The sin and the salvation of man,—the fall and the rising again, considered as one whole, is here contemplated successively from two different, and in some respects opposite points of view. As the result, we obtain two very dissimilar pictures; yet the pictures are both true, and both represent the same object.
In as far as the departure is concerned, the two representations are coincident: it is only in regard to the return that they are essentially diverse. The sheep and the prodigal alike depart of their own accord, the one in ignorance and the other in wilful wickedness. Man destroys himself; but the hand of God must intervene for his salvation.[73]
The conversion of a sinner is, on the contrary, represented by two different pictures. You cannot convey a correct conception of a solid body by one picture on a flat surface. The globe itself, for example, cannot be exhibited on a map except as two distinct hemispheres. To the right you have a representation of one side, and to the left a representation of the other; the two pictures are different, and yet each, as far as it goes, is a true picture of the same globe. In like manner, the way of a sinner’s return to God is too great and deep for being fully set forth in one similitude. In particular its aspect towards God and its aspect towards men are so diverse that both cannot be represented by one figure. On one side the Redeemer goes spontaneously forth to seek and bear back again the lost; on the other side the wanderer repents, arises, and returns. Here, accordingly, you see the shepherd following the strayed sheep, and bringing it back on his shoulders to the fold; and there you see the weary prodigal first coming to himself, and then coming to his Father. The first picture shows the sovereign self-moving love of God our Saviour; and the second shows the beginning, the progress, and the result of repentance in a sinner’s heart.
These two similitudes represent one transaction: first, you are permitted to look upon it from above, and you behold the working of divine compassion; next, you are permitted to look upon it from below, and you behold the struggle of conviction in a sinner’s conscience,—the spontaneous return of a repenting man. Here is revealed the sovereign outgoing of divine power; and there in consequence appears a willing people (Ps. cx. 3). It is not that one sinner is brought back by Christ, and another returns of his own accord: both features are present in every example. Of every one who, from this fallen world, shall have entered the eternal rest, it may be said, and will be said in the songs of heaven, both that the Lord his Redeemer, of His own mere mercy, saved him, and that he spontaneously came back to his Father’s bosom and his Father’s house.[74]
It is proper to notice here also the immediate occasion in our Lord’s history whence these instructions sprung, as it belongs not particularly to the first parable, but generally to the whole group. This spark of heavenly light, like many others of similar beauty, has been struck off for us by a rude blow which the Jewish leaders aimed against the character and authority of Jesus. The publicans and sinners of the place,—the home-heathen of the day,—the people whether rich or poor, who had neither the power of religion in their hearts nor the profession of it on their lips,—came out in great numbers to hear this new prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. The word was new: “never man spake like this man” to these poor outcasts before. If at any time they sauntered into the synagogue, and hovered for a few moments on the outskirts of the congregation, the stray words that reached their ears from the desk of the presiding scribe, were harsh supercilious denunciations of themselves and their class. Hitherto their hearts had been like clay, and the Pharisaic teaching, as far as it had reached them, had been like fire: the clay in this furnace grew aye the harder. But now a new sound from the lips of a public teacher saluted their ears. They could not throw these words back in the speaker’s face, if they would; and they would not if they could. They permitted themselves to be taken, and led. To them Jesus speaks “with authority, and not as the scribes.” This word had power; and its power lay in its tenderness: it went sheer through their stony hearts, and made them flow down like water.
Nor did he gain favour among unholy men by making their sins seem lighter than the scribes represented them to be: he made them heavier. He did not convey to the profane and worldly the conception that their sins were easily forgiven; but he fixed in their hearts the impression that God is a great forgiver. Touched and won by this unwonted tenderness, they came in clouds to sit at Jesus’ feet.
The Pharisees counted their presence a blemish in the reputation of the teacher. As for them, they had always so spoken as to keep people of that sort effectually at a distance: the doctrine, they think, that brings them round the preacher cannot be sound. “This man,” they said, “receiveth sinners and eateth with them;” and they said no more, for they imagined that Jesus was convicted and condemned by the fact.
The occasion of the parables becomes in a great measure the key to their meaning. These men, the publicans and sinners, are Abraham’s seed, and consequently, even according to the showing of the Pharisees themselves, lost sheep,—prodigal sons; and the Redeemer’s errand from heaven to earth is to seek and find and bring back such as these to the Father’s fold. If they had not strayed, it would not have been necessary that the shepherd should follow them in their wandering, and bear them home: if they had not in a far country spent their substance in riotous living, it would not have been necessary that they should return repenting to their Father.
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