The Licentious vs. The Legalist
Observations from the Prodigal Son
The parable of the Prodigal Son has provided a plethora of instruction, application, and edification. To grasp the fullest understanding of the parable you must take a glance backward to verses 1-10. There is the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin. In the first, there is a shepherd who ventures off to look for the lost sheep. Noticeably, he is the only person who is aware the sheep is lost. The emphasis seems to be placed upon the lost sheep, but is that the most accurate portrayal of the passage???
In the lost coin parable, the coin is “lost” by the woman. She lost her own coin. She then is the only person to know it is lost. Therefore she is the only one to know to look for it. In both of the first two parables the item became lost, and then found. The other interesting idea about these first two parables, the two “lost” items are very unaware of their lostness.
Jesus seemingly places the first two parables together with the preposition, “or” between verses 7 and 8. Then He transitions into a new idea in verse 11 when it says, “And He said.” Have we tried to draw to close a relationship with these three parables? Are there some similarities and some ideas that can be placed upon all three, sure, but is that the best exegetical approach?
We often hear that the main part of this passage is the reflection upon the younger son. There is also the notion that the father is the primary figure. I propose someone not seen or spoken of in the passage might actually play the leading role.
As we look at verses 24 and 32 the father speaks of his son in a unique way. He said his son was “dead” not physically but in a spiritual sense. The father that wanted him back, pronounced him DEAD. However, he has come to life again, a verbal idea of a resurrection. He is also described as being “lost,” but has been found. Not that he found himself, but the implication is someone helped him. That someone initiated the younger son to “come to his senses,” as recorded earlier in the passage. There was someone working on the son’s behalf to find him. Much like the shepherd and the woman in the earlier two parables, there was an active agent in the finding of the “lost” son. My proposal is the Holy Spirit. In Paul’s writings, when he talks like the father, in the parable is talking, he is refers to a work of the Holy Spirit in the life of an individual that was once alive, physically, dead spiritually, and now brought to new life.
Lets look at some observations about the younger brother. Initially he was blatant, forthright, and possessed an “I do not care attitude.” He longed to live a licentious lifestyle with consequential “external” sin. The lifestyle he chose to live was visible to the naked eye. He fits the persona of ever lost person you and I know. They live for self and self-gratification. It is the norm and should be expected. Lost people do not care about anything or anyone else. This younger brother departed for some time from the family, maybe many years, squandered the inheritance, and eventually ended up prostituting himself for hire to a pig farmer. Sin will always lead someone to disbar his faculties and dropped to the lowest common denominator of his wicked, deceitful, and depraved heart. The younger brother was more or less out of his mind, as he was about to eat pig slop! THEN, at the lowest of place in life, totally senseless, the active unseen agent steps in and opens the eyes of this young man’s heart to see the senselessness of his condition. He realizes that going home to the father is better than where he is. Paul wrote in Romans 1 we have the invisible qualities of our heavenly father written on our hearts, but only when the Holy Spirit illuminates the mind’s eye are we able to respond and “return” to the Father in a repentant way. That is the picture of the younger son. He begins to yearn to get home and see his father. He can’t wait to get home and spend time with his father, even as the lowest of the persons of his father’s house. He left as a thoughtless son, and returns a humbled and contrite son. This only happens when the Holy Spirit encounters you.
But what about the Father… He willingly gave the younger son the portion of the estate. This was not a common practice. As he watched the son run off into the sunset, I imagine he must have sat or stood waiting at the gate day after day, longing for his son to come home. He never went out to find him. We see the humanity of this father, he must have hurt, wept, and longed for the son to return. It is almost as if the father knew in some innate way the son would come back, it was just a matter of when. Then that day came, and from afar he sees his son and the emotional episode that breaks forth over the next few verses is atypical. He; felt compassion, ran to him, embraced him, kissed him, clothes him (in the best), put a ring upon his finger, and through a large celebration. A celebration that involved a “prepared” fattened calf. The father knew a feast was on the horizon so he got ready. All of these things were totally out of character, context, and social order for that day and time. I wonder how many fathers today would have given their estate away, and then longed for the day that their son returns only to display these types of emotions and affections to that son? The father had two sons. Look how he deals with the older son after he finds out that his brother has been given a celebration. The father came to the older brother outside. He WENT to the older son, and pleaded with him to come inside and celebrate the “NEW BIRTH” of his brother.
In the beginning, the Older brother doesn’t appear to be blatant and forthright, but is apparently compliant and willing to work. We meet him after the fact. He is a hard worker, and follows all the father’s commands. Quickly we see there have been some internal sin issues for this brother. He displays jealousy and anger problems in v. 28. He was not willing to go inside to celebrate the brother’s return. All these years the internal struggle of legalism, of “serving, and never neglecting any commands” comes forth. He was like a ticking time bomb of internal unnoticed sin. On the outside; he looked like, sounded like, and was thought to be the “good” son. He was the son that respected the father and did not run off with all the money. As we come to v. 30 we notice he was aware of some of his brothers lifestyle. I wonder how he knew such detail??? We aren’t told, but maybe the servant knew more than the passage tells his he said to the brother.
There are two brothers. Two very different brothers. Two brothers that provide us with some unique ideas and truths. So what is the difference between the licentious lifestyle and the legalist lifestyle?
1. V. 29 – sin is not only disobedience to commands, but also the motive of the heart. The younger brother’s sin was visible, the older brother’s was not visible. Both were equally “lost” and equally needing to be found. But the Spirit only worked in one that we see in the story.
2. Remember whom Jesus is talking to in the passage, v. 2 – Pharisees and scribes, while tax collectors and sinners were coming to him. Could it be that Jesus was drawing the connection between the younger brother and the tax collectors and sinners? And then the older brother with the Pharisees and scribes? The first had great external and visible sin, but LOST, the later internal and nonvisible, but equally LOST! The Pharisees and scribes accused Jesus or RECIVING sinners and eating with them. What did the father in the story do, receive his son very openly, and then eat with him.
3. Back to verses 24 and 32, there MUST be a celebration and rejoicing when a dead man begins to live, and when a lost man has been found.
I would be curious to know what are some of your observations from the parable of the Prodigal Son????
Great post!
The command is, “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.” Colossians 3:20. The older brother was doing just that. The controversy comes when grace is applied. Think about the laborers who were paid the same for a full day’s work and 1/4 days work. Grace is never equal on earth. Thank God for grace.
Bruce,
Good thought. I wonder; however, was his obedience done with the right motivation? He was jealous about his obedience when the non-obedient brother returned and the father throws a celebration. Obedience in that manner can’t be more than simply legalism. Obeying rules to earn something, and then using that rule following to point out another individuals faults.
Andy,
I am the younger of two (2) brothers. My dad went into business and I began working for him upon high school graduation so he could keep his day job. We started in the garage and moved twice until we were in a 20,000 sf building. My brother is 7 years older than me. Dad wanted my brother to get in the business for many years. He finally agreed after the company grew and dad paid him more than me even though I started with dad and grew with the company. My brother was given the sales position along with a company car and an office. I was offered none of this and had more education and talent than my brother. I sense the fears of the obedient brother in the prodigal son story. God’s ways are not our ways and we need to realize that He knows what He is doing in our behalf even if it is obvious that it doesn’t fit. Dad sold the business and left my brother and I to look for employment. We were given no money or anything. I have many questions that will have to be answered as I pass through the pearly gates. Right now, I must live with forgiveness in my heart so our family can enjoy birthdays and holidays together. I guess the prodigal story is about a lost son coming home and the father is overjoyed. The obedient son is assured of the family farm, but was hurt that his obedience and faithfulness was never appreciated by the father. I have experienced both sides of this story and I know that all things work together for good. Just a different view.
Good stuff, Andy. Prodigal God from Keller is one of my favorite books and hits on these same themes. I also like how Tullian Tchividjian describes – kinda like you did – both of the brothers are looking for salvation in their own way. Younger is trying to “save” himself by breaking all the rules. Elder is trying to “save” himself by keeping all the rules. TT calls it front door and back door legalism. Either way, both were in need of the father’s forgiveness.
Good post. Here’s an observation I’ll offer: As individuals, none of us left God the Father to go into the far country. We all left Him while we were still “in the lioins of” Adam, and then we were born in that far country. As the Holy Spirit enlightens us, we say, “What am I doing here in this pig slop? I will go back to my Father…”
My dad…as I’ve commented before…refers to it as the Parable of the Prodigal Sons (note plural). I appreciate the emphasis on the “came to his senses”. In a world where we use the “initial cause” of the Cosmological Argument to seek to prove the existence of God, and alongside verses that suggest it is blasphemy to deny the work of the Holy Spirit, it seems appropriate to note the “hidden player” in the play. I’ve been careful doing so here just to avoid some of our continuing lines of discussion, so I want to offer that the senselessness of this passage that leads him to the pig pen seems entirely consistent with the depravity that Paul discusses in Romans 1. I think, in fact, handling both as a “loss of reason” explained best by overindulgence is a fairly “safe” explanation. But it doesn’t fully account for the loss of the spiritual connectedness with the Godhead that seems to be the central actual cause of “lostness” and “senselessness”. If it is true that we were designed with eternity in our hearts, and if it is true that only God can fill that design, then it seems to follow that the cause of the worst excesses of lostness is attempting to address that missing something with something less than satisfying. I also think that thought is directly supported by this story: i.e. the very next thought the younger son has is that a mere servant in his father’s house gets treated better than he is currently living. That is a return to REASON and it’s a rather exceptional first step which is to say he humbly acknowledges the situation he’s put himself in: he’s withdrawn from the household and taken his recompense with him and exhausted it. He recognizes his situation being one of not deserving the privilege he once felt entitled to (hence expecting the father before the time of division of the estate to provide him “his share”). It is a very deep, very complex passage told very simply. The richness of the storytelling has supported many, many sermons just by my dad alone (I would estimate he returned to it at least every other year during his preaching ministry which continues to this day, though he took a hiatus as a consultant for a couple of decades to help churches with growing.) I always enjoyed his love of this… Read more »
I appreciate your appeal to the context. For groups of parables, I have generally stayed away from drawing conclusions from the elements that are different and focusing on what Jesus is saying positively about each one. The Prodigal story does seem to contain some elements not covered by the other two. One thing both contain is information regarding the activity of what was lost becoming found. In the first two, neither the sheep or the coin had anything to do with being found. The son in the third came back without the father going to find him. While I agree wholeheartedly about the role of the Holy Spirit as causing the regeneration of dead sinners unto a new life that is reconciled with God, we don’t get that information here. It’s fair to reference the passages that teach it. On the other hand, I think it distracts from what Jesus was trying to accomplish with this passage. All of these parables were directed at the Pharisees and scribes in the hearing of the disciples. The implication is that the Pharisees and scribes, (and others like them such as the Sadducees) are the other brother. The one who repents is justified and it’s easier to see what we should repent of when we aren’t being dishonestly righteous. But the context of the parables doesn’t end there. Jesus continues to teach in parables against the Pharisees and scribes throughout the next chapter and even discourse with them directly. I think the parable of the dishonest manager is a lesson in the heart of the older brother. 16:18 is an example of 16:17 that also illustrates the nature of the legalistic loopholes that the Pharisees and scribes were using to justify themselves. The rich man and Lazarus follow in due course against the Pharisees and scribes. The question each of us should ask is: To what extent am I the older brother where the younger brother is who I should be? Since Jesus mentions John in 16:16, it’s fair to observe that what John was doing is what Jesus is talking about. A non-Jew has three things to do in order to become a Jew: 1) Sacrifice. In modern days this is represented with a finger-prick, I believe. 2) Circumcision. 3) Baptism. Baptism is the only one of these that those who are born Jews don’t need to do. By calling Jews to… Read more »
Jim,
Most certainly we must remember that the entire section is addressed to the Pharisees and Scribes. Also, the tax collectors and sinners were there as well. I see a connection with the brothers and the certain categories of people present. We shall never exhaust the depths of these studies! To God be the Glory.
Andy,
Sir, I think you have done an excellent job in this post. I don’t think I can add a single thing to it. Keep up the good work.
Jess,
that is a high compliment, and one I do not take lightly!