Gifts for Moms, Dads, and Grads
Gifts for Moms, Dads, and Grads
5 Ways We See the Beauty of Christ in the Prodigal’s Father
The Source of Joyous Celebration: A Beautiful Savior
Charles Dickens is quoted as saying that the parable of the prodigal son is the finest short story ever written. Many would agree. But if that is the case, we need to ask the question, What is so beautiful about this parable? Of course, part of the reason is that the lost son is found. But that is not the heart of why the story is so moving. If you think about it, the parable would not be so beautiful if the son came to his senses only to be rejected or abused by his father. The story is beautiful because of the gracious love of the father.1
Bringing this story into our world, the central reason why repentance is an occasion for joy is because of the beauty of Christ who is represented by the father in the parable. The more we think about who God is, the more we consider the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ and the more we will celebrate repentance for ourselves and others.2 We can see the beauty of Christ in the prodigal’s father in five ways.
First, the Father gives us life and all good things that we enjoy. The parable of the prodigal son not only ends with grace but also begins with it as well. We should not miss the fact that the son is able to rebel only because his father gave him life and provided all that he needed to grow up.
The Way of Repentance
Chris Brauns
Drawing on Scripture and the Westminster Shorter Catechism, this practical theology on repentance invites readers to experience abiding gladness by turning away from sin and toward Jesus.
As a pastor, I regularly think about how hard the fathers in our church work to provide for their young families. In the winter months, they often leave for work before it is light and return home after it is dark. They grind at their work of life so that they can be loving fathers who provide for their children.
So it is for us. Our heavenly Father has given us everything we enjoy. We need only to look around to see the beauty and glory of God in creation and all that he has provided. I don’t know what parts of our beautiful world get your attention, so I’ll share some of mine. My wife and I love the smell of spring rain in the upper Midwest, which soon gives way to the smell of hay in the summer. In those seasons, my wife and I enjoy the splashes of blue when bluebirds flit across our paths and the black and orange Baltimore orioles when they fly over. We love the smell of leaves in the fall and the sight of cold quiet mornings under a blanket of snow in the winter. At the table, we love the smell of bacon (pigs do serve a purpose) and hot apple pie. But more than being outside or eating great food, we love to kiss our grandchildren before giving them back to their parents when we are tired after spending time with them.
And here is the thing: All the beauty that we all enjoy is just a reflection of Christ, through whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together (Col. 1:16–17). How could it be anything but beautiful and joyous to turn to such a Creator? Think of what repentance is. It is turning “from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to . . . forgiveness” in Christ (Acts 26:18). It is finding rest in him who has given us all good things. How could repentance not be joyous?
Second, God is patient with us despite our ongoing rebellion. The original audience of Jesus’s parable would have been surprised that the father agreed to give his son his inheritance in the first place. In Jewish culture, there was even a formal ceremony to cut off a son, demonstrating that he was essentially dead to his father.3 Yet the father allowed him to take his inheritance and leave.
It is a beautiful detail in the parable that the father saw his son while he was still a long way off and rushed to meet him (Luke 15:20). Doubtless the reason the father saw his son the day he came home was because he was scanning the horizon every single day. He was praying over and over again that his son would return home. What a beautiful picture of the patient love of Christ!
God has given us life in a beautiful world, and yet we have rebelled— not just a few of us but all of us. We have all gone to a far country and lived in “malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). God should have rightly condemned us for all eternity. Yet God “is patient toward [us], not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). The door is not only unlocked but wide open, if only we will come home.
The patience of Christ is so beautiful. Why would we not turn joyously to him? Not only do we turn to him at the moment of our conversion, but we should also, over and over again, turn to him in the Christian life, as we turn back from the places to where we have strayed.
Third, God graciously forgives sinners through the atoning work of his son. The prodigal’s rebellion was expensive. He wasted his inheritance. The father could not regain the funds that had been lost from reckless living. The price had to be paid even though the prodigal came to himself and repented.
Likewise for us. The price for our sins had to be paid. The prodigal’s expenditures in a far country were trivial compared to the cost that our sins have accumulated. Yet God loved us so much that he sent his son to pay the penalty we deserve (2 Cor. 5:21). Indeed, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation [or “atoning sacrifice”] for our sins” (1 John 4:10). How could turning to such a Savior be anything but joyous?
The patience of Christ is so beautiful. Why would we not turn joyously to him?
Let me emphasize that the price for sin must be paid because an unbelieving world mocks this truth. Recall for a moment the biblical account of the Noahic flood (Gen. 6–8). It reminds us that God is a holy and just God who judged sin at this appointed time. And in this instance, every family on earth, except one, was destroyed. God doesn’t wink at sin and say, “No big deal.” Rather, physical and spiritual death is the penalty we all deserve and will receive if we do not repent. Yet the culture of this age is so belligerent that not only does it ignore the holiness of God but also blatantly taunts our Creator. As an example, it has co-opted the covenant sign of the rainbow as its mascot for sexual immorality. One of the effects of this rebellion is that some have come to believe that, on some level, God will look the other way where sin is concerned. But make no mistake, “God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7–8). The price for sin must be paid, which is why God sent his Son, Jesus, so that by his wounds the price of our sins were paid—if only we will turn to him.
Fourth, God reasons with us despite our legalism. When the older son objected to the grace given to his brother, the father reasoned with him: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:31–32). What an ugly moment for the older brother. His objection showed that he was defined by his own pride and selfishness rather than love for his brother and father. Just as the father might have parted company with the rebellion of the prodigal, he also could have ended his relationship with the legalistic older brother.
Most who read the parable of the prodigal son picture themselves through the eyes of the prodigal. And so we should. We have all gone to our own far countries. But we ought to notice that we have also played the part of the older brother too many times. We read books like the one you’re holding, thinking, I hope so and so reads this. All the while, we feel good about ourselves and all the kinds of things that betray subtle pride. For example, do you recognize any of these lines?
- “I’m not saying I am perfect but . . .”
- “I would never do [insert a sin]. It’s not how I was raised.”
- “Back in my day . . .”
When we say such things, we compare ourselves to those who we perceive as prodigals and insist that the father should pat us on the head for not living in a pigsty. Such talk exhibits so much self-righteousness.
If repentance does not strike you as an occasion for joy, then take a few minutes to read the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7). Perhaps, if you read it carefully and prayerfully, it will lead you to repent of hypocrisy and legalism in your own life, for “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3).
Finally, God promises us eternal fellowship in his presence. The parable ends without saying how the older brother responds to his father’s persuasion. But we know the end of the story for the prodigal. He is restored in fellowship with his father, and they share a beautiful life together for the rest of their days.
And this is the promise of Christ to those who repent and turn to him, to all “who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). While we face many deep valleys in this life, we all will soon gather on the other side with Jesus, and we all will be together in a new earth, where there is no more death, mourning, crying or pain. And as Jonathan Edwards pointed out, we will not relate to Christ from a great distance. Rather,
Christ will give himself to you, with all those various excellencies that meet in him, to your full and everlasting enjoyment. He will ever after treat you as his dear friend; and you shall ere long be where he is, and shall behold his glory, and dwell with him, in most free and intimate communion and enjoyment.4
Edwards went on to compare the access believers will have to Christ with the disciples’ interaction with him during his first advent:
The saints’ conversation with Christ in heaven shall not only be as intimate and their access to him as free, as of the disciples on earth, but in many respects much more so. . . . So that if we choose Christ for our friend . . . we shall hereafter be so received to him, that there shall be nothing to hinder the fullest enjoyment of him, to the satisfying the utmost cravings of our souls. We may take our full swing at gratifying our spiritual appetite after these holy pleasures. . . . There shall never be any end of this happiness, or anything to interrupt our enjoyment of it, or in the least to molest us in it!5
Notes:
- Regarding the surprising behavior of the father, see Craig L. Blomberg, Preaching the Parables: From Responsible Interpretation to Powerful Proclamation (Baker Academic, 2004), 39.
- “While all of us, I imagine, rightly see repentance as involving sorrow for sin, regret and mourning at its presence in us, Luke-Acts offers something further in authentic Christian repentance and that is the note of joy, associated with the festal themes of Luke 5–19. This joy is, on reflection, utterly to be expected. For repentance is constantly joined to the forgiveness of sins, and this must be an occasion for joy. Further, since repentance is a mark of God’s gracious gift to an individual, and an indication of his divine purpose being worked out, we rejoice too at God’s purpose being achieved. Joy in repentance we may see in three aspects: the joy of heaven at the repentant; the joy of repentants themselves, like Levi and Zacchaeus; and the joy of believers at seeing others too given the gift of repentance by God and so included in God’s forgiven people.” Ovey, Feasts of Repentance, 16.
- Blomberg, Preaching the Parables, 43.
- Jonathan Edwards, “The Excellency of Christ,” in Altogether Lovely: Jonathan Edwards on the Glory and Excellency of Jesus Christ (1736), ed. Don Kistler (Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997), 53.
- Edwards, “Excellency of Christ,” 55–56.
This article is adapted from The Way of Repentance: Embracing God’s Gift for a Transformed Life by Chris Brauns.
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