WWUTT 2436 No Gospel in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-24)

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The parable of the prodigal son is one of the most popular parables that Jesus taught.

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Some love it so much they will say it's even a perfect picture of the gospel. But there is no gospel in this parable, when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you Becky. In our study of the gospel of Luke, we come back to chapter 15. Now I left off midway through the parable of the prodigal son, but I'm going to go back up to verse 11, read through verse 24, again we'll catch that first half.

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I want to make a couple more notes about that before we get into the second half. Hopefully we'll finish up the parable by tomorrow.

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So here once again is Jesus speaking in the parable of the prodigal son, Luke chapter 15, starting in verse 11.

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Hear the word of the Lord. And he said, there was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.

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And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country.

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And there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.

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So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

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And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

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But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger.

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I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, father,

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I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

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Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father.

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But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

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And the son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you,

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I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate.

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For this, my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

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And they began to celebrate. One of the things that I want to point out in this section, as we come back to the first half of this parable again, is that the gospel is not here.

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And why do I find it necessary to have to point that out? Because there are a lot of people that will use this parable as a picture of the gospel or will say that Jesus is sharing the gospel here, but the gospel isn't here.

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And I'll draw that out here in a moment. But let's go back to the start again. There was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, give me the share of the property that is coming to me.

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Now, just to kind of recap, when I was talking about this the first time, when we went through this half of the parable of the prodigal child, now over a week ago,

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I had mentioned to you that it's highly unlikely that the property was split in half, that the younger son got half and the older son got half.

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The older son gets most. So he was really getting the larger share.

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And I bring that out again, because when we talk about the older son tomorrow in the second half of this parable, then keep that in mind, that the older son is complaining in the midst of the fact that he's actually getting more of what belongs to the father than the younger son had.

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The younger son took what belonged to his father. It was eventually going to be his share, but he's demanding it early.

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The father gives it to him and the younger son goes off and squanders it in another country.

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Now, this is the reason why this parable is called the parable of the prodigal son.

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That word prodigal means somebody who is wasteful in their spending, who will take what they have and they just blow it all.

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The term for that is a prodigal. And so prodigal son, prodigal is not synonymous with son.

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Sometimes we will just use that word prodigal as though it automatically means a prodigal child. But prodigal son, a son is already an adjective.

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It describes this young man as being the younger of this father's sons. The fact that he's a prodigal is not synonymous with son.

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That's a different thing altogether. An adult can be a prodigal. It's not just related to a child. But we've shortened this and use that word prodigal and applied it to any kind of rebellious child, maybe a child that's grown up in the faith and then they rebel for a while and then they come back, we will say that they're a prodigal, even though they haven't really gone off and squandered wealth, unless you want to apply that spiritually in the sense that they had wealth in the gospel and in biblical teaching that they had been raised up in.

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This was a home where they heard the gospel regularly. They were taught how to pray.

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They were told to follow God. They knew who Jesus Christ was and what he had done on the cross for us, risen again from the dead, and whoever believes in him will not perish under the judgment of God that we all deserve for our sin, but we'll have everlasting life.

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And though they were raised in that and they heard that all the time, yet they went astray and maybe sometime later came back.

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So we might say of such a person, we hope that they're a prodigal, that eventually they're going to come back.

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And so in this sense, in the spiritual application of that word, we could say that they had the wealth of the gospel, but then they squandered it all on reckless living, believing perhaps that they could just sin all they want and, hey, my parents taught me the gospel, so I'm saved.

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I'm good. Even if I have to go stand before God, I'm getting in because I was raised in it.

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But then coming to their senses, just like this younger son did when he came to himself, as it says in verse 17, so eventually when they're in that state of rebellion, if they come to themselves, if God grants them repentance, 2

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Timothy 2, 25, and they realize what it is that they're doing and they have fallen from God and gone astray from the principles that they were taught, the truth that they were taught by their parents, then that would make them a prodigal in that sense.

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They come back around, they come to faith in Jesus Christ for real this time or solidify that they truly believe they just went through a period of rebellion.

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So yeah, we would call that person a prodigal. In the spiritual sense, it probably applies, but I think that we've kind of lost the definition of prodigal.

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We don't really think about what it means. We just think it refers to a rebellious child who we hope is going to come back to the faith, and so therefore we use that term of prodigal.

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But prodigal deals with the fact that this son took what had been given to him by his father and he blew it all in another country, spent everything that he had, squandered his property and reckless living, it says.

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And then verse 14, a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need.

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And notice that it says in verse 14, he began to be in need.

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And at the end of verse 16, no one gave him anything. So he even left not only his father's house and his family and everything that he had known, but even his people, his land, those people that were familiar to him.

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Now to a Jew who's listening to this, they're going, why on earth would you want to leave this?

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Because this land that they occupied obviously was granted to the descendants of Abraham. This was the promised land.

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This is where they lived. This is where God blesses us. So why would you leave this and want to go to another place?

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So this is really speaking to a Jew, just how rebellious this son was, that he thought that he could get blessing in another place, that people would even want him there and care for him there.

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But he squandered his money with people who did not even care about him and longing to be fed even with the pods that the pigs ate because no one gave him anything.

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There was no one charitable at all. This is the most charity that he was able to get, sleeping with the pigs, which was an unclean animal.

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That was an abominable thing to do in the eyes of a Jew. But then again, verse 17, he came to himself and he said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread?

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But I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, and like I said last time, he recites this thing that he's going to say to his father, that when he finally gets to his father, his father cuts him off, doesn't even let him finish it.

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But this is a demonstration of real repentance here. And remember, this is Jesus telling this story, telling this parable.

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So Jesus is even giving a picture of what a genuinely repentant heart would look like.

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Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

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Now, see, that's a very humble prayer to pray. If we were to say to God, when we come and confess our sins,

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I am not worthy to be called your child. Treat me as one of your hired servants, one of your slaves, the son says he would be.

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He would be perfectly content to be back in the home, in the property of his father, probably in slaves quarters.

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He can't have his own room back. He's not even asking for that, but he would be content to just be there on his father's property if I get to live even in the place where the slaves live.

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And of course, we know that's not what his father does. He doesn't send him to the slaves quarters. He gives him the best seat in the house, puts the royal robe on him, puts a ring on his finger and he arose and he came to his father.

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But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion.

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Same word, the same Greek word used here for compassion we find used for sympathy in the

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New Testament as well. So he had compassion on him. He ran and embraced him and kissed him.

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Now, it's interesting when I was listening to R .C. Sproul do an exposition of this parable. He pointed out how this behavior by the father was really kind of shameful.

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An older man like this didn't run. You came to the older man.

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He does not go running to you. So there is kind of a demonstration of his own condescension in this sense.

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He goes running to his son to meet him, even to the point that he makes a fool out of himself running.

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People would be looking at that going, oh, look at that old man running. Old men aren't supposed to run, probably even girding up his loins and running the way that he's doing to get to his son and embracing him and kissing him.

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So this really does show how much the father missed his son and loves his son.

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And the son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you.

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I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. And that's all he gets out. He doesn't even get to the line.

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Treat me as one of your hired servants. The father doesn't care. The father said to his servants, cutting him off, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate for this.

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My son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate.

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And that is where all three of these parables have that commonality. So remember, this is the third in a series of or in a trilogy of parables.

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It started with the parable of the lost sheep, then the parable of the lost coin, and then you have the parable of the prodigal son.

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And if the parable ended right there, then it would end the same way that the other three parables ended.

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Because with the first one, with the lost sheep, you have a shepherd who has 100 sheep.

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He leaves the 99 that are safe in the fold. He goes to find the one that has gone astray. And when he finds it, he celebrates.

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And there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance is what

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Jesus said at the end of that parable in the parable of the lost coin. A woman has 10 coins.

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She loses one. She searches the whole house. She finds it and then says to her friends and neighbors, rejoice with me, for I have found that coin that I lost.

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And verse 10 says, just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

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So this is the way that these previous two parables have ended. You would think that when Jesus gets to this point in this parable, this my son was dead and is alive again.

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He was lost and is found just like the lost sheep, just like the lost coin. And they began to celebrate.

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And here's where Jesus would say there is more rejoicing over one sinner who repents than over the one son who is faithful.

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You would think that that's where Jesus is going to go, but that's not where he goes. Instead, now he turns his attention to the older son and his behavior and his reaction to the actions of his younger brother, even the actions of his father and how his father is treating this younger brother who had so disrespected his father.

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And that's what we're going to come back to tomorrow. We're going to look at the older son as we finish up our study of this particular parable.

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But like I said, what I wanted to draw out today was I wanted to make the point that the gospel is not in this parable.

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And like I said, it's very common, even among false teachers, especially among liberals, like liberal and progressives, which are kind of the same thing.

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But the liberal and progressive teachers will say that this is the gospel.

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This is really the gospel that we have here in the parable of the prodigal son. There's no propitiatory sacrifice that needs to be made.

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The father just welcomes him and brings him home. No requirements. Just his sins are forgiven.

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And he gets the royal robe and the royal treatment and the whole bit. That's why these progressives love this parable and want to insist that this parable is a picture of the gospel.

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It's because they hate the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. Jesus having to die on the cross for our sins in our place, taking the wrath of God upon himself.

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And so whoever believes in him, our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life. They hate that. And you'll hear those same progressive teachers say, well, that's cosmic child abuse.

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The father putting his son to death in this parable. There's nothing like that that happens. The father doesn't grab his younger son and put him to death.

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He just forgives him and welcomes him home. And that's the gospel. Well, Benjamin Warfield says, not so fast.

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He's pointed out that the parable of the prodigal son does not contain the gospel. Jesus said in Luke 1910, coming up in four chapters for the son of man came to seek and save the lost.

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Yet there is no seeking on the part of the father in this story. But most importantly,

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Warfield says the parable is not the gospel because there's no atonement for sin.

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The very reason why the progressives like this because there's no atonement for sin is exactly the reason why the gospel is not in this parable.

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Warfield dealt with this same thing in his day. So Benjamin Warfield was dealing with this in the 19th century.

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Certain false teachers were denying the atonement and they were trying to push the message of the gospel being contained in the parable of the prodigal son.

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This is really where the gospel is not in Jesus propitiatory sacrifice or in Isaiah 53 or any of these other places.

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So here's what Warfield said. I'm reading from Warfield here. It is precisely because there is no atonement in this parable that it has been seized upon by the modern tendency to which we have alluded as the norm of the only

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Christianity it will profess. For nothing is more characteristic of this new type of Christianity than that it knows and will know nothing of an atonement.

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The old Sosinians were quick to perceive this feature of the parable and to make use of it in their assault upon the doctrine of Christ's satisfaction for sin.

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See, they cried. The father in the parable asks no satisfaction before he will receive back his son.

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He rather sees him afar off and runs to meet him and gives him a free and royal welcome.

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The response, Warfield says, is no doubt just that other scriptures clearly teach the atonement of which no hint is given here and that we have no right to expect that every passage in scripture and least of all these parables which exist under necessary limitations in their power of setting forth the truth shall contain the whole circle of Christian doctrine.

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Remember that Jesus is telling these parables to make a particular point and he's telling them to a particular crowd.

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And here with the parable of the prodigal son is really where Jesus drives the point home to the

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Pharisees to whom he is responding. Remember back to what we read in Luke 15 1.

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Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying this man receives sinners and eats with them.

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And so he told them this parable and then you have parable of the lost sheep, parable of the lost coin, parable of the prodigal son.

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So what we're going to be looking at tomorrow is the older brother. And like I said at the beginning of this, when we first started studying it, you know, a little over a week ago,

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I had said that this is more accurately titled the parable of the older brother.

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Even though the prodigal son gets all the attention and that's part of the problem because these guys that like to see the gospel in this parable think that the parable is all about the prodigal son and it's really not.

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Jesus is responding to the Pharisees who are acting like the older brother. And that's the point.

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And we're going to look at what Jesus means for them to see in the older brother.

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When we come back to this parable tomorrow, in the meantime, we can see the beauty of the forgiveness that the father gives to the younger son in the first half that we have read, and especially the repentance that the younger son offers up a truly penitent heart that acknowledges.

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I'm not even worthy to be called your son. We are not worthy to be called children of God. And yet in Christ Jesus, that's what we have become.

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First John three, one, see how great the love. The father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God.

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And so we are. And if you have been a prodigal, someone who has gone astray, chased after the pleasures of the world or the passions of your flesh, repent, come back to Jesus Christ and be received again by the love of the father.

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Heavenly father, we thank you so much for what we have read. And we do see in this parable, the greatness of the love and the affection that you have for us in these three parables, seeing the joy that is lifted up over a sinner who repents.

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And that even in heaven, the angels rejoice when one turns from their sin and comes back to Jesus Christ.

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Convict our hearts and draw us close to you. Never let us stray too far from yourself.

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As said in Jude, you are the one who keeps us from stumbling and delivers us into your presence.

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Do so with great joy, father. And may we live lives of holiness that glorify you.