Nuggets of Gold on the parable of the Prodigal Son

If you look in your Bible the parable is titled The Prodigal Son.   However, the story starts off with “a certain man had two sons.”  I used to read this story focusing on how I related to the older son, and only felt worse.  I missed the point.  When you read this story, focus on the father. 

In fact, the story can also be called The Prodigal Father.  Prodigal means “extravagant.”  The father in this story is a picture of your Heavenly Father, and His extravagant love towards you. You won’t find any father like this on earth.  Let's begin.

And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.'

In the Jewish culture of that day, for a son to ask his father for his inheritance and then leave was basically telling the father “I can’t wait for you to die, drop dead already I want it.” Being a Filipino, it is even looked down upon to leave home at 18!  Also note that this inheritance included land, and the savings of his grandpa and great-great grandpas.  

If you were in the crowd as Jesus was telling the story, you would hear the gasps.  His audience was under the Mosaic Law, which says a son who rebels against his father should be dragged out of the city and stoned (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).  Jesus is giving them a preview of the New Covenant, the Covenant you and I are now under – the Covenant of Grace.

The son wastes all his money (and loses all his friends - looks like they left when the money left!) and is in such a pathetic state that he gets featured on Dirty Jobs.  He ends up yearning for even the pig’s food.  And for a Jew to eat pig food in those days was like… a Jew eating pig food (gasp).  

But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!  I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father I have sinned against heaven and before you, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.  Make me like one of your hired servants.  And he arose and came to his father.”

The son finally got smart and went to his father.  Tradition has taught that the son came back to ask the father for forgiveness, because he really wanted to go back to the father.  But was he really going to his father because he was sorry?  No, he didn’t go back to the father’s house because he was sorry; he came back because he was hungry.  Read it again, the boy is rehearsing a speech!  His motives were all wrong.  But the father still accepted him. 

A friend of mine told me he only started going to church because they had free food. Today he’s sharing Jesus everywhere he goes! After all, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.  Another friend I know just went to church for the girls.  Little did he know he would be the author of a blog called “The nearly-too-good-to-be-true news” (just kidding!).   

So he arose and came to his father...

I can see the crowd as Jesus was sharing on the edge of their seat expecting the boy to be greeted with stones.  But that’s not what the boy got.  What he got was mercy – no, not just mercy, but grace.  Mercy is not getting the bad that you deserve.  Grace is getting the good that you don’t deserve – it’s both ways! 

But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him, and kissed him.

There are five things the father did here.  In Bible numerics, five is the number of grace. 

But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion…

Even when you’re far away from God, God still sees you.  And he’s not looking at you in a negative, fault-finding way.  No, when He sees you, He sees you with compassion.

Can you imagine the father, waiting day and night, looking on the horizon for his son?  When you love someone, you look at them.  It’s like when you’re talking to a friend, and then your crush walks into the room.  Your friend gets mad at you because you’re not listening, but you can’t help it, your eyes are on the one you love! 

And ran and embraced him, and kissed him.

The father ran!  For an old man to run was not only improper, but he also had to pull up his robes, exposing his undergarments.  It was shameful.  But the father didn’t care.  He ran.  And the Greek word for run here means “to sprint.”  The father sprinted towards the boy!  If I was the boy and saw the father running, I'd be like "oh shoot I'm dead!" and start running the other direction!  But this father was too fast.

This is the only time in the Bible that you will see God in a hurry.  He was in a hurry to embrace the boy.  And in the father’s strong embrace all the poison squeezes out.  All the bitterness and unforgiveness squeezes out.  All the harmful habits and insecurities squeeze out in the father’s embrace.  

You know why else the father ran?  He didn’t want the older son to get to him first.  If the older son saw the boy before the father, he would heap loads of condemning words on him, and the boy may never come back.

When these prodigal sons come back to church, let’s be quick to greet them.  Remind them that they are still the righteousness of God in Christ, still sons, and give them words of pure grace without one iota of guilt and condemnation (making them feel bad.)  Every time you try to make somebody feel bad, you have left the ministry of the Holy Spirit and are into something else.  God is not in it.  

If anyone had a right to be angry it was the father.  I’m so glad the boy didn’t even see his brother and went straight to the party.  The older brother just stayed outside and complained.  The first shall be last. 

After he embraced the boy, he kissed him.  But the Greek word for kiss here is “to kiss again and again.”  One kiss was not enough.  Keep in mind the boy smells like crap.  All this happened even before the boy said a word, even before he quote unquote repented. 

And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and 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, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.  And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry.’

Scroll back up to the son’s rehearsed speech.  Did you notice the part that was omitted?  “Make me like one of your hired servants.”  The father cut him off.  He didn’t want him to be a servant, but a son!  God does not want you, child of God, to try to earn His blessings.  

The son didn’t earn the robe of righteousness, the ring of authority, or the sandals to stand in the father’s presence or the big party!  How about you, are you trying to earn what God has freely given to you?  Are you trying to earn grace?  

This is what the older son was trying to do.  The older son thought because he had worked the fields he had more of a right to go to the father.  Because he’s been to church longer, went to every Bible study, and fasted all night that he deserved more.  

Nobody has more of a right than anybody else.  Some people think righteousness is like seating on an airplane: you have first class righteousness, business class and economy class.  As a born again believer, you are in Christ – and you have only first class righteousness in God’s eyes. 

Now there are two Greek words for son.  The first one is teknon, the other is huios.  An example is found in Romans 8:14,16.   

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons [huios] of God… The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children [teknon] of God. 

Throughout the Bible, you see the different uses of these words for son.  For example, Jesus was never referred to as a teknon.  You can therefore draw this conclusion.  Huios sons are the mature sons of God, and teknon are the sons who are just sons by mere fact of birth.  

In God's eyes, He sees two different kinds of sons.  A son “by mere fact of birth” and a “mature” son, a teknon and a huios. 

The father addresses both sons in the parable, the prodigal son in verse 24 and the older son in verse 31. 

15:24 - For this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.

15:31 - Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.

Would you like to know which words were used for each son?  The father called the prodigal son a “mature” son, and the older son a son “by mere fact of birth.”

God sees immature sons as those who try to relate to God based on their performance, on their good works and self-efforts.  The older son whined “these many years I have been serving you, I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me even a goat.”  

Why was the son serving the father?  He was a son, not a servant.  God cannot flow with self-righteous people.  Everyone who received a miracle from Jesus didn’t rely on their good name or reputation, but on His grace. 

On the other hand, God sees mature sons as those who have learned to humbly receive from God, freely.  They don’t have a performance mentality in their relationship with Him.  In fact a deeper definition of huios from the Greek Lexicon is “those who repose the same calm and joyful trust in God which children do their parents.”  

They just receive God’s love and blessings.  You can't give what you don't have; the biggest givers are the biggest receivers.  They have no self-righteousness, because they know it is all by God’s grace.  And if it’s by grace, there’s literally no room left to boast in yourself!

There is so much more in this story, but let me close with this last nugget of gold. 

And bring the fatted calf here and kill it

The father didn’t say go kill the fatted calf somewhere in the back.  He said bring the fatted calf here.  He wanted the boy to see the sacrifice that was made, to show the boy his worth - to show him that he is deeply loved.  

Everyday, we must remember what happened at the cross.  At the cross, your sin, my sin and all of mankind's were laid on Jesus.  And the price for that sin was great - it cost God His son.  At the cross, Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” so that today, beloved, you can cry out “My Father, my Daddy, you will never leave me, you will never forsake me.”