5. _The Parables of Grace:_ chap. 15. This piece contains: 1 _st._ A historical introduction (Luke 15:1-2); 2 _d._ A pair of parables, like that of the previous chapter (Luke 15:3-10); and 3 _d._ A great parable, which forms the summing up and climax of the two preceding (Luke 15:11-32). The relati... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Lost Sheep._ God seeks sinners, because the sinner is a miserable being deserving pity: such is the meaning of this description. The parable is put in the form of a question. In point of fact, it is at once an _argumentum ad hominem_ and an argument _a fortiori:_ “What do ye yourselves in such... [ Continue Reading ]
2 _d. Luke 15:3-10_. The two parables of the _lost sheep_ and of the _lost drachma_, as such pairs of parables always do, present the same idea, but in two different aspects. The idea common to both is the solicitude of God for sinners; the difference is, that in the first instance this solicitude a... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Lost Drachma._ The anxiety of the woman to find her lost piece of money certainly does not proceed from a feeling of pity; it is _self-interest_ which leads her to act. She had painfully earned it, and had kept it in reserve for some important purpose; it is a real loss to her. Here is divine... [ Continue Reading ]
. Jesus discontinues the interrogative form used in the two previous cases: we have no more an argument; we have a narrative, a real parable. The three persons composing the family represent God and His people. In accordance with Luke 15:1-2, the elder son, the representative of the race, the prop o... [ Continue Reading ]
_The younger Son._ This first part of the parable embraces four representations corresponding to the four phases of the converted sinner's life: 1 _st._ Sin (Luke 15:11-13); 2 _d._ Misery (Luke 15:14-16); 3 _d._ Conversion (Luke 15:17-20 a); 4 _th._ Restoration (Luke 15:20-24).... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Child lost and found._ This parable consists of two distinct descriptions, which form the counterpart of one another, that of the younger son (Luke 15:11-24), and that of the elder son (Luke 15:25-32). By the second, Jesus returns completely, as we shall see, to the historical situation descri... [ Continue Reading ]
. The liberty of self-enjoyment is not unlimited, as the sinner would fain think; it has limits of two kinds: the one pertaining to the individual himself, such as satiety, remorse, the feeling of destitution and abjectness resulting from vice (_when he had spent all_); the other arising from certai... [ Continue Reading ]
_a._ This representation, which depicts the conversion of the sinner, includes two things, repentance (Luke 15:17) and faith (Luke 15:18-20 a). The words, _when he came to himself_, Luke 15:17, denote a solemn moment in human life, that in which the heart, after a long period of dissipation, for the... [ Continue Reading ]
VERS. 20B-24. Free pardon, entire restoration, the joys of adoption, such are the contents of these verses. The heart of God overflows in the sayings of Jesus. Every word vibrates with emotion, at once the tenderest and the holiest. The father seems never to have given up waiting for his son; percei... [ Continue Reading ]
_a._ While the house is filled with mirth, the elder son is at work. Here is the image of the Pharisee busied with his rites, while repentant sinners are rejoicing in the serene sunshine of grace. Every free and joyous impulse is abhorrent to the formal spirit of pharisaism. This repugnance is descr... [ Continue Reading ]
_The elder Son._ This part embraces: 1 _st._ The interview of the elder son with the servant (Luke 15:25-28 a); 2 _d._ His interview with his father (Luke 15:28; Luke 15:28). Jesus here shows the Pharisees their murmurings put in action, and constrains them to feel their gravity.... [ Continue Reading ]
VERS. 28B-32. This interview contains the full revelation of pharisaic feeling, and brings into view the contrast between it and the fatherly heart of God. The procedure of the father, who steps out to his son and invites him to enter, is realized in the very conversation which Jesus, come from God,... [ Continue Reading ]