The Father's Love

The story of the Prodigal Son is one of the best known 

of all the parables of the Holy Bible

The Gospel of grace tells us that God loves the whole world and is not willing that any should perish. The message of the gospel, found within the Scripture, also tells us  that through Jesus Christ, , all humanity, that is  the whole world can experience reconciliation,  and that God no longer counts their sin against them.

Declared Legally Dead

We can read of the Prodigal Son of the rich man who desired his inheritance. This son  approaches his father and makes his desire known. This was not a simple request - it is much  more involved then it may first seem.  The younger son is asking his father to put his will into effect, that is,  to legally be considered to have died. 

Yet, here we find the request honored, and the father is willing to act upon the son's request. The younger son was given his inheritance and the elder brother it appears was given his inheritance in the estate as well.

 "And he said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. And he divided to them his living" Luke: 15:11-12

This Father has bequeathed everything that  he able  to his sons  . The father does ,what the Greek word "ton bion" describes, which means to "pour out"   which in the Greek  means  that the father poured out that which was whole his being ,  in other words this part of the parable describes someone who pours out his life in death .

Leaves Home

After the inheritance has been discharged to the two sons , the younger of them removes himself from the family estate and ventures out to a "far country" and engages in a  life style of self gratification.                                                               

"And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living" (13)

This "riotous living" quickly spends and depletes  his resources which had been conveyed to him by his father. Now, due to conditions that he had no control over a famine comes upon this "far county”. This son is now forced to become a field worker feeding swine for a "citizen" of this "far country". His options are now limited, he is not being looked upon with his accustomed favor.

"And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave to him. 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!"(14-17)

 This son begins to consider his sate of being and then his father’s house hold.   This Prodigal son comes to his senses - in other words the Prodigal son finally realizes that whatever life he has had is now over . The point of the account in Luke  is that the Prodigal Son wakes up one day and realizes for all intent and purpose  he is dead.  He wakes up dead!

The Prodigal son begins to feel the longing for his father's house hold and determines to return home,  he then  conceives the idea that he will need to do so,  with a diminished status and believes this will be the only way his father will extend an reception to him. and receive him back. So with this belief,  the son develops a script which he believes will serve as an adequate reflection of his change of heart.  This Prodigal son feels worthless as if his very son ship is in question; it is his hope that his prepared script will incline the father's heart that he might extend the son welcome and readmitted to the household even if that being a servant.

                                              

   " 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 more worthy to be called your son: make me as one of your hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way" (18-20)                 

      

Grace for Him 

                                    

He felt worthless, and worse, thought that he had lost his son ship status. The Prodigal prepares himself to face his father. We see  he had a distorted view of the Father ,  so in this view that he held of his father the son rehearses the script that he believed  his father needed to hear so that at the very least his Father would allow him to return home - but this is not the way of  his the Father .

 When the son makes his choice and starts for home he is unsure of how his father will receive him, what will the encounter be like?

 "And he arose, and came to his father" (20). 

Yet beyond the Prodigal's expectations, his father's eyes have always been watching for this moment when his son would come home. The father's heart has always been inclining toward this wayward child; he is wanted and included in his fatherly love and welcome in the father's house. 

"But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him".(20)

The fathers takes no notice of his son's well rehearsed script, the father only surrounds him with acceptance and love washed in grace. He makes it clear that this son is fully his son and the  father now  rejoices in the Prodigal's return home where he has always belonged. The father rejoices in celebration.

"And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight, and am no more worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring here the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry."(21-24)

 The father does not wish a recount of his son's actions but instead graciously and joyfully  over looks them and see him with only the eyes of love  the Prodigal son’s sins had been judged through the Fathers eyes of love – this son was for all intents dead - now this Prodigal  is ready for a new birth to a new life as a son ,resurrected back from the dead. He is ready to be the son that his father has always intended him to be.

The Gospel

This is the message of the Gospel as any who will who turn to Jesus Christ. When any turn to Jesus we literally die to the useless life we that we wasted and are now resurrected to a new life with the God Father - symbolically the embrace and love the Father bestows  on the Prodigal in the parable.  

This is what Grace is about - the Prodigal son was given the welcome of a dead son who is alive again - all because the Father was willing to pour out what amounted to be as his life, which he did at the beginning of the parable.  We see that the Father exercised His will and became legally declared dead in order to grant every good thing to his son , that is symbolically ,the father was giving his life for his son blessings that he might share the estate , that the unqualified gift of all that is his for the Prodigal.

  

The Father knew his son , foreknew from the beginning what his sacrifice would accomplish,   He gave everything that he had in order to have the opportunity to raise up the prodigal son from the dead to life. The Prodigal was now living!  When does the Father really start to love him? He loved him  even from the beginning. He the father's Love was always present even as the Prodigal waisted his inheritance in that "far country", and fell into the despair of servitude. 

Father Seen in Jesus

The intent of this parallel is seen in John 3:16, John 14:9-11, Jesus said “if you have seen the Father you have seen me” we see Jesus that died that we might be resurrected to a new life even now and we will have the fullness of that in the future restored with our heavenly bodies a true children of our Father with new glorified bodies. 

"And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight, and am no more worthy to be called your son".( 21)

The Prodigal's  script of repentance  that he had crafted , rehearsed and was going to recite for his father, becomes not just words upon his lips,  but , after experiencing his Father's love,  his new posture of heart,  because he has experienced what "deadness" away from His father's estate is truly like.

The Prodigal was dead and is now alive, and he realizes that he will not be in servitude as he was in the "far country", which symbolizes condition this world. His distorted ideas about his  Father are  swept away and he now knows that he is and always will be his father's son!

In this parable we see that it is his transformation is brought about when we see the truth regarding his father. His father loved him, and watched for him and ran to meet him even before this son uttered his prepared script of repentance.

True repentance and belief are the same, repent simply means to change your thinking (Metanoia) about our Father God . We come to see Him as the loving Father, who looks out upon all humanity willing to accept us back as sons of His house hold, yet it is humanity who's left our Father's estate and remains in the "far country" of disbelief and hostility in mind toward God.

 "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior." Colossians1:21

 What keeps humanity from experiencing all that our God has for them, is not unwillingness on God's part but rather hostility in the minds of humanity. This distorted view keeps humanity in servitude the "far country" of disbelief.

Through the Gospel, our Father offers us an eternal place in His house hold.  When  believe Him and we enter into the son ship which is  offered us through Jesus. Jesus demonstrates that God loves you and wants you to have all the rights and privileges of being His sons and daughters.  Jesus shares all this with us except His deity … At the time we believe what God says our lives changes … we have repented or changed our thinking about God and our lives change with this belief.

Fully Restored

When the Prodigal comes home there is great celebration,  he is conferred again with all the right and place of being his father's son. It was his all along just waiting for him to come home to the father that loved him.

"But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring here the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry." (22-24)

Elder Son 

The son that was dead was now alive and had come home. Yet we see the elder son that was alive was unhappy,  but the father showed the elder son  his eternal love and pointed out that everything the Father had was already his.

This parable has no real ending which is  symbolizing the Father and the Prodigal are now always together, living together in throughout eternity. 

Prodigals Waiting to Hear

We live in a world of Prodigals who's views of God are distorted , and deep within them there is a hostility that keeps them from being the children that they were always met to be. They are like that Prodigal which squandered his inheritance being in bound into  servitude to a "citizen" of the "far country". 

  Yet, within humanity there is need for something greater than them, this something is longing for our Fathers' house. All have it have it,  and it is waiting to be spoken to.They need to hear the Gospel regarding the Love God has for them.

 "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes:3:11

   Some ignore this desire for the Father; most don’t recognize nor understand it. The Christian message about the Love of the Father revealed to us,  and to any and to all,  that through Jesus Christ is that, people are not just sinners, (which is true of  all humanity) but we preach to them as prodigals, that God loves them and wants them to come home and be His children, with an all new life, prodigals are not brought back by condemnation, but,  by seeing the love of God extended without condition.. 

"For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them; and has committed to us the word of reconciliation."2Corinthians:5:19

"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God".(20)

If they could only come to realize that their Father is waiting from them to come home, He watches daily for them. The Father does not want a "scripted" preplanned confession, but a genuine change of heart and mind which comes about when they see God for the loving Father that He is. They would be welcomed home  with the Father's Love, if they will but freely receive it. Amen

Rev.Todd Crouch, Pastor

The Fountain of Life Church a Congregation of Grace Communion

Washington, Pennsylvania.

The Fountain of Life Broadcast heard on the RKP Radio Network 1710 & 1670 AM in Washington and North Franklin, Pennsylvania. and on 1710 AM in Bentleyville , Pennsylvania. And online around the world at www.rkpradio.com