In Luke 15:11–32, Jesus tells the story we know as The Prodigal Son. Most of us probably learned the lesson of forgiveness as modeled by the father in the story. We learned to see ourselves in the prodigal, and God in the Father. But that interpretation ignores the context of the story, and it’s intended audience. This parable was directed toward the Pharisees, who were not represented by the prodigal, but by the older son.
The parable certainly contains a message for prodigals. But having learned that lesson, it is easy — natural, in fact — to shake our heads at the older brothers who self-righteously ostracize prodigals. But in setting ourselves apart from them, we actually join them.
It wouldn’t do for us to make the same mistake as the Pharisees. Scripture doesn’t give us room to stand in the distance, looking disparagingly at the Pharisees and thanking God we’re not like them. In fact, one of the clear implications of the story is that no one is free from the need for repentance. If the Pharisees needed to repent, despite their obsession with the minute details of the ceremonial law, how much more do we need to repent for not taking the holiness of God as seriously as we should?
Notice that Jesus did not rebuke the Pharisees for counting out little seeds to tithe; He rebuked them for using that kind of thing as a cloak to hide their failure with regard to the more important moral aspects of the Law. He told them, “You pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone” (Matthew 23:23; emphasis added).
If you can hear the parable of the prodigal son and not identify yourself, you are missing the unspoken point of Jesus’ message. It is a call to repentance, and it applies to prodigals (immoral, outcast sinners) and Pharisees (moral, respectable hypocrites) alike. Both the point and the counterpoint of the parable underscore this idea. On the one hand, we see how repentance unleashes heaven’s joy. On the other hand, we learn that refusing to see one’s own need for repentance is nothing but stubborn, self-righteous opposition to heaven’s agenda. Therefore, the parable demands repentance from prodigals and Pharisees.
The promise of redemption for penitent sinners goes hand in hand with that truth. There’s an unspoken but wholly gracious plea contained in these vivid images of profound joy in heaven whenever that which was lost is recovered. It reminds us of Jesus’ tender words in John 6:37: “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”
—John MacArthur, A Tale of Two Sons (Thomas Nelson, 2008), 36–37.
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