In the latter part of chapter 14 we saw the Lord's terms, if I may so say, to the multitude that was following Him. There He laid down that, except a man came to Him, hating father and mother, wife and children, brethren and sisters, and even his own life, he could not be His disciple. “And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” Thus first He insists on a thorough break with nature, and next that this shall continue. Hence in His illustrations He sets forth the need of purpose and the danger of undertaking such a business. A man is sure, otherwise, to leave the work undone. And how would it fare if a king with double your forces should come against you? The moral of all this is that man is insufficient, and that God alone can enable a man to quit the world for Christ and to keep following after Christ. The worst of all is to renounce Him after bearing such a name—salt that has lost its savor.
Nevertheless His words drew to Him the outcast and degraded, too wretched not to feel and own their need. The publicans and sinners, instead of bearing a repulse, came near, immensely attracted, to hear what they felt to be the truth, and what conscience bowed to, though they had never heard it before. They heard indeed that which they could not but perceive leveled the pretensions of proud men. For the Pharisees and scribes had no notion of following Jesus any more than of coming to Him. They deified self in the name of God. It was their own tradition they valued; and if they seemed to make much of the law, it was not because it was of God, but because it was given to their fathers and identified with their system. Their religion was a settled setting up of self—this was their idol. Hence they murmured at the grace of Christ toward the wretched. For the ways of Christ, like His doctrine, leveled all and showed, according to the subsequent language of the Apostle Paul, that there is no difference. No doubt the man that is in quest of his own passions and pleasures will neither go to Christ nor follow after Him: still less will be who has got a religion of his own on which he plumes himself. Grace goes down to the common level of ruin that sin has already made. It addresses man according to the truth; and the truth is that all are lost. And where is the sense of talking of differences if people are lost? How blind to be classifying among those who are cast into perdition! To be there at all is the awful thing—not the shades of distinction in ways or character that may be found among those who are there. The tremendous fact is that, having all equally sinned against God and lost heaven, they are all equally consigned to hell.
But there is that also in the sayings of the Pharisees and scribes which skews that they too felt the point of the truth and that what they resented most was grace. For they murmured saying, “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.” Indeed He does; it is His boast. It is the going out of divine love to receive sinners. And it was His grace as a man that deigned to eat with them. Had He not done so, with whom could He have eaten at all? But in truth, if He deigned to eat with men, He did not choose His company. He had come down and been manifested in the flesh expressly to manifest the grace of God; and, if so, He received sinners and ate with them.
The Lord answers in a parable—indeed in three. But the first of them is that which we will look at now. He puts the case of a man—of themselves—having a hundred sheep. “If he lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost until he find it?” He appeals to them: not one of them but would go after his own lost sheep and seek to recover it. With us indeed it is not a question here of our going in quest of Christ, but of the man Christ Jesus, the good Shepherd, going after us—that which was lost. Supposing a man had ninety-nine that did not so urgently call on his energetic efforts, he can leave the sheep that abide in comparative safety. The one that is in danger is that which draws out his love until he find it. “And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing.” It is evidently the work of the Lord Jesus that is set forth here. Who can fail to recognize in it the mighty manifestation of divine love which characterized Jesus? It was He that came, He that undertook the labor; it was His to endure the suffering unto death, even the death of the cross; it was He that found and saves the lost sheep; it is He that lays it on His shoulders rejoicing. Whose joy can compare with His? No doubt the sheep does reap the benefit; yet assuredly it was not the sheep that sought the Shepherd but the Shepherd the sheep. It was not the sheep that clambered on His shoulders, but He that laid it there with His own hand. And who shall pluck it thence? It was all His work. It was the sheep that strayed; and, the longer it was left to itself, the farther it got away from the Shepherd. It was the work of the Lord Jesus then both to seek and to save.
But further, he has His joy in it, though it goes forth far beyond the object of His care. “When he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, “Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.” It is altogether to forget the fullness of love that there is in God and in Christ Jesus our Lord, to suppose that it is merely a question of the sinner's need to be saved or his joy when he is. There is a far deeper joy; and this is the foundation of all proper worship. In fact our joy is not the mere sense of our own personal deliverance, but our appreciation of His delight in delivering us, His joy in our salvation. This is communion, and there can be no worship in the Spirit without it. And such seems to be the bearing of what is figuratively set forth in the parable as described at the close. “He calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me for I have found my sheep which was lost.”
Thus the heart of man that feels the comfort of recovering what belongs to him could apprehend in some measure how God has joy in saving the lost. At any rate, Christ appeals to the one to vindicate the other. “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.” But man as such does not rejoice when his fellow turns in sorrow and self-judgment to God. This is not the feeling of the earth where sin and selfishness reign; but assuredly it is the mind of heaven. What is joy there over the repenting sinner! Angels sang at the good news of grace to Israel and to man above all. And so they do rejoice still, as we may fairly gather from the later words of our Lord Jesus. Here it is more general. The manifold wisdom of God in the Church is the continual object and witness to the principalities and powers in heavenly places; the Lord here gives us the assurance that a repentant sinner gives the keynote of joy on high. There are no murmurers there; it is universal delight in love. Is it so with us? Yet we have a new nature not less but more capable of appreciating the joy of grace, not to speak of ourselves knowing the need of a sinner and the mercy of God's deliverance in Christ as no angel can.
Remark in the last place that it is joy “over one sinner that repenteth,” not exactly over his salvation. It is joy over a soul brought to confess its sin and judge itself and vindicate God. We are apt to be more occupied with the deliverance from imminent danger. In short we are apt to feel for the human side far more than we enter into God's moral glory or His grace. The joy in heaven is over the repenting sinner.