BY THE LATE REV. PROF. JOHN DUNCAN, LL.D., EDINBURGH.
(Hitherto Unpublished.)
The Parable of the Prodigal Son.—LUKE xv. 11-32.
* This sermon was delivered in the Free Buccleuch Church, Edinburgh, on Sabbath evening, 4th October, 1863.
THE teaching of Jesus, especially His teaching by parables, so full of condescension, attracted to Him a multitude, and that even of those who were not of the most respectable class—the publicans and sinners. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, but the publicans and sinners felt in Him an attraction. He could associate with them, teach them, and speak to them, altogether free from sin, altogether contrary to sin, and yet in such a way as drew the hearts of sinners to Him, making them feel at once that they dealt with one who was holy and one who was compassionate and kind; different from the austere sanctimoniousness of the Scribes and Pharisees—hypocrites who repelled by their sternness the people of whom they said: “This people, which knoweth not the law, is cursed.” Rabbi, with his long robe and fringes—the holy man, with a face as sour as vinegar and a heart sourer and bitterer still—had nothing about his religion to draw and attract. But when they saw the publicans and sinners coming to Jesus, they murmured. They were holy men, and they must keep by themselves; they could not bear the pollution of this accursed people which knew not the law. And He who would not enter into this, their judgment, showed to them what He was. “Like,” they would think, “draws to like; and you may judge of what kind of teacher Jesus is by the company which He keeps—publicans and sinners. And with all His fine teaching, it shows He has no such abhorrence of their character—no genuine virtue about Him—that He receiveth sinners; not only so, enters into social intercourse with them—’receiveth sinners and eateth with them.'”
Jesus addressed to them these three parables. The two first seem to have special reference to first conversion; the third, to the recovery of the backslider. The things that are lost—it is noticeable in the two first—are altogether passive. In the first of all it is the sheep that is lost, and the shepherd goes and finds it; the sheep does nothing but stray. In the second, in the same way, the piece of money is lost, and the woman lights a candle and goes and seeks till she finds it; the piece of money lies quiet all the while. In the third parable it is the son who comes to himself; “I will arise and go to my father.” Still, we need not restrict it to the case of the backslider. There are circumstances in it common to every case of repentance, and in it is a most fit description of repentance; as there is in the case of all the three parables, when we allow for what may be exclusively connected with the calling of the Gentiles.
I am not intending to explain the parable of the prodigal son, but only to make a few remarks on some particulars contained in it. There were the two sons, the elder and the younger, and the father, whose character we learn from the parable, must have been kind and indulgent. Discontented at home with the paternal roof, the younger son makes a proposal to the father: “Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me,” and we read that “He divided unto them his living.” The elder son was content to remain at home, and his conduct, for aught we know, seems to be justly represented in his own words, “Neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment.” If there was reference to the Jewish nation, then we may suppose our Lord to take the Scribes and Pharisees, according to their own judgment, “Neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment.” Allow it to be so. But the younger son would see the world; would go to distant climes. He gathered together his goods and took his journey into a far country, and soon he, who was discontented at home, “wasted his substance with riotous living.” These two circumstances agree well together as far as character generally goes. Discontentment with his father’s home could not, from the father’s character, have any other ground than the wish to be free from restraint, free to do what would not be permitted in a home so well regulated as his father’s was. So he, acting as he was likely to do, “wasted his substance with riotous living.” Then came the famine, and he went and hired himself to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. A young gentleman, evidently he, who had been at the top of all enjoyment amidst his riotous companions and lord of the board, is now a swineherd. And mark, this young gentleman is a Jew, and the swine is an unclean animal against which all his feelings of nationality and religion, if he had any, as it is likely he still retained some, provoke him. But this is what he has to do against the calls of hunger. “He began to be in want”—the very swine’s food he would have been glad to eat, but was not allowed. Then he “came to himself”—adversity taught its lesson. Experience, it is said, teaches fools, but it does not always. Not even experience is always a successful teacher; some are such fools that they will not learn even in that school. But in his case it had its effect; he came to himself. He had been acting like a madman before. He was like a madman to leave his father’s home and all the good he might have had there; like a madman, thus to spend his fortune out in this strange land in that riotous living, exposing himself first to degradation, and then to danger and death. It was, and he now felt it to be, acting like a madman.
Ah! sin is madness and folly, and now he counts it such. This long journey and riotous living, what was it? To see life; to see the world. Life! life! like a madman. And now he is a sadder but a wiser man—he came to himself. Now, all we are sinners; all of us left our Father’s home. The whole family of Adam in Adam was with God, before we belonged to the devil; and we left God and attached ourselves to Satan—joined him in his disobedience and rebellion. And so, even in the case of first repentance, it may be said that the sinner comes to himself, and says, “I will arise and go to my Father”—his father, at least, by creation. Now, if we be all such by nature, either we remain as this prodigal was, or now, like him, we have come to ourselves. Which is the case? Are we still far away from our Father’s home? We may be assured—consciousness, conscience itself might tell us; the Word of God tells us expressly what our natural character is—that we are by nature alienated from God by wicked works. Well, have we come to ourselves? When we come to ourselves, we begin to say, “How foolish, how mad, I have been.” Why, where was the wisdom in leaving your Father’s home? “What iniquity have ye found in me,” says your Father, “that ye are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity and are become vain?” What evil has God done you? Say, what good has the devil done you? If, as the Scripture says, the friendship of the world be enmity with God, what good has it done you to be its friend, and, in this friendship, God’s enemy? Is that a wise condition? Is it good? Is it right? But putting the “right” aside, is it wise? If there be holiness, justice, and goodness in God, does not reason as well as Scripture testify that we have sinned without cause? If there be omniscience and omnipotence in God, does reason not convince us that enmity against Him is a dangerous thing? “Who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered?” Shall the clay exalt itself against the potter? Shall feeble dust and ashes wage war against the arm of Omnipotence? Well, he came to himself and said, “How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger; I will arise and go to my father. Things are better at home than here.” Ah! yes; he sees at last, starving beside the trough, that his father’s home is a better place. There is plenty there, joy there; not these husks, not the swine-trough, not starvation, but plenty. And in thy Father’s home—thy Father, backslider, for such He is in a sense by creation; thou wast with Him, at least, in Eden, for we are all one race in unity of nature and unity of privilege and of covenant—thy Father’s home in this respect, that thou wert belonging to God before belonging to the devil, the world, and the flesh. Well, there is plenty in this Father’s home. “Ah! but I, foolish, left it.” “I will arise and go to my Father.”
Well, if he had not come to himself, this is the last thing that would have come into his mind. Without having come to himself, pride would have kept him away. “Ah, I will starve rather than go back. How will my father receive me? I could bear reproach much better. My father is a kind man, and if he receive me with open arms, that will be most humbling. No, no; let me not think of that!” But the man had come to himself, and so there might be misgivings, very likely there were, but there was a hope. “Ah, there is no one like my father yet, and there is no place yet like my father’s home. I was a fool to leave it; acknowledging it, I will go back. I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee.” In returning, he returns as a prodigal, a penitent prodigal, not hiding, not cloaking his sin. Till men come to themselves, they conceal and hide and cloak their sin. Guile, deceit, falsehood, is a cloak which men wrap over their sin. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” “I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” “I’ll make a clean breast of it; I will go back with shame, for it is fitting; to me belongeth shame and confusion of face, and so I will take it; the shame of my bashful countenance shall cover me, and I will speak low out of the ground.”
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee.” The sin is against heaven, for in the parable it is against an earthly father, and in the case of an earthly father, the sin is not only before the father, but also, and principally, against God; as David says, who had sinned grievously against Bathsheba and against Uriah, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” “And am no more worthy to be called thy son.” “That is a dignity and happiness which I cannot now aspire to; I have deprived myself of every right.” “Make me as one of thy hired servants.” “My father’s home! I am content to be a day labourer in my father’s home, if I am only at home. Ah! a lowly place befits one so degraded, and with that I shall be content, and will, though a born son, take the place of a hired servant.”
He said, “I will arise,” and he arose. Mark, when he came to himself, there was a good resolution, but you know the proverb that a certain place is paved with good resolutions, good resolutions not carried into effect. He said, “I will arise,” and he arose. Christ spake this parable: “A certain man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not—but afterwards he repented and went. And he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, Sir—and went not.” Which was the better son? He who did the will of his father. But this did better than either. He said, “I will arise,” and he arose. Is there anyone here who is saying now, who is beginning to come to himself or herself, and saying, “It is time to arise, I need to arise, I should arise?” Is there anyone come to, I will arise?” Perhaps there is someone saying, not only, “I should arise, but I must arise some time, for the famine will come.” The riotous living may be going on just now, and by riotous living, we are to understand all enjoyment that is not of God, but of the world. The riotous living may be going on, it may not have come to an end, but the famine will come, and the pigs and the husks will come. “I know it; I will need to arise then.” Death may come and say, “No, you must consult with me first.” But are you saying, “I must arise,” or “I will arise?” I hope some one or more may be saying this, but you must not halt there. “I must arise,” that is compulsion. “I will arise”; that looks like goodwill; that is a good thought. Now let the “I will arise” be followed by the arising. Up, up. You who are saying, “I will arise,” put not off till to-morrow, “I will arise to-morrow; I will arise when I go home to my closet.” Go there, but say, “I will arise now.” Your Father is in the closet; He has been waiting for you there long, perhaps all your days, and never been visited. But He is waiting here, and here still more than in the closet, for He, who sees in secret and will reward openly, says that He loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob; that is, that He has more pleasure, and is more abundantly present, in this assembly, than even in the closet.
“I will arise and go unto my father; and he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him.” Ah! though old men have not keen eyes—and it may be his eyes were dim with age—the loving heart gives keenness to the eyes. “Ha! there is my poor lost son coming back.” And the father “ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” And the son began his confession. Before he arose he had pondered what he was to say to his father, and all the way home he had been laying it to heart. It was not a mere form of words that he was going to say—the form of words he had laid to his heart. But his father would not allow him to finish. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants,” he was going to say, but he had not time; his father broke in, and the father said to his servants, “Bring forth the very best.” Not the place of a hired servant, but the very best.
Now, this is the reception given to a penitent, to a returning prodigal. It is through Jesus he is received—the Shepherd who has come to seek and find the lost. The Shepherd thus loves, and His loving Father thus receives the sinner coming to Him through Jesus Christ His Son.
And now there was a glad home—music and dancing, the fatted calf, eating and drinking, and mirth. The elder son, we will leave him to his bad humours. He would not call the prodigal his brother. “Thy son,” he said; “no brother of mine.” But the father is glad and the servants are glad. Well, there is joy in heaven before the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, it is said. And yet the angels’ joy is perhaps not what is principally intended. In the other cases, the man who had found the sheep called in his friends to rejoice with him, and the woman who found the piece of silver called in her friends and neighbours to rejoice with her. And so it is said, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” That is, God rejoices, and then, no doubt, all the angels looking on—all His friends—rejoice with Him. God the Father rejoices in heaven when a lost one is brought back; the Son of Man, who came to seek and save the lost, rejoices; the glorifier of Christ, the Holy Spirit, rejoices; holy angels rejoice, and, no doubt, glorified men. And why this joy? This is over what? “Over one sinner that repenteth.” O, sinner, sinner, you have a great thing in your power—a thing which no believer in this assembly has in his power; for “There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.” Yes, now the son has come home. I trow the fatted calf is not killed every day; music and dancing are not every day. The family is a happy family, and live happily day by day; but there is constant employment on the farm or estate which must be attended to. But the day of return is not a work day, but a feast day. Is there no sinner here—no one individual sinner—who would like to make all heaven ring for joy? Repent, repent, repent; and make all heaven shout at the sight.
And now, let us close with one more look at Jesus, with the publicans and sinners drawing round Him to hear Him. Ah! grace is poured into His lips. Who can speak to sinners as Jesus speaks? Who can give them the welcome that Jesus gives them? Ah! it cost Him dear to have such words to speak. He must die, the just for the unjust, ere ever He could have such words to speak to the lost ones, to the lost sheep whom He came to seek and save. Though His deriders said it, yet it is true: “He saved others; himself he cannot save.” Nay, for this not saving of Himself is the great necessity for His saving others. “The good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep,” and then He can say, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
May He lay His hand on thee, and seek and save thee! Ah! more confidence may I repose in Him than in you. And yet, O ye sinners, going astray, may you now be as sheep restored to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls!