Luke 15:28-32

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, holds with them at the moment. The answer of the son (Luke 15:29-30) includes two accusations against his father: the one bears on his way of acting toward himself (Luke 15:29), the other on his conduct in respect of his other son (Luke 15:30). The contrast is meant to bring out the partiality of the father. The blind and innocent self-satisfaction which forms the heart of pharisaism could not be better depicted than in the words: “ neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment; ” and the servile and mercenary position of the legal Jew in the theocracy, than thus: “Lo! these many years do I serve thee. ” Bengel makes the simple observation on these words: servus erat. What in reality was his father to him? A master! He even counts the years of his hard servitude: There are so many years!...Such is man's view of accomplishing good under the law: a labour painfully carried through, and which consequently merits payment. But by its very nature it is totally deprived of the delights which belong only to the sphere of free love; it has no other idea of them than that which it gets by seeing those joys of the reconciled sinner, by which it is scandalized. The joy which is wanting to it is this kid to make merry with its friends, which has never been granted to it.

With the hard and ill-paid labour of legal obedience he contrasts (Luke 15:30) the life of his brother, merry in sin, happier still, if possible, in the hour of his return and pardon. The meaning is, that in the eyes of pharisaism, as virtue is a task, sin is a pleasure; and hence there ought to be a payment for the first, an equivalent of pain for the second. The father, by refusing to the one his just reward, by adding in the case of the other joy to joy, the enjoyments of the paternal home to those of debauchery, has shown his preference for the sinner and his sympathy with sin. Thy son, says the elder son, instead of: my brother. He would express at once the partiality of his father and his own dislike to the sinner. Do not those sayings which Jesus puts into the mouth of the righteous legalist, contain the keenest criticism of a state of soul wherein men discharge duty all the while abhorring it, and wherein, while avoiding sin, they thirst after it? The particular μετὰ πορνῶν is a stroke of the pencil added to the picture of Luke 15:13 by the charitable hand of the elder brother.

The father's answer meets perfectly the two accusations of his son. Luke 15:31 replies to Luke 15:29; Luke 15:32 to Luke 15:30. The father first clears himself from the charge of injustice to the son who is speaking to him; and with what condescension! “ My child (τέκνον).” This form of address has in it something more loving even than υἷε, son. Then he reminds him that his life with him might have been a feast all along. There was no occasion, therefore, to make a special feast for him. And what good would a particular gift serve, when everything in the house was continually at his disposal? The meaning of this remarkable saying is, that nothing prevented the believing Israelite from already enjoying the sweets of divine communion, a fact proved by the Psalms; comp. e.g., Psalms 23, 63. St. Paul himself, who ordinarily presents the law as the instrument of condemnation, nevertheless derives the formula of grace from a saying of Moses (Romans 10:6-8), proving that in his eyes grace is already in the law, through the pardon which accompanies sacrifice and the Holy Spirit granted to him who asks Him (Psa 51:9-14); and that when he speaks of the law as he ordinarily does, it is after the manner of his adversaries, isolating the commandment from grace. In the same way as Luke 15:31 presents theocratic fidelity as a happiness, and not a task, so Luke 15:32 reveals sin as a misery, and not as an advantage. There was therefore ground for celebrating a feast on the return of one who had just escaped from so great a misery, and by its arrival had restored the life of the family in its completeness. Thy brother, says the father; it is the answer to the thy son of Luke 15:30. He reminds him of the claims of fraternal love. Here Jesus stops; He does not say what part the elder son took. It lay with the Pharisees themselves, by the conduct which they would adopt, to decide this question and finish the narrative.

The Tübingen school (Zeller, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, not Köstlin) agree in regarding the elder son, not as the pharisaic party, but as the Jewish people in general; the younger son, not as the publicans, but Gentile nations. “The elder son is unmistakeably the image of Judaism, which deems that it possesses special merit because of its fidelity to the one true God. The younger son...is the not less easily recognised portrait of Gentile humanity given up to polytheism and immorality. The discontent of the first, on seeing the reception granted to his brother, represents the jealousy of the Jews on account of the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church” (Hilgenfeld, die Evangel. p. 198). It would follow, then: 1. that this parable had been invented and put into the mouth of Jesus by Luke, with the view of supporting the system of his master, Paul; 2. that to this invention he had added a second, intended to accredit the former, that of the historical situation described Luke 15:1-2. But, 1. Is it conceivable that the evangelist, who marked out his own programme for himself, Luke 1:1-4, should take the liberty of treating his materials in so free and easy a style? 2. Have we not found in this description a multitude of delicate allusions to the historical surroundings amid which the parable is reputed to have been uttered, and which would not be applicable in the sense proposed (Luke 15:15; Luke 15:17, etc.)? 3. How from this parable St. Paul might have extracted the doctrine of justification by faith, is easy to understand. But that this order was inverted, that the parable was invented as an after-thought to give a body to the Pauline doctrine, is incompatible with the absence of every dogmatic element in the exposition. Would not the names of repentance, faith, justification, and the idea of expiation, have been infallibly introduced, if it had been the result of a dogmatic study contemporary with the ministry of Paul? 4. We have seen that the description finds its perfect explanation, that there remains not a single obscure point in the light in which it is placed by Luke. It is therefore arbitrary to seek another setting for it. The prejudice which has led the Tübingen school to this contra-textual interpretation is evident.

Keim, while discovering, like this school, Paulinism as the basis of the parable (p. 80), thinks that here we have one of the passages wherein the author, with the view of conciliating, more or less abjures his master, St. Paul. The evangelist dares not wholly disapprove the Judeo-Christianity which holds by the commandments; he praises it even (Luke 15:31). He only demands that it shall authorize the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church; and on this condition he lets its legal spirit pass. We should thus have simply the juxtaposition of the two principles which conflicted with one another in the apostolic churches. But, 1. In this attempt at conciliation, the elder son would be completely sacrificed to the younger; for the latter is seated at table in the house, the former is without, and we remain in ignorance as to whether he will re-enter. And this last would represent the apostolic Christianity which founded the Church! 2. Adopting biblical premises, Luke 15:31 can easily be applied to the Mosaic system faithfully observed, and that, as we have seen, according to the view of St. Paul himself. 3. It belonged to the method of progressive transition, which Jesus always observed, to seek to develope within the bosom of the Mosaic dispensation, and without ever attacking it, the new principle which was to succeed it, and the germ of which was already deposited in it. Jesus did not wish to suppress anything which He had not completely replaced and surpassed. He therefore accepted the ancient system, while attaching to it the new. The facts pointed out by Keim are fully explained by this situation.

Holtzmann thinks that our parable, which is not found in Matthew, may really be only an amplification of that of the two sons, which is found in that evangelist (Matthew 21:28-30). Does not this supposition do too much honour to the alleged amplifier, whether Luke or any other?