Reading the Parable of the Prodigal Son on the Shoulders of Giants
Voices from the Past, Wisdom for the Present
The ESV Church History Study Bible is grounded upon the basic point that we have much to learn from those who have gone before us. Charles Spurgeon once encouraged his students to read commentaries, noting that the Holy Spirit is not an exclusive or individual gift to any one believer. Since we know that the Holy Spirit teaches us, we can know that the Holy Spirit teaches others. And the Holy Spirit has been teaching the church throughout the corridors of time. We stand downstream from two millennia of gifted teachers and teaching. This study Bible aims to introduce readers today to these teachers from the past.1
Read below selections from the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 and reflect on the magnificence of this story from Jesus along with commentary notes from gifted teachers throughout church history such as Martyn Lloyd-Jones, D. L. Moody, and B. B. Warfield.
ESV Church History Study Bible
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11And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. —Luke 15:11–16
As the first two parables have stressed God’s activity alone without telling us anything about the actions or reactions or condition of the sinner, so this parable is spoken to impress that aspect and that side of the matter, lest anyone should be so foolish as to think that we should all be automatically saved by God’s love even as the sheep and the lost coin were found.
—Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”
The prodigal son is the emblem of a sinner who refuses to depend on and be governed by God. How dangerous is it for us to desire to be at our own disposal, to live in a state of independency, and to be our own governors! God cannot give to wretched man a greater proof of his wrath than to abandon him to the corruption of his own heart.
—Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible
In that country that is far from God, in that state of heart and life in which men are alienated from the knowledge and love of him, and shut out from all intercourse with him, they will ere long find a mighty famine arising and will be in extreme want of everything calculated to make them happy.
—Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
It was forbidden to the Jews to eat swine, and of course it was unlawful to keep them. To be compelled, therefore, to engage in such an employment was the deepest conceivable degradation. The object of this image, as used by the Savior in the parable, is to show the loathsome employments and the deep degradation to which sin leads people, and no circumstance could possibly illustrate it in a more striking manner than he has done here. —Albert Barnes, Notes on the Whole Bible
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17“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ —Luke 15:17–19
That is actually what the man did! He faced things out with himself and did so quite frankly. He saw that his troubles were entirely due to his own actions, that he had been a fool, and that he should never have left his father, and should certainly never have treated him as he had done. He looked at himself and could scarcely believe that it really was himself. He looked at the husks and at the swine. He faced it directly. Have you done that? Have you really looked at yourself?
—Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”
It is not enough, when we repent, to leave old sins, but we must engage in God’s service, as, when the wind leaves the west, it turns into a contrary corner. The repenting prodigal did not only leave his harlots but did arise and go to his father. In true repentance the heart points directly to God, as the needle to the north pole.
—Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
Let none think that, because they have been more moral than the prodigal, they do not need to repent like him. All of us without exception have walked after the imagination of our own hearts, without any love to God’s presence or regard for his authority. Let all of us then cry for mercy as miserable sinners. The more vile we are in our own eyes, the more acceptable shall we be to God.
—Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae
20And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. —Luke 15:20–24
Oh, my friends, come home! God wants you. His heart is aching for you. I do not care what your past life has been. Upon the authority of God’s Word I proclaim salvation to every sinner. Every sinner has a false idea of God; he thinks God is not ready and willing to forgive him. He says it is not justice. But God wants to deal in mercy.
—D. L. Moody, The Prodigal
Even the vilest sinners find their hopes not only realized but far exceeded. They come for pardon and obtain joy, for deliverance from hell and get a title to heaven. Their utmost ambition is to be regarded as the meanest of God’s servants, and they are exalted to all the honors and happiness of his beloved children.
—Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae
25“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” —Luke 15:25–32
The episode of the elder brother appears not as an excrescence upon the parable but as an essential element in it. Its object is to hold up the mirror of fact to the Pharisaic objectors that they may see their conduct and attitude of mind in their true light. Their moving principle was not, as they fancied, a zeal for righteousness that would not have sin condoned, but just a mean-spirited jealousy that was incapable of the natural response of the human spirit in the presence of a great blessing. The effect, you see, is to place the Pharisaic objectors themselves in the category of sinners, side by side with the outcasts they had despised, to probe their hard hearts until they recognized their lost estate also and so to bring them as themselves prodigals back in repentance to the Father’s house.
—B. B. Warfield, “The Prodigal Son”
The “seeking love” of God that is not signalized in the parable with reference to the lost—the confessedly lost—son is brought before us in all its beautiful appeal with reference to these yet unrepentant elder brothers. For, you will observe, the father does not wait for the elder brother to come into the house to him; he goes out to him. He speaks soothing words to him, addressing him tenderly as “child,” proffering unbroken intercourse with him, endowing him with all his possessions—in a word, pleading with him as only a loving father can.
—B. B. Warfield, “The Prodigal Son”
Notes:
- Stephen J. Nichols, ESV Church History Study Bible, vii.
This article is adapted from the ESV Church History Study Bible: Voices from the Past, Wisdom for the Present.
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