LUKE 15.
THE father does not even give him time to say, “Make me as one of thy hired servants." He lets him say, "I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son," but no more; for he is on his neck kissing him. How can he say, "Make me a hired servant," when the father is producing the consciousness that he was a son? The prodigal's judgment must now be drawn from what the father actually is to him, and not from any abstract reasonings about it. The one was a father, if the other was not a son. And in this way we receive the gospel of the grace of God. It is not the working of the mind of man as to what I am before God, but the revelation by the Holy Ghost of what the Father is to me; and if He is a Father, I am a son.
But there are many who have not received the Spirit of adoption, neither knowing what they are as sons, nor finding their rest in what the Father is. See the manner of the prodigal's reception now. His mind now renewed, he says, "I will arise" &c. But "while he was yet a great way off," we read, his father sees and has compassion on him, runs to meet him, falls on his neck, and kisses him. There is nothing in the son but confession of unworthiness. Once received, we are left as it were to discover what were his thoughts and feelings, and, from knowledge of what the father is, what we are in his love. It is no question of fitness in the son: the father is acting worthily for himself, worthily for himself as father. He is on his neck, while all the rags of the far country are on him, because he loves to be there. But if I know my sins forgiven, and the Father on my neck kissing me, the more I know of my sins, while I know His love, the happier I am. Well, I can say, never was a friend, like this friend of mine!