Luke 15:3-7

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 a case? And besides, the case is like: a sheep, a man!”

Which of you? “There is not a single one of you who accuse me here who does not act exactly like me in similar circumstances.” ῎Ανθρωπος, man, is tacitly contrasted with God (Luke 15:7).

The hundred sheep represent the totality of the theocratic people; the lost sheep, that portion of the people which has broken with legal ordinances, and so lives under the impulse of its own passions; the ninety and nine, the majority which has remained outwardly faithful to the law. ῎Ερημος, which we translate wilderness, simply denotes in the East uncultivated plains, pasturage, in opposition to tilled fields. It is the natural resort of sheep, but without the notion of danger and barrenness, which we connect with the idea of wilderness. This place where the flock feeds represents the more or less normal state of the faithful Jews, in which the soul is kept near to God under the shelter of commandments and worship. The shepherd leaves them there: they have only to walk faithfully in the way marked out for them; they will be infallibly led on to a higher state (John 3:21; John 5:46; John 6:45; John 7:17). While waiting, their moral position is safe enough to allow the Saviour to consecrate Himself more specially to the souls of those who, having broken with the covenant and its means of grace, are exposed to the most imminent dangers. The anxiety of the shepherd to recover a strayed sheep has more than personal interest for its motive. One sheep in a hundred is a loss of too small importance, and in any case out of proportion to the pains which he takes. The motive which animates him is compassion. Is there, in reality, a creature in the animal world more to be pitied than a strayed sheep? It is destitute both of the instinct necessary to find its way, and of every weapon of self-defence. It is a prey to any beast which may meet it; it deserves, as no other being in nature, the name of lost. The compassion of the shepherd appears: 1. In his perseverance: he seeks it until (Luke 15:4); 2. In his tender care: he layeth it on his shoulders; 3. In the joy with which he takes his burden (ἐπιτίθησιν χαίρων), a joy such that he wishes to share it with those who surround him, and that he reckons on receiving their congratulations (Luke 15:6).

Every touch in this exquisite picture finds its application by means of the situation described, Luke 15:1-2. The search for the sheep corresponds with the act which the Pharisees blamed: He receiveth sinners, and eateth with them; the finding, to that moment of unspeakable joy, when Jesus sees one of those lost souls returning to God; the tenderness with which the shepherd carries his sheep, to the care which divine grace will henceforth take of the soul thus recovered for God; the joy of the shepherd, to that which Jesus, that which God Himself, feels in the salvation of sinners; the congratulations of friends and neighbours, to the thanksgivings and praises of glorified men and angels. It is to be remarked that the shepherd does not carry back the sheep to the pasture, but to his own dwelling. By this touch, Jesus undoubtedly gives us to understand, that the sinners whom He has come to save are transported by Him into an order of things superior to that of the theocracy to which they formerly belonged into the communion of heaven represented by the shepherd's house (Luke 15:7).

Ver. 7 contains the application of the description, or more exactly, the conclusion of the argument: “If pity leads you to show such tenderness to a sheep, am I wrong in showing it to lost souls? I say unto you, that what I feel and do is what God Himself feels and wishes; and what offends you here below on the earth is what causes rejoicing in the heavens. It is for you to judge from this contrast, whether, while you have no need perhaps to change your life, you do not need a change of heart!”

The words: there shall be more joy, are frequently explained anthropopathically: the recovery of a lost object gives us in the first moment a livelier joy than anything which we possess without previous loss. If we found this feature in the parable, the explanation might be discussed. But it meets us in the application, and we cannot see how such a sentiment could be absolutely ascribed to God. We have just seen that the state of the recovered sinner is really superior to that of the believing Israelite. The latter, without having to charge himself with gross disorders (μετανοεῖν, to repent, in the sense of those to whom Jesus is speaking), has nevertheless one decisive step more to take, in order that his salvation may be consummated, and that God may rejoice fully on his account; that is, to recognise his inward sin, to embrace the Saviour, and to be changed in heart. Till then his regulated walk within the bosom of the ancient covenant is only provisional, like the whole of that covenant itself. It may easily happen that, like the Pharisees, such a man should end by rejecting real salvation, and so perishing. How should heaven rejoice over a state so imperfect, with a joy like that which is awakened among its inhabitants by the sight of a sinner really saved? It is evident that in this saying we must take the word just (as well as the word repent) in the sense given to it by the interlocutors of Jesus, that relative meaning which we have already found, Luke 15:31-32: the just, Levitically and theocratically speaking. This righteousness is nothing; it is the directest way to conduct to true righteousness; but on condition that a man does not rest in it. It thus affords a certain occasion for joy in heaven, this is implied in the comparative, joy more than..., but less joy, however, than the salvation of a single soul fully realized. That is already evident from the contrast established by this verse between the joy of heaven and the discontent of the Pharisees on occasion of the same event (Luke 15:1). The I say unto you has here, as everywhere, a special solemnity. Jesus speaks of heavenly things as a witness (John 3:11) and as an interpreter of the thoughts of God. The words in heaven embrace God and the beings who surround Him, those who are represented in the parable by the friends and neighbours. The conjunction ἤ supposes a μᾶλλον which is not expressed. This form is explained by the blending of two ideas: “ there is joy ” (hence the absence of μᾶλλον), “there is yet more than...” (and hence the ἤ). This form delicately expresses the idea indicated above, that there is also a certain satisfaction in heaven on account of the righteousness of sincere Israelites.

How can one help being struck with the manner in which Jesus, both in this parable and the two following, identifies His feelings and conduct absolutely with the feelings and the action of God Himself? The shepherd seeking, the woman finding, the father welcoming, is it not in His person that God accomplishes all those divine works?

This parable is placed by Matthew in the great discourse of chap. 18, and

Bleek cannot help acknowledging because of an association of ideas belonging purely to the evangelist himself. Indeed, the application which he makes of the lost sheep to the little ones (Luke 15:1-6; Luke 15:10; Luke 15:11 is an interpolation) is certainly not in keeping with the original sense of this parable. The original reference of this description to lost sinners, as Holtzmann says in the same connection, has been preserved by Luke. But how in this case are we to explain how Matthew has wrested the parable from its original meaning, if he copied the same document as Luke (Λ, according to Holtzmann)? Besides, how comes it that Matthew omits the following parable, that of the drachma, which Luke, according to this critic, takes, as well as the preceding, from the common document?