SCARCELY has the prodigal been introduced to the feast, after that marvelous welcome of grace by the father, and become the occasion of such joy to the household, ere another character appears on the ever-changing scene— “the elder son.”
He too, like his long-lost brother, had been in “the field,” but not in the degradation and misery into which the latter had sunk. For the world, “the field,” possesses a double character, not only as the scene of the lowest and most degrading lusts and passions, but also as that in which all legitimate duties and business interests are found—in which it is possible to be fulfilling “the desires of the mind” rather than those of “the flesh” (Eph. 2:33Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. (Ephesians 2:3)); and though in the full and even scrupulous discharge of these, one may be found morally as far away from God as the most depraved and degraded.
Having been possibly occupied with duties which devolved upon him in the position of elder son, “as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing.” The unwonted sounds arrested his steps, for high festival was being held; but instead of approaching in all the confidence of a son, and seeking from his father an explanation of that to which his sanction must have been given, “he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.”
Enough was at once communicated to stir a brother’s heart and a son’s heart to its depth. “Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.”
It may be that even years had passed since any tidings had reached home of the prodigal boy; years, too, in which the father’s heart had well-nigh broken under the burden of his sorrow, of which the elder son must have been witness. Surely such an announcement as this, now clearly made, will find some response in his heart. But no: no echo of answering love was there. “He was angry, and would not go in.” Tested in two points, he is found to be totally lacking, viz. love to his father and love to his brother. Relationship was there, but only in name. Unmoved now by his father’s joy, as before by his sorrow—by his brother’s restoration, as previously by his absence—what was called out only witnessed to the callousness of a heart that was wholly absorbed by its own righteousness and respectability—its own interests and estimate of what was proper and suited to the occasion, while judging grace to be an unholy tolerance of evil.
But the father’s grace was capable alike of expending itself upon the elder son as upon the returned prodigal; “therefore came his father out, and entreated him.”
He had come out before to meet his long-lost son, and now once more he comes out in supreme grace to entreat another wayward son—to be met, not by a broken-hearted confession of sin and misery, but by the cold, calculating spirit of self-righteousness and offended dignity. It is no question with him of grace in marvelous exercise either towards his brother or himself, but of his own personal title and claims. “These many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment.” Not his sins, but his service; not his ruin, but his righteousness, form the burden of his unfilial remonstrance with his father; while yet in his words the secret condition of his heart in its relation to his father comes clearly out, betraying the underlying state that had all along existed beneath a relationship which went no further than the name. “Thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends.” His heart was smoldering after all, all through those years, with that which had burst out into a vehement flame in the case of his prodigal brother, viz. the craving for interests and companionship independent of his father and his father’s house.
What shred of difference, as to inward state, is discoverable between the two brothers, save that one was cloaked by a studied profession of obedience and respectability, while the other was uncloaked and exposed in all the evil of its true condition? Truly “as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man” (Prov. 27:1919As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man. (Proverbs 27:19)).
The promptitude of grace, too, under another guise to the elder son, had not escaped the notice of self-righteousness and self-satisfaction. That which gave a peculiar and distinctive character to the father’s act of welcome, and formed the chief element in the prodigal’s joy, “as soon as,” fell from the lips of the elder brother in a charge of cutting scorn; while his own relationship to his newly recovered brother is pitilessly disowned in the words, “this thy son,” and the measure of the grace in “the fatted calf” is ruthlessly contrasted with the measure of his fall into degrading sin.
But the tide of grace, unhindered by the exposure to the very core of the state and condition of such a heart, which could neither understand nor tolerate grace in any form, flows steadily on in the remonstrance of love: “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” While the service that lacked love cannot be owned of the father, the privileges of a lengthy past are owned—owned in weighty words that pressed home a heavy burden of responsibility upon that hard heart; for relationship is recognized and continuous privilege too. But what availed it all? Favored at least by the constancy of advantages that the younger son had thrown oft the final issue of a graceless heart only witnessed to the abuse of long-standing privileges, and at least outward nearness to his father.
But let the father’s heart be heard, best answer to the heart that had just exposed itself: “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad.” Meet indeed, for the Shepherd’s work on behalf of the lost sheep was done, and the foundations were thus laid for the righteous exercise of grace and a father’s love: “For this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”
Here this wonderful parable in part closes, and that without a ray of hope as to the elder brother. The curtain falls, so to speak, upon his self-constituted exclusion from the banquet of grace, shutting in in light and love and righteousness the prodigal, where holy festival was being kept in the father’s presence, himself the occasion, but shutting out the elder son, whose life-history and character as drawn by himself was, “Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment.”
Are we here in the presence of a character that has no parallel in actual life, or is the elder son, like the prodigal son, representative of a class?
Tested by their response, Godward and man-ward, to that which grace is now accomplishing, in rescuing guilty man from degradation and misery, it is but too true that there is a large class of so-called Christians who, though jealous of their reputation as such, and so in professed relationship with God—regular and respectable in the discharge of all necessary duties, engaged only in legitimate callings and lawful business—are yet intolerant of the grace that, ever active on the part of God, is gathering in, and with open arms welcoming, the confessedly degraded from the highways and hedges. These alike despise the activity of grace towards others and the entreaties of grace towards themselves, and convert sovereign love to the lost into a ground of accusation against God, while they are actuated by the independent spirit that seeks its pleasures among its own special company, apart from the presence and household of God. By these significant characteristics their true state is exposed, viz. as far from God as those who are in their lives degraded and debased. Let these recall the searching words of the apostle, “He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” and, “Every one that loveth Him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of Him” (1 John 4:20; 5:120If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? (1 John 4:20)
1Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. (1 John 5:1)). The relationship in which they professedly stand (for these insist on being called Christians) only weights them with lasting responsibility.
Better, far better, to take up the prodigal’s language in full confession of actual distance from God, for sovereign grace is entreating even these to share in the joy of reconciliation as prodigals, and views them as the objects of its solicitude as much as the dissolute, the profane, and the degraded, for grace alone can introduce into the favored place. Remember, too, the word of the Lord Jesus, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
And again, “Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but of His great mercy He saved us.” Let the language of such hearts be no longer, “God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are,” etc., but rather, “God be merciful to me the sinner,” for it is further written, “This man went down to his house justified rather than the other.”
M. C. G.