the same, see Lange, ad loc. We do not know what there could be against the opinion that the Saviour may have repeatedly availed Himself of the same image, once for the instruction of His Apostles, another time for the shaming of His enemies. The two parables are different: 1. In form. In Matthew the ninety-nine remain on the mountains; in Luke, in the wilderness. Luk_15:5-7 also is very different from the parallel passage in Matthew, and serves as a proof that Luke communicates the more elaborated and later developed—Matthew, on the other hand, the originally simpler, form of the parable. 2. In purpose and meaning. With Luke it is God’s infinite love for yet lost sinners; but with Matthew, Christ’s labor of grace on wandering believers, that is the main thing. According to the connection then, the purpose of the discourse is a different one in Matthew and Luke. Besides this, the image itself is so natural, so taken from life, that it cannot surprise us to learn that even in later Rabbins an analogon of this parable is found. See Sepp, ii. p. 169.
Having a hundred sheep.—Ἐκατόν not only used as a round number, but also to bring into view the comparative smallness of the loss in opposition to what yet remains to Him. In the most striking way the Saviour now portrays the faithful love that seeks the lost, so that even on account of the freshness of the portraiture, this parable belongs, with very good right, in the Gospel of Luke. The Good Shepherd at once leaves the ninety-nine ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, the accustomed pasturing-place of the sheep, and leaves them for the moment with entire unconcern as to the great danger to which he exposes the majority. He goes after the lost one (ἐπί), with a definite intention to fetch it back. Not speedily does he give up his efforts. His love is therefore a persevering and continually renewed effort for the deliverance of the lost one; and when it is finally again within His reach, he does not chase the wearied sheep unmercifully back, nor commit it even to the most trusted of his hirelings, but lays it on his own shoulders (ἑαυτοῦ). He bears it joyfully home, and now calls as well his neighbors as also his more distant friends together. Having heard of his loss, the well-known lost sheep, to τὸ ἀπολωλωλός, they must now also share his joy, which even exceeds his thankfulness for the undisturbed possession of that which is not lost.
Luk_15:7. Likewise joy shall be in Heaven.—Here as yet quite general. Afterwards, Luk_15:10, with more special mention of the angels. It is noticeable how here the Saviour designates the joy in Heaven as something yet future (ἔσται), while He afterwards, Luk_15:10, speaks of it as of something already actually beginning (γίνεται). We can scarcely avoid the thought that here the prospect of that joy hovered before His soul which He, the Good Shepherd, was especially to taste when He, after finishing His conflict, should return into the celestial mansion of His Father, and should taste the joy prepared for Him. Joh_14:2; Heb_12:2.
More than over ninety and nine.—The question whom we have now to understand by these δίκαιοι, has been at all times differently answered Luther, Spener, Bengel, interpret it of those already become righteous through faith, since they have already repented, and stand in a state of grace with God, such as Manasseh, a. o.—De Wette: The actually righteous, that is, more righteous than publicans, and the like.—Meyer: δίκαιοι characterized from the legal point of view, not from that of inward ethical character.—Grotius: Only an anthropopathic element of the picture, quia insperata et prope desperata magis nos afficiunt. According to our opinion, passages like Mat_9:13; Luk_18:14, are particularly to be brought into the comparison. If we consider, moreover, that the hearers of the Saviour consisted partially of Pharisees, and in what way these had, a little before, manifested their inward spite (Luk_15:12), we can then no longer doubt that we have to understand fancied righteous ones of a legal type, who, however, if one applied a higher standard, must appear yet more sinful than others. Comp. Mat_21:31-32. We know not what should hinder us here also, as often already, to assume a holy irony in the words of the Saviour, nor why He should only in the third parable have indirectly attacked the Pharisaical pride of virtue. The comparison of the greater joy over one, with that over the ninety-nine, over whom, strictly speaking, there can be no joy at all, is then to be taken just as the declaration Luk_18:14.
Luk_15:8. Either what woman.—In order to indicate that not the material worth of what is lost, in itself, but the worth which it has in the eyes of the possessor, is the cause of the carefulness of the love which seeks it, the Saviour takes a second example from daily life, but not now from something so valuable as a sheep, but from a δραχμή, in itself rather insignificant. For the woman, however, this loss is of great importance, since her whole treasure consists of ten such drachmæ.—Δραχμή, the common Greek coin which, at that time, was in circulation among the Jews also. The Attic drachma was = ¼ stater, [17.6 cents]; the Alexandrian twice as heavy. It appears that we have here to understand the first, which, not seldom even somewhat lighter, was in circulation at the time of the Saviour. The ten drachmae are then about equal to $1 76.1 See Winer, in voce.
Doth not light a candle.—In the most practical manner the labor of the woman to come again in possession of the lost drachma is now sketched after the life. It is as though one saw the dust of the broom flying around in sweeping, until she succeeds in discovering in a dark corner the lost piece, and immediately picks it up. The coin, which was originally stamped with the image of the Emperor, but had been thrown into the dust and become almost unrecognizable, is the faithful image of the sinner. “Sum nummus Dei, thesauro aberravi, miserere mei.” Augustine. As to the rest, the lighting of the lamp, the sweeping, and the seeking, belong, in our eyes, so entirely to the pictorial form of the representation, that it appears to us almost arbitrary to see therein (Stier) the indication of the threefold activity of the preacher, the eldership, and the whole Church for the saving of the lost one. “If we would attribute to every single word a deeper significance than appears, we should not seldom incur the danger of bringing much into the Scripture which is not at all contained in it; for as the artist, for the beautifying of his picture, does much that is not indispensably necessary, so has Christ also spoken many words which stand to the main matter which is to be imaged forth by the figure in only a remote, often, indeed, in no relation at all.” Zimmermann.
Luk_15:10. Likewise … there is joy, γίνεται.—Here the Saviour speaks not comparatively, but absolutely; not only in general of joy in Heaven, but ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγ. τ. Θ. It is, however, not entirely correct, if this word is used as a direct proof of the opinion that the angels rejoice over the conversion of a sinner, for the Saviour is not speaking directly of the gaudium angelorum, but coram angelis. As the Shepherd and the Woman rejoiced before and with their friends, so does God rejoice before the eyes of the angels over the conversion of the sinner; but as the friends and neighbors rejoice with the Woman and the Shepherd, so can we also conceive the angels as taking part in this Divine joy. But if it is God, in the whole fulness of His being, who is represented, it is then inadmissible to understand it exclusively, either of the Holy Ghost (Stier, Bengel), or of the Church of the Lord (Luther, Lisco). The applicability of the parable to both is willingly acknowleged by us, but that the Saviour’s intention was here to refer to the munus, either of the spiritus sancti, or of the ecclesiœ, peccatores quœrentis, can hardly be proved. Equally rash does it appear when Bengel, in the friends and neighbors of the Shepherd and of the Woman, finds an intimation of the different ranks and classes of the angels, vel domi, vel foris agentes.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Not without reason does the eye rest with continually new interest on the picture: Jesus among the publicans and sinners. It is the Gospel within the Gospel, like Joh_3:16; Rom_1:17, and some other passages. This of itself is remarkable, that the greatest sinners feel themselves drawn, as it were, with a secret attraction to Jesus; what an entirely unique impression must His personality have produced upon these troubled and smitten hearts! Thus does He reveal Himself at the same time as the Prince of Peace, of whom Psa_72:12-14, and so many other passages of the prophetic Scriptures, speak; and what the Pharisees impute to Him as a trespass, becomes for faith an occasion the rather for praise and thanks. The feast which He keeps with publicans is a striking symbol of the feast in the kingdom of God, Luk_14:21-23, and at the same time the happy prophecy of the heavenly feast which He will hereafter share with His redeemed in the fulness of bliss.
2. The parable of the Good Shepherd sets forth for us, in a striking manner, the image of the pastoral faithfulness of God’s searching for the sinner. Israel had already been compared, even under the Old Testament, to a strayed sheep, Isa_53:6; Eze_34:5; Psa_119:176, etc., and Jehovah also was, even from ancient time, represented under the amiable figure of a shepherd, Ezekiel 34, and Psalms 23; Isa_40:11; as in Homer also, the best kings are designated as ποιμένες λαῶν. But inasmuch as this pastoral faithfulness of God reveals itself most admirably in the redeeming activity of Christ (comp. John 10), we may at the same time, in the first parable, see an image of the earthly activity and of the heavenly joy of the loving Son of Man. But certainly it is going too far to find even the atoning death of the Saviour (Melanchthon) indicated in the shepherd with his sheep on his shoulder: “Ovem inventam ponit in humeros suos, i. e., nostrum, onus transfert in se ipsum, fit victima pro nobis.” Such an allusion would then at least have been as yet understood by no one of the hearers of our Lord, and yet they had no farther to look than upon Him in order to convince themselves that the Good Shepherd in the parable was no ideal, but a reality; and surprised we cannot be that even the most ancient Christian art laid hold of this symbol with visible affection. See the examples, e.g., in Augusti’s Beiträge zur christlichen Kunstgeschichte und Liturgik, ii. Even the present moment proved how much the Saviour had at heart the seeking of the lost. “Ideo Jesus Christus secutus est peccatores usque ad victum quotidianum, usque ad mensam, ubi maxime peccatur.” Bengel.
3. What the Saviour relates of the Woman and the Shepherd was at the same time an admirable model of pastoral prudence and Halieutics for His first apostles. Only when they should care for the wandering and lost with so much pleasure and love would they be fitted for the work of their calling. That they did not forget the teaching appears, among other things, from the beautiful narrative of the aged John and the young man Theagenes, which Clemens Alexandrinus communicates to us in his Quis Dives Salvetur, cap. 42,—the best practical commentary on the parable of the Good Shepherd.
4. These two parables, as in particular the third, that of the Prodigal Son, are a palpable proof of the falsity of a one-sided fatalistic deterministic view of the world, according to which the lost coin and the lost sheep must absolutely be found again, and therefore we can scarcely speak of any trouble in seeking, or of a joy in finding.
5. What the Saviour declares of the joy in heaven over that which is found again on earth, deserves to be named one of the most striking revelations of the mysteries of the life to come. To the Saviour the angel-world is more than a poetic dream—more than an æsthetic form; it is to Him a community of self-conscious, rational, and holy beings. These are acquainted with that which goes on in the moral world on earth; they take lively interest in the saving of the sinner; they rejoice as often as in this respect the work of love succeeds: this joy springs from their knowing how, even through the conversion of one sinner, the honor of God is exalted, the kingdom of Christ is advanced, the blessedness of mankind is increased, the future reunion of heaven and earth is brought nearer. The Saviour in this leaves to our faith the reckoning how high their joy, since the foundation of the kingdom of God on earth must have already risen, and what a height it shall hereafter reach when all converted sinners shall have been fully prepared and sanctified. Comp. Eph_3:10; 1Pe_1:12; and the whole imagery of the Apocalypse.
6. Were anything more necessary for the removal of any doubt in so glorious a revelation, it would be the remembrance that, according to this parable, the joy over the finding of the lost is, in God and His angels, quite as natural as in the Woman and the Shepherd. Even in an extra-ecclesiastical sphere, the striking character of this thought has been already recognized and uttered with emphasis, e.g., by Goethe, when he in the ballad, The God and the Bayadere, says:
“Es freut sich die Gottheit der reuigen Sünder,
Unsterbliche heben verlorene Kinder
Mit feurigen Armen zum Himmel emper.”
[The Godhead rejoices over repentant sinners; the immortals raise lost children with fiery arms upward to heaven.]
7. See below on the following parable.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
How much attractiveness Jesus has for publicans and sinners. In Him they see, 1. The highest ideal of mankind realized; 2. the highest revelation of the Godhead manifested.—Jesus, even as Friend of the publicans and sinners, is sent for the fall of some and the rising of others.—The joyful message of salvation proclaimed by the blasphemers of the Saviour. See further the ideas in Luk_7:34.
The Good Shepherd, the image of the love of God in Christ for sinners: 1. Its unexampled compassion; 2. its persevering patience; 3. its forbearing tenderness; 4. its blessed joy.—“Till he find it,” the highest goal of Divine love: 1. How much is requisite before it is reached; 2. how heartfelt its joy when it is reached.—Rejoice with them that do rejoice!—Human feeling the best pledge of the riches of the Divine compassion.—The sinner’s salvation, the angels’ joy.—The worth of a single soul.—Grounds for the joy of heaven when the lost sheep is found.—The angels rejoice then, 1. For God’s sake; 2. for Jesus’ sake; 3. for the sinner’s sake; 4. for their own sake.—The joy of the angels on its practical side: the Saviour’s declaration hereupon contains, 1. A striking revelation of the blessed love in heaven; 2. a powerfully rousing voice to conversion; 3. a strong impulse to the work of seeking love; 4. a ground for quickening the longing of the Christian for the life in heaven.—How much the greatest unrighteousness has, on the platform of the Gospel, the advantage above self-righteousness.—The Lost Coin: 1. What the loss of it has to surprise us; it is lost, a. out of a well-guarded treasure, b. lost in the house, c. lost, almost without hope of finding again; 2. What this loss has to quicken us. It impels a. to kindle a light, b. to sweep, c. to seek till it is found.—The Lost Coin the striking image of the sinner: 1. Its original brilliancy; 2. its present deterioration; 3. its worth when it shall hereafter be found again.—The soul of the sinner the object of the greatest sorrow, labor, and joy: 1. No loss so great as when the soul is lost; 2. no trouble too great if only the soul is preserved; but 3. no joy so blessed as when the soul is saved.—The human heart needs the sympathy of others in its own joy.—No sinner so mean but that he may become an object of the joy in heaven.—Jesus’ love of sinners: 1. The objects (Luk_15:1); 2. the adversaries (Luk_15:2); 3. the ground (Luk_15:3-9); 4. the preciousness of the same (Luk_15:7-10).
Starke:—Quesnel:—The main thing that we have to do in this life is to draw near to Jesus.—The company of bad people one does well to avoid, yet he must not wholly withdraw himself from them.—Hypocrites are harder to convert than open sinners.—What a blessing it is for an evangelical preacher when even the greatest sinners like to hear him.—Osiander:—The world puts the worst interpretation on everything in faithful preachers.—Christ’s whole discharge of His office is a good summary of pastoral theology;—let us therein diligently study and imitate it.—Brentius:—Returning sinners are to be received with much love and friendship, and all previous evil of theirs to be thrown into forgetfulness.—Philemon Luk_15:10; Eze_34:16.—Quesnel:—The church triumphant and the church militant are one heart and one soul.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—A lost sinner cannot be found again so easily but that there needs a heavy besom of law and discipline thereto.—Peccatorum lachrymœ sunt angelorum deliciœ.
Heubner:—The living intercourse of a pastor with his church is more than literary activity, at which the world is agape.—The beginning of conversion is: to hear Christ’s word.—The holier thou art, so much the milder art thou too.—Even yet the world delights to mock at the conversion of the sinner.—Everywhere does Jesus show the inconsistent self-contradictions of man in earthly and in spiritual things.—As the shepherd knows his sheep and tells them, so does God His children.—God waits not till the lost one returns of himself, He seeks him.—Never has God shown Himself as love more than when He redeemed man.—“Nothing weighs too heavy for love; he is willing to take all costs who for God’s sake loves souls, and knows what Christ has done for them.”—Quesnel:—The business of men in the search of temporal, stands in contrast with their negligence in the search of spiritual, things.—By the amendment of a single sinner others again may be saved.
On the Pericope:—Heubner:—Christian care for the deliverance of lost souls.—Lisco:—How important to Jesus the saving of every sinner is.—The saving love of the Christian a copy of the pastoral faithfulness of Christ: 1. A copy which is like the model; 2. but which never equals the model.—Palmer:—1. Jesus receives sinners when they come to Him; 2. Jesus seeks sinners even before they come to Him.—Fuchs:—The different hearts of those who are mentioned in this Gospel: 1. The repentant heart of the sinners; 2. the envious heart of they Pharisees; 3. the loving heart of the Lord.—Ahlfeld:—The Son of man comes to seek what is lost:1. His toil; 2. His success; 3. His joy.—Reichhelm:—Seeking love: 1. Whom it seeks; 2. how; 3. why it seeks.—Souchon:—Jesus will make the righteous sinners, the sinners righteous.—Von Kapff:—The joy over a sinner that repents: 1. The joy of the repentant sinner himself; 2. the joy of the saints; and 3. the joy of God over him.—W. Thiess:—Jesus receives sinners: this word Isaiah 1. The one centre of the Bible; 2. the true centre of Christian preaching; 3. the chiefest jewel in life.—Rautenberg:—Who is found? 1. Whoever is drawn back from wandering; 2. carried by Christ; 3. and brought into the fellowship of His people.—Höpfner:—How great is the compassion of the Lord! 1. He seeks the lost; 2. brings again the straying; 3. binds up the wounded; 4. tends the weak; 5. guards what is strong. (Numbers 3, 5 are, however, hardly to be deduced from the text.)—Burk:—The blessed experience in spiritual things: 1. I am lost; 2. God seeks me; 3. God has found me.
The whole Pericope is, either as a whole or in part, admirably fitted to be the foundation of a communion sermon.
Footnotes:
[1][Of course then worth at least ten times its present value.—C. C. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 31, 32 murmured, saying, &c.--took it ill, were scandalized at Him,…
murmured, saying, &c.--took it ill, were scandalized at Him, and insinuated (on the principle that a man is known by the company he keeps) that He must have some secret sympathy with their character. But oh, what a truth of unspeakable preciousness do their lips, as on other occasions, unconsciously utter., Now follow three parables representing the sinner: (1) in his stupidity; (2) as all-unconscious of his lost condition; (3) knowingly and willingly estranged from God [BENGEL]. The first two set forth the seeking love of God; the last, His receiving love [TRENCH].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 31 The TRIAD OF PARABLES in, behalf of the Peraean…
The TRIAD OF PARABLES in, behalf of the Peraean Publicans and Sinners.
1. Then drew near—We suppose these transactions to have taken place in the Peraean ministry of our Lord, of which Bethabara was probably the rallying point. This, being near Jericho and the fords of the Jordan, with their custom-houses, many publicans and sinners would be in the neighborhood, to whom the preaching of our Lord presented powerful attractions. This section too was more plentifully stocked with aliens and Gentiles, who, mingling with the irreligious Jews, constituted in all probability the sinners here named in connection with the publicans. We therefore do not quite coincide with Stier and Alford, who understand Luke as merely affirming a general fact that publicans and sinners were in the habit in different places of attending the Lord’s ministry. On the contrary, we rather hold that the discourses of this entire chapter and the next took place on a very special day, namely, the closing day of his ministry in Peraea. See note on Luk_13:32. It forms, indeed, a key to the entire passage, Luk_15:1 to Luk_17:10, to note that among the Gentile and publican population in this region there was a general turning toward Christ, and that he is earnestly sustaining them against the cavils and sneers of the Pharisees. So also chapters 14 and Luk_18:9-14.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 1-10. The Lost Sheep.
1-10. The Lost Sheep.
1. Then drew near unto him] Rather, And there were drawing near to Him aU the tax-gatherers and the sinners to listen to Him.
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St Chrysostom says that their very life was legalised sin and specious greed. On the publicans, see Luk_3:12, Luk_5:27. ‘The sinners’ mean in general the degraded and outcast classes. See Introd. and Wordsworth, ad loc.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 (1) Then drew near unto him . . .—Better,…
XV.
(1) Then drew near unto him . . .—Better, and all the publicans and the sinners were drawing near to hear Him. There is not quite the same direct sequence in the Greek as in the English, but what follows comes naturally after the mention of the “multitudes” in Luk_14:25. Publicans and sinners knew that Jesus had turned, as in indignation, from the house of the Pharisee, and this, it may be, gave them courage to approach Him.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28, 29, 31 Vers. 1-32. The Lord speaks his three parable-stories of…
Vers. 1-32. The Lord speaks his three parable-stories of the "lost," in which he explains his reason for loving and receiving the sinful.
Vers. 1, 2. Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them; more accurately rendered, there were drawing near to him. This was now, in the last stage of the final journey, the usual state of things. The great outside-class came in crowds to listen to Jesus. These were men and women who, through home and family associations, through their occupations, which were looked upon with disfavour by the more rigid Jews, often no doubt through their own careless, indifferent character, had little or nothing to do with their religious and orthodox countrymen. Poor wanderers, sinners, thoughtless ones, no one cared for them, their present or their future. Do not these in every age make up the majority? The religious, so often Pharisees in heart, despising them, refusing to make allowances for them, looking on them as hopelessly lost ones. But at no time was this state of things so accentuated as when Jesus lived among men. Now, among such care. less irreligious men and women, are man whose hearts are very tender, very listen if the teacher of religion has Mud, wise words for them. The grave and severe, yet intensely pitiful and loving, doctrines of the Galilaean Master found such. His words were words of stern rebuke, and yet were full of hope, even for the hopeless. No man had ever spoken to them like this Man. Hence the crowds of publicans and sinners who were now ever pressing round the Master. But the teachers of Israel, the priestly order, the learned and rigid scribes, the honoured doctors Of the holy Law, these were indignant, and on first thoughts not without reason, at the apparent preference felt for and special tenderness shown by Jesus to this great outside class of sinners. The three parables of this fifteenth chapter were the apologia of the Galilaean Master to orthodox Israel, but they appeal to an audience far greater than any enclosed in the coasts of the Holy Land, or living in that restless age,
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HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1, 2. A bitter charge the highest tribute.
The great Teacher himself said that the things which are highly esteemed among men may be abomination in the sight of God; and we may safely assume that the converse of this proposition is true also. Certainly, in this bitter charge brought against our Lord we now perceive the very highest tribute which could be paid him.
I A BITTER CHARGE AGAINST THE SAVIOUR. It is not easy for us to realize the intensity of the feeling here expressed. The Jews, arguing from the general truth that holiness shrinks from contact with guilt, supposed that the holier any man was, the more scrupulously would he avoid the sinner; and they concluded that the very last thing the holiest man of all would do was to have such fellowship with sinners as to "eat with them." Their patriotic hatred of the publican, and their moral repugnance toward "the sinner," filled them with astonishment as they saw him, who claimed to be the Messiah himself, taking up a positively friendly attitude toward both of these intolerable characters. Their error was, as error usually is, a perversion of the truth. They did not understand that the same Being who has the utmost aversion to sin can have and does have the tenderest yearning of heart toward the sinner; that he who utterly repels the one is mercifully pitying and patiently seeking and magnanimously winning the other. So the men of acknowledged piety and purity in the time of our Lord failed completely to understand him, and they brought against him the charge which might well prove fatal to his claims that he was having a guilty fellowship with the outcast among men and the abandoned among women.
II THE HIGHEST TRIBUTE TO THE SAVIOUR. In that attitude and action of his which seemed to his contemporaries to be so unworthy of him we find the very thing which constitutes his glory and his crown. Of course, association with sinners, on the basis of spiritual sympathy with them, is simply shameful; and to break up their association with the intemperate, the licentious, the dishonest, the scornful, is the first duty of those who have been their companions and have shared their wrongdoings, but whose eyes have been opened to see the wickedness of their course. It is for such to say, "Depart from me, ye evil-doers; for I will keel) the commandments of my God." But that is far from exhausting the whole truth of the subject. For Christ has taught us, by his life as well as and as much as by his Word, that to mingle with the sinful in order to succour and save them is the supreme act of goodness. When a man"s character has been so well established that he can afford to do so without serious risk either to himself or to his reputation, and when, thus fortified, well armed with purity, he goes amongst the criminal and the vicious and the profane, that he may lilt them up from the miry places in which they are wandering, and place their feet on the rock of righteousness, then does he the very noblest, the divinest thing he can do. It was this very thing which Jesus Christ came to do: "He came to seek and to save that which was lost." It was this principle which he was continually illustrating; and nothing could more truly indicate the moral grandeur of his spirit or the beautiful beneficence of his life than the words by which it was sought to dishonour him: "This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." It is this which will constitute the best tribute that can be paid to any of his disciples now. "There is nothing of which any true minister of Jesus Christ, whether professional or not, ought to be so glad and so proud, as to be such that the enemies of the Lord shall say tauntingly, while his friends will say thankfully, "This man receiveth sinners.
III THE GREATEST POSSIBLE ENCOURAGEMENT TO OURSELVES. There are men who know they are sinners, but care not; there are those who do not know that they are guilty in the sight of God; and there are others who do know and who do care. It is to these last that the Saviour of mankind is especially addressing himself. To them all he is offering Divine mercy; restoration to the favour, the service, and the likeness of God; everlasting life. On their ear there may fall these words, intended for a grave accusation, but constituting to the enlightened soul the most welcome tidings Man receiveth sinners. C.
Vers. 1-10. Murmurs on earth, and joy in heaven.
Our blessed Lord, in his progress towards Jerusalem, had shown the same kindly interest in the outcast classes which had always characterized him, and his love was beginning to tell. Publicans and sinners gathered eagerly around him to hear his tender, saving words; while the reputable Pharisees and scribes eyed him from a distance with self-righteous suspicion. Their murmurs, however inaudible to mere man, were audible to him to whom all things are naked and open, and he exposes their criticisms by a trinity of parables which are without peers in literature. Stier thinks that the trinity of parables is intended to present the Persons of the adorable Trinity in their respective relations to our salvation. The first would thus represent the Son"s shepherd-care; the second, the Spirit"s maternal solicitude for the restoration of lost souls to the heavenly treasure; and the third, the Father"s yearning that prodigal sons might come home. This view is certainly commendable, and not too artistic for such a weighty Preacher as the Lord Jesus Christ, and such a reporter as St, Luke, Leaving the third and greatest of the parables for separate treatment, let us, in this homily, discuss the other two; and as they are so similar, we need not separate them in our treatment.
I WE ARE HERE TAUGHT BY CHRIST WHAT UNFALLEN BEINGS THINK ABOUT THEMSELVES. (Ver. 7) A door is opened by these parables into heaven, and we have glimpses of the celestial world. Jesus is here testifying about heavenly things. (Joh_3:12) Now, we must know, in the first place, who are meant by the ninety and nine sheep which never went astray, and by the nine pieces of silver which were never lost. They cannot mean self-righteous souls such as the Pharisees and scribes. For they needed repentance, and over them no celestial ones would think of rejoicing. Hence they can only refer to unfallen beings. Now, the parables imply that there is joy over the unfallen. Why should there not be? To us who are fallen it appears but right that the most intense joy should be taken in the unfallen and sinless. They are a new type of beings to us. We have only had one of them in this world. The sinless Saviour broke the law of continuity, and constitutes the marvel of human history. Ninety and nine unfallen beings would seem to us a marvellously interesting group. A sinless city, such as the new Jerusalem is, appears to our comprehension such a novelty, such a new notion and thought amid the sad monotony of sin, that we almost wonder how those who have got within the city could ever think of aught beyond it. And yet to the unfallen ones themselves sinlessness being the rule, and no exception being found within the celestial city there must come over the joy with which they contemplate each other a certain monotony, which must keep the joy down to a certain uniform level. Where everything is exactly as it should be, and no tragedy is possible, the joy of contemplation must be so uniform as to partake almost of what is common. The sinless ones contemplate one another with rapture, doubtless, but the joy is not of the intensest type by reason of the monotony and sameness associated of necessity with it. We may make sure of this by simply contrasting the complacency of the self-righteous with the consciousness of the sinless that they never can be more than unprofitable servants, for they can never rise above the sphere of duty. Nothing corresponding to the self-satisfaction of the Pharisee, who thanks God that he is not as other men, can be entertained by the celestial world. They are not absorbed in self-admiration. That is only possible with lost men! So that the joy of unfallen beings over one another is modified by the thought that their sinlessness is nothing more than should be expected from those possessed of such privileges as they. Unlost sheep and money receive but moderate admiration.
II WE ARE HERE TAUGHT WITH WHAT INTENSE INTEREST UNFALLEN BEINGS CONTEMPLATE THE CAREER OF LOST SOULS. (Vers. 4, 8) The problem of sin comes upon the sinless as an exception to the rule. They contemplate the career of the lost as a tragedy added to the monotony of life. They hover over the lost ones with intense interest. They follow their career and study its issues. We must not regard the celestial world as walled out from the tragedies of this earth. All, according to Christ"s idea, is open to the celestial side. We may not see with" our dull eyes the city of the Apocalypse; but the celestials can follow our terrestrial careers and note the lessons of our different destinies. "The bourne from whence no traveller returns" is the celestial country. The lack of tidings is here, not there! The majority beyond the shadows may seem all silent, like the grave, to us; but the din of our voices reaches across the void to them, and constitutes a study of unfailing interest.
III THE UNFALLEN ONES HAVE SENT FORTH MESSENGERS TO SAVE THE LOST. (Vers. 4-6, 8, 9) Angels hover around us, and with intensest interest contemplate our sin-burdened, sin-stained careers. But the celestial world did not contemplate the problem from a distance, and allow the wanderers to die. Two, at all events, came forth from heaven in the interests of lost men the shepherd Son of God, and the Spirit, with all womanly tenderness. The Second and Third Persons of the adorable Trinity have come forth as messengers to save lost men. In addition, there are multitudes of ministering angels who exercise a mysterious but real ministry, and aid the heirs of salvation in their pilgrimage home. To the celestial visitants, however, who are set before us in these parables, we must meanwhile give our attention.
1. The good Shepherd. He follows the lost sheep over the mountains into the wilderness, up the rocky steeps, wherever lost souls wander and are waiting to be found. It was arduous work. It involved the exchange of Paradise for this wilderness-world, and a life of privation and trouble of many kinds, and all that the lost sheep might be found and brought home. Christ"s work was self-denial and self-sacrifice in the highest degree. He had to lay down his life for the rescue of the sheep.
2. The painstaking Spirit. Like the housewife Who searched so thoroughly the dust of the house until she found the lost piece of money, so the Spirit comes down and searches in the dust of this world for lost souls, that he may restore them to the heavenly treasure. There is no work too severe or too searching for the Spirit to undertake in the rescue of our lost souls. As Gerok puts it, "No trouble is too great for God to undertake in seeking out a soul.
IV THE JOY OF THE CELESTIAL WORLD OVER REPENTANT SOULS IS GREATER THAN THEIR JOY OVER THE UNFALLEN. (Vers. 7, 10) Our Lord represents the joy of heaven over one repentant sinner as greater than the joy over even ninety and nine unfallen beings. No angel of light amid his sinless glory ever caused such rapture to the heavenly world as does a sinner repenting and returning to God. "Gabriel," says Nettleton, "who stands in the presence of God, never occasioned so much joy in heaven. We may number ninety and nine holy angels and then say, " There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over those ninety and nine just persons." The creation of the world was a joyful event, when " the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." But this is not to be compared with the joy over one sinner that repenteth The joy of angels is most sensibly felt every time one more is added to the company of the redeemed. The ninety and nine already redeemed seem to be forgotten, when, with wonder and joy, they behold their new companion with whom they expect to dwell for ever. Could we know, as well as angels do, the reality of a sinner"s repentance, we should know better how to rejoice." How important, consequently, should we regard the repentance of a sinner! Instead of our indulging in Pharisaic suspicion and murmuring, should we not join the joyful companies above in their ecstasy over the lost being found? And does it not further help us to understand why evil has been permitted, seeing that grace can translate it into so much joy? In all the assemblies of the saints we have reason to believe angels are present, watching with intense interest the exercises and noting what repentances result. The interest we take in such services is, we must believe, as nothing to the interest of the heavenly world. How they must wonder at so much indifference on our part! How they must wonder at the cool and matter-of-fact way we receive tidings of credible conversions to God! The joy of heaven over penitent sinners is a standing rebuke to our murmurings or apathy! May the thought of it lead to a better feeling and a better life! R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 8, 10, 11 This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them
Luk_15:1-2
This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them
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Christs influence with the masses
The masses were drawn to Christs teachings.
I. THE REASONS FOR THIS ADMIRATION.
1. All lack of affectation--no parade of greatness, no false assumption of humility. His manner was what beauty is to the landscape, what the sublime, majestic repose of the ocean is to the oceans greatness. His manner ever reflected the moral grandeur of His being.
2. The originality of His methods.
3. The grandeur and claims of His doctrines.
4. The authority with which He spoke.
5. The adaptation of style and matter to the people.
6. His profound earnestness.
7. His scathing denunciation of the hypocrisy of the ruling sects.
II. THE EFFORTS OF THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES TO UNDO THIS INFLUENCE. Not because they loved men, but because of caste, of pride, and cold-hearted selfishness.
III. CHRISTS MANNER OF MEETING THIS OPPOSITION. He takes every opportunity to overcome their prejudice, and enlighten their minds, seeking to impress upon them the superior glories of the new disport sation. (W. E.McKay.)
Christ receiving sinners
I. THE DESCRIPTION OF SINNERS CHRIST WILL RECEIVE.
1. Sinners of all ages.
2. Sinners of all stations.
3. Sinners of all degrees.
II. INTO WHAT JESUS RECEIVES SINNERS.
1. Into His forgiving grace and favour.
2. Into His family.
3. Into His heaven.
III. THE WAY AND MANNER IN WHICH CHRIST RECEIVES SINNERS.
1. In the way of acknowledgment and confession.
2. In the way of repentance, or turning from sin.
3. In the way of humility and faith.
Now as to the manner:
1. Most freely.
2. Most tenderly.
3. Most readily.
Application:
1. The subject is one to which every believers heart responds.
2. The subject is full of encouragement to the inquiring sinner.
3. The subject is limited to the present life. Here only He receives. (J. Burns, D. D.)
This man receiveth sinners
These words were originally spoken as a reproach against our Lord. When we repeat them it is with widely different feelings. They are to us a message of joy--nay, the only true grounds of joy and hope to man.
I. THE PERSONS REFERRED TO. This man: sinners.
1. The contrast in its most general aspect. They--sinners--evildoers, violators of Gods law. He--holy; separate from sinners.
2. Take the outward life of both. His--faultless, beneficent. Theirs--the reverse.
3. Consider the spirit of His life, and of theirs. Perfect love and confidence in God; perfect love and devotion to the good of man. They, governed by selfishness; destitute of faith; living under influence of impulse, passion, etc.
II. THE RELATION EXPRESSED BETWEEN THESE TWO CLASSES OF PERSONS.
1. What should you expect? A man is known by his companions. Like seeks like.
2. Yet, He receiveth sinners.
(1) To mercy and pardon.
(2) To grace and guidance.
(3) To love and friendship.
3. And all this He does
(1) freely;
(2) readily;
(3) eternally.
III. WHAT IS OUR INTEREST IN THIS SUBJECT?
1. To some, none. But why, and how? Are they not sinners? How, then, can they be saved? Is there another who can thus receive?
2. Do you fear to come? Why? Consider His words of invitation and promise. Consider His acts of welcome and beneficence.
3. Are we received? See that you never abandon His protection. (W. R. Clark, M. A.)
Christ receiving sinners
I. WHO IT IS THAT RECEIVETH SINNERS?
1. This man. That Christ was man, may easily be shown from the united and ample testimony of Scripture. Revelation makes no attempt to conceal this fact. It treats it as a matter that is necessary to be known, and as fully and readily to be believed, as His essential and eternal divinity. Godhead without manhood could have effected no atonement for the worlds transgression.
2. But this man was Divine, He was God manifested in the flesh, combined all the glory of the Deity with all the weakness of man--all the infirmities of the creature--with acts and attributes splendid and incomprehensible! He was frail as flesh, yet omnipotent as God. Thus was our nature infinitely enriched, though sin had beggared it of all worth.
3. This man gave to the universe the most amiable, attractive, and stupendous manifestation of the Deity ever witnessed, a manifestation altogether different from any which had been previously afforded. Here was no throne of sapphire, no city of pearl, no retinue of celestials, no blaze of unapproachable brightness, no footpath on the firmament, no chariot rolling on the wings of the wind, and studded with the stars of the skies. The majestic symbols of the presence and power of the Infinite were kept back, and here was man in weakness, destitution, reproach, suffering, and death. This man showed how low the Deity could stoop, how much the Deity could love, how infinitely the Deity could redeem, with what frail and broken things the Deity could rebuild His moral universe.
II. HOW THIS MAN RECEIVETH SINNERS.
1. He received them universally; His arms of love are ready to embrace all.
2. Christ received sinners without upbraiding them on account of their sins.
3. Observe the delightful and blessed certainty that sinners have of being received by Him.
III. WHAT DOES CHRISTS RECEPTION OF SINNERS COMPREHEND? To what are they received? The world receives its votaries, but only to oppress them with its vexations and vanities. Satan receives sinners, but only to slavery and wretchedness. Doth Christ receive them? It is--
1. To a state of reconciliation with Himself; He casts around them His Divine complacency, makes and calls them His friends.
2. Christ receives sinners into a state of holiness. He sanctifies all the powers of the intellect, all the affections of the heart, and all the actions of the life.
3. Christ receives them under the special protection and guidance of His providence. They rest under the pavilion of the Almighty Redeemer, are encircled as with a wall of fire, and fenced round and defended by the angels of glory.
4. Christ receives them into the full immunities of His kingdom of grace. In that kingdom all things are theirs.
5. Christ receives the sinners He thus sanctifies and blesses into heaven. This is the last and greatest gift of God in Christ. This will perfect every holy principle and every religious joy. (E. Horton.)
Jesus receiving sinners
I. THE WORDS, AS THEY WERE INTENDED, CONTAIN A FALSE AND MALICIOUS CALUMNY. This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. The fact itself was undeniable: but what interpretation did the Pharisees wish to put upon it?
1. They meant to insinuate that the followers of Jesus consisted chiefly of worthless and disreputable characters; and this was false.
2. These murmurers meant to insinuate, further, that Jesus loved the company of sinners for its own sake; and this again was false.
3. Or, perhaps, they meant to insinuate, that those whom He favourably received continued sinners still; and this was as false as the rest.
II. THE SAME WORDS UNDESIGNEDLY EXPRESS A MOST GLORIOUS TRUTH. They truly describe--
1. The persons on whose behalf the Son of Man is interested--This man receiveth sinners.
(1) None but sinners--among the race of Adam, at least--have any concern or part in Jesus Christ.
(2) The vilest of sinners are not shut out from partaking in that mercy, which is equally needful to the most virtuous.
(3) Once more--sin still dwelleth even in those who have partaken of the mercy of Christ; yet doth He not cast them off. And why? Because He is not displeased to behold sin in His followers? God forbid! No--but because He delights to see them fighting manfully against it, and gradually overcoming it through the power of His grace.
2. The regard which He shows toward them--He receiveth them, and eateth with them.
(1) He receives them to His own favour, and to that of His Father.
(2) He receives them to spiritual communion with Himself, and with His Father.
(3) He receives them, finally, to His visible presence in the kingdom of His Father. (J. Jowett, M. A.)
Christ receiving sinners
I. THE IMPIOUS CALUMNY INTENDED. You all know that the proverb has been accepted in all ages, and clothed in all languages, A man may be ever known by his associates. Tell me his friendships, and I will tell you his nature, for according to his companionships must be his character. Now these Pharisees would force home this proverb upon the holy Saviour. Could He come forth from that Fathers bosom, could He have just stepped into this naughty world out of that world of holy love, and not be the Friend of publicans and sinners?--ay, the very best Friend they ever had, for He came to seek and to save the chief, as He said most feelingly who had not been a publican and a sinner, but a Pharisee and a sinner. This shall be to eternity His praise and glory. But then it is said, or it is thought, by some Pharisees and scribes, that such a reception of the sinner is a patronage of his sin--that such a gospel of free grace has a perilous tendency to release man from moral duty; that if good works do not enter into the ground of the sinners salvation, no obligation remains for the performance of them by the man--just as these Pharisees implied that receiving sinners was to be a patron of their sin. Refute this error whenever it shows itself, as the Lord refuted the slander of the scribes--by the revealed mind of God. I mean by the pure word of Scripture; on the one hand saying, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according unto His mercy He saved us; and on the other hand affirming That faith should work by love.
II. THE PRECIOUS TRUTH ASSERTED. The eater never did bring forth such sweetness as when this testimony was extorted from wicked men. Why this revelation of the Fathers will? My brethren, the great foundation of all Divine revelation, from the forfeiture of Paradise downward through all its prophecies, and through all its promises, the great foundation of all revelation lies in this little fact, God receives sinners. Open your Bible, read through the Scripture; it gives you the character of God. Surely the errand of the beloved Son must be in harmony with that character. Listen! hear the declaration of your Fathers mind: I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord. Listen to the exhortations of your Fathers love: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let Him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Listen to the proclamation of His own name: The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Hear His promise: I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins: return unto Me; for I have redeemed thee. Hear His remonstrance: How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within Me, My repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man. Oh! declarations, expostulations, proclamations, promises, remonstrances, surely these must have their sign and seal in Him, of whom it was said, See Him, and you see the Father; of whom it could be said, The voice of those human lips is the very echo of the voice of God. (J. P. Eyre, M. A.)
The approachableness of Jesus
I. First let us PROVE THE APPROACHABLENESS OF CHRIST, though it really needs no proof, for it is a fact which lies upon the surface of His life.
1. You may see it conspicuously in His offices. Our Lord Jesus is said to be the Mediator between God and man. Now, observe, that the office of mediator implies at once that he should be approachable. Another of His offices is that of priest. The priest was the true brother of the people, chosen from among themselves, at all times to be approached; living in their midst, in the very centre of the camp, ready to make intercession for the sinful and the sorrowful. So is it with our Lord. You may be separated from all of human kind, justly and righteously, by your iniquities, but you are not separated from that great Friend of sinners who at this very time is willing that publicans and sinners should draw near unto Him. As a third office let me mention that the Lord Jesus is our Saviour; but I see not how He can be a Saviour unless He can be approached by those who need to be saved.
2. Consider a few of His names and titles. Frequently Jesus is called the Lamb. I do not suppose there is any one here who was ever afraid of a lamb; that little girl yonder, if she saw a lamb, would not be frightened. Every child seems almost instinctively to long to put its hand on the head of a lamb. O that you might come and put your hand on the head of Christ, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Again, you find
Him called a Shepherd: no one is afraid of a shepherd. Timid, foolish, and wandering though you may be, there is nothing in the Good Shepherd to drive you away from Him, but everything to entice you to come to Him. Then again, He is called our Brother, and one always feels that he may approach his brother. I have no thought of trouble or distress which I would hesitate to communicate to my brother, because he is so good and kind. Brethren, you can come to the good elder Brother at all hours; and when He blames you for coming, let me know. He is called, too, a Friend; but He would be a very unfriendly friend who could not be approached by those He professed to love. If my friend puts a hedge around himself, and holds himself so very dignified that I may not speak with him, I would rather be without his friendship; but if he be a genuine friend, and I stand at his door knocking, he will say, Come in, and welcome; what can I do for you? Such a friend is Jesus Christ. He is to be met with by all needy, seeking hearts.
3. There is room enough for enlargement here, but I have no time to say more, therefore I will give you another plea. Recollect His person. The person of our Lord Jesus Christ proclaims this truth with a trumpet voice. I say His person, because He is man, born of woman, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.
4. If this suffice not, let me here remind you of the language of Christ. He proclaims His approachability in such words as these, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
5. The old proverb truly saith that actions speak louder than words, and therefore let us review the general ways and manners of the Redeemer. Yon may gather that He is the most approachable of persons from the actions of His life. He was always very busy, and busy about the most important of matters, and yet He never shut the door in the face of any applicant. Not once was He harsh and repulsive. His whole life proves the truth of the prophecy, The bruised reed He will not break, and the stocking flax He will not quench.
6. But, if you want the crowning argument, look yonder. The man who has lived a life of service, at last dies a felons death! The cross of Christ should be the centre to which all hearts are drawn, the focus of desire, the pivot of hope, the anchorage of faith. Surely, you need not be afraid to come to Him who went to Calvary for sinners.
II. I now shall proceed, with as great brevity as I can command, TO ILLUSTRATE THIS GREAT TRUTH.
1. I illustrate it by the way which Christ opens up for sinners to Himself The coming to Jesus which saves the soul is a simple reliance on Him.
2. Thitruth is further illustrated by the help which He gives to coming sinners, in order to bring them near to Himself. He it is who first makes them coming sinners.
3. I might further illustrate this to the children of God, by reminding you of the way in which you now commune with your Lord. How easy it is for you to reach His ear and His heart! A prayer, a sigh, a tear, a groan, will admit you into the Kings chambers.
4. The approachableness of Christ may also be seen in the fact of His receiving the poor offerings of His people.
5. The ordinances wear upon their forefront the impress of an ever approachable Saviour. Baptism in outward type sets forth our fellowship with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection-what can be nearer than this? The Lords supper in visible symbol invites us to eat His flesh and drink His blood: this reveals to us most clearly how welcome we are to the most intimate intercourse with Jesus.
III. In the third place, we come TO ENFORCE THIS TRUTH; or, as the old Puritans used to say, improve it.
1. The first enforcement I give is this: let those of us who are working for the Master in soul-winning, try to be be like Christ in this matter, and not be, as some are apt to be, proud, stuck-up, distant, or formal.
2. There is this to be said to you who are unconverted--if Jesus Christ be so approachable, oh I how I wish, how I wish that you would approach Him. There are no bolts upon His doors, no barred iron gates to pass, no big dogs to keep you back. If Christ be so approachable by all needy ones, then needy one, come and welcome. Come just now!
3. The last word is--if Jesus be such a Saviour as we have described Him, let saints and sinners join to praise Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Open house for all comers
I. JESUS RECEIVING SINNERS.
1. This was and is a great fact--our Lord received, and still receiveth sinners. A philosopher wrote over the door of his academy, He that is not learned, let him not enter here; but Jesus speaketh by Wisdom in the Proverbs, and says Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, let him eat of My bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled (Pro_9:4-5). He receives sinners as His disciples, companions, friends. This man receiveth sinners; not, however, that they may remain sinners, but to pardon their sins, to justify their persons, to cleanse their hearts by the Holy Spirit.
2. I want your attention to another thought--namely, the consistency of this fact. It is a most consistent and proper thing that this man should receive sinners. If you and I reflect awhile we shall remember that the types which were set forth concerning Christ all seem to teach us that He must receive sinners. One of the earliest types of the Saviour was Noahs ark, by which a certain company not only of men but also of the lowest animals were preserved from perishing by water, and were floated out of the old world into the new. Moreover, the Master has been pleased to take to Himself one or two titles which imply that He came to receive sinners. He takes the title of Physician, but as He told these very Pharisees a little while before, The whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. There is no practice for the physician in a neighbourhood where every man is well.
3. Observe the condescension of this fact. This man, who towers above all other men, holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners--this man receiveth sinners.
4. Notice the certainty of this fact.
5. Do observe the unqualified sense in which the sentence is put, This man receiveth sinners. But how? What sort of sinners? How are they to feel? How are they to come? Not a word is said about their coming, or their preparation, but simply, This man receiveth sinners. One man came on his bed--indeed, he did not come, but was brought by other people; Jesus received him all the same for that.
II. Now, I wanted to have spoken upon the second head, but I have not had sufficient forethought to store up the time, so we must only say of that just this: that Jesus Christ having once received sinners, enters into the most familiar and endearing intercourse with them that is possible. HE FEASTS WITH THEM--their joys are His joys, their work for God is His work for God. He feasts with them at their table, and they with Him at His table; and He does this wherever the table is spread. It may be in a garret, or in a cellar; in a wilderness, or on a mountain; He still eateth with them. This He does now in the ordinances and means of grace by His Spirit; and this He will do in the fulness of glory, when He takes these sinners up to dwell with Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
An appeal to sinners
Many a true word has been spoken in jest, and many a true word has been spoken in slander. Now the scribes and Pharisees wished to slander Christ; but in so doing they outstripped their intentions, and bestowed upon Him a title of renown,
1. First, then, THE DOCTRINE. The doctrine is, not that Christ receiveth everybody but that He receiveth sinners. Christ receives not the self-righteous, not the good, not the whole-hearted, not those who dream that they do not need a Saviour, but the broken in spirit, the contrite in heart--those who are ready to confess that they have broken Gods laws, and have merited His displeasure. Now, let us remark, that there is a very wise distinction on the part of God, that He hath been pleased thus to choose and call sinners to repentance, and not others. For this reason, none but these ever do come to Him. There has never been such a miracle as a self-righteous man coming to Christ for mercy; none but those who want a Saviour ever did come, and therefore it would be useless for Him to say that He would receive any but those who most assuredly will come. And mark, again, none but those can come; no man can come to Christ until he truly knows himself to be a sinner. The self-righteous man cannot come to Christ; for what is implied in coming to Christ? Repentance, trust in His mercy, and the denial of all confidence in ones self. His very self-righteousness fetters his foot, so that he cannot come; palsies his arm, so that he cannot take hold of Christ; and blinds his eye, so that he cannot see the Saviour. Yet another reason: if these people, who are not sinners, would come to Christ, Christ would get no glory from them. When the physician openeth his door for those who are sick, let me go there full of health; he can win no honour from me, because he cannot exert his skill upon me. The benevolent man may distribute all his wealth to the poor; but let some one go to him who has abundance, and he shall win no esteem from him for feeding the hungry, or for clothing the naked, since the applicant is neither hungry nor naked. A great sinner brings great glory to Christ when he is saved.
II. Now, then, THE ENCOURAGEMENT. If this Man receiveth sinners, poor sin-sick sinner, what a sweet word this is for thee I Sure, then, He will not reject thee. Come, let me encourage thee this night to come to my Master, to receive His great atonement, and to be clothed with all His righteousness. Mark, those whom I address are the bona fide, real, actual sinners, not the complimentary sinners, not those who say they are sinners by way of pacifying, as they suppose, the religionists of the day; but I speak to those who feel their lost, ruined, hopeless condition. Come, because He has said He will receive you. I know your fears; we all felt them once, when we were coming to Christ. Doth not this suffice thee? Then here is another reason. I am sure this Man receiveth sinners, because He has received many, many before you. See, there is Mercys door; mark how many have been to it; you can almost hear the knocks upon the door now, like echoes of the past. You may remember how many wayworn travellers have called there for rest, how many famished souls have applied there for bread. Go, knock at Mercys door, and ask the porter this question, Was there ever one applied to the door that was refused? I can assure you of the answer: No, not one.
III. Now the last point is AN EXHORTATION. If it be true that Christ came only to save sinners, my beloved hearers, labour, strive, agonize, to get a sense in your souls of your own sinnership. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ receives all
In the New Testament the Lord seems to have selected some of every kind and class to show that He will receive all.
1. He will receive the rich--Joseph of Arimathea.
2. The poor--Lazarus the beggar.
3. The learned--Dionysius the Areopagite.
4. Physicians--Luke.
5. Soldiers--the Roman centurion.
6. Fishermen--the apostles.
7. Extortioners--Zaccheus.
8. Tax-gatherers--Matthew.
9. Thieves--the dying robber.
10. Harlots--the woman who was a sinner.
11. Adulterers--the woman of Samaria.
12. Persecutors and murderers--Paul.
13. Back sliders--Peter.
14. Persons in trade--Lydia.
15. Statesmen and courtiers--the eunuch of Ethiopia.
16. Families--that at Bethany.
17. Whole multitudes--those on Day of Pentecost. (Van Doren.)
Christs treatment of sinners
There are two classes of sins. There are some sins by which man crushes, wounds, malevolently injures his brother man: those sins which speak of a bad, tyrannical, and selfish heart. Christ met those with denunciation. Thorn are other sins by which a man injures himself. There is a life of reckless indulgence; there is a career of yielding to ungovernable propensities, which most surely conducts to wretchedness and ruin, but makes a man an object of compassion rather than of condemnation. The reception which sinners of this class met from Christ was marked by strange and pitying mercy. There was no maudlin sentiment on His lips. He called sin sin, and guilt guilt. But yet there were sins which His lips scourged, and others over which, containing in themselves their own scourge, His heart bled. That which was melancholy, and marred, and miserable in this world, was more congenial to the heart of Christ than that which was proudly happy. It was in the midst of a triumph, and all the pride of a procession, that He paused to weep over ruined Jerusalem. And if we ask the reason why the character of Christ was marked by this melancholy condescension, it is that He was in the midst of a world of ruins, and there was nothing there to gladden, but very much to touch with grief. He was here to restore that which was broken down and crumbling into decay. An enthusiastic antiquarian, standing amidst the fragments of an ancient temple surrounded by dust and moss, broken pillar, and defaced architrave, with magnificent projects in his mind of restoring all this to former majesty, to draw out to light from mere rubbish the ruined glories, and therefore stooping down amongst the dank ivy and the rank nettles; such was Christ amidst the wreck of human nature. He was striving to lift it out of its degradation. He was searching out in revolting places that which had fallen down, that He might build it up again in fair proportions a holy temple to the Lord. Therefore He laboured among the guilty; therefore He was the companion of outcasts; therefore He spoke tenderly and lovingly to those whom society counted undone. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Christs demeanour towards sinners
The heathen philosopher Seneca made a practice of dining with his slaves, and when challenged for an innovation so directly in the teeth of all customary proprieties and so offensive to the Roman mind, he defended himself by saying that he dined with some because they were worthy of his esteem, and with others that they might become so. The action and its defence was alike admirable, and read a salutary lesson to the aristocrats of Rome. But it was even a greater shock to the Pharisees, and if possible even more unaccountable, that Jesus should prefer the society of notorious sinners to their own irreproachable manners and decorous conversation. They could not understand why a teacher of holy life, instead of frowning upon the notoriously profligate, should show a preference for their society. Our Lords explanation is ample and thorough. He devotes, therefore, the three parables recorded in this chapter to this purpose. It is perhaps worth remarking that on one point He felt that no explanation was required. Even the Pharisees did not suspect Him of any sympathy with sin. These critics of His conduct had not failed to remark that in His presence the daring profanity and audacious license of wicked men were tamed. Those who so narrowly criticized our Lords conduct might have seen its reasonableness had they been able to look at it from another point of view. With equal surprise they might have exclaimed: Sinners receive this Man and eat with Him. These dissolute and lawless characters could themselves have explained the change. They were attracted to Jesus, because together with unmistakable sanctity, and even somehow appearing as the chief feature of His sanctity, there was an understanding of the sinners position and a hopefulness about him which threw a hitherto unknown spell over them. Separate from sinners, as they had never before felt any one to be, He seemed to come closer to their heart by far than any other had come. He had a heart open to all their troubles. He saw them through and through, and yet showed no loathing, no scorn, no astonishment, no perplexity, no weariness. Instead of meeting them with upbraiding and showing them all they had lost, He gave them immediate entrance into His own pure, deep, efficient love, and gladdened their hearts with a sense of what they yet had in Him. Therefore men whose seared conscience felt no other touch, who had a ready scoff for every other form of holiness, admitted this new power and yielded to it. The contrast between this new attitude of a holy person towards the sinner and that to which men had commonly been accustomed has been finely described in the following words: He who thought most seriously of the disease held it to be curable; while those who thought less seriously of it pronounced it incurable. Those who loved their race a little made war to the knife against its enemies and oppressors; lie who loved it so much as to die for it made overtures of peace to them. The half-just judge punished the convicted criminal; the thoroughly just judge offered him forgiveness. Perfect justice here appears to take the very course which would be taken by injustice. It is this, then, that calls for explanation. And it is explained by our Lord in three parables, each of which illustrates the fact that a more active interest in any possession is arroused by the very circumstance that it is lost.
I. The first point, then, suggested by these parables is THAT GOD SUFFERS LOSS IN EVERY SINNER THAT DEPARTS FROM HIM. This was what the Pharisees had wholly left out of account, that God loves men and mourns over every ill that befalls them. And this is what we find it so hard to believe.
II. Secondly, these parables suggest THAT THE VERY FACT OF OUR BEING LOST EXCITES ACTION OF A SPECIALLY TENDER KIND TOWARD US. God does not console Himself for our loss by the fellowship of those who have constantly loved Him. He does not call new creatures into being, and so fill up the blank we have made by straying from Him. He is not a Sovereign who has no personal knowledge of His subjects, nor an employer of labour who can always get a fresh hand to fill an emptied post: He is rather a Shepherd who knows His sheep one by one, a Father who loves His children individually. He would rather restore the most abandoned sinner than blot him from his place to substitute an archangel. Love is personal and settles upon individuals. It is not all the same to God if some other person is saved while you are not. These parables thus bring us face to face with the most significant and fertile of all realities--Gods love for us. This love encompasses you whether you will or no. Love cannot remain indifferent or quiescent. Interference of a direct and special kind becomes necessary. The normal relations being disturbed, and man becoming helpless by the disturbance, it falls to God to restore matters. A new set of ideas and dealings are brought into play. So long as things go smoothly and men by nature love God and seek to do His will, there is no anxiety, no meeting of emergencies by unexpected effort, hidden resources, costly sacrifice. But when sin brings into view all that is tragic, and when utter destruction seems to be mans appointed destiny, there is called into exercise the deepest tenderness, the utmost power of the Divine nature. Here where the profoundest feeling of God is concerned, where His connection with His own children is threatened, Divinity is stirred to its utmost. This appears, among other things, in the spontaneity and persistence of the search God institutes for the lost.
III. The third point illustrated by these parables is THE EXCEEDING JOY CONSEQUENT ON THE RESTORATION OF THE SINNER. Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. The joy is greater, because the effort to bring it about has been greater, and because for a time the result has been in suspense, so that when the end is attained there is a sense of clear gain. The joy of success is proportioned to the difficulty, the doubtfulness of attaining it. All the hazards and sacrifices of the search are repaid by the recovery of the lost. The value of the unfallen soul may intrinsically be greater than the value of the redeemed; but the joy is proportioned, not to the value of the article, but to the amount of anxiety that has been spent upon it. (M. Dods, D. D.)
The devils castaways received by Christ
Mr. Whitfield, said Lady Huntingdon, these ladies have been preferring a very heavy charge against you. They say that in your sermon last night you made use of this expression: So ready is Christ to receive sinners who come to Him, that He is willing to receive the devils castaways. Mr. Whitfield pleaded guilty to the charge, and told them of the following circumstance. A wretched woman came to me this morning, and said: Sir, I was passing the door of your chapel, and hearing the voice of some one preaching, I did what I have never been in the habit of doing, I went in I and one of the first things I heard you say was that Jesus would receive willingly the devils castaways. Sir, I have been in the town for many years, and am so worn out in his service, that I may with truth be called one of the devils castaways. Do you think that Jesus would receive me? I, said Mr. Whitfield, assured her that there was not a doubt of it, if she was willing to go to Him. From the sequel it appeared that this was a case of true conversion, and Lady Huntingdon was assured that the woman left a very charming testimony behind her, that though her sins had been of a crimson hue, the atoning blood of Christ had washed them white as snow.
Publicans and sinners drawn to Christ; or, the wisdom of gentleness
Rigorous courses hath ordinarily produced sad effects. Thou seest that those drops that fall easily upon the corn ripen and fill the ear, but the stormy showers that fall with violence beat the stalks down fiat upon the earth, which being once laid, are afterwards kept down without hope of recovery through weeds embracements. Have you never known any that have been sent faulty to the jail who have returned flagitious and vile? (N. Rogers.)
The worst capable of much
White paper is made of dunghill rags. God can so work the heart of the vilest wretch with beating and purifying as it shall be fit to write His laws upon. (N. Rogers.)
Murmuring
Murmuring is a sin betwixt secret backbiting and open railing; a smothered malice which can neither utterly be concealed, nor dare openly be vented. Remedies against this evil: First, keep thy heart from pride, envy, passion, for from hence flows murmuring, malignity, whispering. Seldom do we murmur at those below us, but above us. (N. Rogers.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 11 1. All the publicans and sinners were drawing near.…
1. All the publicans and sinners were drawing near. At the period of his ministry these classes were flocking in great numbers to hear him. Publicans. Gatherers of the Roman tribute, generally corrupt, universally despised, usually Jews by birth. Sinners. Persons excommunicated from the synagogues and usually held as outcasts.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 11 Luk_15:1. Publicans and sinners.—I.e., tax-gatherers, odious to the whole…
CRITICAL NOTES
Luk_15:1. Publicans and sinners.—I.e., tax-gatherers, odious to the whole nation on account of their occupation and their unscrupulousness in carrying it on, and persons from whom the religiously minded held aloof because of their gross and sensual life. The parables imply that they came to Jesus because they were penitent—a fact which should have led the Pharisees to rejoicing rather than to murmuring.
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Luk_15:2. Murmured.—I.e., among themselves. Receiveth sinners, etc.—An important and affecting testimony to Christ’s attitude towards the sinful; He admits them into the circle of disciples, and treats them as now worthy, because of their penitence, of fellowship with Him.
Luk_15:4. What man.—The word is emphatic. Christ appeals to ordinary human feelings—pity for the lost, desire to recover a valuable possession, and parental solicitude (in the three parables respectively)—as explaining and justifying His conduct. An hundred sheep.—This parable illustrates the Divine compassion, as the loss of one out of a hundred would be no great matter to the owner. The wilderness.—I.e., the plains on which sheep were pastured. Until he find it.—Persistent and careful search (cf. Eze_34:6-11 ff.).
Luk_15:5. Not mere self-interest, but love and pity, explain the gentleness with which the shepherd treats the sheep when he finds it (cf. Isa_40:1-2). “No blows are given for the straying—no hard words; mercy to the lost one—and joy within himself—are the shepherd’s feelings; the sheep is weary with long wanderings—he gives it rest” (Alford).
Luk_15:6. When he cometh home, etc.—The joy is so great that it needs to be imparted. Those who have fellow-feeling with the shepherd, who are animated by the compassion he manifested, rejoice with him; so would the Pharisees and scribes have done, when they saw sinners recovered from the error of their ways, if they had partaken of the spirit of Christ.
Luk_15:7. Joy in heaven.—A glimpse into the unseen world (cf. Mat_18:10). Just persons.—The reference is to those who thought themselves righteous, and who had never been guilty of the conduct figuratively represented by the straying of the sheep. The truly penitent enter into a more blessed condition than that of those who have never risen above a higher standard of conduct than that of mere legal obedience.
Luk_15:8. Ten pieces of silver.—This parable illustrates the preciousness of the human soul. The loss of one out of ten is a much more serious one than that in the preceding parable. Perhaps the ten coins were a set worn as an ornament, according to the custom of Eastern women. The piece of money specified is the Greek drachma (worth about 8d.), and equal to the Roman penny (denarius). Light a candle.—Rather, “a lamp” (R.V.). The houses in the East were commonly without windows.
Luk_15:9. Which I had lost.—Observe the difference between this and “which was lost” in Luk_15:6. In the one case the bewildered animal wanders away, in the other the piece of silver is an inanimate thing, unconscious of its own value and loss. A certain fitness in the comparison to a coin arises from the latter bearing the image and superscription of a king. So, too, the soul though lying in the dust, and unaware of its miserable state, bears traces upon it of Him in whose image it was made and to whom it belongs.
Luk_15:10. In the presence of the angels.—And shared by them, as is implied in the words “Rejoice with me.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_15:1-10
The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.—These parables illustrate the fact that a more active interest in any possession is aroused by the very circumstance that it is lost. The sheep that is lost is not on that account disregarded by the shepherd, but receives for the time greater attention than those that remain in the fold. The piece of money that has gone a-missing becomes on that very account of greater immediate importance to the woman than all she has safe in her jar in the cupboard. So it is with God. The very circumstance that men have strayed from Him evokes in Him a more manifest and active solicitude in their behalf.
I. God suffers loss in every sinner that departs from Him.—To the Pharisaic mind this was a new light on the character of God. The Pharisee himself trusted little to tenderness, much to rigid law. Naturally he thought of God also as standing upon His rights, enforcing His will by compulsion, and with equanimity punishing and driving into permanent exile those who had strayed from Him. It is a revelation to them to hear that the lostness of the sinful is God’s loss; that God suffers more than the sinner in the separation. For God loves the sinner, and this love is wounded, whereas the sinner has no love for God that can be wounded by separation. It is God who suffers, and not the heartless sinner, who, without a thought of the wounds he is inflicting, goes his own wretched way, and courts the destruction which Christ died to save him from. All the broken-heartedness of parents who, year by year, watch the failure of their efforts to lead some misguided child to well-doing; all the crushing anguish of wives who see their husbands slowly hardening in vice and sinking out of the reach of their love; all the varied misery that love must endure in this sinful world;—is after all but the reflection of what Infinite Love suffers in sympathy with every sinner who spurns it and chooses death. Look at the sorrow of God in Christ, and say whether the loss which God suffers in your separation from Him is true or feigned.
II. The very fact of our being lost excites action of a specially tender kind towards us.—God does not console Himself for our loss by the fellowship of those who have constantly loved Him. He does not call new creatures into being to fill up the blank we have made by straying from Him. He would rather restore the most abandoned sinner than blot him from his place to substitute an archangel. So long as things go smoothly, and men by nature love God, and seek to do His will, there is no anxiety, no meeting of emergencies by unexpected effort, hidden resources, costly sacrifice. But when sin brings into view all that is tragic, and when utter destruction seems to be man’s appointed destiny, there is called into exercise the deepest tenderness, the utmost power of the Divine nature. This appears in—
(1) the spontaneity of the search God institutes for the lost. The shepherd, missing one of his flock, straightway goes in search of it. He does not expect that it will seek him; he goes after it. He knows the recovery of the sheep depends wholly on himself, and he prepares for trouble, provocation, risk. And so God is as truly before-hand with the sinner as the shepherd with the sheep. The initiative is God’s, and all that you desire to do in the way of return to righteousness is prompted by Him. He has already sufficiently shown that He is alive to the emergency and that no trouble is too great, no sacrifice too great, while there is a possibility of saving the human soul.
(2) God’s search is also persistent. The woman of the parable sweeps out every dusty corner; she shakes out every article of clothing; she lifts boxes that have not been lifted for years; she carefully searches drawers where she knows the coin cannot be; she reads the face of every one who has come near her house for a month; she exhausts every possibility of finding her piece of money. And so God makes diligent search. He leaves no stone unturned. With active, intelligent, unwearied search, He strives to win the sinner to purity and love. Christ astonished men on earth by the company into which He found His way, and by the affection with which spoke to low and worthless people; and so does He still, by means less observable, but equally efficient, seek to win men to the recognition of His love, and of all the good He makes possible.
III. The exceeding joy consequent on the restoration of the sinner.—The joy is greater than that over “the just which need no repentance,” because the effort to bring it about has been greater, and because for a time the result has been in suspense. So that when the end is attained there is a sense of clear gain. The value of the unfallen soul may intrinsically be greater than the value of the redeemed; but the joy is proportioned, not to the value of the article, but to the amount of the anxiety that has been spent upon it. To the sinner, then, these parables say, It is your unspeakably happy privilege to give God joy. There is no joy comparable to the joy of successful love; of love, that is to say, not only recognised and returned, but which succeeds in making the object of it as happy as it desires, and does so after many repulses and misunderstandings and hazards. This is God’s greatest joy. When God succeeds in securing the happiness—the inward purity and rectitude, and therefore the happiness—of any one who has been estranged from Him, there is joy in heaven. What can more worthily give joy to intelligent beings than the increase of goodness? This joy we have it in our power to give to God.—Dods.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_15:1-10
Luk_15:1-2. Christ in Society.—It is astonishing how often we read of Jesus being at feasts. He began His ministry by attending a wedding. Matthew made Him a feast, and He went and sat down among the publican’s motley guests. He invited Himself to the house of Zacchæus, another publican. Indeed, His eating with this class of persons came to be notorious. But He repeatedly dined with Pharisees as well. There was no fear of Him, in any company, obscuring His testimony for God. In these occasions of table-talk He dignified life, and embraced golden opportunities of doing good. You will be surprised to find how many of His words are spoken to His fellow-guests at meals. Some of His most priceless sayings, which are now the watchwords of His religion, were uttered in these commonplace circumstances.—Stalker.
Receiving Sinners.—We are indebted to the Pharisees for this testimony to our Lord, and His way with men. He takes His text from their lips. They would make Him a sinner because He seeks to save such sinners as they have never thought of saving. They would have it understood that He prefers such sinners; that these form the best material out of which His disciples and apostles can be made. And much preaching founded upon this course of action of our Lord has tended, unintentionally, to give a similar impression in these and other times, as if the best preparations for conversion and a holy life were a gross and degraded life! No mistake could be greater. He nowhere teaches that reckless and open vice is the best way to meet Him, or the best prior education for His disciples.—D. McColl.
Publicans attracted to Jesus.—The tax-gatherers were the home heathen of Palestine, and none were more scorned than they. These and other outcasts were drawn to Jesus. They kept far from other religious teachers, but somehow they could not help being drawn to Him. He had a magnet-like power over them. Just as the swallow is drawn to the sunny south, as the flower turns to the sun, and the chicken to the mother bird, so great sinners, shunning others, turned to Jesus in the days of His flesh. But the most decent and religious people murmured scornfully. To defend Himself and shame them Jesus spoke the three parables of grace in this precious chapter.—Wells.
It is an Epitome of the Gospel.—Originally, it was the saying of foes, not of friends. In this cavil there spoke for once the commonly suppressed voice of a self-ignorant and self-flattering world. The world exactly inverts the judgment of God and heaven. God hates the sin, yet loves the sinner; the world casts out the sinner, but will eat and drink with the sin.
I. The world’s definition of “sinners.”—Those who have transgressed the world’s morals. The world has its tariff of sins, and its register of sinners. The solemn saying of the Old Testament is forgotten by the religious world, “By Him actions are weighed.” Weighed, not counted. Weighed, rather than measured.
III. They meant, This man loves the company of the wicked.—“A man is known by the company he keeps.” A taunt which found no sanction from His judges. Pilate and Herod agreed as to His innocence. The taunt has had no acceptance with posterity.
IV. The words are true in their amplitude, and in their grandeur.—Christ refuses none. With what mind on their part? With what view on His? Not resolving to continue in their sins. Not to bid them sin on. He takes them to forgive, to heal, to help, to go and sin no more. Christ receives no man except to rid him of his sin, and because that is his desire.—Vaughan.
Jesus Christ ignoring Social Distinctions.—In reference to the various classes of Palestinian society Jesus was not the slave of custom or class. He broke through them in obedience to the requirements of “judgment, mercy, and faith.” Scribe and Pharisee stood aloof from Him. Publican and sinner drew near. But His “whosoever will” was equally for all. There was to be no respect of persons. Just as gladly would He have ministered in the fellowship and ministries of the faith to Pharisee as to publican. He often did, and does so still. Barriers are self-erected. Beneath all social accidents were souls. And these, in their priceless value, would survive earthly distinctions. He traversed social distinctions in the interest of that higher society which might, without clashing with them, be inclusive of all. In so acting He ran counter to the principles and narrow-minded, cold hearted practice of exclusionists. In His love for man, He aroused the hostile opposition and criticism of certain men. Custom, indeed, is not to be violated for the sake of singularity. But the example of Christ justifies the doing of it for the sake of the great things of “judgment, mercy, and faith.”—Campbell.
Luk_15:1. Holiness United with Love.—That which attracted publicans and sinners to Jesus was holiness, united with love; they were repelled by the haughtiness of the Pharisees. Goodness appeared to them in a guise they had never before known or even dreamed of.
“To hear Him.”—Not merely to see His miracles. The motive that drew them was of a spiritual character, and contrasted strikingly with that of many who came to the Saviour. Hence, He “received” them, welcomed them, and opened up to them the treasures of Divine love.
It was precisely these who felt they had no means to build the tower, no forces to meet the opposing king; and hence they sought resources from One who manifested power, and through Him desired “conditions of peace.”
The humble hear and learn; they find the grace of God in the word issuing from the lips of Jesus. The proud murmur and condemn; their dark understandings would fain quench the love of God where it shines most brightly.
Luk_15:2. “Murmured.”—A twofold ground of offence:
1. Jesus receives persons of evil name and repute.
2. He allows Himself to be received by them, and consents to sit at their tables.
“This man receiveth.”—They were scandalised at His procedure, and insinuated—on the principle that a man is known by the company he keeps—that He must have some secret sympathy with their character. But what a truth of unspeakable preciousness do their lips, as on other occasions, unconsciously utter!—Brown.
A Culpable Pride.—There is truth in the Pharisaic principle of abstaining from intercourse with sinful and defiled men, if it proceed from anxiety to avoid being tempted by their sins. In them, however, it was the result of haughty feeling which made them keep at a distance from such unfortunate men, even when their minds showed an inclination towards something better.—Olshausen.
Christ Eating with Sinners.—The words were meant as a reproach. 1. How much Christianity has done to change the prevailing estimate of men and things! It is no reproach now for a teacher or minister of religion to seek out the sinful. Such conduct is understood now, thanks to the gospel.
2. Still, we are cruel in our treatment of sinners in private and common life. How severely do we judge when we ourselves are not at the bar. To “receive sinners and eat with them” is still a crime in Christendom. And, of course, in some senses it would be a crime. To prefer by choice the company of the immoral: this would be a just reproach—no virtue, but the very contrary. All depends upon the motive. If we would imitate Jesus in His treatment of sinners, let us imitate Him by His grace in His principle and in His motive.
3. He was not the friend of the sin, but the friend of the sinner. He would not leave the sinner in his sin. Not to embolden them in evil, but to win them for good. So the friend of the sinner must, to be Christlike, be the foe of the sin.—Vaughan.
Luk_15:4-10. The Lost One Sought.—The twin parables have much in common. They both exhibit the seeking love of God. Jesus shames the Pharisees for their pride and holding aloof. He gives them two short parables.
I. The lost one.—The two pictures of outdoor and indoor life were very familiar to His hearers. It is a figure of all, even of the Pharisees, if they had only known it.
II. Who seeks it.—The seeking Shepherd is a common figure in Church windows and in sacred pictures. Jesus is still seeking the lost,—by His Spirit, in His Church, through His people.
III. How He seeks it.—The Incarnation. The earthly life. The atoning death. The Church, too, holds up the candle of the Word. Joy fills His heart at the discovery and restoration of even one wandering sheep, one lost coin.—Watson.
Christ’s Sympathy for Sinners.
I. A yearning sympathy.
II. An active sympathy.
III. A tender sympathy.
IV. A joyful sympathy.
Walker.
The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.
I. Love sorrowing.
II. Love seeking.
III. Love rejoicing.
Lessons.—
1. The value of the soul.
2. God does not need to be made willing to save you.
3. Here is unsurpassed encouragement for every penitent.—Wells.
God’s Love for the Lost.
I. The loss.
II. The finding.
III. The rejoicing.—Taylor.
The Persistence of Thwarted Love.—I. But first let me say a word or two about the more general thought brought out in both these clauses—of the Shepherd’s search. Now, beautiful and heart-touching as that picture is, of the Shepherd away amongst the barren mountains searching minutely in every ravine and thicket, it wants a little explanation in order to be brought into correspondence with the fact which it expresses. For His search for His lost property is not in ignorance of where it is, and His finding of it is not His discovery of His sheep, but its discovery of its Shepherd. We have to remember wherein consists the loss before we can understand wherein consists the search. Now, if we ask ourselves that question first, we get a flood of light on the whole matter. The great hundredth Psalm, according to its true rendering, says, “It is He that hath made us, and we are His; … we are … the sheep of His pasture.” But God’s true possession of man is not simply the possession inherent in the act of creation. For there is only one way in which spirit can own spirit, or heart can possess heart, and that is through the voluntary yielding and love of the one to the other. So Jesus Christ, who, in all His seeking after us men, is the voice and hand of Almighty Love, does not count that He has found a man until the man has learned to love Him. For He loses us when we are alienated from Him, when we cease to trust Him. Therefore the search which, as being Christ’s is God’s in Christ, is for love, for trust, for obedience. If, then, the Shepherd’s seeking is but a tender metaphor for the whole aggregate of the ways by which the love that is Divine and human in Jesus Christ moves round about our closed hearts, seeking for an entrance, then, surely the first and chiefest of them, which has its appeal to each of us as directly as to any man that ever lived, is that great mystery that Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God, left the ninety and nine that were safe on the high pastures of the mountains of God, and came down among us, out into the wilderness “to seek and to save that which was lost.” And, that method of winning—I was going to say, of earning—our love comes straight in its appeal to every single soul on the face of the earth. Do not say that thou wert not in Christ’s heart and mind when He willed to be born and willed to die. He seeks us by every record of that mighty love that died for us, even when it is being spoken poorly, and with many limitations and imperfections. And here, in our midst, that unseen Form is passing along and speaking to our hearts, and the Shepherd is seeking His sheep. He seeks each of us by the inner voices and emotions in our hearts and minds, by those strange whisperings which sometimes we hear, by the suddenly upstarting convictions of duty and truth which sometimes, without manifest occasion, flash across our hearts. He is seeking us by our unrest, by our yearnings after we know not what, by our dim dissatisfaction, which insists upon making itself felt in the midst of joys and delights, and which the world fails to satisfy as much as it fails to interpret. He seeks us by the discipline of life, for I believe that Christ is the active providence of God, and that the hands that were pierced on the Cross do move the wheels of the history of the world, and mould the destinies of individual spirits.
II. And now, in the second place, a word about the search that is thwarted. “If so be that He find.” That is an awful if, when we think of what lies below it. The thing seems an absurdity when it is uttered, and yet it is a grim fact in every life—viz., that Christ’s effort can fail, and be thwarted. Not that His search is perfunctory or careless, but that we shroud ourselves in darkness through which that love can find no way. God appeals to us, and says, “What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done unto it?” His hands are clean, and the infinite love of Christ is free from all blame, and it all lies at our own doors. I must not dwell upon the various reasons which lead so many men among us—as, alas! the utmost charity cannot but see that there are—to turn away from Christ’s appeals, and to be unwilling to “have this Man” either “to reign over them” or to save them. One great reason is because you do not believe that you need Him. Some of us think we are in the flock when we are not. Some of us have no inclination for the sweet pastures that He provides, and would rather stay where we are. We do not need to do anything to put Him away. It is a very easy matter to turn away from the Shepherd’s voice. “I called, and ye refused. I stretched out My hands, and no man regarded.” That is all! That is what you do, and that is enough.
III. So, lastly, the thwarted search prolonged. “Till He find!” That is a wonderful and a merciful word. It indicates the infinitude of Christ’s patient forgiveness and perseverance. We tire of searching. “Can a mother forget” or abandon the seeking after a lost child? Yes! if it has gone on for so long as to show that further search is hopeless, she will go home and nurse her sorrow in her heart. For that is another thing that this word “till” preaches to us—viz., the possibility of bringing back those who have gone farthest away and have been longest away. The world has a great deal to say about incurable cases of moral obliquity and deformity. Christ knows nothing about “incurable cases.”—Maclaren.
“That which was lost.”—None of these parables is meant to set forth with completeness either what wanderers have to do to go back to God, or what God has done to bring wanderers back to Himself. If this had been remembered, many misconceptions would have been avoided. They were meant to show us that a human instinct which prizes things lost, because they are lost, has something corresponding to it in the Divine nature, and so to vindicate the conduct of Christ.
I. The varying causes of loss.—The sheep, the coin, the son—each was lost. But in each case, the reason for the loss was different. The sheep was heedless. It was lost through heedlessness. Many men live just so, and, all unwitting, wander from the right road. How considerate of our Saviour to put this explanation of men’s condition in the foreground. In the second parable, the drachma did not lose itself, but, by the law of gravitation, rolled into a dark corner. It had no power of resistance. So there are people who are things rather than persons, so entirely have they given up their wills and so absolutely do they let themselves be determined by circumstances. There are masses of men who have no power to resist temptation. This thought lightens the darkness of much of the world’s sin. The third parable is a picture. The other two are parabolical representations; this is the thing itself. The exercise of self-will, impatience of control—these are causes of loss that underlie the others, and which make for every one of us the sinfulness of sin. It is rebellion, and it is rebellion against a Father’s love. There is the individual choice in each case, desiring a separation, and kicking against control.
II. The varying proportions of loss and possession.—A hundred, ten, two. One per cent, ten per cent, fifty per cent; a trifle—more serious—heart-breaking. The ascending proportion suggests increasing pains and anxiety. There is something in human nature which makes anything that is lost precious by reason of its loss. Its absolute value may be little: its relative worth is great. Divine love goes after, not the greatest world, but the lost world.
III. The varying glimpses we have here into God’s claims upon us and His heart.—Ownership describes His relation to us in the first two parables: love is the word that describes it in the third. It is a most blessed and heart-melting thought that God accounts Himself to have lost something when a man goes away from Him. God prizes us, is glad to have us, feels a sense of incompleteness in His possessions when men depart from Him. Think of the greatness of the love into which the ownership is merged, as measured by the infinite price which He has paid to bring us back. Let it lead us all to say, “I will arise and go to my Father.—Ibid.
The Twin Parables.—These two parables are an inseparable pair. They are a double star; you cannot tell how much light comes from the one, or how much from the other.
I. Compare their structure.—
1. They are alike.—In each there is a loss, a seeking, a joyful finding.
2. They differ in the extent of the loss, the manner of the loss, and the toil of recovery.
II. Compare their teaching.—
1. They are alike in teaching the lesson as to the lost condition of the sinner, the willingness and power of God to save the sinner, and the importance with which God and angels regard each sinner’s salvation.
2. They give different views of the sinner. He is wayward, weak, and foolish, like a sheep. He is dead and helpless, like the tarnished coin. The shepherd represents Christ’s active and suffering work for man’s salvation; the woman’s work illustrates better the work of salvation in the soul itself—enlightening, cleansing, transforming work, necessary to fit it for close relationship with God.—Taylor.
Luk_15:1-7. The Lost Sheep.
I. The shepherd misses one when it has strayed from the flock.
II. He cared for the lost sheep. Although he possessed ninety and nine, he was not content to let one go.
III. He left the ninety and nine for the sake of the one that had wandered.
IV. When he finds it he does not punish and upbraid it.
V. He lays the sheep upon his shoulder.
VI. Far from being oppressed by the burden, he rejoices when he feels its weight upon his shoulder.
VII. He invites his neighbours to rejoice with him over his success.—Arnot.
Luk_15:4. The Bewildered, the Unconscious, and the Voluntary Sinner.—The parable of the Lost Sheep represents the stupid and bewildered sinner; that of the Lost Piece of Money, the sinner, unconscious of himself and of his own real worth; that of the Prodigal Son the conscious and voluntary sinner, the most aggravated case.—Alford.
“What man?”—Jesusappeals to those who had condemned His conduct, and asks whether they do not in the lower order of things usually manifest the pity which they blame in Him. “Does not a shepherd show compassion towards a sheep that has wandered from the fold? Shall not I much more show compassion to a poor, wandering sinner?” It is pity rather than self-interest that moves the shepherd, for the loss of one out of a hundred sheep would not be very serious. His kindly feelings are excited towards the sheep which has not the sense to find its way back to the fold, and which cannot defend itself against its enemies.
“In the wilderness.”—I.e., in the place of pasturage, where they were safe. The section of the nation who were faithful to the law and to religious duties, enjoyed means of grace which those who had openly broken with the covenant between God and His people had deprived themselves. They were in the place of pasturage, and if they made diligent use of their advantages, would certainly attain to salvation.—Godet.
The Office of the Shepherd was to Seek the Lost. It was the office of the shepherd to seek the lost sheep (Eze_23:6; Eze_23:11; Eze_23:23), yet with this the Pharisees and scribes found fault.
Luk_15:5-6. Love Manifested.—The loving heart of the shepherd is manifested
(1) in the perseverance with which he seeks the wandering sheep;
(2) in his carrying the exhausted animal upon his own shoulders;
(3) in the joy with which he bears the burden;
(4) in his summoning his friends and neighbours to partake in his happiness.
Luk_15:5. “Found it.”—It is one by one, and not in masses, that souls are saved. Jesus saves the Samaritan woman by convincing of the depth of her need, and leading her to seek the Living Water; He saves Zacchæus by inviting him to receive Him into his house as his Guest and Redeemer. He saves Nicodemus by showing Him the necessity of being born again before he could enter into the kingdom of heaven; and He saves Mary Magdalene by delivering her from the power of seven evil spirits.
“On His shoulders.”—For He bare our sins in His own body on the tree (1Pe_2:24; Isa_53:4-6; Heb_9:28).
Luk_15:6. “Rejoice with Me.”—It is a beautiful principle of our nature that deep feeling, either of sorrow or of joy, is almost too much for one to bear alone, and that there is a feeling of positive relief in having others to share it. This principle our Lord here proclaims to be in operation, even in the Divine procedure.—Brown.
Christ’s Joy in Finding the Lost.—Christ experienced a perfect rapture of delight when He found a lost sheep; witness His bearing at the well of Sychar, when His joy over the repentance of the woman of Samaria made Him forget hunger, insomuch that the disciples wondered if any man had given Him to eat. That joy, hoped for or experienced, made all His burdens light, made even the cross itself, abhorrent to His sentient nature, more than bearable. Therefore, in drawing the picture of a faithful Shepherd, He might with a good conscience put in this trait, “rejoicing.”—Bruce.
Luk_15:7. “I say unto you.”—Let us not, in this “I say unto you” miss a slight yet majestic intimation of the dignity of His person: “I who know, I who, when I tell you of heavenly things, tell you of Mine own (Joh_1:51; Joh_3:11), announce to you this.”—Trench.
“Joy shall be in heaven.”—We can scarcely avoid the thought that here the prospect of that joy hovered before His soul, which He, the Good Shepherd, was especially to taste when He, after finishing His conflict, should return into the celestial mansion of His Father, and should taste the joy prepared for Him.—Van Oosterzee.
“One sinner that repenteth.”—He does not joy over the sinner as a sinner, but over him repenting. He joys over his repentance, over the sinner ceasing to be a sinner.
Unity of the Kingdom of the Good.—The kingdom of the good thus appears as standing in mutual connection and loving unity, so that if one member rejoices, all members rejoice along with it. Heaven and earth are joined together by the bond of perfectness, love.—Olshausen.
“Need no repentance.”—The Pharisees, indeed, were not called to manifest a repentance like that of the publicans and sinners, for they had kept from gross vices; yet even in them a profound change of heart was needed. They murmured at that which caused great joy in heaven, and thereby showed how far they were from true communion with God.
Something Higher than Legal Righteousness.—The ninety and nine just persons are those who are righteous according to the legal standard, than which there is, however, something higher, even as there is something more inward. And unto this more blessed condition the truly penitent sinner is translated, so that his conversion is more a matter of rejoicing than the strict observance of the law by others.—Speaker’s Commentary.
Luk_15:8-10. The Lost Coin.—A totally distinct idea is conveyed by the parable of the Lost Piece of Silver from that in the parable of the Lost Sheep. Pity moves the Shepherd; self-interest moves the woman to patient search. And so Christ teaches that man has value in the sight of God. He is made in the image of God, he is destined for service, and therefore God has need of him.
I. The Owner of the silver piece as representing God.
1. Her anxiety to find. The coin, like the soul of man, is valuable in itself; it is one of a number, or set, and if it be lost the store is broken in upon, and if it be not found, another may get it, whose it is not.
2. Her diligence in seeking—light brought into dark places, defilement swept away.
3. Her success.
4. Her joyfulness.
II. The silver piece as representing the soul of man.
1. Its innate value.
2. Its unconsciousness of loss.
3. Its helplessness.
4. Its proper place in God’s keeping.
The parable teaches—
I. That man is lost.—
1. By ignorance of the truth.
2. By falling into vice.
3. By his own heedlessness.
II. That he may be found and restored to his true place and value.
III. That his recovery occasions joy.—
1. To himself.
2. To Christ.
3. To friends and neighbours.
4. To angels and to the spirits of the just made perfect.
Luk_15:8. “Ten pieces.”—The ten pieces of silver indicate in passing that the woman is not so rich as to be indifferent to the loss of even one piece; that is, one soul is estimated by the Spirit in the Church, not in the proportion which one piece would bear to the hoard of a man with millions, but in its proportion to the scanty store of such a woman as this.—Stier.
“Piece of silver.”—A drachma. Man, made in the image of God, and bearing a Divine superscription.
“Sweep the house.”—The parable referring originally to the Jewish people, the “house” may be taken as representing the Church; the lighting of the candle and the sweeping, as representing the Spirit’s giving light to the world, stirring up the dust of worldliness which conceals the sinner’s true worth, and so applying the truth that he is found.
Luk_15:10. “Joy in the presence of the angels.”
I. God rejoices over returning sinners, and that just because they were once lost.
II. God delights to have the inhabitants of heaven share in His gladness. “If the ‘sons of God’ shouted for joy and sang together at the first creation (Job_38:7), by how much better right when ‘a new creation’ had found place, in the birth of a soul into the light of everlasting life (Eph_3:10; 1Pe_1:12)” (Trench).
Joy Shared with the Angels.—Note carefully the language here employed: “in the presence of the angels of God.” True to the idea of the parables, it is the Great Shepherd, the Great Owner Himself, whose properly the joy is over His own recovered property: but so vast and exuberant is it (Zep_3:17), that, as if He could not keep it to Himself, He calleth His whole celestial family to rejoice with Him. In this sublime sense it is joy before or “in the presence of the angels”: they only catch the flying joy, sharing it with Him.—Brown.
An Unexpected Good.—The angels delight in beholding a continued and uninterrupted course of righteousness. But yet in the deliverance of a sinner God’s mercy shines out so brightly that Christ attributes to angels a greater joy in it, arising out of an unexpected good.
Divine Joy over Repenting Sinners.—Not joy among the angels, but joy in “the presence of the angels.” The joy of God Himself.
I. What is implied in sinners repenting?—There are many incorrect and superficial views on repentance. Sorrow in consequence of sin has nothing to do with repentance. A man may even dislike sin and not experience true repentance. Repentance is a change of mind and heart, leading a man to turn from sin and turn to God. There must be both changes—in mind and heart. Beliefs and sentiments in regard to spiritual things must be renounced, and others embraced in their stead. The affections must cease to be under a selfish or worldly bias, and become directed to God and the things of God. This experience is sweeter to God than even the songs of heaven.
II. What is implied in God rejoicing?—Absolutely there can be no accession to the happiness of the ever-blessed God, and yet there must be a real meaning in this language. This joy of God is the
(1) joy of manifested mercy. He “delighteth in mercy” and in every opportunity for its exercise.
(2) Joy of gratified benevolence. God is benevolent as well as merciful. He not only pardons, but crowns with blessing.
(3) Joy of recovered possession. Man was made for God—has wandered from God. The bringing back of the wanderer, the repairing of injury, the renewal of what has been defaced, the healing of the wounded—such a change the all-loving Father cannot look upon but with complacency and delight.—Alexander.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 8, 11 Luk 15:1-7. Our Lord is still in Perea, east…
CHAPTER 12
THE HUNDRED SHEEP
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Luk 15:1-7. Our Lord is still in Perea, east of the Jordan, with His face toward Jerusalem, traveling slowly, accompanied by vast multitudes, to whom, daily halting, He preaches the living Word. “And all the publicans and sinners were drawing nigh to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes were murmuring, saying, He receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” Jesus associated freely with sinners, showing Himself kind and loving, and eating at their tables. He did this for the sole purpose of doing them good. We should do likewise, associating with them only to save them, diligently utilizing every opportunity, by prayer, appeal, exhortation, and brotherly kindness, to bring them to repentance and draw them to the Savior.
“And He spoke this parable to them, saying, What man of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after the lost one until he may find it? Having found it, he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing, and coming to his house, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, because I found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that there is joy in heaven over one sinner repenting, rather than ninety and nine just persons who have no need of repentance.” This is a beautiful symbolism of the faithful pastor Jesus frequently called the Jews “sheep without a shepherd,” not that they were aliens and heathens, for they were all bona fide members of the visible Church; but He simply means that they were destitute of the much-needed spiritual guides, i.e., they had plenty of preachers, but no one to care for their souls. The sanctified pastor, filled with the Holy Ghost and endued with His gifts (1Co 12:8-11), has very acute spiritual discernment, so as to readily detect a backslider in his congregation. John Wesley pronounced every one back-slidden who did not pray orally and testify. O how the Church needs faithful shepherds this day, endued with spiritual discernment, competent to detect the wandering sheep, courageous enough to pursue it into every hell-den, and at the peril of his life rescue it from Satan’s prowling wolves; and then grateful enough to the Great Deliverer to hold a jubilee meeting over every reclaimed backslider! Let not holiness people make the mistake of resting with the flock safe in the fold, while some poor wanderer is already bewildered amid the crags and precipices and on the brink of destruction. Scripture is unlike uninspired literature, in the fact of its multifarious significations, light radiating out from every segment of the gospel globe, reflected from the glorious Sun of righteousness. The Bible corroborates astronomy and geology in the hypothesis of multitudinous celestial worlds. One hundred is a round number, and here used representatively. The blessed Second Person of the Trinity is the revealed Creator of all material worlds. (Colossians 1.) Now conceive our Great Shepherd having created a hundred worlds, and one of them wanders away from the house of God — i.e., the Celestial Kingdom — lassoed by Satan in view of adding it to hell, to augment the unsatisfactory limits of the pandemonium. The Good Shepherd leaves the ninety and nine bright, unfallen, celestial worlds, comes down to earth, battles with the powers of darkness, defeats the hosts of hell, and rescues the wanderer. This is a stupendous work, and even now in progress. Wonderful victories lie out before us, when the Millennial Theocracy shall inundate this fallen world with celestial glory, sweeping on a thousand years, with no devil on the earth, finally to be followed by the sanctifying baptism of celestial fire, utterly expurgating out of this world all the debris of sin, having accumulated during the reign of Satan six thousand years, thus making earth and firmament all new. (Revelation 21.) O what a shout will roar and reverberate through the one hundred celestial worlds, when our lost planet, in the glorious and triumphant finale shall be brought back within the immediate illumination of the city of God, the New Jerusalem, there, in glorious harmony with all celestial spheres, to wheel in beauty, and splendor around the throne of God, pursuing undeviatingly the very orbit in which the Omnipotent Hand located her when first from shapeless chaos, responsive to the Divine bidding, she wheeled into line, and took her place in the heavenly ecliptic.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Luk 15:1-2
Luk 15:1-2
It has been observed that intense cold will produce very much the same effect as fervent heat. The ring of iron that surrounds a wheel, being exposed to keen frosts during a long winter’s night, will produce a sensation and an effect on a sensitive skin very much the same as that the same ring will produce, if heated in the fire when the smith takes it from the furnace to hammer it on the anvil. Intense cold and intense heat thus often produce, in a manner that might be easily explained, the same effect. But it is true in the realm of mind and heart, as well as in the region of matter, that opposites do often produce similar effects. Hatred and love have this in common,—that the object of love and the object of hatred are equally in the thoughts of the person loving or hating. He that loves would not forget the object of his love, and he that hates cannot; and so the same result appears from the keenest hatred and the warmest love. The text illustrates this thought. Two classes are here described as following the steps of the Saviour and constantly attending them: those that were attracted to Him because they liked to hear His word; and those who hated Him and His word, and yet, under the spell of an irresistible fascination, could not forsake Him. The Pharisees and scribes were as constant in their attendance as the publicans and sinners who gathered together to hear Him.
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I. Why did the publicans and sinners draw near to Christ? (1) First of all—and this is the simplest thought—because He did not frown them away. He did not scorn them, as the Pharisees and scribes did. He was willing to let them come near. (2) The publicans and sinners came near to Christ, not simply because He was willing to allow them to approach Him, but because they heard from Him words which they heard from no one else. They heard Him and marvelled; for He spake as one having authority, and not as the scribes. As it was with Christ, so must it be with the Christian Church, if she would be faithful to her Lord. If we have reached the time when publicans and sinners are afraid to come near us, we have need to look to ourselves and ask the reason.
II. Notice the fascination connected with envy and hatred and opposition that is indicated in this second verse. The Pharisees and scribes, noticing how the publicans came round Christ, murmured. They thought themselves the best people of the day. A very strict sect were they, very observant of all ecclesiastical order, very careful in their observance of the prescribed feasts, very exact in tithing all their property, making their prayers and keeping the feasts very duly. These people thought it a very hard thing, that this man should allow these unlettered, ignorant people to come so close to him. They said, "This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them." You see there is an intensified charge. It was bad enough to receive them, but it was ten times worse to sit down and eat with them. "That miserable collector of taxes, that apostate Jew, that man who is a badge of submission to Rome—that he should come and be received and allowed to sit down at the same table; and that poor woman—surely if this man were a prophet he would know what manner of woman it is that is touching him—for she is a sinner." That is the spirit of the Pharisees and the scribes. Let us search ourselves, for that spirit is not yet cast out of the Christian Church.
J. Edmund, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 543.
The crowds which gathered about our Lord in the course of His mission were eminently representative of the various phases of Jewish life and thought. They consisted of men drawn from all ranks and classes of society. Women and children and stained outcasts are at the least equally among His intimates with social magnates and learned men. There is no discriminating Shibboleth to sift the miscellaneous gathering. No eclectic followers are permitted to check free access to the Master. There is no "fencing of the tables" at which He sits; no rebuff for ignorance; no rejection of humility and wretchedness. The net is cast abroad and its sweep is undiscriminating and universal. Of all these types of society, that of the Pharisee is perhaps the most marked, and the characteristics of it have acquired most popular recognition. We may recognise several distinct ideas associated with it.
I. One is that of exclusiveness or spiritual pride. If there is one great practical lesson, before all others running through the teaching of Christ, and imparting a principle of radical change into the scheme of life, it is summed in these words, "The last shall be first and the first last." This doctrine is the first step in the organisation, so to say, of the kingdom of heaven. This is the first in order of all those paradoxes which constitute the sum of Christianity. It was this which, in the first centuries of its spread, was such an outrage upon society at large, such an enigma to the dispassionate observer, and, as Gibbon has justly observed, was one great element of its triumph. The outcast was no longer an outcast. The despised and rejected of men has become the very pattern of the noblest life. And herein lay the essential antagonism to the spirit which possessed the Pharisee. Exclusion was his ideal. He clung to it as his heaven-conferred heritage. Christ broke down the walls of partition. The kingdom of heaven came not to a favoured few, not to the elect or the predestinate, but to all.
II. Another note or characteristic of the Pharisaic type is formalism. Formalism may be explained as an exaggerated stress laid upon ceremonial, upon formularies, and upon ordinances—as the elevation, in short, of the mechanism of life in comparison with the life itself. It is not to be supposed that all, or indeed the greater part of those in whom this tendency exists, are making an ostentatious display of righteousness, or are assuming a disguise to cloke their hidden propensities, nor yet that they are themselves conscious of the unsubstantial nature of the manifestations of their religious life. There are but few, I suppose, who do not at times succumb, out of sheer weariness, to the temptation to rest content with seeming instead of being, to substitute a mechanical goodness for genuineness of life, a conventional orthodoxy for the unquiet pursuit of reality. There is a petty and stagnant life, the backwater, so to say, of the enlarged activities and sympathies of the world (a kind of village existence), in which, from the absence of all scale, unessential things assume a factitious importance, and the activity, for want of a nobler outlet, finds vent in trifles. That there is a compatibility of genuine piety, and the most narrow formalism, is a fact which meets us at every turn. But in proportion as knowledge becomes complete, as darkness melts into light, in such proportion are the means and outward expression of life lost sight of, swallowed up in the complete freedom of life itself. This was the lesson of St. Paul to the Judaizers of Galatia. It is not the sacrament, he says; it is not circumcision which availeth aught, it is faith; not the form, but the essence; not the letter that killeth, but the spirit that giveth life—life and liberty, unity of life beneath the multiplicity of forms. And in the recognition of this lies the Christian brotherhood, the veritable communion of saints. If we learn to recognise that this communion is not bounded by the limits of a sect, nor by outward forms, nor by articles of belief, nor by modes of government, but that it is a unity underlying the fragments of Christendom, we shall have been purged of the leaven of the Pharisee, we shall have been made meet to sit down with Christ in the company of publicans and sinners.
C. H. V. Daniel, Oxford and Cambridge Journal, Feb. 26th, 1880.
References: Luk 15:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 809; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 108; Ibid., vol. xv., p. 52. Luk 15:1-2, Church of England Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 53. Luk 15:1-7.—H. Calderwood, The Parables, p. 18. Luk 15:1-10.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 201; Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 139; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 370; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 346. Luk 15:1-32.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 229. Luk 15:2.—T. T. Carter, Sermons, p. 63; Homilist, vol. vi., p. 356; T. Birkett Dover, A Lent Manual, p. 44; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 219; vol. xi., No. 665; Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 239; G. Bainton, Ibid., vol. xvi., p. 250; J. Baird, The Hallowing of Our Common Life, p. 77. Luk 15:3-7.—A. B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 259. Luk 15:4.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 223. Luk 15:4, Luk 15:5.—Ibid., vol. iv., p. 225. Luk 15:4-6.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts, p. 101. Luk 15:4-7.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1801; S. A. Brooke, Church of England Pulpit, vol. i., p. 345; Homilist, new series, vol. 1, p. 359. Luk 15:5.—S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., p. 37. Luk 15:7.—J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 3rd series, p. 8.
Luk 15:8
The Search of Love.
Three parables stand together in this chapter. The occasion of all is one and the same—the murmuring of scribes and Pharisees against the Saviour, who would eat with sinners. And the general drift of all is the same—the feeling of God towards repentant sinners, illustrated by man’s feeling towards a possession lost and found. Thus far there is unity—there is even identity—in the three. But no two parables of our Lord are really identical, however like may be the incidents of one to those of another. And so it is here. There is a climax natural and real in the three losses in this chapter. In the first parable the owner of a hundred sheep loses one of them; in the second the owner of ten pieces of silver loses one of them; in the third the father of two sons loses one of them. Now, the second lost thing, though it is less valuable than the first, is to the owner more so. The third is a loss different in kind, and appealing yet more forcibly to the understanding and heart of mankind. There is a climax also in the thing signified. The sheep has strayed in its ignorance from the flock and the pasture. The son exiles himself of self-will and rebelliousness from the home and from the father. Between these two extremes of mere simplicity and utter wilfulness lies the insensate unconciousness of the lost coin.
I. The woman who has lost one of the ten pieces cannot acquiesce and rest in her loss. Little in itself, to her it is vital. She waits not for the light of day, but discovering her loss at night, by night she sets herself to repair it. She lights the lamp, sweeps the house, and seeks diligently till she finds it. It is a parable of the love of God. God represents Himself as missing one soul. Little is that soul in itself to the great God. But God would show to us that each one is precious. Each one was separately created; each one has a place designed for it in the universal temple; each one not filling that place leaves a blank. The eye of love misses it, and therefore the hand of love seeks it.
II. The parable goes on to speak of a sweeping. I know it is a homely figure—too homely, perhaps, for some tastes—beneath the dignity, some might say, of the pulpit; only that here Christ has gone before, has written it in His Book, and given it to me for a text. And how wonderful, however homely, is this figure! The love of God first lights up in the world this lamp of revelation, telling man what man could not know; for no man hath ascended up to heaven to read there, in the light of that world, the things that were and that are and that shall be. First this,—the remembering that this light will never fall of itself upon the lost coin, the very loss of which lies in its being out of sight of the man himself. Then, secondly, the love of God sweeps—sweeps, I say, the house, which is the man. You suffered the dust of earth to lie thick upon you—perhaps the amiable dust of kindly sentiment, of satisfied affection; or perhaps the ugly dust of eager grasping, of predominant self, of overmastering passion; and so, evading the illumination, you necessitated the sweeping. It was the love of God still.
III. The love of God will seek diligently till it find. Marvellous word! Record at once of difficulty and perseverance. How much is repaired ere the finding be accomplished! To find the lost soul is not easy. The whole work of sanctification is wrapped up in it. Every thought has to be brought into captivity; every motive has to be elevated. Objects indifferent once, or distasteful, are to be made the aim of the life; and that holiness, which to fallen man is repugnant, must be cultivated for a purpose to fallen man repulsive—that he may at last see God. This is the meaning of that diligent search by which love at last shall find; for without success love cannot live. Love cannot sleep till its object be accomplished. No toil is too great, may she but attain.
C. J. Vaughan, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 832.
References: Luk 15:8.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 352; J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity, part i., p. 84; Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 86.
Luk 15:8-10
The piece of silver—whatever it was—was great to the owner. And here lies the point in the analogy. A soul, an individual creature, an atom in God’s universe, may be in itself a very insignificant thing, but it is great to God. This is its dignity. How great, how dear to God, no man can adequately judge, because no man is a creator, and no man is a redeemer. It needs absolutely to have created a thing, and absolutely to have redeemed a thing, before you can calculate what its worth would be to one who stood to it in those relations. Let us go with this woman in her quest. It is deliberate, painstaking, protracted, effectual.
I. First she lights a candle—the well-known emblem in the Bible, of three things: first, the Spirit of God in a man’s soul; second, the word of God; third, the consistent lives of ministers and other servants of God. And these three together make the great detective force, and so ultimately the great restorative power, which God uses in this world.
II. With the lighted candle, the woman went to sweep the house. In the parable of the shepherd, the sheep was gone out into the wilderness. Here, the lost one was still in the house. It seems to me more affecting to be a lost soul in the house, than to be a lost soul out in the wilderness. It is a great commotion and disturbance to sweep, but then it leads to cleanliness and order. So God’s sweepings are severe things. But then it is only to brush away what had no right to be there. You will not presently complain, you will not regret the turmoil—when the costly thing, that was almost hidden—sparkles again in the. hand of its great Proprietor.
III. All the parables agree in the one blessed, crowning thought—"till she find it." It is not a light achievement. Even with the lighted candle, and with the close sweeping, she had to seek diligently—to go up and down, and do her work over and over again. But love—the love she had for her lost treasure, carried her on, and she did not stop, she could not stop, till she found it.
J. Vaughan, Sermon preached Oct. 29th, 1865.
Man’s Fall God’s Loss.
I. The first division of the picture in this parable represents God as contemplating as a loss to Himself the state of sin into which man has fallen. God had a property of the heart in man’s welfare: He had created him holy, like Himself. When sin waylaid man, cast him down, stripped him, and robbed him, and left him for dead, God was as one bereaved.
II. In the second part of the picture God is represented as making an effort for the recovery of man from the sin and misery into which he has fallen. God will not let His human treasure go without an effort to recover it—a persistent effort to recover it. This is the chief and abounding meaning of the second part of the picture. This is the gospel which has been ringing clear above the world’s sin and trouble for ages. There is no one point, as I understand the teaching of Christ, so urgently insisted upon in that teaching, and so much impressed upon the mind and heart of the world, as this idea of God seeking for His children. The more one seeks to look at this, the more one feels how true it is that the inflexible righteousness of God, that the infinite love of God, is full of a determination not to let His human treasure go without an effort to recover it. This is the key of history.
III. The third point is that, God and the good angels rejoice in heaven over the recovery of man. It is often represented that the angels rejoice, and they do; but the Father rejoices first, and with an alert and subtle sympathy the angels catch the influence of the Divine joy as the high mountain tops catch the early rays of the rising sun. God’s heart is the centre of the joy. See who the separate parts of the picture answer to one another. There is the first, the householder weeping for her lost piece of money, then searching for the piece, then rejoicing over the recovery: that is to say, God contemplating man’s sin as a personal loss, God putting forth effort for His creature’s recovery, and God rejoicing over his recovery, and the empty place in His Divine heart filled again.
A. Hannay, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 113.
References: Luk 15:8-10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 970; C. Stanford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 136; R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables, p. 385; H. Calderwood, The Parables, p. 32; A. B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 274; G. Dawson, The Authentic Gospel, p. 27.
Luk 15:10
The Brightness of Penitence.
The ordinary law of sympathy—"to weep with those that weep"—is naturally suspended in this instance. When our weeping is for our sins, the angels are glad over us. For, indeed, then our sorrow is not the chief thing that happens to us, but only an accidental accompaniment of what is happening. Our word Repentance carries with it certainly a sorrowful sound, but the Greek original name for Repentance has not the least touch of sorrow in its associations, but signifies only that grand change of the mind, with its aims and thoughts, its reflections and its activities, which is the real essence of Repentance.
I. The angel, perhaps, could not sorrow in sympathy with a sorrow which was nothing but deserved retribution; but he rejoices with all the joy of his intense nature over the sorrow which works such a miracle. And this joy of the angels is not theirs only. It soon echoes back to earth again, and fills the heart of him who is repenting. He rejoices over his own sorrow.
II. Many kinds of necessary renunciation are accompanied by sorrowfulness, and make themselves felt with bitterness, but not so the renunciation of sin. True to human nature, the great artist draws his Antigone, as she passes to her death for what was no crime, sorrowing most acutely for the life and light she leaves behind her, for the wedded love and the love of children, and her aspirations for a diviner justice all unfulfilled. She would stoop to no baseness, but that did not make her joyous. She would die for her right, but sorrow is king over all and after all. Self-conquest is noble, but you must add something to self-conquest to make you joyful. The world is certainly not a home for immortal souls, but they that renounce it must have something else to look for before they can be happy. And what is this something else which gives life to self-conquest and glory to self-renunciation? It is Faith, the Faith which explains to you what you have found in exchange for that which you have given up; the Faith which assures you that your returning is not your own work, but that you have been loved and sought and found at last by a higher power and a more devoted being than you have known before.
Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 130.
The words are Christ’s own; not those of prophet or priest, or excited orator, saying a poetic thing not to be construed literally. We must take the words as soberly true. There are beings somewhere, higher than men, a little higher, creatures of God Almighty, good and kind beings, who feel a real interest in our leaving off to do evil and beginning to do well.
I. The joy spoken of in the text is, broadly speaking, the triumph of right over wrong. A tide of true gladness spreads through the Paradise of God, when it is known there that a human being, who can make his choice, who must make his choice, between life and death, between good and evil, has chosen life and good. We are not surprised at all that the angels rejoice over one repenting sinner. We have witnessed, many times, the same sort of feeling here. Every good man and woman who comes to know of it is appreciably gladdened when old or young, who has been wrong, honestly determines and tries to be right. Not only is this the best reason why any of us should be glad: probably, in a little while, it will seem the only one. After all differences are forgotten, there will abide, as the one vital and eternal difference—just right or wrong—on God’s side or no. And no human soul that is on the wrong side can ever be other than (in the long-run) miserable. We must be brought to God; or it can never be well with us, here or anywhere.
II. Notice several reasons for the rejoicing of the angels. When a sinner turns to God, here is the saving from utter destruction of a thing of inestimable value. (2) In a soul brought to God the angels behold a being capable of being infinitely happy or miserable, and all this for time without end, brought to the right side of the line between happiness and misery. (3) The angels, we may well believe, rejoice at the salvation of a sinner, because in that they see an exemplification of the successful working of the grand machinery of Redemption. As some special friend of some great inventor would watch with joy the triumph of the engine he had thought out, even so (comparing spiritual things with earthly) we can imagine the angels looking on with earnest interest at the grand instrumentality of Redemption at its work in this world, and gladdened whensoever another soul saved shows it is doing the work it was meant for.
A. K. H. B., From a Quiet Place, p. 154.
References: Luk 15:10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 203 W. Cunningham, Sermons, p. 20; Homilist, new series, vol. iv. p. 600, Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 274; D. Moore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 210; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. i., p. 45; Todd, Lectures to Children, p. 20.
Luk 15:11
The Fatherland.
I. Of all God’s cords the finest, and perhaps the strongest, is the cord of love. The true home of humanity is God—God trusted, communed with, beloved, obeyed.
II. Far from home, humanity is still in the hand of God. Not only is it subject to His righteous and irresistible sovereignty, but it has a place in His deep and desirous compassion.
III. It would be rash to say that where the home is right the inmates never go wrong. Still, the promises to believers include their children, and the instances are anomalous and few where a hopeful outset ends in a worthless old age. In order to make your home the preparation for heaven, the first thing is to strengthen that cord of love by which you ought to hold your child, even as our heavenly Father holds His children.
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. ii., p. 261.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Regarding the son here as a type of man, and the father as a type of God, as He is seen in His Son and set forth in the Gospel, let us now study these, the two prominent figures in this beautiful parable, beginning with the prodigal.
I. His conduct. In the condition of the prodigal we have a picture of the misery into which sin, having estranged us from our heavenly Father, has plunged its wretched votaries. Type of the sinner who departs from God, and a beacon to such as feel irksome under the restraints of a pious home, he seeks happiness only to find misery: ambitious of an unhallowed liberty, he sinks into the condition of the basest slave.
II. His change of mind. Sin is here represented as a madness; and who acts so contrary to sound reason, his own interests and the reality of things, as a sinner? Happy such as through the Spirit of God, working by whatever means, have come to themselves, like the prodigal; and are seated, like the maniac who dwelt among the tombs, at the feet of Jesus clothed and in their right mind.
III. His distress. "I perish," he said, "with hunger."
IV. His belief. "Behind yonder blue hills, away in the dim distance, lies my father’s house—a house of many mansions, and such full supplies that the servants, even the hired servants, have bread enough and to spare."
V. His resolution. "I will arise and go to my father." Remove the prodigal, and setting conscience on the bench, let us take his place. No prodigal ever sinned against an earthly, as we have done against our heavenly Father. Well, therefore, may we go to Him, with the contrition of the prodigal in our hearts and his confession on our lips:—"Father, I have sinned against heaven and in Thy sight." The Spirit of God helping us thus to go to God, be assured that the father, who, seeing his son afar off, ran to meet him, fell on his neck and kissed him, was but an image of Him who, not sparing His own Son, but giving Him up to death that we might live, invites and now waits your coming.
T. Guthrie, The Parables in the Light of the Present Day, p. 57.
The Father.
I. How the father received his son. As soon as the wanderer is recognised, on flying feet the old man runs to meet him; and ere the son has time to speak a word, the father has him in his arms, presses him to his bosom, and covering his cheek with passionate kisses, lifts up his voice and weeps for joy. And this is God—God as He is drawn by the hand and seen in the face of Him whom He sent to seek and save us, to bring us back, to open a way of reconciliation,—the God who, unwilling that any should perish, invites and waits our coming.
II. How the father treated the prodigal. The ring he gave him signifies here the espousals between Christ and His Church; it may be the token of her marriage, the passport of those who are blessed to go to the marriage supper of the Lamb. (2) The naked foot was a sign of servitude. Therefore the order to put shoes on his feet was tantamount to the declaration from the father’s lips that the prodigal was not to be regarded as a servant, but as a son; that to him belonged all the privileges and possessions of sonship; that he who had never lost his place in the father’s heart was now to resume it at his table and in his house.
III. How the father rejoiced over the prodigal. Grief retires from observation; joy must have vent. In this parable, so true in all its parts to nature, this feature of joy stands beautifully out. To these servants the father had never told his grief; but now the prodigal is come back, and his heart is bursting with joy, he tells them of it. So God rejoices in His ransomed; and let them rejoice in Him. The sun that shines on you shall set, and summer streams shall freeze, and deepest wells go dry—but not His love. His love is a stream that never freezes, a fountain that never fails, a sun that never sets in night, a shield that never breaks in fight: whom He loveth, He loveth to the end.
T. Guthrie, The Parables in the Light of the Present Day, p. 77.
References: Luk 15:11.—J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 420; Homilist, new series, vol. ii., p. 50. Luk 15:11-13.—J. P. Gledstone, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 140; Ibid., vol. xxii., p. 78. Luk 15:11-24.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. xiii., p. 199; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 373; H. Batchelor, The Incarnation of God, p. 25. Luk 15:11-32.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 268; Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., p. 137; J. Oswald Dykes, Sermons, p. 234; R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables, p. 390; H. Calderwood, The Parables, p. 48; A. B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 280. Luk 15:12.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol ii., p. 253.
Luk 15:13
I. When principle is weak the far country is fatal. If any one is obliged to leave home—not from love of idleness, not from love of pleasure, not from love of liberty, but on such business as brings young men to our large towns every day—do not forget that God is here.
II. The portion of goods which fell to the prodigal must have been a handsome patrimony, and it would have been his wisdom to wait for it till the proper time. But with indecent haste he forestalled his reversion, and what he obtained so easily he quickly fooled away. Daily bread costs little, but dainties are dear, and are never so costly as when they are gifts from the devil.
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. ii., p. 287.
Riotous Living.
I. Pleasant as is the lot of our inheritance, it is well to remember that the thickets and steep places are haunted. Frightful ogres frequent them, and they are sure to sally forth on the heedless wanderer. The names of three of the best known are: The Lust of the Eye, the Lust of the Flesh, and the Pride of Life; or, as they are sometimes called—Vanity, or the love of display; Sensuality, or the love of low pleasure; and the Affectation of Fashion, or the keeping-up of appearances.
II. If you would pass innocently through a difficult world keep within the rules. Let your life be open, your eye single, your walk in the broad light of day. To the great temptations the great antidote is not a limited income so much as a large self-denial.
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. ii., p. 300.
References: Luk 15:13.—J. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 220; Ibid., vol. xxii., p. 220; Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 143.
Luk 15:14
I. All may be lost by one transgression. The heart of this young man died away from his home. That home ceased to be sacred: the father was no longer paramount. Grace was gone. Prayer was given up. Good feelings faded, and now that temptation and combustible corruption came together, he was soon set on fire of hell.
II. In the figurative language of the parable, there arose in the far country a mighty famine. Extravagance soon brings the "noble to ninepence," and in the far country it is not far that ninepence will go. But there may be so mighty a famine and so great, that even the noble will not buy the loaf of bread. Of all the paths which at life’s outset invite the inexperienced traveller, the surest to pierce through with many sorrows is the path of sensual indulgence.
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. ii., p. 313.
Reference: Luk 15:14.—J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 419.
Luk 15:15-16
I. Whether it be a natural nobleness, or an acquired refinement,—the one, the direct gift of God; the other, an indirect creation of the Gospel—it is seldom forfeited all at once. Step by step the downward path is trodden, till at last the prodigal’s snatching tit-bits from the swine-trough shows how thorough is the transformation since he fell from his old estate.
II. If self-seeking can never be successful—if separation from God is the death of the soul—if carelessness about other’s welfare, not to say misanthropy is misery, there can be little difficulty in deciding what is life and joy and peace. Love to Christ, harmony with God—these are happiness.
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. ii., p. 325.
Reference: Luk 15:15, Luk 15:16.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 373.
Luk 15:17
There are two tests to which we have a right to submit every new religion. There are two questions which we have a right, and which it is our duty, to put to every one who claims to come to us as a teacher from God. And these two questions are: (1) "What have you to tell us concerning the nature of God?" and, (2) "What have you to tell us concerning the nature of man?" Now, of these tests it is clear which is the simplest and most easy to apply: obviously the second. We do know the nature of man, or think we do. Of the Divine nature we are necessarily and naturally in comparative ignorance. We do know something of human life, and of its circumstances; and, therefore, he who tells us that concerning man’s nature which we know to be untrue has lost his claim upon our attention when he goes on to tell us something concerning God.
I. Consider, in the light of this test, as regards its theory of humanity, the religion of the Bible. There is a theory concerning man’s nature and condition on which the whole of this book, and all it professes to teach us, is based. I bring this religion to the test of one admitted and notorious fact in the nature and condition of man, in order to see how it explains that fact, and how it proposes to deal with it. The fact is the admitted and notorious fact of the exceptional unhappiness of man. Our Lord, in this parable, confronts Himself with this fact, as every teacher of the Gospel, or good news, must do if he is to win the attention of men. The hero of this story, the prodigal son, is, as you see, a sufferer; but he is more than that, he is an exceptional sufferer. All the other creatures described in the parable—the lower servants of the father—have bread and to spare; he alone suffers hunger. And more than that, he is a strangely exceptional sufferer, for he who suffers is infinitely superior to those who are happy. All animals that we know of, save man, seem to be subject to this twofold law. Each animal has its instincts, its desires, its appetites, and in the climate or element in which it exists there are corresponding objects of gratification for those appetites and those desires. Man is pained from two different sources—one is the pain of satiety, and the other the pain of remorse. Give the man all the portion of goods that can fall to him, or that in his wildest dreams of covetousness or ambition he can desire for himself; when he has enjoyed these to the very full, and just because he has enjoyed them, there begins to be felt a famine in his enjoyment, and there does come the weariness of satiety into his heart and soul.
II. The Bible theory of man is this, that he is not his true self, that he is a creature not in his proper and true element. It tells us that it has been the curse and the disorganisation of the nature of man, that in the exercise of the strange and mysterious spiritual power—free will, he has wandered away from the Father’s home, and claimed the selfish and solitary possession of the goods that the Father lavished upon him; it tells us that the origin of all human sin and sorrow has been this, that he has said, "Give me the portion of goods that faileth to me. The Bible tells us that misery is the result of this vain effort of man to do in this world of God without the God who made him; that all his misery, his weariness, is but the sublime discontent of the soul that was made to rest in its God, and cannot rest in anything less than God.
III. Our religion is a historical religion. It bases itself upon one life in the past, it is ever renewing and revealing itself in many lives ever since that life was lived on earth. It bases itself on one life, and that life was a perfect life, the life of one who, all through His existence, as far as we know it, was a life unstained by impurity, a life unvexed and unharassed by sensual or evil impulses, it was a life that was passed in entire and complete obedience to the will of the Father. The life that He lived, that perfect life of obedience—for which all its sorrow only came from without, and only came from the fact that all around Him were not like Him, equally obedient—that life, He tells us, He can supernaturally give to us, "I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly."
Archbishop Magee, Oxford and Cambridge Journal, Dec. 2nd, 1880.
We take the text as something to remind us that we have fallen far, but not hopelessly; that, great as is our present depression beneath the condition which our race was created, so great may yet be our rise; and that the very end and purpose of all Christ’s work and suffering in this world, was to bring us back to our better selves; to restore us to the holiness, happiness, and peace, which man lost when man fell. Let us remember that the human race was itself when it was at its best. Man was himself before he fell. We were created in God’s image, and our fall brought us into a state of sin and misery.
I. As for sin, you know there is a double burden there. Two things go to make the burden of our sinfulness: original sin, and the countless actual sins we have done. Our first parents had no inherited burden of guilt. They started fair. We do not. They had not to bear that load which all of us have to bear; that load which crushes down so many of our race, and which many a one has hardly a hope of escaping. Now, what we need as regards all this is to be brought back to our better self; brought back to where human nature was before it fell; and Christ, in His great atoning work, does that. He puts His redeemed ones so effectually in that condition, that they can never leave it again. Not the unstable and speedily lost purity of the days in Eden; but an enduring, an irrefragable holiness, never to be lost more.
II. The Fall brought us also into an estate of misery. And we remember from childhood the sad but too true tale of the items that make up human misery. Looking back, we discern a day when it was different. Once man walked in communion with God, and was free and happy in that communion. In his unfallen state, Adam would not have known what any one meant who had spoken to him of the wrath and curse of God; and least of all would he have been able to understand, till sad experience taught him, what is meant by the pangs of an accusing conscience—what is meant by the burden of remorse. And now let us thankfully mark that the Redeemer takes away, even here, in part, and fully hereafter, each of these things that go to make the sum of the sorrow into which man came when he fell. The manifold ills and trials of life may still remain; but even in this world He lightens them, takes the worst sting from them; do but trust Him as we ought, and God will keep him in perfect peace "whose mind is stayed upon Himself," and even where these ills and cares are most heavily felt, the Holy Spirit makes them work together for the soul’s true good.
A. K. H. B., Counsel and Comfort from a City Pulpit, p. 55.
The Hunger of the Soul.
The truth here expressed is this: that a life separated from God is a life of bitter hunger, or even of spiritual starvation.
I. Consider the true grounds of the fact stated; for as we discover how and for what reasons the life of sin must be a life of hunger, we shall see the more readily and clearly the force of those illustrations by which the fact is exhibited. The great principle that underlies the whole subject and all the facts pertaining to it is, that the soul is a creature that wants food, in order to its satisfaction, as truly as the body. No principle is more certain, and yet there is none so generally overlooked, or hidden from the sight of men. Our blessed Lord appears to have always the feeling that He has come down into a realm of hungry, famishing souls. You see this in the parable of the prodigal son, and that of the feast or supper. Hence, also, that very remarkable discourse in John vi., where He declares Himself as the living Bread that came down from heaven; that a man may eat thereof and not die. it is the grand endeavour of the Gospel to communicate God to men. They have undertaken to live without Him, and do not see that they are starving in the bitterness of their experiment. When Christ is received, He restores the consciousness of God, fills the soul with the Divine light, and sets it in that connection with God which is life—eternal life.
II. Consider the necessary hunger of a state of sin, and the tokens by which it is indicated. A hungry herd of animals, waiting the time of their feeding, do not show their hunger more convincingly, by their impatient cries and eager looks and motions, than the human race do theirs, in the works, and ways, and tempers of their selfish life. I can only point out a few of these demonstrations. (1) The common endeavour to make the body receive double, so as to satisfy both itself and the soul too, with its pleasures. Hence the drunkenness, and high feasting, and crimes of excess. Men are hungry everywhere, and they compel the body to make a swine’s heaven for the comfort of the godlike soul. (2) Again, we see the hunger of sin by the immense number of drudges there are in the world. It makes little difference generally whether men are poor or rich. Some terrible hunger is upon them, and it drives them madly forward, through burdens, and sacrifices, and toils that would be rank oppression put upon a slave. (3) Notice, again, how many contrive in one way and another, to get, if possible, some food of content for the soul that has a finer and more fit quality than the swine’s food with which they so often overtask the body—honour, power, admiration, flattery, society, literary accomplishments. The Spirit of God will sometimes show us, in an unwonted manner, the secret of these troubles, for He is the Interpreter of the soul’s troubles. He comes to it whispering inwardly the awful secret of its pains—"Without God and without hope in the world." He bids the swineherd look up from his sensual object and works, and remember his home and his Father; tells him of a great supper prepared, and that all things are now ready, and bids him come. Conscious of that deep poverty he is in; conscious of that immortal being whose deep wants have been so long denied; he hears a gentle voice of love saying, "I am that Bread of life... I am the living Bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this Bread, he shall live."
H. Bushnell, The New Life, p. 32.
References: Luk 15:17.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1000; J. Thain Davidson, Forewarned— Forearmed, p. 247; J. Jacob, Church of England Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 63; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons, p. 66; J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 436; H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 473; W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, vol. ii., p. 139; Ibid., 2nd series, p. 139. Luk 15:17-19.—J. Armstrong, Parochial Sermons, p. 220; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 85.
Luk 15:18
I. Note the awaking or arising of the soul out of sheer worldliness into a condition of godliness. A life of worldliness is unmanly, for it falls short of that for which man’s capacities plainly indicate that he was born. It is undutiful, for it withholds from the Father of our spirits the trust and love and gratitude we owe to Him It is perilous, for even if we make no account of the direct retributions of the great day of judgment, the spirit of the worldly man is being trained and moulded into a character which will be lasting as his being, and will render him for ever unfit for the society of God and His Holy One.
II. I will arise out of this condition of estrangement, and seek reconciliation with my Father. God is the Creator, we are His creatures. He is the King, we are His subjects. But above all He is the Father, we are His children. It is no longer a philosophic and wild speculation, but the most certain and of practical truths, that God and man are Father and child. But it is likewise a truth certified by many signs, and above all, by our own consciousness, that the tie between this Father and child has been somehow broken. That we do not trust, that we do not love, that we do not obey, we know too well. We are in a state of estrangement from our Father, and such a state must ever be both criminal and miserable. Its consequences, if not averted by a timely healing of the breach, must be eternally disastrous. Say, with the Son in the parable, "I have sinned." The Father whom you have wronged so grievously, whose deep displeasure you have incurred, has not ceased to love you. He sees the misery to which you have reduced yourselves; He waits and watches for the first sign of your awaking to a sense of your sin, and He will welcome you back to His home.
J. Kennedy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 289.
Luk 15:18-19
I. These words contain consolation. It is the prodigal who speaks them. None can say, "By some course of thought or action of mine, I have excluded myself from the right to use them." It is the prodigal son who speaks them. None can say, "I must make myself a son; I must establish my relationship to God before I claim the full sense and virtue of them."
II. These words contain every satisfaction which those want whose minds have been staggered with doubts as to whether the world is not left to the mercy of the power of evil. In the last century the Lisbon earthquake led Rousseau to write his letters on Optimism. He was nearly mad already. It would have driven him actually mad not to think that all things were somehow tending to good; that even the worst calamities befalling the innocent did not prove that theory to be false. The philosopher of Ferney answered him in the story of Candide. The notion "everything is for the best," applied to particulars, was exhibited as utterly ridiculous. Madame de Stael may have been right in describing this story as the grinning of an ape at the miseries of humanity. But there was much in it which the understandings, even the consciences, of men felt to be true. A general maxim or theory of the universe does not meet individual cases. It breaks down the moment the particular instance occurs to which we need that it should be applied. Whence comes our horror of such evils, our consciousness of something directly, absolutely, opposed to them? Did civilisation give these ideas? Do they constitute civilisation? Is not civilisation apart from them a name and a fiction, or else a synonym for the habits that weaken and impair manliness, courage, the reverence for women, sincerity, justice? Whence, then, are these? Is there not, must there not be a Father of spirits from whom they issue forth, in whom they dwell perfectly, absolutely? There is no experience so individual as that of moral evil; when we feel that we need such a God as Jesus Christ has revealed to us to be a Deliverer from that, we know that what is most blessed for the world is most blessed also for us.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 235.
Christian Repentance.
I. Observe that the prodigal son said, "I am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants." We know that God’s service is perfect freedom, not a servitude; but this is in the case of those who have long served Him; at first it is a kind of servitude, it is a task till our likings and tastes come to be in unison with those which God has sanctioned. We must begin religion with what looks like a form. Our fault will be, not in beginning it as a form, but in continuing it as a form; for it is our duty to be ever striving and praying to enter into the real spirit of our services; and in proportion as we understand them and love them they will cease to be a form and a task, and will be the real expression of our minds. Thus shall we gradually be changed in heart from servants to sons of Almighty God.
II. Consider the motives which actuate the repentant sinner in his endeavours to serve God. One of the most natural, and among the first that arise in the mind, is that of propitiating Him. When we are conscious to ourselves of having offended another, and wish to be forgiven, of course we look about for some means of setting ourselves right with Him. And this holds good when applied to the case of sinners desiring forgiveness from God. The marks of His mercy all around us are strong enough to inspire us with some general hope. Under these circumstances it is natural that the conscience-striken sinner should look round him for some atonement with which to meet his God. But now, turning to the parable of the prodigal son, we find nothing of this kind in it. The truth is, that our Saviour has shown us in all things a more perfect way than was ever before shown to man. The most noble repentance, the most decorous conduct in a conscious sinner, is an unconditional surrender of himself to God; not a bargaining, not a scheming to be received back again, but an instant surrender of himself in the first instance. God indeed meets us on the way with the tokens of His favour, and so He bears up human faith, which else would sink under the apprehension of meeting the Most High God; still, for our repentance to be Christian, there must be in it that generous temper of self-surrender, the acknowledgment that we are unworthy to be called any more His sons, the abstinence from all ambitious hopes of sitting on His right hand or His left, and the willingness to bear the heavy yoke of bond-servants, if He should put it upon us.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iii., p. 90.
References: Luk 15:18.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii., No. 113; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 49; J. Kennedy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 288; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 86; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 13th series, p. 29; Ibid., 9th series, p. 173. Luk 15:18, Luk 15:19.—G. Moberly, Parochial Sermons, p. 73; R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions, p. 212.
Luk 15:20-24
The Hunger of the Soul.
I. Why did God make it so natural for us all to grieve over the past, and to lament so bitterly for sin? One way of looking at the matter may be suggestive to us all. Does it not seem as if this same penitence and sorrow for misdoings were like to the pains of hunger in the body, which at once tells of weakness and waste and toil, and which at the same time prompts us to seek for refreshment and renewal of our fasting. But for the pangs of hunger urging us to eat, the human race would disappear infallibly; the pain that is so terrible is the very cause of our continuing to live. And such a pain is it which the remembrance of sin arouses; it, too, tells of a waste that has been going on within; the waste of blessings on the right hand and on the left; the waste of spiritual purity and faith and earnestness; the loss of spiritual strength and devotion; the want of strenuous zeal for truth; the wear and tear which the frivolities and vices of the world around us must infallibly produce upon us all; but it is a pain which God gives us, not it may be painful and no more, but that its painfulness may tell us of an evil state of things, and not suffer us to be content therewith.
II. Therefore, if on you there comes at times, as God grant there may:—
"A sense of emptiness, without the sense
Of an abiding fulness anywhere;"
a sense of weariness and self-reproach as you see to how little purpose you have lived; a sense of pain and grief as you reflect how you have been mastered in the evil language and bad passions that tempt us all to wrong;—then thank God for the pain and shame and penitence, and do not strive to check it, or forget it, or drive it off. Arise, and go to your Father, "and say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son."
A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 201.
A happy Meeting.
I. God is infinitely holy, and sin is His abhorrence. But the great sin is departure from the living God, and this never ceases till you return. And if you yourself long to be holy, it is in forgiveness that the fresh start, the new obedience, begins; if you would escape from the bondage of corruption, you must retreat into the home of God and gain the glorious liberty of His children.
II. The relation which the Most High sustains to His intelligent and accountable creatures is too comprehensive and too intimate to be perfectly imaged by any earthly tie; but in the relation which runs through this parable it finds its nearest equivalent. And what among ourselves is fatherhood? It is the relation which identifies greatness with littleness; it is the relation which lives in the loved one’s joy or honour, and which is wounded in his grief or disgrace; which feels no pride like a son’s promotion; which delights in being trusted, and which desires to be loved in return. Wonderful is parental affection, and wonderful the love of God. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him."
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. ii., p. 351.
References: Luk 15:20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1189; vol. x., No. 588; vol. iv., No. 176; J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 442. Luk 15:21.—J. Vaughan, Sermons, 13th series, p. 29. Luk 15:22.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 129; Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 99. Luk 15:22, Luk 15:23.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1204.
Luk 15:23-24
The Festival.
I. The feast which here took place denotes "the joy of a forgiving God over a forgiven man, and the joy of a forgiven man in a forgiving God." The one is a gracious revelation, the other a blessed experience, and each reacts upon the other. To a forthgoing affectionate nature it is a joy to be trusted; to a holy nature it is a joy to create righteousness and arrest evil, and in the case of every soul that is saved such is the joy of God.
II. There is a Divine delicacy in the ways of God. He does not clog His Gospel with conditions, nor is the joy of forgiveness dashed by formal stipulations as to future conduct. He would have you be, not a hired servant, but a son. He will not vex you by repeating, too often, "Son, go!" Nevertheless, knowing as you do the will of your Father, and merely saying "I go, Sir," without stirring a step, can you wonder that He is grieved at His heart? Can you wonder if your consolations are small?
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. ii., p. 378.
References: Luk 15:24.—H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 161; J. M. Neale, Sermons in a Religious House, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 1; Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 13.
Luk 15:25
We may see from this passage:—
I. That the position of the elder son is preferable to that of the younger, because of the risk he escaped.
II. Because a life of continuous godliness is far easier than a life of godliness succeeding a life of sin.
III. Viewed as a whole, the life of the son who remained at home must yield far more pleasure to God than the life of the son who wanders and then returns.
E. Mellor, In the Footsteps of Heroes, p. 195.
References: Luk 15:25.—J. Burton, Christian Life and Truth, p. 398. Luk 15:25, Luk 15:29.—D. Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 184 Luk 15:25-32.—G. Cross, Ibid., vol. xviii., p. 350; Homilist, vol. i., p. 342.
Luk 15:29
Contracted Views in Religion.
I. In the conduct of the father, there seemed, at first sight, an utter departure from the rules of fairness and justice. Here was a reprobate son received into his favour on the first stirrings of repentance. What was the use of serving him dutifully, if there were no difference in the end between the righteous and the wicked? The elder brother’s case seemed a hard one; and that, even without supposing him to feel jealous, or to have unsuitable notions of his own importance and usefulness. Apply this to the case of religion, and it still holds good. At first sight, the reception of the penitent sinner seems to interfere with the reward of the faithful servant of God. The words of the text are the expression of an agitated mind, that fears lest it be cast back upon the wide world, to grope in the dark without a God to guide and encourage it in its course.
II. The condescending answer of the Father in the parable is most instructive. It sanctions the great truth which seemed in jeopardy, that it is not the same thing in the end to obey or to disobey, expressly telling us that the Christian penitent is not placed on the same footing with those who have consistently served God from the first. "Son, thou art ever with me; and all that I have is thine;"—that is, "Why this sudden fear and distrust? Surely thou hast known me too long to suppose that thou canst lose by thy brother’s gain. Thou art in my confidence. I do not make any outward display of kindness towards thee, for it is a thing to be taken for granted."
III. The elder brother had always lived at home; he had seen things go on one way, and, as was natural and right, got attached to them in that one way. But then, he could not conceive that they could possibly go on in any other way; when an occurrence took place for which he had hitherto met no precedent he lost himself, as being thrust suddenly out of the contracted circle in which he had hitherto walked. He was disconcerted and angry with his father. And so, in religion, we have need to watch against that narrowness of mind, to which we are tempted by the uniformity and tranquillity of God’s providence towards us. Let us guard against discontent in any shape, and as we cannot help hearing what goes on in the world, let us guard, on hearing it, against all intemperate, uncharitable feelings towards those who differ from us, or oppose us.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 111., p. 182.
Reference: Luk 15:29.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 291.
Luk 15:31
What is the moral significance of the incident of the Elder Son?
I. It is, some writers tell us, to mark the contrast between the narrow, merciless heart of the self-righteous man, as compared with the comprehensive, all-forgiving love of our heavenly Father. He who had been most sinned against—he whose the property had been which a profligate son had wasted—was ready to forgive; the other, far less injured, had only words of discontent and anger for his father’s large-hearted mercy. It is possible that this contrast was intended, but I am sure it is not the principal purpose of the incident.
II. To determine what that significance really is, let us consider in the first place what the series of parables would be without it. Let us suppose that this series ended with the loving—even enthusiastic—reception of the younger son a this father’s house. Might not the thought then be suggested. "If it be true that a profligate who repents is more pleasing in the sight of God than one who has led a consistently virtuous life, is it not better that I should do as this young man did? "This was the thought which passed through the mind of the elder son. The father’s reply seems to have been intended to correct an erroneous inference which might, not unnaturally, be drawn, and which the elder son did actually draw. It is in its tone rather soothing than reproachful, meant to correct a mistake, and so to remove the anger which this mistake had caused; but not, as far as I can see, condemning the anger as at all unreasonable under the mistake. The Author of these parables foresaw that men might draw from them the false but not unnatural inference, that God prefers deep sinfulness, followed by true repentance, to a continuance in welldoing. To prevent such a mistake, this very objection is put into the mouth of the elder son. And in the reply of the father is fixed the true position of the repentant sinner. He is received with forgiveness, with welcome, with joy; but he does not take, in the estimation of his heavenly Father, the place of him "who by patient continuance in welldoing seeks for glory and honour and immortality."
J. H. Jellett, The Elder Son and Other Sermons, p. 1.
References: Luk 15:31.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 375; Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 451; J. Ferrier, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 211; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 115. Luk 15:32.—J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 86. E. Cooper, Practical Sermons, vol. iii., p. 178. Luke 15—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 27; F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 233. Luk 16:1.—J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 2nd series, p. 18. Luk 16:1-8.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 346; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 377; C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 356. Luk 16:1-9.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i, p. 345. Luk 16:1-10.—H. Calderwood, The Parables, p. 266; A. B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 355. Luk 16:1-12.—Homiletic Quarterly, p. 503; Ibid., vol. vi., p. 34; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 19; R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables, p. 427.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv4, 8, 11, 12, 22, 24
Matthew
‘THAT WHICH WAS LOST’
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PERSISTENCE OF THWARTED LOVE
Mat 18:13. - Luk 15:4.
Like other teachers, Jesus seems to have had favourite points of view and utterances which came naturally to His lips. There are several instances in the gospels of His repeating the same sayings in entirely different connections and with different applications. One of these habitual points of view seems to have been the thought of men as wandering sheep, and of Himself as the Shepherd. The metaphor has become so familiar that we need a moment’s reflection to grasp the mingled tenderness, sadness, and majesty of it. He thought habitually of all humanity as a flock of lost sheep, and of Himself as high above them, unparticipant of their evil, and having one errand-to bring them back.
And not only does He frequently refer to this symbol, but we have the two editions, from which my texts are respectively taken, of the Parable of the Lost Sheep. I say two editions, because it seems to me a great deal more probable that Jesus should have repeated Himself than that either of the Evangelists should have ventured to take this gem and set it in an alien setting. The two versions differ slightly in some unimportant expressions, and Matthew’s is the more condensed of the two. But the most important variation is the one which is brought to light by the two fragments which I have ventured to isolate as texts. ‘If He find’ implies the possible failure of the Shepherd’s search; ‘till He find’ implies His unwearied persistence in the teeth of all failure. And, taken in conjunction, they suggest some very blessed and solemn considerations, which I pray for strength to lay upon your minds and hearts now.
I. But first let me say a word or two upon the more general thought brought out in both these clauses-of the Shepherd’s search.
Now, beautiful and heart-touching as that picture is, of the Shepherd away amongst the barren mountains searching minutely in every ravine and thicket, it wants a little explanation in order to be brought into correspondence with the fact which it expresses. For His search for His lost property is not in ignorance of where it is, and His finding of it is not His discovery of His sheep, but its discovery of its Shepherd. We have to remember wherein consists the loss before we can understand wherein consists the search.
Now, if we ask ourselves that question first, we get a flood of light on the whole matter. The great hundredth Psalm, according to its true rendering, says, ‘It is He that hath made us, and we are His; . . . we are . . . the sheep of His pasture.’ But God’s true possession of man is not simply the possession inherent in the act of creation. For there is only one way in which spirit can own spirit, or heart can possess heart, and that is through the voluntary yielding and love of the one to the other. So Jesus Christ, who, in all His seeking after us men, is the voice and hand of Almighty Love, does not count that He has found a man until the man has learned to love Him. For He loses us when we are alienated from Him, when we cease to trust Him, when we refuse to obey Him, when we will not yield to Him, but put Him far away from us. Therefore the search which, as being Christ’s is God’s in Christ, is for our love, our trust, our obedience; and in reality it consists of all the energies by which Jesus Christ, as God’s embodiment and representative, seeks to woo and win you and me back to Himself, that He may truly possess us.
If the Shepherd’s seeking is but a tender metaphor for the whole aggregate of the ways by which the love that is divine and human in Jesus Christ moves round about our closed hearts, as water may feel round some hermetically sealed vessel, seeking for an entrance, then surely the first and chiefest of them, which makes its appeal to each of us as directly as to any man that ever lived, is that great mystery that Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God, left the ninety-and-nine that were safe on the high pastures of the mountains of God, and came down among us, out into the wilderness, ‘to seek and to save that which was lost.’
And, brother, that method of winning-I was going to say, of earning-our love comes straight in its appeal to every single soul on the face of the earth. Do not say that thou wert not in Christ’s heart and mind when He willed to be born and willed to die. Thou, and thou, and thou, and every single unit of humanity were there clear before Him in their individuality; and He died for thee, and for me, and for every man. And, in one aspect, that is more than to say that He died for all men. There was a specific intention in regard to each of us in the mission of Jesus Christ; and when He went to the Cross the Shepherd was not giving His life for a confused flock of which He knew not the units, but for sheep the face of each of whom He knows, and each of whom He loves. There was His first seeking; there is His chief seeking. There is the seeking which ought to appeal to every soul of man, and which, ever since you were children, has been making its appeal to you. Has it done so in vain? Dear friend, let not your heart still be hard.
He seeks us by every record of that mighty love that died for us, even when it is being spoken as poorly, and with as many limitations and imperfections, as I am speaking it now. ‘As though God did beseech you by us, pray you in Christ’s stead.’ It is not arrogance, God forbid! it is simple truth when I say, Never mind about me; but my word, in so far as it is true and tender, is Christ’s word to you. And here, in our midst, that unseen Form is passing along these pews and speaking to these hearts, and the Shepherd is seeking His sheep.
He seeks each of us by the inner voices and emotions in our hearts and minds, by those strange whisperings which sometimes we hear, by the suddenly upstarting convictions of duty and truth which sometimes, without manifest occasion, flash across our hearts. These voices are Christ’s voice, for, in a far deeper sense than most men superficially believe, ‘He is the true Light that lighteth every man coming into the world.’
He is seeking us by our unrest, by our yearnings after we know not what, by our dim dissatisfaction which insists upon making itself felt in the midst of joys and delights, and which the world fails to satisfy as much as it fails to interpret. There is a cry in every heart, little as the bearer of the heart translates it into its true meaning-a cry after God, even the living God. And by all your unrests, your disappointments, your hopes unfulfilled, your hopes fulfilled and blasted in the fulfilment, your desires that perish unfruited; by all the mystic movements of the spirit that yearns for something beyond the material and the visible, Jesus Christ is seeking His sheep.
He seeks us by the discipline of life, for I believe that Christ is the active Providence of God, and that the hands that were pierced on the Cross do move the wheels of the history of the world, and mould the destinies of individual spirits.
The deepest meaning of all life is that we should be won to seek Him who in it all is seeking us, and led to venture our hopes, and fling the anchor of our faith beyond the bounds of the visible, that it may fasten in the Eternal, even in Christ Himself, ‘the same yesterday and to-day and for ever’ when earth and its training are done with. Brethren, it is a blessed thing to live, when we interpret life’s smallnesses aright as the voice of the Master, who, by them all-our sadness and our gladness, the unrest of our hearts and the yearnings and longings of our spirits, by the ministry of His word, by the record of His sufferings-is echoing the invitation of the Cross itself, ‘Come unto Me, all ye . . . and I will give you rest!’ So much for the Shepherd’s search.
II. And now, in the second place, a word as to the possible thwarting of the search.
‘If so be that He find.’ That is an awful if, when we think of what lies below it. The thing seems an absurdity when it is spoken, and yet it is a grim fact in many a life-viz. that Christ’s effort can fail and be thwarted. Not that His search is perfunctory or careless, but that we shroud ourselves in darkness through which that love can find no way. It is we, not He, that are at fault when He fails to find that which He seeks. There is nothing more certain than that God, and Christ the image of God, desire the rescue of every man, woman, and child of the human race. Let no teaching blur that sunlight fact. There is nothing more certain than that Jesus Christ has done, and is doing, all that He can do to secure that purpose. If He could make every man love Him, and so find every man, be sure that He would do it. But He cannot. For here is the central mystery of creation, which if we could solve there would be few knots that would resist our fingers, that a finite will like yours or mine can lift itself up against God, and that, having the capacity, it has the desire. He says, ‘Come!’ We say, ‘I will not.’ That door of the heart opens from within, and He never breaks it open. He stands at the door and knocks. And then the same solemn if comes-’If any man opens, I will come in’; if any man keeps it shut, and holds on to prevent its being opened, I will stop out.
Brethren, I seek to press upon you now the one plain truth, that if you are not saved men and women, there is no person in heaven or earth or hell that has any blame in the matter but yourself alone. God appeals to us, and says, ‘What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done unto it?’ His hands are clean, and the infinite love of Christ is free from all blame, and all the blame lies at our own doors.
I must not dwell upon the various reasons which lead so many men among us-as, alas! the utmost charity cannot but see that there are-to turn away from Christ’s appeals, and to be unwilling to ‘have this Man’ either ‘to reign over’ them or to save them. There are many such, I am sure, in my audience now; and I would fain, if I could, draw them to that Lord in whom alone they have life, and rest, and holiness, and heaven.
One great reason is because you do not believe that you need Him. There is an awful inadequacy in most men’s conceptions-and still more in their feelings-as to their sin. Oh dear friends, if you would only submit your consciences for one meditative half-hour to the light of God’s highest law, I think you would find out something more than many of you know, as to what you are and what your sin is. Many of us do not much believe that we are in any danger. I have seen a sheep comfortably cropping the short grass on a down over the sea, with one foot out in the air, and a precipice of five hundred feet below it, and at the bottom the crawling water. It did not know that there was any danger of going over. That is like some of us. If you believed what is true-that ‘sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death,’ and understood what ‘death’ meant, you would feel the mercy of the Shepherd seeking you. Some of us think we are in the flock when we are not. Some of us do not like submission. Some of us have no inclination for the sweet pastures that He provides, and would rather stay where we are, and have the fare that is going there.
We do not need to do anything to put Him away. I have no doubt that some of us, as soon as my voice ceases, will plunge again into worldly talk and thoughts before they are down the chapel steps, and so blot out, as well as they can, any vagrant and superficial impression that may have been made. Dear brethren, it is a very easy matter to turn away from the Shepherd’s voice. ‘I called, and ye refused. I stretched out My hands, and no man regarded.’ That is all! That is what you do, and that is enough.
III. So, lastly, the thwarted search prolonged.
‘Till He find’-that is a wonderful and a merciful word. It indicates the infinitude of Christ’s patient forgiveness and perseverance. We tire of searching. ‘Can a mother forget’ or abandon her seeking after a lost child? Yes! if it has gone on for so long as to show that further search is hopeless, she will go home and nurse her sorrow in her heart. Or, perhaps, like some poor mothers and wives, it will turn her brain, and one sign of her madness will be that, long years after grief should have been calm because hope was dead, she will still be looking for the little one so long lost. But Jesus Christ stands at the closed door, as a great modern picture shows, though it has been so long undisturbedly closed that the hinges are brown with rust, and weeds grow high against it. He stands there in the night, with the dew on His hair, unheeded or repelled, like some stranger in a hostile village seeking for a night’s shelter. He will not be put away; but, after all refusals, still with gracious finger, knocks upon the door, and speaks into the heart. Some of you have refused Him all your lives, and perhaps you have grey hairs upon you now. And He is speaking to you still. He ‘suffereth long, is not easily provoked, is not soon angry; hopeth all things,’ even of the obstinate rejecters.
For that is another truth that this word ‘till’ preaches to us-viz. the possibility of bringing back those that have gone furthest away and have been longest away. The world has a great deal to say about incurable cases of moral obliquity and deformity. Christ knows nothing about ‘incurable cases.’ If there is a worst man in the world-and perhaps there is-there is nothing but his own disinclination to prevent his being brought back, and made as pure as an angel.
But do not let us deal with generalities; let us bring the truths to ourselves. Dear brethren, I know nothing about the most of you. I should not know you again if I met you five minutes after we part now. I have never spoken to many of you, and probably never shall, except in this public way; but I know that you need Christ, and that Christ wants you. And I know that, however far you have gone, you have not gone so far but that His love feels out through the remoteness to grasp you, and would fain draw you to itself.
I dare say you have seen upon some dreary moor, or at the foot of some ‘scaur’ on the hillside, the bleached bones of a sheep, lying white and grim among the purple heather. It strayed, unthinking of danger, tempted by the sweet herbage; it fell; it vainly bleated; it died. But what if it had heard the shepherd’s call, and had preferred to lie where it fell, and to die where it lay? We talk about ‘silly sheep.’ Are there any of them so foolish as men and women listening to me now, who will not answer the Shepherd’s voice when they hear it, with, ‘Lord, here am I, come and help me out of this miry clay, and bring me back.’ He is saying to each of you, ‘Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?’ May He not have to say at last of any of us, ‘Ye would not come to Me, that ye might have life!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Parables of the Lost Sheep, of them Lost Coin,…
Parables of the Lost Sheep, of them Lost Coin, of the Prodigal Son
1-7. Parable of the Lost Sheep. See on Mat_18:12-13. The first of a series of three parables for the encouragement of penitents. It shows the love of our Saviour for the outcast, the despised, and the criminal classes generally. It rebukes the Pharisees, who professed to be shepherds, for their neglect of that part of the flock that most needed their help, and lastly it indicates that the Pharisees are in many respects worse than the sinners they despise. The owner of the flock is our Lord Himself, the Good Shepherd (Joh_10:14); the flock is His Church, embracing men of all kinds; the ninety and nine are those who seem to be righteous, like the Pharisees; the one sheep that is lost and is found, is all truly penitent sinners. These are represented as one sheep not because they are few in number compared with the others, but to show Christ's love for each individual soul. The seeking and laying the lost sheep upon His shoulders, are Christ's work of love in pleading with the sinner, and finally after due repentance bringing him back to a state of grace. The friends and neighbours who rejoice with Him are the angels. 'On no image did the early Church dwell with more fondness than this, as witness the many gems, seals, fragments of glass, and other relics which have reached us, on which Christ is thus portrayed. It is frequent also in bas-reliefs, on sarcophagi, and paintings in the catacombs. Sometimes other sheep are at His feet, generally two, looking up with pleasure at Him and His burden. This representation always occupies the place of honour, the centre of the vault or tomb' (Trench). The rabbis have a story that Moses, while tending Jethro's flocks, went after a kid (or lamb) which had gone astray. As he thought that it must be weary, he gently raised it and carried it on his shoulders. God was pleased and said, 'Since thou hast shown pity in bringing back a man's beast, thou shalt be the shepherd of my flock Israel all thy life long.'
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1. Publicans and sinners] see on Mat_5:46; Mat_9:11.
7. Which need no repentance] i.e. which think they need no repentance, but really need it more than the publicans and sinners whom they despise. The rabbis divided the just or righteous into two classes, (1) the 'perfectly just,' or 'men of works,' who had never in all their lives committed a single sin, and (2) the 'penitents,' who, having once been wicked, had repented. The Pharisees considered themselves to belong to the former class, as also, perhaps, did the young ruler who said 'All these have I kept from my youth' (Mar_10:20). How external the Pharisaic standard of righteousness was, may be gathered from the story of the 'holy man,' who 'never committed one trespass all the days of his life, except this one misfortune which befell him, that one day he put on his head-phylactery before his arm-phylactery.' For 'phylactery,' see on Mat_23:6.
8-10. The Lost Coin (peculiar to Lk). The last parable set forth the work of Christ in seeking and reclaiming the lost, this one sets forth that of the Church. The woman is the Church; the ten pieces of silver are the human souls in her keeping; the lost piece is a soul that has fallen from grace through her negligence. Eager to atone for her neglect, and full of love for her erring member, she lights a candle, i.e. vigorously exercises the ministry of the Word, and by preaching the gospel and by loving pastoral intercourse brings back the lost soul to a state of grace. The sweeping of the house is the vehemence with which she sets about her task, thereby incurring the charge of 'turning the world upside down' (Act_17:6). Having found the lost coin, she calls upon her friends and neighbours, i.e. not only her faithful members, but also the angels, to join in her joy.
8. Pieces] Gk. drachma, a coin equivalent in value to the Roman denarius (Mat_18:28).
9. Friends] lit. female friends and neighbours.
11-32. The Prodigal Son (peculiar to Lk). 'This parable, like the two preceding, is intended to show what joy there is in heaven at the conversion of sinners, and, therefore, how wrong the Pharisees were to murmur, because Christ consorted with sinners to convert them' (Cornelius a Lapide). The father is God; the elder son is just persons, or rather those who think themselves and are thought by others to be such, here, in particular, the Pharisees who 'trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.' The younger son is all penitent sinners, here, in particular, the publicans and sinners of Luk_15:1, Luk_15:2. The portion of goods (Luk_15:12) is the whole of a man's faculties and powers, which he ought to exercise and enjoy in his father's house, i.e. in dependence upon God and in His service, but which the prodigal son demands to have under his own control, to use according to his own will and pleasure. The lack of love and apostasy of heart shown in this demand is soon followed by apostasy of life, for not many days after (Luk_15:13), he gathers all together, i.e. deliberately resolves to devote his whole fortune and all his powers to the pursuit of pleasure, and journeys into a far country, i.e. into the world of sin where God is not, or rather where He is forgotten, and wastes his substance in riotous living, i.e. throws off even the semblance of piety and respectability, and ruins not only his soul, but his health and fortune in extravagance and debauchery. Presently there arises a mighty famine in the land, i.e. his pleasures pall, his friends prove false, his animal indulgences fail to satisfy him. In his distress he goes and joins himself to a citizen of that country, i.e. at first he seeks relief by plunging deeper into sin, selling himself to Satan to kill regret. But he finds no relief. Satan is now his master, and shows his contempt for him by using him as a drudge and a slave. Finding now no pleasure or satisfaction in his sin, and the hunger of his soul remaining still unappeased, he determines to return to his father and to say 'Father, I have sinned.. Make me as one of thy hired servants,' i.e. place me lowest in thy kingdom. His father sees him a great way off, and goes to meet him, for God meets, nay, almost anticipates, the first efforts of sinners to return. He falls on his neck and kisses him, the kiss signifying the reconciliation between God and man brought about by Christ. The son makes his confession of sin, but does not add 'Make me as one of thy hired servants,' because he now sees that God wishes to restore him to his full privileges. Then the father says to his servants (the ministers of His Church), Bring forth the former robe, and put it on him (i.e. restore him to his former privileges as a Christian by the ministry of reconciliation), and put a ring on his hand (a symbol of rank and honour), and shoes on his feet (symbolising spiritual freedom, for slaves went barefoot), and bring the fatted calf and kill it (signifying the joy there is in earth and heaven over a repentant sinner, perhaps also the spiritual nourishment which the hungry soul will find in the ordinances of religion which have been so long neglected); for this my son was dead (in sin) and is alive again (by repentance). And they begin to be merry, i.e. to rejoice over the penitent, and to treat him with as much honour as if he had never sinned. The conclusion of the parable graphically traces the character of the elder brother, who represents the Pharisees and persons of their spirit. He is busied in the field (Luk_15:25), i.e. in a round of regular, but loveless, religious observances. He shows anger and jealousy, and that in spite of the affectionate entreaties of his father, who invites him to the festivities, and shows him equal honour and love (Luk_15:28). He shows himself, like the Pharisees, quite unconscious of his own failings, and arrogantly boasts, 'I have never transgressed a commandment of thine' (Luk_15:29): see on Luk_15:7. He puts the worst construction on his brother's past sins, perhaps exaggerating them (Luk_15:30), and shows himself incapable of forgiveness (Luk_15:30).
The parable may be suitably applied to illustrate the relations of Jew and Gentile (the Jew being the elder, the Gentile the younger son), but this is not its primary meaning.
12. Give me the portion] according to Jewish law, one-half of what the eldest received (Deu_21:17). He may have had a right to demand his property before his father's death. 'We have here perhaps a survival of that condition of society in which testaments “took effect immediately on execution, were not secret, and were not revocable,” and in which it was customary for a father, when his powers were failing, to abdicate and surrender his property to his sons: cp. Sir_33:19-23.'
15. To a citizen] i.e. Satan, or some companion more wicked than himself.
16. He would fain have filled] i.e. and did so. Husks] i.e. the pods of the carob-tree, eaten only by the very poorest people. And no man gave unto him] food of any kind.
19. Hired servants] i.e. imperfect Christians, who perform their duties to God in the spirit of hirelings rather than of sons.
22. The best robe] or, rather, 'the former robe,' i.e. the state of grace in which he was before his sin. In its Christian application the robe of baptismal innocence, because in baptism we 'put on Christ' as a garment (Gal_3:27).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 8, 11 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XCII. A. Second…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XCII. A. Second Group of Parables].
XCII. SECOND GREAT GROUP OF PARABLES. (Probably in Peræa.) Subdivision A. INTRODUCTION. cLUKE XV. 1, 2.
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c1 Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing hear unto him to hear. 2 And both the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. [For publicans see Gal_2:12, Gal_2:13. In answer to their [499] murmuring, Jesus spoke three parables, in which he set forth the yearnings of redemptive love. Having thus replied to the Pharisees, Jesus continued his discourse, adding two other parables, concerning the right employment of worldly goods, and ending with some teaching concerning offenses, etc. We defer comparing the parables until we have discussed them.]
[FFG 499-500]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 8, 10, 18, 21 Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
sinners
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The Murmuring Pharisees. (Luk 15:1-2)
CHAPTER 15
1. The Murmuring Pharisees. (Luk 15:1-2)
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2. The Parable of the Lost Sheep. (Luk 15:3-7)
3. The Parable of the Lost Coin. (Luk 15:8-10)
4. The Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Elder Brother. (Luk 15:11-32.)
Luk 15:1-10
A blessed climax of the teaching of our Lord as the Saviour and the friend of sinners is reached with this chapter, a chapter which the Saints of God have always loved and will always love. Here we find the completest illustration of the key text of Luke “For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.” The tax-gatherers and sinners, after hearing His words and knowing the welcome which awaited them, drew near to Him in large numbers. The murmuring of the Pharisees and scribes and their words “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them” is answered by the Lord with three parables. The parables of the lost sheep, of the lost coin and of the prodigal son belong together. The lost Coin parable and the parable of the prodigal are peculiar to Luke. The Trinity is revealed in these parables seeking that which is lost. The Son is seen in the Shepherd; the Holy Spirit in the parable of the lost coin and the Father in the parable of the prodigal.
In the study of these parables it must not be overlooked that the Lord answers in the first place the murmuring Pharisees. This however does not exclude the wider application on Gospel lines. Bengel states that in the first parable the sinner is seen as stupid; in the second as totally ignorant of himself and in the third as the daring, wilful sinner. In the parable of the Shepherd the ninety and nine do not, represent the unfallen angels, nor, as it has been suggested, inhabitants of other worlds, but the self-righteous Pharisees, who think they need no repentance. The one sheep, lost and helpless, pictures the tax-gatherers and sinners, who owned their lost condition. All must first be applied on this ground. The Son of Man had come to seek and to save. He looked for the lost; He followed them and sought them out at their tables; He ate and drank with them, so that He was called a wine-bibber. The found sheep He puts on His own shoulders; He would not leave this to a servant. The care of the saved sheep is all His own. And there is joy in heaven over one repenting sinner. It was a severe rebuke to the Pharisees, who did not rejoice when the tax-gatherers and sinners came but murmured. The second parable is of much interest and has been interpreted in various ways. We quote here the exposition as given in the “Numerical Bible” as the most satisfactory one.
“The second parable is that of the woman, in the Scripture the figure of the Church, the instrument of the Spirit. The lamp of the Word is in her hand, and she needs it in the darkness of the night, while Christ is absent. The ‘house’ is the circle of natural ties and relationships; for it is not just a question of public preaching, but of that testimony upon which the success of the preacher after all so much depends, and for which the whole Church, and not any class or section of it, is responsible. Good it is to realize that every soul of man, covered with the dust of sin as he may be, and hidden in the darkness of the world, belongs of right to the King’s treasury, and has the King’s image stamped on him, though with sore disfigurement. Claim him we may, wherever we may find him, for God to whom he belongs. This general evangelism, we may learn from the parable here, is what is the mind of the Spirit for the Church indwelt of Him. Here too there must be friends and neighbors summoned to rejoice,--angelic onlookers who are in sympathy with Him who is always the glorious Seeker, and who sets in motion all the springs of love and pity that flow anywhere in unison with His own.”
In the Parable of the prodigal son is brought out again the two classes of men before whom the Lord spoke these parables. The prodigal represents the publicans, the elder son the ritualistic Pharisees. The application in the Gospel, which this parable so blessedly reveals, the condition of man as a sinner, the true repentance, the Father’s joy, the welcome the returning one receives, etc., all is so well known that we need to make no further annotations. The elder son’s character clearly shows that the Pharisee, self-righteous and self-sufficient, is completely in view. He has never transgressed a commandment and therefore considers himself above the poor, lost wanderer, who has returned home; he was angry. Thus the Pharisees were angry, when the Lord received the outcasts. It is strange that this parable should have been explained to mean that our Lord endorses worldly amusements and that a Christian may dance and make merry. There is no reason whatever that He has done so. The parable has, no doubt, a national meaning as well. The elder son represents the Jews and their unwillingness to see the Gentiles converted. The prodigal then is a picture of the degradation of the Gentiles.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 8, 11, 14, 20, 25 Parables of the Love of Christ to the Lost.
Parables of the Love of Christ to the Lost.
The murmuring Pharisees:
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v. 1. Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him.
v. 2. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
The fifteenth chapter of Luke is, as one commentator has called it, the golden center of this Gospel, revealing in a wonderful way the love of the Savior for the lost and condemned sinners. The Lord here exhibits the unspeakable riches of His merciful love to all men, but especially to those that feel the need of that mercy. There were nearing to Him at that time, the evangelist writes. As iron filings are attracted to a magnet, so the message of love and forgiveness which Jesus proclaimed drew the broken hearts to His grace. It was not merely the attraction of human sympathy and kindness, but it was the sweetness of the Savior’s love and the glorious promise of pardon, full and free. Publicans and sinners they were, despised and cast out of the synagogues throughout the land; they were not permitted to associate on a plane of equality with the Jews in good standing. But these outcasts came, not like the majority of the other people, primarily for the purpose of witnessing miracles of various kinds, but to hear Him. The blessed words of salvation attracted them; they could not hear enough of the healing message which Christ proclaimed with unwearying kindness. Others, however, were present that had a different opinion concerning such intimacy of the Lord with publicans and sinners. The Pharisees and scribes murmured with indignation against Him, saying that He made Himself the equal of the scum of the lowly people by receiving them and eating with them. The mocking and derisive words of the Pharisees have now become the song of praise in the mouth of believing Christians: "Jesus sinners doth receive!"
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 25, 28, 31 General Information:
General Information:
We do not know where this takes place; it simply occurs one day when Jesus is teaching.
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Now
This marks the beginning of a new event. (See: Introduction of a New Event)
all the tax collectors
This is an exaggeration to stress that there were very many of them. AT: "many tax collectors" (See: Hyperbole and Generalization)
This man welcomes sinners
"This man lets sinners into his presence" or "This man associates with sinners"
This man
They were talking about Jesus.
even eats with them
The word "even" shows that they thought it was bad enough that Jesus allowed sinners to come to him, but it was worse that he would eat with them.
translationWords
tax
sin
Jesus
Pharisee
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unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 30, 31 15:1-32 Chapter 15 contains three related parables of things…
15:1-32 Chapter 15 contains three related parables of things lost and found: a sheep (15:1-7), a coin (15:8-10), and a son (15:11-32). The loss of something loved causes deep sorrow, whereas finding it brings great joy. There is great rejoicing in heaven when lost sinners return to their heavenly Father.
15:1 Tax collectors were despised because they worked for the hated Roman authorities and were notorious for their corruption.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.