17<\/strong>. And when he came to himself<\/em> ] His previous state was that of his false self a brief delusion and madness ‘the old man with his affections and lusts.’ Now he was once more beginning to be “in his right mind.” “The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live,” Ecc 9:3<\/span>.<\/p>\n How many hired servants of my father’s<\/em> ] The hired servants correspond to any beings who stand in a lower or more distant relation to God, yet for whom His love provides.<\/p>\n He came to himself – <\/B>This is a very expressive phrase. It is commonly applied to one who has been deranged, and when he recovers we say he has come to himself. In this place it denotes that the folly of the young man was a kind of derangement – that he was insane. So it is of every sinner. Madness is in their hearts Ecc 9:3<\/span>; they are estranged from God, and led, by the influence of evil passions, contrary to their better judgment and the decisions of a sound mind.<\/P> Hired servants – <\/B>Those in a low condition of life – those who were not born to wealth, and who had no friends to provide for them.<\/P> I perish – <\/B>I, who had property and a kind father, and who might have been provided for and happy.<\/P> <\/p>\n Verse 17<\/span>. When he came to himself<\/B><\/I>] A state of sin<\/I> is represented in the sacred writings as a course of folly<\/I> and madness<\/I>; and repentance<\/I> is represented as a restoration to sound sense<\/I>. See this fully explained on Mt 3:2<\/span>.<\/P> <\/P> I perish with hunger!<\/B><\/I>] Or, I perish HERE<\/I>. , here<\/I>, is added by BDL, Syriac<\/I>, all the Arabic<\/I> and Persic, Coptic,<\/I> AEthiopic, Gothic, Saxon, Vulgate<\/I>, all the Itala<\/I>, and several of the fathers.<\/P><\/p>\n Every sinner is beside himself; his reason lackeys to his lust and passion, he is governed by appetite, and that rageth in him, while his understanding is blind, and cannot discern between good and evil; and when he hath in any measure discerned any thing, his will is stubborn, and chooseth the evil. Conversion is but the return of a soul to itself. The first thoughts of which conversion arise from a souls consideration, what a poor miserable creature it is, ready to perish for ever, while never a poor soul belonging to God, no, not the meanest servant in his family, wanteth any good thing that is necessary for him. These things increase in a soul thoughts of returning to his heavenly Father, through the operation of the Holy Spirit of God; for of ourselves we are not sufficient so much as to think one good thought. <\/P> <\/p>\n 17. came to himself<\/B>Before, hehad been “beside himself” (Ec9:3<\/span>), in what sense will presently appear. <\/P> How many hired,<\/B> &c.Whata testimony to the nature<\/I> of the home he had left! But did henot know all this ere he departed and every day of his voluntaryexile? He did, and he did not. His heart being wholly estranged fromhome and steeped in selfish gratification, his father’s house nevercame within the range of his vision, or but as another name forbondage and gloom. Now empty, desolate, withered, perishing, home,<\/I>with all its peace, plenty, freedom, dignity, starts into view, fillsall his visions as a warm and living reality, and breaks his heart.<\/P><\/p>\n And when he came to himself<\/strong>,…. An unregenerate man, whether while a voluptuous man, or a self-righteous man, is not himself; he is beside himself; and is no other than a madman. The man that pursues his worldly lusts and pleasures, promises himself liberty, while he is a slave; he ruins himself, his soul, body, and estate, and chooses to do it rather than part with his lusts; he takes delight in doing mischief himself, and in seeing it done by others; he proclaims his folly publicly, declares his sin, and glories in it; all which a man in his right mind would never do. The self-righteous person trusts in his own heart, which is the greatest madness and folly in the world; he compasses himself about with sparks of his own kindling, and sacrifices to his own net; he dresses himself in his rags, and pleases and prides himself with them, when a robe of righteousness, and garments of salvation, are provided; which no man in his senses would ever do. But when the Spirit of God comes to work upon a sinner’s heart in conversion, he brings him to himself; which a man may be said to be, when he is brought to true evangelical repentance for sin; and that is, when he has a true sense of it, as committed against God, and a godly sorrow for it, and makes an hearty and ingenuous acknowledgment of it, and forsakes it; and when he is brought to a sense of the insufficiency of his own righteousness, and is made willing to part with it, and desires to be found in Christ, and in his righteousness alone, which he is encouraged to lay hold on, and receive by faith, trust to, and rejoice in; when he has his spiritual senses exercised on Christ, and to discern between good and evil; and is brought to the feet of Jesus, as to submit to his righteousness, so to serve him; when he is all this, then, like the man in the Gospel, he is clothed, and in his right mind:<\/p>\n he said, how many hired servants of my father’s<\/strong>; who, according to some, were the Scribes and Pharisees, men of a servile disposition, and of mercenary views; and were, by profession, the servants of God, and had plenty of bread, because they had all the external means and ordinances: but these are designed by the elder brother in the parable; and besides, this man had endeavoured to live as they did in this far country. It may be queried, whether the ministers of the Gospel are not intended, since these are the servants of the most high God; are labourers hired by him, and are worthy of their hire, and abound with Gospel provisions for the service of others. But to this it may be objected, the desire of this man to be made as one of them, Lu 15:19<\/span> which petition expresses his humility; whereas to be a servant, in this sense, is to have the highest place and office in his father’s house. Rather therefore the meanest of the saints, and household of God, are here meant, who have the least degree of evangelical light, whose faith is weak, and their consolation small; and who, though they are sons, yet by reason of that legality and mercenariness that appear in their frames and services, differ little from servants: and yet these, in comparison of him, who was in a hungry and starving condition,<\/p>\n have bread enough, and to spare<\/strong>; as the doctrines, promises, and ordinances of the Gospel, the fulness of grace that is in Christ, and Christ himself the bread of life; which are more than enough for them, and sufficient for the whole family in heaven, and in earth; and even the meanest and weakest believer may be said to have enough and to spare, because he has an interest in all these; though by reason of the weakness of his faith, it is but now and then he has a full and comfortable meal; but this is infinitely better than to be starving, as this man was:<\/p>\n and I perish with hunger<\/strong>. The Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions add, “here”; in this far country, in the citizen’s fields, among his swine, and their husks: all mankind are in a lost and perishing condition; for having sinned against God, they have exposed themselves to the curses of the law, and are destitute of a justifying righteousness, and are in the way, to ruin and destruction; but all are not sensible of it, being ignorant of God, and his righteousness, of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and of the insufficiency of their own righteousness; but some are sensible of it, and in their own apprehensions are ready to perish: these see sin in its true light, without a view of pardon; an angry God without a smile; injured justice without a righteousness; and a broken law without a satisfaction for the violation of it; and such was this man’s case. The Jewish writers a say,<\/p>\n “a sinner is like to a son that runs away from his father, and turns his back upon him, who yet afterwards repents, and has a mind to return to his father’s house:”<\/p>\n so it was now with the publicans and sinners, signified by this man.<\/p>\n a R. Chayim in Lib. Chayim, par. 4. c. 6. apud Maii Jud. Theolog. loc 15. p. 243.<\/p>\n But when he came to himself <\/B> ( <\/SPAN><\/span>). As if he had been far from himself as he was from home. As a matter of fact he had been away, out of his head, and now began to see things as they really were. Plato is quoted by Ackerman (Christian Element in Plato<\/I>) as thinking of redemption as coming to oneself.<\/P> Hired servants <\/B> (<\/SPAN><\/span>). A late word from <\/SPAN><\/span> (hire). In the N.T. only in this chapter. The use of “many” here suggests a wealthy and luxurious home.<\/P> Have bread enough and to spare <\/B> ( <\/SPAN><\/span>). Old verb from <\/SPAN><\/span> and that from <\/SPAN><\/span> (around). Present passive here, “are surrounded by loaves” like a flood.<\/P> I perish <\/B> ( <\/SPAN><\/span>). Every word here counts: While I on the other hand am here perishing with hunger. It is the linear present middle of <\/SPAN><\/span>. Note <\/SPAN><\/span> expressed and <\/SPAN><\/span> of contrast. <\/P> <\/p>\n Came to himself. A striking expression, putting the state of rebellion against God as a kind of madness. It is a wonderful stroke of art, to represent the beginning of repentence as the return of a sound consciousness. Ackermann (” Christian Element in Plato “) observes that Plato thinks of redemption as a coming to one’s self; an apprehending of one’s self as existent; as a severing of the inmost being from the surrounding element. Several passages of Plato are very suggestive on this point. “He who bids a man know himself, would have him know his soul” (” Alcibiades, “1, 130).” ‘To see her (the soul) as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you should look upon her with the eye of reason, in her original purity, and then her beauty would be discovered, and in her image justice would be more clearly seen, and injustice, and all the things which we have described. Thus far we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present; but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the sea – God Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned, because his natural members are broken off and crushed, and in many ways damaged by the waves; and incrustations have grown over them of sea – weed and shells and stones, so that he is liker to some sea – monster than to his natural form. And the soul is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills : but not there, Glaucon, not there must we look’ “‘Where, then?'” ‘At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what converse she seeks, in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine; also, how different she would become, if wholly following this superior principle, and born by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock, which, in wild variety, grow around her, because she feeds upon earth, and is crusted over by the good things of this life as they are termed. Then would you see her as she is’ “(” Republic,” 611). <\/P> Have bread enough and to spare [ ] <\/SPAN><\/span>. Lit., abound in loaves. Wyc., plenty of loaves. <\/P> Perish. Better, I am perishing. The best texts insert w=de, here, in contrast with the father ‘s house, suggested by the father ‘s servants.<\/P> <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n HIS REPENTANCE V. 17-19 <\/p>\n 1) “And when he came to himself, he said,” <\/strong>(eis heauton de elthon ephe) “Then coming to himself he said,” indicating that he had been “beside himself,” coming, arousing to a state of sensibility, by the spirits conviction of a guilty, defiled conscience that was given to evil imaginations continually, Gen 6:5<\/span>; though like Saul he had “kicked against the pricks,” Act 9:5<\/span>.<\/p>\n 2) “How many hired servants of my father’s,” <\/strong>(posoi misthioi tou patros mou) “How many hired servants of my father’s;” He recalled the father’s compassionate care and mercy, and provision for the servants back home, now better fed, better clothed, and better sheltered than he was. Even his father’s servants did not have to steal to have satisfying food. The lesson is that a servant of God, the Father, is eternally richer than a run away sinner. A thief who steals food from his employer.<\/p>\n 3) “Have bread enough and to spare,” <\/strong>(perisseuontou arton) “Have abundance of bread,” not husks, an excess of bread. What a testimony to the kind of home, not realizing what the bondage of sin held for him in loneliness, hunger, remorse, and deserted fair-weather friends, until he had “spent all,” and came to be (to exist) in want, impoverished, Pro 28:13<\/span>, knowing the “way of the transgressor is hard,”<\/p>\n 4) “And I perish with hunger!” <\/strong>(ego de limo hode apollumai) “Yet I am perishing with hunger.” Because of the quality of food. In exclamatory emotions he said it! Evidently sobbing with shame and remorse, and regret he said it! In repentance of soul he said it!!! Though a son, he now realized the folly, the vanity, and the futility of sin, a thing sinners must come to realize before they can be saved. The husks of the world do not satisfy the soul. A remorseful recognition of and regret for sin is the first element <\/strong>of repentance.<\/p>\n 17. And when he came to himself. Here is described to us the way in which God invites men to repentance. If of their own accord they were wise, and became submissive, he would draw them more gently; but as they never stoop to obedience, till they have been subdued by the rod, he chastises them severely. Accordingly, to this young man, whom abundance (534) rendered fierce and rebellious, hunger proved to be the best teacher. Instructed by this example, let us not imagine that God deals cruelly with us, if at any time he visits us with heavy afflictions; for in this manner those who were obstinate and intoxicated with mirth are taught by him to be obedient. In short, all the miseries which we endure are a profitable invitation to repentance. (535) But as we are slow, we scarcely ever regain a sound mind, unless when we are forced by extreme distress; for until we are pressed by difficulties on every hand, and shut up to despair, the flesh always indulges in gaiety, or at least recoils. Hence we infer, that there is no reason to wonder, if the Lord often uses violent and even repeated strokes, in order to subdue our obstinacy, and, as the proverb runs, applies hard wedges to hard knots. It must also be observed, that the hope of bettering his condition, if he returned to his father, gave this young man courage to repent; for no severity of punishment will soften our depravity, or make us displeased with our sins, till we perceive some advantage. As this young man, therefore, is induced by confidence in his father’s kindness to seek reconciliation, so the beginning of our repentance must be an acknowledgment of the mercy of God to excite in us favorable hopes. <\/p>\n (534) “ L’aise et la trop grande abondance;” — “ease and too great abundance.” <\/p>\n (535) “ Ce sont autant d’avertissemens proufitables, par lequel Dieu nous convie a repentance;” — “they are so many profitable warnings, by which God invites us to repentance.” <\/p>\n (17) And when he came to himself.<\/strong>The phrase is wonderfully suggestive. The mans guilt was, that he had been self-indulgent; but he had been living to a self which was not his true self. The first step in his repentance is to wake as out of an evil dream, and to be conscious of his better nature, and then there comes the memory of happier days which is as Sorrows crown of sorrow. The hired servants are obviously those who serve God, not in the spirit of filial love, but from the hope of a reward. Even in that lower form of duty they find what satisfies their wants. They have not the craving of unsatisfied desire which the son feels who has cast away his sonship. He envies them, and would fain be as they are.<\/p>\n 17<\/strong>. <\/strong> Came to himself<\/em> For all this time he has been in an insanity or a dream. Would it were so; for then he would have been unfortunate or irresponsible. Had he but waked in the morning from a troubled dream, he would have smiled over his own imaginary miseries, and have gone down in a sweet morning innocence to meet his father’s kiss, from lips that spoke of love but not of forgiveness. <\/p>\n He said<\/em> The he <\/em> who says this is the God-given reason, <\/em> the secret conscience; long silent or unheard, now awakened by suffering, and speaking. <\/p>\n Hired servants<\/em> He thinks of hired servants <\/em> because that has been so long his own condition. His father had, it seems, no slaves. The Greek word here is . See note on Luk 7:2<\/span>. Commentators make a very needless difficulty of the explanations of this word hired servants <\/em> in the true economy of grace. If it be true that all our salvation is of grace, it is equally true that the saved are rewarded according to their works. <\/em> God pays <\/em> man for his services. And this none the less from the fact that he provides for man all his power, and confers upon his works all their rewardable value. See note on Luk 19:16<\/span>. We may note, first, <\/em> That the hired servants <\/em> in the father’s house, are the Church; second, <\/em> they labor for him, <\/em> and by him are rewarded with the true bread; third, <\/em> they have no right, as from birth, in the house, and are only adopted members of the family. All these traits are plainly to be found in converted Gentiles; and thus here we have again the defence of our Lord for receiving sinners, <\/em> that is, Gentiles, whose coming to him on the banks of the Jordan at these times had excited the murmurings of the scribes and Pharisees. (Luk 15:1-2<\/span>.) Not only St. James but St. Paul in the right passage will say that men are justified by works. <\/em> The son was a laborer as well as the hireling.<\/p>\n “But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger!’ ”<\/p>\n But while feeding and looking after the pigs he had plenty of time to think, and eventually he ‘woke up’. He ‘came to himself’. He recognised what a fool he had been, and what a fool he now was, and how he had sinned against his father, and against God. These latter were the marks of genuine repentance. And he also recognised how well off his father’s servants were compared with his own position. He had not only forfeited his sonship (in Jewish eyes he had forfeited it the moment that he began to use his inheritance recklessly and disobediently instead of for the family honour) but he had even fallen to a level below his father’s lowest servant. At least they were properly clothed and well fed, while he starved and was in rags.<\/p>\n What a difference there now was from the arrogant young man who had so loudly demanded his inheritance. Now he was humbled and willing to be a servant. There was a lesson here even for the disciples. For Jesus was constantly telling His own disciples that they must learn to desire to be servants (Luk 22:24-27<\/span>). And it had all been brought about by adversity. The fire that Jesus had kindled (Luk 12:49<\/span>) was working on his life.<\/p>\n Luk 15:17-19<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>When he came to himself, &<\/em><\/strong>c.<\/strong> That is, to a true sense, through grace, of his present state, and the right use of his reason, which had before been dethroned and extinguished by the mad intoxications of sensual pleasure. When he says, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, <\/em>means, that God was, (speaking after the manner of men) injured or insulted by his sins; and injured also in the person of his earthly father; and certainly the common sentiment of mankind teaches this, that whoever is insolent or disrespectful to his parents, rebels against God, who, by making themthe instruments of communicating life to their children, has imparted to them some ofhis own paternal honour. Dr. Goodman observes, This was an acknowledgement, that his father’s yoke had been so easy, that his throwing it off had been an act of rebellion against God; and it shewed also, that his heart was touched with a sense, not only of the folly, but of the guilt of his conduct; and that the fear of God <\/em>began to take hold of him. Having the idea of his undutiful behaviour strongly impressed on his mind, he was sensible that he had no title to be treated at home as a Son: <\/em>at the same time he knew, that it would never be well with him, till he was in his father’s family again; so with joy he entertained the thought of occupying the meanest station in it;Make me, <\/em>or treat me, as one of thy hired servants; <\/em>which he mentions, not because such servants fared worse than slaves, but because himself had been a hired servant; and therefore he naturally compared his own condition with those of that rank in his father’s family.Thus while the liberality of the great parent of men is so grossly abused that they run away from his family, the miseries in which theyinvolve themselves, often, through the grace and spirit of God, prevail upon them to return. By the natural consequences of sin, God in his pity and love frequently makes sinners feel that there is no felicity to be found any where but in himsel <\/p>\n 17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Ver. 17. And when he came to himself<\/strong> ] For till then he had been beside himself, and not his own worthy. Nebulo<\/em> rascal (saith one) cometh of Nabal; fool of : et<\/em> are of near affinity. Evil is Hebrew for a fool, &c. Wickedness is called the “foolishness of madness,” Ecc 7:25<\/span> . <\/p>\n 17 20.<\/strong> ] His penitence<\/em> . And here we have a weighty difference between the permitted rational free will of man, and the stupid wandering on of the sheep, or the inanimate coin lying till it is picked up, both these being however true, did not God seek and save the sinner:<\/em> ‘the grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will.’ Article X. of the Church of England.<\/p>\n 17. <\/strong> <\/strong> ] Similar expressions seem to occur in the Heb. Deu 30:1<\/span> (where Sy [97] . renders “Redi in temetipsum;” but Gesen. understands an accus. “si revocabis ea”); 1Ki 8:47<\/span> ; Isa 46:8<\/span> . Before this, he was beside himself<\/em> . The most dreadful torment of the lost, in fact that which constitutes their state of torment, will be this , when too late for repentance.<\/p>\n [97] The Peschito (or simple) Syriac version. Supposed to have been made as early as the second century<\/em> . The text as edited is in a most unsatisfactory state.<\/p>\n He now recalls the peace and plenty of his Father’s house<\/em> .<\/p>\n <\/strong> ,<\/strong> for he now was a , but in how different a case!<\/p>\n Luk 15:17<\/span> . = either, realising the situation; or, coming to his true self, his sane mind (for the use of this phrase vide<\/em> Kypke, Observ.<\/em> ). Perhaps both ideas are intended. He at last understood there was no hope for him there, and, reduced to despair, the human, the filial, the thought of home and father revived in the poor wretch. : passive, with gen. of the thing; here only in N.T. = are provided to excess, have more given them than they can use.<\/p>\n came to himself. Compare “came to his father” (Luk 15:20). <\/p>\n to. Greek. eis. App-104. <\/p>\n have bread enough and to spare, or abound in food. <\/p>\n I perish = I (emph.) am perishing. <\/p>\n with hunger = from the famine. The texts add hode = here. <\/p>\n 17-20.] His penitence. And here we have a weighty difference between the permitted rational free will of man, and the stupid wandering on of the sheep, or the inanimate coin lying till it is picked up,-both these being however true, did not God seek and save the sinner: the grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will. Article X. of the Church of England.<\/p>\n Luk 15:17. , to) The supply of foods that ministered to the scattering of his senses (which the French not inappropriately term se divertir, [the word diversion implying that one is thereby turned aside from self-inspection]) had now failed. The commencement of his return to himself is immediately linked to the height of his misery: it is by the latter that his mad recklessness in sin is cooled down, so that the man returns to himself, and presently after [also] to God. His repentance is his conversion.-[ , but I here) The word, , after , has the force of here, emphatically.-Not. Crit.]<\/p>\n The Return to the Father<\/p>\n But when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my fathers have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father.Luk 15:17-20.<\/p>\n 1. This is one of a group of three parables which our Lord delivered at one time, for one purpose, while He sat surrounded by representatives of three great classes of listeners.<\/p>\n First, Jesus had of course close around Him the circle of His chosen Apostles. To them it was a parable of faithof the faith they were about to be sent forth to preach to all the children of God scattered abroad. Secondly, pressing eagerly through the disciples, who had been taught by the Lord not to repel them, there drew unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him; that is, the great world of sinners, who knew themselves to be sinners, but in whom (because they are not self-righteous) the Incarnate Word discerned a readiness for repentance and faith. To themdespairing of themselves, and encouraged in their despair by their teachersit was, above everything, a parable of hope. Thirdly, this parable was heard by those who counted themselves righteous and despised others. Present as critics, not as hungering and thirsting learners, the group of Pharisees stood aloof. Having no sympathy with humanity at large, they murmured at the Son of Man for giving welcome to an audience which included prostitutes and cheats. To them it was certainly a parable of charity.<\/p>\n 2. The parable has been aptly and beautifully called the evangel within the evangelthe heart of the Gospel of Jesus. If our Lord had only appeared on earth and given utterance to this one gracious story, He would have conferred on humanity an unspeakable boon and completely altered our views of God and man, of sin and of destiny. The salient message of the parable is unmistakable. The hunger at the heart of God for the return of the prodigal and the hunger at the heart of the prodigal for God and homethat is the broad, patent, outstanding truth.<\/p>\n The thoughts suggested by the passage may be grouped under three titles<\/p>\n I.Reflection.<\/p>\n II.Repentance.<\/p>\n III.Restoration.<\/p>\n I<\/p>\n Reflection<\/p>\n When he came to himself. The prodigal had not been himself when he begged his father to advance him his patrimony, nor when he wasted his substance in riotous living. During that unhappy time, when he wandered into a far country, and consorted with swine, and human beings who lived like swine, he had lost or forgotten himself. As soon as he came to himself, he rose and went to his father. So then, according to our Lords parable, a man turns to God at once when his mind is in a healthy state. It is natural for man to be religious; and if he is not, there is probably something wrong with him.<\/p>\n For religion is holiness, and holiness is health. When some one whom we love is cross or irritable, we say of him, Hes not himself to-day. When one whom we have known for years does something unworthy, we say, Ah, thats not himself at all. And what is that but our instinctive certainty that a man is more than his vices or his failures, and that if we want to know him as he is, we must take him at the level of his best? It was always thus that Jesus judged humanity. He was a magnificent and a consistent optimist. He never made light of sin, never condoned it. To Him it was always terrible and tragic. But then the sinner was not the real man; sin was a bondage, a tyranny, a madness; and it was when the tyranny of sin was broken that a man came to his true self.<\/p>\n 1. The prodigals repentance began in a self-colloquyan interior conversation, an examination of his conscience by himself: it is a confession to himself. Repentance always begins in thoughtful interior soliloquy; and all soliloquy, as Shaftesbury has said in his Characteristics, is an inward dialogue, is really a colloquy. The profoundest and the purest thinking of individual men has not only been in this form, but it has been communicated to their fellow-men, and handed over to our use in the shape of dialogue. The work of Socrates was done by dialogue. The written works of Plato are cast in the form of conversations, in which it is plain that he has made himself the thinker in each converser. It is enough to say that Shakespeare is a dramatist, and that Faust is a play. The most universally used and the most helpful of all ascetical treatises, The Imitation of Christ, is given for our use in the form of interior colloquies. The younger brother of Gods household, the Gentile Humanity, summed up in the famous words, Know thyself, the conclusion of his search for the right end of human thinking. The elder brother, Circumcised Humanity, utters the same conclusion in the words of his own Psalmist, Commune with thine own heart. O what heaps of filth, cries one who has entered as deeply into the Gentile spirit as into the Jewish spirit, and what foul disorder there must necessarily be in a breast which is never looked into!1 [Note: T. Hancock.] <\/p>\n There is hope for the worst of men if they begin to reflect. Reflection is the first step on the ladder which leads a sinner up to Godthe first step on the bridge which he crosses over to return to God. The Scripture bids us consider our ways. This is what the prodigal did, and it ended in his return to his father.<\/p>\n A famous Bishop once made this appeal to a wild young man: Promise me that you will do this one thing to oblige me. Go and shut yourself up in an empty room for the whole of one day. He did so to please the Bishop. Having nothing whatever in the room to take his attention, it forced him to reflect, and in the end to repent and to reform.2 [Note: H. G. Youard.] <\/p>\n 2. What did the prodigal reflect on?<\/p>\n (1) He reflected on his present miserable condition.He stood there solitary in the field. His clothes were torn into rags, his eyes were sunken in their sockets, his cheeks were hollow, his lips were parched and cracked; he looked the very effigy of famine itself. The swine were feeding around him: he was gnawing at the husks which the swine had tossed out of the troughs with their snouts. And no man gave unto him.<\/p>\n We can hardly enter into the shudder of horror which passed through the listening group when they heard Jesus declare that the starving young Jew joined himself to a rich Gentile swine farmer, that he forced himself a willing bondsman upon the foreigner, that he stuck to him, that he would not be denied. He who began by asking his father to give him everything, now prays to his enemy to allow him anything. The proud child of Abraham receives an insult, and grasps at it thankfully. He is sent, as if he were a slave, into the aliens fields to feed swine.<\/p>\n How admirably has Watts represented the Prodigal Son as an example of the larger liberty which sin offers to the deluded soul, and which ends in destitution and in the company of the swine. He is resting at the foot of a huge fig-tree whose leaves overshadow his nakedness from the scorching sun, in a woebegone attitude, feeling to the full the wretchedness of his position, with a most expressive countenance full of sadness and remorse, bethinking himself of the bread enough in his fathers house and to spare, while he perishes for lack of food, and there is no one to pity or help him. His forlorn, destitute look shows the ruin of a nature so noble that it cannot be content with its circumstances, but recalls a happier and worthier condition. The contrast between the two natures, the human and the swinish, is brought out with subtle power. The swine lying in indolent sensual enjoyment on the ground show the satisfaction of creatures that are at home in their circumstances, whose wants are bounded by their nature, and supplied in the wilderness where man finds nothing suitable for him. Man has a larger nature than any husks of the worlds good things can feedwhich nothing that God can giveno creature goodnothing but God Himself can satisfy. And therefore he is miserable even when worldly things are most favourable to him, until he has come to himself, and resolved that he will arise and go to his Father, and to the true home of his spirit.1 [Note: Hugh Macmillan, Life-Work of G. F. Watts, 165.] <\/p>\n (2) He reflected on his past error and folly.He saw what was the genesis of his whole miserable condition: he ought never to have left his fathers home. That was the beginning of his undoing; and, if he was ever to be saved, he must get back to where he started from. Why! he says: in my fathers house the very servants have enough and to spare, whilst I, his son, perish with hunger. In the past he had been stinted in nothing, and now he was dying from hunger. The truth dawned upon him. He saw not only his perilous condition but the reason for it. The insane man had become sane.<\/p>\n At St. Helena the Emperor turns upon Gourgaud with pathetic truth: You speak of sorrow, you! And I! What sorrows have I not had! What things to reproach myself with! You at any rate have nothing to regret. And again: Do you suppose that when I wake at night I have not bad momentswhen I think of what I was, and what I am?1 [Note: Lord Rosebery, Napoleon, the Last Phase, 49.] <\/p>\n Why feedest thou on husks so coarse and rude?<\/p>\n I could not be content with angels food.<\/p>\n How camest thou companion to the swine?<\/p>\n I loathed the courts of heaven, the choir divine.<\/p>\n Who bade thee crouch in hovel dark and drear?<\/p>\n I left a palace wide to hide me here.<\/p>\n Harsh tyrants slave who made thee, once so free?<\/p>\n A fathers rule too heavy seemed to me.<\/p>\n What sordid rags float round thee on the breeze?<\/p>\n I laid immortal robes aside for these.<\/p>\n An exile through the world who bade thee roam?<\/p>\n None, but I wearied of a happy home.<\/p>\n Why must thou dweller in a desert be?<\/p>\n A garden seemed not fair enough to me.<\/p>\n Why sue a beggar at the mean worlds door?<\/p>\n To live on Gods large bounty seemed so poor.<\/p>\n What has thy forehead so to earthward brought?<\/p>\n To lift it higher than the stars I thought.2 [Note: R. C. Trench, Poems, 234.] <\/p>\n (3) He recalled the privileges and the happiness of the home on which he so lightly turned his back. The poor prodigalhomeless, friendless, starvingremembered his home, his fathers loving care of him, his mothers tender schooling. He could see, as in a vision, the old house where he was born, the garden where he played as a child, the flowers that he had trained, the trees that he had climbed. He had grown tired of home; now how he longed to see it once more! In his fathers house there was plenty of bread and to spare, and the loving ministry of his parents.<\/p>\n The German poet tells us of a robber who, in his lawless stronghold beside the Rhine, remembered the days when he, a little child, could not sleep unless his mother had kissed him. Danton, one of the blood-stained leaders of the French Revolution, thought lovingly in his latter days of the little village where he was born, and visited the simple farm where he spent his childhood. Napoleon, a crushed and ruined man, could recall with a sigh the day when he received his first communion in his innocent boyhood long ago. Many a one in his hour of remorse and misery has echoed the words of JobOh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness; as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle.1 [Note: W. Buxton, The Battle of Life, 112.] <\/p>\n Does that lamp still burn in my Fathers house<\/p>\n Which he kindled the night I went away?<\/p>\n I turned once beneath the cedar boughs,<\/p>\n And marked it gleam with a golden ray;<\/p>\n Did he think to light me home some day?<\/p>\n Hungry here with the crunching swine,<\/p>\n Hungry harvest have I to reap;<\/p>\n In a dream I count my Fathers kine,<\/p>\n I hear the tinkling bells of his sheep,<\/p>\n I watch his lambs that browse and leap.<\/p>\n There is plenty of bread at home,<\/p>\n His servants have bread enough and to spare;<\/p>\n The purple wine-fat froths with foam,<\/p>\n Oil and spices make sweet the air,<\/p>\n While I perish hungry and bare.<\/p>\n Rich and blessed those servants, rather<\/p>\n Than I who see not my Fathers face!<\/p>\n I will arise and go to my Father:<\/p>\n Fallen from sonship, beggared of grace,<\/p>\n Grant me, Father, a servants place.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poems, 251.] <\/p>\n II<\/p>\n Repentance<\/p>\n 1. Repentance means a change of mind, so that we hate the evil which we once loved; we shrink from the bad company in which we delighted; we go back to the God whom we neglected; we turn from the cup of sinful pleasure as from poison. It will not do for us to remain with the swine and the filth of sin, and bewail that we are not clean. If we would be clean we must leave the dirty ways; we must arise. The prodigal made up his mind at once. He did not hesitate as to what he should do; he did not try to join himself to yet another citizen of the far country, or to seek some other sin. There was only one thing for him to do, and he did it.<\/p>\n In illustration of the change in life and position which this meant, the story of Marie Antoinette has been told, how she took off her old robes and put on new, as she entered France to become its queen. It just meant that she had put off the Austrian princess, and put on the French queen. So it is to be with us. Our repentance must mean a new life, in the freedom of sons. It must mean amendment of heart, and character, and will: the putting off of the old man, the putting on of the new.2 [Note: V. L. Johnstone, Sonship, 66.] <\/p>\n 2. The prodigal said to himself: I will arise, and go, and say. What is the meaning of these three expressions? They are of the simplest kind and belong to the common vocabulary of everyday life. Yet there is contained in them a perfect description of what is required of every man in the act of repentance. Every man who repents him truly of his former sins must first arisemust then goand must then say.<\/p>\n (1) I will arise. That means strictly stand upright. For sin drags a man downwards, and the first step towards repentance from sin is to refuse to remain at the low level to which one has sunk. Get on your legs! Look up to Heaven, to the God and Father of us all! We know that, even as regards our bodies, it means something to keep them from bending and stooping towards the ground. We know that the downcast look and the drooping head are to be avoided. Only when we are in grief, or in disgrace, are these postures allowable. We see, then, that even our bodies teach us the need of uprightness. But this lesson, which even our bodies teach us, is in like manner the first lesson which the soul has to learn in the act of repentance. Repentance is, in the first instance, a looking upward, a standing upright. It consists in saying, I will not wallow any more on the ground. I feel that there is something within me which requires to be lifted above the level to which I have hitherto descended. Why should I not look beyond my past experiences to a better and higher life in the future?<\/p>\n I spent a very interesting and on the whole a very encouraging time in Northampton. I preached twiceonce on Sunday at the dedication of St. Crispins, and once on Sunday at St. Sepulchres. It certainly was a great fact to see two hundred and fifty bona-fide Northampton shoemakers filling nearly half the new church; and to have pointed out to me churchwardens and committee-men, zealous Churchmen and communicants, who two years ago were fierce Bradlaughites and infidels. I talked with one of these. I shall not easily forget the quiet earnestness and modesty of the man, nor the way he spoke of his conversion through hearing a sermon on the Prodigal Son. It was that, he said, that did it. I felt at the moment what a Divine unending power there is in that great word of Christ. How mightier than all our words and deeds! How often in the worlds history has that word, I will arise and go to my Father, moved hearts that nothing else could move?1 [Note: Life of Archbishop Magee, ii. 204.] <\/p>\n I will arise, repenting and in pain;<\/p>\n I will arise, and smite upon my breast<\/p>\n And turn to thee again;<\/p>\n Thou choosest best;<\/p>\n Lead me along the road Thou makest plain.<\/p>\n Lead me a little way, and carry me<\/p>\n A little way, and hearken to my sighs,<\/p>\n And store my tears with Thee,<\/p>\n And deign replies<\/p>\n To feeble prayers;O Lord, I will arise.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poems, 251.] <\/p>\n (2) I will go. That means strictly, I will go on a journey. The man must not only stand upright in his present position, he must take up a new position. Now this new position is a long way off from the position which he at present occupies, and therefore a journey is required. Indeed the chief source of his unhappiness has now come to be precisely this very fact, that though he hates his former sins, he is still living in the midst of those sins. He is there where he ought not to befar, far away from his Fathers house, a stranger in a strange land. So then all his efforts must be concentrated on a removal of himself, of his body not less than his soul, from the hateful house of bondage in which he is at present dwelling. I will go, he says, leave it all behind me, place myself out of its reach. And so he girds up his loins, takes with him his weapons, and starts on his journey.<\/p>\n Mr. Spurgeon, after preaching on Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean, received the following letter:<\/p>\n I feel so happy to tell you that the Lord has pardoned a poor outcast of society. I got into your place, in a crowd, hoping nobody would see me. I had been out all night, and was miserable. While you were preaching about the leper, my whole life of sin rose up before me. I saw myself worse than the leper, cast away by everybody; there is not a sin I was not guilty of. As you went on, I looked straight away to Jesus. A gracious answer came, Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven. I never heard any word of your sermon, I felt such joy to think that Jesus died even for a poor harlot. Long ere you get this letter, I trust to to be on the way to my dear home I ran away from. Do please pray for me that I may be kept by Gods almighty power. I can never thank you enough for bringing me to Jesus.<\/p>\n If it had not been for that sentence about going home, said Mr. Spurgeon, I might have had some doubts concerning her conversion; but when a fallen girl goes home to her father and mother it is a sure case.2 [Note: Mrs. Spurgeon, Life of C. H. Spurgeon, iv. 32.] <\/p>\n One of the saddest letters in all literature is a letter written by our own poet, David Gray. David Gray was born eight miles from Glasgow; he went to the Free Church Normal in that city. His honest father would have made a preacher of him, but God forestalled that by making him a poet. Well, nothing would satisfy David but he must go to London. He suffered much there and fell into consumption. And this is one of his last letters home:Torquay, Jan. 6, 1861. Dear Parents,I am coming homehome-sick. I cannot stay from home any longer. Whats the good of me being so far from home and sick and ill? O God! I wish I were home never to leave it more! Tell everybody that I am coming backno better: worse, worse. Whats about climate, about frost or snow or cold weather, when ones at home? I wish I had never left it. I have no money, and I want to get home, home, home. What shall I do, O God! Father, I shall steal to you again, because I did not use you rightly. Will you forgive me? Do I ask that? I have come through things that I shall never tell to anybody but you, and you shall keep them secret as the grave. Get my own little room ready quick, quick; have it all tidy, and clean, and cosy, against my homecoming. I wish to die there, and nobody shall nurse me except my own dear mother, ever, ever again. O home, home, home!1 [Note: G. H. Morrison, Sunrise, 10.] <\/p>\n (3) I will say. Our lifes journey is not to be all toil and travel; but our souls, in the course of the progress they are making, must break forth into an expression of themselves to God, must relieve themselves by an utterance of their entire repentance and of their earnest longing for forgiveness. I will say, I will tell the Father all that I have been longing to make known to Him ever since I began to stand upright. Full, frank, free and open, shall be my confession of my past sins. Asking nothing from Him except to be forgiven, willing to take my place merely as a hired servant in His house, I will pour forth my whole soul before Him. I will cast my burden upon Him, and trust to Him to deal with me as He thinks fit. And I will choose the best words I can bring to my mind. I will select the most suitable forms of language known to me, by means of which to show my thankfulness to the Father who has so greatly loved me. I will say. Let it be an apt utterance, even if but a homely one. I will not excuse myself by urging that it is enough if I feel and think, but I will take every pains, and leave untried no effort, so that I may render up to God the heart of a true penitent who is yet not satisfied, unless, together with his hearts worship, he can offer up also prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.<\/p>\n Professor George Milligan, in his volume on Greek Papyri, (p. 94), quotes a striking letter from a prodigal son to his mother written from Fayum sometime in the second century of our era. The letter which is now in the Berlin Museum runs:<\/p>\n Antonius Longus to Nilous his mother; many greetings. I continually pray for your health. Each day I direct supplication on your behalf to the Lord Serapis. I wish you to know that I had no hope that you would come up to the metropolis. On this account neither did I enter into the city. And I was ashamed to come to Karanis because I am going about in rags. I am writing to let you know that I am naked. I beseech you, mother, be reconciled to me. But I know what I have brought upon myself. Punished I have been in any case. I know that I have sinned.<\/p>\n The pathetic letter, which is incomplete, breaks off with these words:<\/p>\n Come thyself. I have heard that I beseech thee I almost I beseech thee I will not do otherwise.<\/p>\n III<\/p>\n Restoration<\/p>\n 1. In this wonderful picture, Jesus has given us the most attractive and most perfect image of God that came from His lips. That longing and looking for His lost ones return; the going out to meet him; the kiss of welcome and the fond embrace; the prompt, frank, and complete forgiveness; the utter silence and forgetfulness concerning the evil and shameful past, as if it had never been; the festal robes and the rejoicing guests; the infinite tenderness, delicacy, and sweetness of it all, make up an appealing and affecting portrait which chains our admiration, stirs our deepest hearts, and goes beyond all thought. We feel that there is something far more than human in this. It is the beauty of God; it is the unspeakable grace of the Divine Fatherhood; and it is the great, pitiful, forgiving heart of God that the story brings to view, and that stands for ever prominent in our thoughts of it.<\/p>\n A lad from the north country strayed or stole into one of our great London cathedrals. He was lonely, dejected, friendless, and ashamed. He had sown his wild oats and a good many other thingsgambled, drunk, and fooled away money, health, and character. Disgraced, hungry, desperate, and broken-hearted, he crept in with the vast congregation to the sacred building. The preacher read the lesson for the day. It was this incomparable parable. He read it without comment, but with clear and impassioned elocution. The outcast drank it all in with ears and heart strained to intensity; and when it was finished, forgetting the place, people, and everything else, he cried out audibly, Eh, but yon was a grand old man! And the whole world of Bible-readers have said substantially the same thing when they came to this imperishable picture.1 [Note: J. G. Greenhough, Parables of Jesus, 393.] <\/p>\n 2. Though the prodigal sins, yet, as the parable shows, the fatherly heart never changes. The separation between man and God, the separation between us and God, has always been on one side onlyon ours. Be ye reconciled to God. It is this unshaken certainty of the Fatherhood of God that can save man at his worst from despair. Gods forgiveness is not indeed weakness, an easy overlooking of sin. To know what sin is in itself must make that thought impossible. But forgiveness is Gods delight in seeing His children realize their sonship; it is Gods welcome home to them.<\/p>\n Spake our Lord: If one draw near<\/p>\n Unto Godwith praise and prayer<\/p>\n Half a cubit, God will go<\/p>\n Twenty leagues to meet him so.<\/p>\n He who walketh unto God,<\/p>\n God will run upon the road,<\/p>\n All the quicklier to forgive<\/p>\n One who learns at last to live.2 [Note: Sir Edwin Arnold.] <\/p>\n A great preacher used to tell the story of a farmer he knew. His daughter ran away from home, once, twice, three times, and on going into the county town one day he was told that she was up before the magistrate for disorderly conduct. His landlord sat on the bench, and said: Mr. So-and-so, we all respect you; take your daughter home. But the old man said: She is no daughter of mine any longer. I forgave her once, I took her back twice, but when she went away the third time I gathered my people together in family worship and took my knife and cut her name out of the family Bible.<\/p>\n 3. The Fathers welcome exceeds the sons fondest dream. Make me, said the prodigal, as one of thy hired servants. He was a slave on his outward journey, a slave in the land of revelry and indulgence, a slave in the midst of the husks, the troughs, and the pig dealers, a slave when he came to himself and thought of his fathers hired servants, a slave every step of the way home as he rehearsed his plea and story. But as he drew near to the old homestead the child-life began to flutter in his heart, and as he saw his fathers look, and heard the gladness of his fathers voice, and felt the warmth of his fathers kiss, the son began to grow, and grew so fast that as a matter of fact he never finished his story. The son could not say what the slave had prepared and rehearsed. That is the remedya renewed look at Gods face and a better acquaintanceship with the Fathers heart. It is the surprise and sacrifice of Divine grace that will depose the servant and crown the son.<\/p>\n When father and son have met, there is no longer any word of hired servants. Fear, shame, distrust of self, the burden of responsibility, are all swallowed up in love. One sight of the fathers face, the great embrace of the beloved arm thrown around his rags, the tears that fell upon his neckthese settle all the problems which in cold blood we settle otherwise.<\/p>\n Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;<\/p>\n Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passd in music out of sight.<\/p>\n Self-distrust even has passed, for love has found a natural and happy solution. No hard responsibilities to which our moral character is inadequate are thrust upon us; no unbearable lonely freedom is given us to manage rightly. The responsibilities of life in the fathers house are different from those of the far country. For the father is there, and we have learned at last to love him, and that love has become a far more commanding law than hired service can ever know.1 [Note: J. Kelman, Ephemera Eternitatis, 278.] <\/p>\n There are no degrees of forgiveness. There are degrees in the holiness that follows forgiveness; but pardon must be perfect at its birth. Forgiveness restores each man to the place he had before he fell. If the prodigal had been a hired servant previous to his fall, he would have been made a hired servant again. There would have been no sting in that; it would have involved no stigma. But to make him a servant after he had been a son would have perpetuated the pain of memory. Nothing impedes my progress like remembrance of a dark yesterday. When the page is already blotted, I am apt to blot it more. I lose heart; I say, It is already tarnished; what does it matter now? If I am to get a fair start, it must be a bright starta start with the ring and the robe. It will not help me that you lift me from the far country if you give me a place second to my former self. That second place is my yesterday, and I should walk by its darkness. It would dog my footsteps; it would never let me go. I should not feel that sin was unworthy of mebelow me. I should always be fingering my ticket-of-leave. I should never be able to soar for the remembrance of the irons; memory would clip the wings of hope.2 [Note: G. Matheson, Leaves for Quiet Hours, 126.] <\/p>\n Lord, I would rise, and run to Thee,<\/p>\n Christ of God, who didst die for me;<\/p>\n But my feet are bound with the chains of sin,<\/p>\n And my heart is ashes and dust within.<\/p>\n Lord, I would rise, and run to Thee<\/p>\n If Thoudst open mine eyes and let me see<\/p>\n How beautiful shines Thy deathless love<\/p>\n In Thy face that is bending my face above!<\/p>\n But sometimes come drifting the mist of tears,<\/p>\n And shadows of sorrow, and clouds of fears;<\/p>\n Till night sinks around me oer sea and land,<\/p>\n And I know not whether to move or stand.<\/p>\n Yet Id wait without dread till the dawn came sweet<\/p>\n As a dream of Thy beauty about my feet.<\/p>\n And Id stretch out my hands and run to Thee<\/p>\n If Thoudst open mine eyes and let me see.<\/p>\n Lo, the arms of Love are opened wide.<\/p>\n Child, see the wound in My broken side.<\/p>\n And thy weariness lies on the heart of Me!<\/p>\n Lord, I will rise and run to Thee.1 [Note: L. Maclean Watt, In Poets Corner, 75.] <\/p>\n The Return to the Father<\/p>\n Literature<\/p>\n Blunt (J. J.), Plain Sermons, i. 292.<\/p>\n Buxton (W.), The Battle of Life, 121.<\/p>\n Clarke (G.), True Manhood, 80.<\/p>\n Dods (M.), The Parables of our Lord, ii. 127.<\/p>\n Farrar (F. W.), In the Days of thy Youth, 376.<\/p>\n Greenhough (J. G.), The Parables of Jesus, 393.<\/p>\n Hamilton (J.), Works, ii. 338.<\/p>\n Hancock (T.), The Return to the Father, 65.<\/p>\n Inge (W. R.), Practical Questions, 2.<\/p>\n Johnstone (V. L.), Sonship, 55.<\/p>\n Jones (S.), Revival Sermons, 154.<\/p>\n Kelman (J.), Ephemera Eternitatis, 275.<\/p>\n Macmillan (H.), The Gate Beautiful, 22.<\/p>\n Marten (C. H.), Plain Bible Addresses, 125.<\/p>\n Morrison (G. H.), The Wings of the Morning, 246.<\/p>\n Punshon (W. M.), Sermons, 153.<\/p>\n Purves (G. C.), The Gospel according to Hosea, 121.<\/p>\n Rutherford (W. G.), The Key of Knowledge, 264.<\/p>\n Simpson (J. G.), Christus Crucifixus, 188.<\/p>\n Smith (W. M.), Giving a Man another Chance, 167.<\/p>\n Soden (J. J.), Sermons on Social Subjects, 71.<\/p>\n Talmage (T. de W.), Sermons, vi. 153.<\/p>\n Whittuck (C.), Learning and Working, 41.<\/p>\n Christian World Pulpit, li. 182 (G. Body); lxviii. 228 (T. Phillips).<\/p>\n Church of England Pulpit, lvii. 74 (F. R. M. Hitchcock).<\/p>\n Churchmans Pulpit: The Lenten Season, v. 163 (J. Keble).<\/p>\n Clergymans Magazine, 3rd Ser., ix. 103 (H. G. Youard).<\/p>\n Homiletic Review, xliv. 334 (T. Kelly).<\/p>\n when: Luk 8:35, Luk 16:23, Psa 73:20, Ecc 9:3, Jer 31:19, Eze 18:28, Act 2:37, Act 16:29, Act 16:30, Act 26:11-19, Eph 2:4, Eph 2:5, Eph 5:14, Tit 3:4-6, Jam 1:16-18 <\/p>\n How: Luk 15:18, Luk 15:19, Lam 1:7 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Deu 30:1 – thou shalt call 1Ki 8:47 – Yet if they 2Ki 7:4 – if they save us 2Ch 6:37 – Yet if Job 36:9 – he Psa 32:5 – I said Psa 50:22 – consider Psa 73:28 – But Psa 119:59 – thought Pro 21:29 – he directeth Pro 27:7 – to Ecc 7:14 – but Isa 29:24 – also Isa 46:8 – bring Jer 8:6 – saying Eze 18:14 – considereth Hos 2:7 – I will Hag 1:5 – thus Hag 2:18 – Consider Mat 21:29 – he repented Mar 14:72 – Peter Act 12:11 – was come Rom 2:4 – goodness Rom 6:21 – whereof Rom 10:3 – submitted 2Co 7:9 – I rejoice 2Ti 1:7 – a sound 2Ti 2:26 – recover<\/p>\n THE PRODIGAL SON<\/p>\n He came to himself.<\/p>\n Luk 15:17<\/p>\n I. Let us follow the sinner in his rebellion.Mark that<\/p>\n (a) Sin is vicious in principle.<\/p>\n (b) Sin is ruinous in operation.<\/p>\n (c) Sin is ever multiplying its destructive issues.<\/p>\n II. Let us watch the sinner in his repentance.There are four elements of repentance here requiring analysis.<\/p>\n (a) Reflection. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my fathers have bread enough and to spare! Sin creates a sort of moral insanity. While spurred by appetite and in the race after indulgence, the mind is actuated by a species of frenzy. I perish with hunger! There is the memory of a better past in that exclamation. This same recalling of bright hours bows the spirit into the dust.<\/p>\n (b) Resolution. I will arise and go to my father. He no sooner discerns his hapless state than he determines to leave it. You are to imagine him prostrate, brooding in indecision or despair. But he will lie no longer in inaction. He protests, I will arise, and he rises.<\/p>\n (c) Recognition of guilt. His resolution, while unenfeebled by hesitation, was not formed in insensibility to his evil. He sees most distinctly the relation of sin towards God and towards himself.<\/p>\n (d) Return to God. His was no empty vow.<\/p>\n II. Let us behold the sinner in his restoration.<\/p>\n (a) Notice Gods recognition of the earliest beginnings of penitence. When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him. He had not seen his father, but his father saw him. Unconsciously to the son, the love of the father has been drawing him all the way. If he had lost the image of his father from his memory he would never have attempted to return.<\/p>\n (b) Observe Gods welcome to the repenting.<\/p>\n (c) Now turn to behold how God lavishes His affection on the accepted penitent. The father is not going to treat his son as a hired servant. Gods forgiveness must must be Godlike. Gods love is always greater in experience than in our most sanguine wishes and brightest hopes.<\/p>\n (d) Listen to Gods exhortation to His universe to share His joy. Bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry. A feast betokens gladness among all nations. The occasion is great, and great is to be the exultation. Let us eat and rejoice.<\/p>\n The father does not ask his household to be glad and he himself remain only a spectator of the universal delight. It is Let us eat and rejoice.<\/p>\n It is Gods own joy that He would have His creatures share and proclaim.<\/p>\n Archbishop Alexander.<\/p>\n 7<\/p>\n Came to himself is rendered “came to his senses” in Moffatt’s translation. The meaning is that he was made to realize his true condition. He recalled that even the servants at home had plenty of the good things of life.<\/p>\n Luk 15:17. Came to himself. This implies that he had been beside himself before. A life of sin is in a certain sense irrational. The free will of the sinner is brought out, as it could not be in the two other parables. The seeking and saving, though necessary to make the prodigal come to himself, are kept in the back ground. The third scene now opens: the prodigals penitence. Notice, that the man came to himself more readily among the swine than among the harlots (Luk 15:30).<\/p>\n He said. As the result and evidence of his coming to himself. He regards matters in their true light. The facts of the case are considered; and he does not attempt to philosophize about his fathers mercy, etc., as alas too many sinners do, when seeming to repent.<\/p>\n How many hired servants.These were the temporary laborers occupying the lowest place on the estate. The servants (Luk 15:22.) would include those more trusted and honored. He was himself now only a hired servant.<\/p>\n Of my fathers. His penitent thought is based on the feeling, lost while he was beside himself, that he still has a father. The sinner will thus reflect and repent only when he has some ground for this feeling. The true ground is to be found in Jesus Christ<\/p>\n Have bread enough, etc. These lowest servants have abundance, and I (a son still, though so unworthy) perish with hunger. The contrast is made at every point. Gods Providential care is alluded to in this part of the parable.<\/p>\n Luk 15:17-18. And when he came to himself When the infamy and distress of his present condition began to lead him into serious consideration; and he so far recovered the use of his reason, which had before been dethroned and extinguished by the mad intoxication of sensual pleasure; when the great distress he was in brought him at length to think and reflect on his unhappy condition, and to retrace the steps that had brought him into it; he said Namely, in his heart; How many hired servants of my fathers The meanest in his family, the very day- labourers; have bread enough and to spare Have more meat than they can use. Even the hired servants in Gods house are well provided for; the meanest that will but hire themselves into his family to do his work, and depend upon his reward, shall have all things and abound: the consideration of which should encourage sinners, that have gone astray from God, to think of returning to him: and I perish with hunger I, his child, who have known so many better days, am even ready to die with want, not being thought worth my food by this unkind master, to whom I have hired myself. Observe, reader, 1st, All who have wandered from God, and endeavour to satisfy themselves with earthly things, whether riches, honours, or pleasures, with worldly pursuits and carnal gratifications, living without God in the world, may really be said to be beside themselves, for they act like persons deprived of their reason. Observe, 2d, Sinners will not come to Christ, and enter into his service, till they are brought to see themselves just ready to perish in the service of sin. And though we be thus driven to Christ, he will not therefore reject us, nor think himself dishonoured by our being forced to him, but rather honoured by his being applied to in a desperate case. I will arise and go to my father Whatever be the consequence, I am resolved that I will no longer remain in this miserable condition, but will immediately set out on my way home, if all my little remaining strength can but bring me to the end of such a journey. And I will say unto him, Father, I have sinned, &c. That I may be received again, I am resolved to go in all humility, and confess my crimes to my father, acknowledging that I am utterly unworthy to be owned as a son, and will pray to be taken into his house, only as a hired servant, and will be contented for the future to labour and fare as the servants do, so I may but live in his sight. In saying, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, he meant, that God was injured in the person of his earthly father. And certainly nature itself teaches this, that whoever is insolent or disrespectful to his parents, rebels against God; who, by making them the instruments of communicating life to their children, has imparted to them some of his own paternal honour. In saying, I am no more worthy to be called thy son, he shows, that the idea of his undutiful behaviour was strongly impressed on his mind, whereby he was sensible that he had no title to be treated at home as a son. At the same time he knew that it never would be well with him till he was in his fathers family again; so with joy he entertained the thought of occupying the meanest station in it. Thus, while the liberality of the great Parent of men makes them wantonly run away from his family, the miseries which they involve themselves in, often constrain them to return. By the natural consequences of sin, God sometimes makes sinners to feel, that there is no felicity to be found anywhere but in himself.<\/p>\n Vers. 17-20 a.This representation, which depicts the conversion of the sinner, includes two things, repentance (Luk 15:17) and faith (Luk 15:18-20 a).<\/p>\n The words, when he came to himself, Luk 15:17, denote a solemn moment in human life, that in which the heart, after a long period of dissipation, for the first time becomes self-collected. The heart is God’s sanctuary. To come to ourselves is therefore to find God. Repentance is a change of feeling; we find it fully depicted in the regret which the sinner feels for that from which he has fled (the father’s house), and in that horror which fills him at that which he sought so ardently (the strange land). As to the mercenaries whom he envies, might they not represent those heathen proselytes who had a place, although a very inferior one (the outer court), in the temple, and who might thus from afar take part in the worship; advantages from which the publicans, so long as they kept to their profession, were debarred by the excommunication which fell on them.<\/p>\n From this change of feeling there springs a resolution (Luk 15:18), which rests on a remnant of confidence in the goodness of his father; this is the dawn of faith. Did we not recollect that we are yet in the parable, the meaning of the words before thee would appear to blend with that of the preceding, against heaven. But in the image adopted the two expressions have a distinct meaning. Heaven is the avenger of all holy feelings when outraged, and particularly of filial devotion when trampled under foot. The young man sinned before his father at the time when, the latter beholding him with grief, he defied his last look, and obstinately turned his back on him.<\/p>\n The possibility of an immediate and entire restoration does not enter his mind. He is ready to take the position of a servant in the house where he lived as a son, but where he shall have at least wherewith to satisfy his hunger. Here is portrayed that publican (described in chap. 18) who stood afar off, and dared not even raise his eyes to God. But the essential fact is, that the resolution once taken, he carries it out. Here is faith in its fulness, actually arising, going to God. Faith is not a thought or a desire; it is an act which brings two living beings into personal contact.<\/p>\n What an impression must have been produced on the publicans present by this faithful picture of their past and present experiences! But how much deeper still the emotion which awaits them when they hear Jesus unveiling, in the sequel, the feelings and conduct of God Himself toward them! <\/p>\n 15:17 {3} And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!<\/p>\n (3) The beginning of repentance is the acknowledging of the mercy of God, which encourages us to hope expectantly.<\/p>\n "He came to his senses" is an idiom that indicates repentance. [Note: Jeremias, The Parables . . ., p. 130. See also Greg Forbes, "Repentance and Conflict in the Parable of the Lost Son (Luke 15:11-32)," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 42:2 (June 1999):211-229.] <\/span> He changed his mind about his attitude and decided to make a change in his behavior. The young man used "heaven" as a euphemism for God (Luk 15:18; Luk 15:21). The Jews frequently did this to avoid using God’s name in vain, and there are many examples of this in Luke. The young man meant that he viewed his actions as sin against his father and against God (cf. Psa 51:4). The son’s proposal to his father, as well as his planned speech, shows the genuineness of his humility and repentance. He was willing to serve his father as a day laborer since his father had a reputation for paying his servants generously (Luk 15:17).<\/p>\n ". . . the boy’s proposal indicates that, while he desires the father’s house, he doesn’t understand the father’s heart." [Note: Gary Inrig, The Parables: Understanding What Jesus Meant, p. 19.] <\/span><\/p>\n And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 17. And when he came to himself ] His previous state was that of his false self a brief delusion and madness ‘the old man with his affections and … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 15:17”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible <\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Greek Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"