HOW every word in this wondrous parable brings out the fullness and freeness of grace! Nor is it to be wondered at, for God is the God of all grace, and the Father of mercies. So that we might expect the unfolding of God’s heart, by the Son of His bosom, which this parable is, to abound and overflow with grace. How that father’s heart yearned over that son! How God’s heart yearns over poor sinners, little as they think it. How can they, when law is deeply embedded in all our hearts? That is, that God will be to us in accordance with what we are to Him. Grace acts from itself. It is not called forth by any worthiness in its object. God finds the motive for His grace in His own heart. How that father’s heart went out towards that son, and welcomed the first approach to a return! How God’s heart goes out towards the poor sinner, and fosters and strengthens, then welcomes the faintest drawings towards Himself!
What riches of grace are contained in that single expression, “a great way off, his father saw him.” How it speaks of God being on the look-out, as it were, for the sinner’s approach. Not the trembling sinner on the look-out for a kindly glance of His eye, a favorable moment to draw nigh, but the other way round altogether; God on the look-out for the first motion in the sinner’s heart towards Himself. With what interest He watches the effect of all His agents: the famine, the treatment of the “citizen,” of the rest (“and no man gave unto him”), of the want, &c. If such His interest in His “banished;” if He thus devises “means that his banished be not expelled from him” (2 Sam. 14:1414For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him. (2 Samuel 14:14)); small wonder that He should, as it were, “make merry and be glad,” when He gets the sinner home; or that His Son should inform us, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”
But not only did he see him a great way off, but he “had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him.” Dear unsaved reader, I would ask you, What do you think fills the heart of God towards sinners, towards you? Is it anger, or is it pity? True, He is “angry with the wicked every day.” He hates his sins, but pity fills his heart towards the poor slaves of sin and Satan.
And what is this running, and falling on his neck, and kissing him, intended to represent? The willingness, the alacrity of God to forgive and to receive the repentant sinner.
What a moment, what a meeting for both, the father and the son, God and the sinner, whilst all heaven rings again with responsive joy! May it be yours to cause heaven and the heart of God this joy, and to receive for yourself this welcome, ere you lay this paper down, dear unsaved reader, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.
“The wanderer no more will roam,
The lost one to the fold hath come,
The prodigal is welcomed home,
O Lamb of God, in Thee!
Though clothed in rags, by sin defiled,
The Father did embrace His child;
And I am pardoned, reconciled,
O Lamb of God, in Thee!”
W. G. B.