Redeeming God

Liberating you from bad ideas about God

Learn the MOST ESSENTIAL truths for following Jesus.

Get FREE articles and audio teachings in my discipleship emails!


  • Join Us!
  • Scripture
  • Theology
  • My Books
  • About
  • Discipleship
  • Courses
    • What is Hell?
    • Skeleton Church
    • The Gospel According to Scripture
    • The Gospel Dictionary
    • The Re-Justification of God
    • What is Prayer?
    • Adventures in Fishing for Men
    • What are the Spiritual Gifts?
    • How to Study the Bible
    • Courses FAQ
  • Forum
    • Introduce Yourself
    • Old Testament
    • New Testament
    • Theology Questions
    • Life & Ministry

Putting on the Breastplate of Righteousness (Ephesians 6:14b)

By Jeremy Myers
1 Comment

Putting on the Breastplate of Righteousness (Ephesians 6:14b)
http://media.blubrry.com/one_verse/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/694452994-redeeminggod-170-how-to-put-on-the-breastplate-of-righteousness-ephesians-614b.mp3

As we continue to look at the spiritual armor God has given us for our spiritual battle, we look at the breastplate. Specifically in Ephesians 6:14, Paul calls it the breastplate of righteousness.

And just as with the belt of truth, we will look at this second piece of the armor in three ways. First, how it was used on the soldier, second, how it is to be used for us as Christians in spiritual battle, and then finally, how we can put it on for battle.

Let us begin with what the breastplate did for the soldier.

The Breastplate for the Soldier

As the name implies, the breastplate of the Roman soldier was worn on the chest or torso of the soldier. Although at times, they were made out of leather, the breastplates worn by soldiers in Paul’s day were typically made from iron.

But the breastplates were not made from one solid piece of metal the way we might imaging seeing on a knight in medieval England. It was not plate armor.

The Roman soldier’s armor was scale armor. The Roman military breastplate was made of overlapping bands of metal that were then tied together with leather cords. This made the Roman breastplate more flexible and maneuverable than the kind of breastplates the knights wore.

The scale armor of the Roman soldier was much lighter and more flexible than the suits of armor worn by medieval knights. Remember, the Roman soldier had to run 24 miles in five hours while wearing his armor. I doubt that a medieval knight, wearing a full suit of armor, could run five miles in five hours.

This type of breastplate construction helped the Roman soldier on the field of battle. They were light on their feet, and the flexible breastplate enabled them to make quick maneuvers and changes during the battle.

And what was the purpose of the breastplate? It helped protect the soldier’s vital organs, such as the heart, lungs, and the entire digestive tract. If any of these organs were damaged in battle, the soldier was almost certain to die.

So the breastplate was obviously important. It was made of strips of metal so that it could be light and flexible, and it’s main purpose was to protect the vital organs of the soldier.

With this in mind, let us move on to see how the spiritual breastplate is to be used for the Christian in spiritual warfare.

The Breastplate for the Christian

As we seek to discover the role and function the spiritual breastplate serves for the Christian, it is important to remember that the breastplate is connected to and held in place by the belt of truth (cf. how the two are connected in Ephesians 5:9).

And the belt of truth is Scripture, the Word of God. We put on the belt of truth by reading, studying, and learning what Scripture says. The breastplate of righteousness then, is the right way of living that comes from learning and obeying the truth of Scripture.

There is a major difference between understanding the truth and living the truth.

There is a difference between being able to recite verses and list Bible facts, and actually living or applying those verses and Bible facts to your life.

Religious Leaders missed ChristmasDo you remember the Pharisees? They were Bible scholars. They were experts of the law. Most of them had the entire Torah—the first five books of the Bible—memorized. They knew the history of Israel forward and backward. They prayed and sang the Psalms. They could recite passages from the Prophets.

But this group of religious leaders disagreed with most of what Jesus said and taught, and it is for them that Jesus reserved His most scalding rebukes. For example, in Matthew 23:27-28, Jesus says,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

These men were outwardly righteous. They appeared righteous to others. They had all the right words, and all the right actions, and all the right behaviors. But Jesus says to them, “It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside. All that matters is how you look on the inside. What does your heart look like?”

This is what the breastplate of righteousness is for. Just as the breastplate was made of many interlocking strips of metal tied together to protect the vital organs of a soldier, so also, all the numerous passages of Scripture, when they are rightly understood and applied, work together as interlocking truths, to protect the vital functions of our life as a Christian.

Scripture keeps the desires of our heart on the right track, so that we desire the things of God, rather than the things of this world. In other words, to wear the breastplate of righteousness, we have to protect our heart, the center of who we are, by keeping our conscience pure.

Scripture also keeps our spiritual lungs breathing deeply from the indwelling life of the Holy Spirit so that we can be guided and shaped into the image of Jesus Christ. Scripture allows us to properly digest and comprehend the things we experience in life so that these experiences can be used to guide and direct ourselves and others on the path toward peace and unity.

When properly protected and informed by Scripture, our godly desires, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and our life experiences lead us into the life of righteousness that God wants for us.

But what is righteousness?

Before we can learn how to put it on, we must know what it is. There is a whole set of English words that are all related to one another and attempt to explain a single biblical concept. The words include terms like justification, justice, justify, righteous, and righteousness. They all come from the Greek words dikē, dikaiosunē, dikaioō, and dikaios. If you want to learn more, my Gospel Dictionary Course will eventually have a lesson on “Righteousness”

The words are all related in concept and themes, and refer to the judgments, decisions, or announcements of an authority figure about the condition or “rightness” of someone or something else. All of these words carry the idea of something being “in the right.”

So, for example, a judge or justice might declare a person to be “in the right,” that is, not guilty (cf. Rom 3:23-25). An accountant might declare a set of ledgers or financial records “in the right,” equaled, or properly balanced. Government officials might ratify (or “rightify”) a treaty with another government or organization, thereby stating that both parties of the treaty agree that the terms of the treaty are correct, or “in the right.”

So this word family is one of those biblical terms where various English words have been used to translate the one set of Greek words, which then leads to some confusion about the meaning of the words. Some of this conclusion could be cleared up if Bible translators picked a word and stuck with it.

The two best options are the English words “right” and “just.” If they went with “right” then we would talk about righteousness, rightness, being in the right, and ratify. If we went with the word “just” we could speak of justice, justification, and justify.

Regardless of which term is used, however, there is something that must be noticed about this particular word family. When something is ratified, justified, or declared right, it is only a statement about the present and current condition of the person, ledgers, or treaty. It says nothing about their future condition.

If an accountant looks at a set of financial books and discovers that they are balanced, he will declare them to be justified. They are balanced. But this does not mean that an error or mistake will not be made tomorrow or next month which will put them out of balance.

Similarly, if two governments ratify a treaty, there is the expectation that they will abide by the terms of this treaty in the future, but history has shown that countries and governments break the terms of treaties all the time. So the current agreement on the terms of a treaty do not guarantee that the treaty will always be in effect.

Furthermore, even if a judge declares a person to be “not guilty” of a particular crime, this does not mean that the person will not commit that particular crime in the future. So the declaration of “rightness” is only about the present condition of something; it says nothing about the future.

This brings us back around to the breastplate of righteousness that we are to wear. It’s is God’s breastplate, and He gives it to us. Why? Because we could never achieve it or earn it on our own. God’s standard of “rightness” is perfection. God, as the divine judge, the heavenly accountant, will not and cannot declare any person to be “right” unless they are perfectly holy and without sin.

But that is impossible for any human being. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). In and of ourselves, not a single human being (other than Jesus) is “in the right.” But this was not acceptable to God, and so He decided to make His own perfect righteousness available to us. This is what Paul has in mind when he writes here about the breastplate of righteousness.

When God gives His breastplate of righteousness to us, He is saying, “No matter what you have done and no matter what you will do, your ledgers are balanced, your accounts are correct, you are justified because I have given My holiness to you.”

But of course, God doesn’t give His righteousness to everyone. As Paul states repeatedly in Romans and Galatians, God gives His righteousness only to those who believe in Jesus for it. God cannot force His righteousness on people; it can only be received by faith.

This righteousness we receive from God by faith then guides us into how God wants us to live the rest of our life by faith. This brings us to the discussion of how to take up and put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Putting on the Breastplate

To put on the breastplate of righteousness, we must first recognize that, just as with all the pieces of Spiritual armor, the breastplate of righteousness belongs to God. In Isaiah 59:17, we read that God wears righteousness as a breastplate. Isaiah 59 further reveals that this righteousness is not the positional, imputed righteousness that God gives to all believers the moment they believe in Jesus for everlasting life. Instead, it is the practical, day-to-day righteousness that God expects and desires all Christians to live by. It is living the holy life.

But before we can wear the breastplate, we must have it. And as just indicated, we receive the righteousness of God by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. We cannot earn or buy the breastplate of righteousness for ourselves. It is the free gift of God to anyone and everyone who simply and only believes in Jesus for it.

However, receiving the righteousness of God by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone is not the same thing as living the righteous life that God wants and desires for us. Just as a declaration by an accountant that the books are balanced is no guarantee that the books will not make mistakes in the future, so also, though we have been declared right by God, we still often make mistakes in our lives.

Just as a judgment by a judge that a person is not guilty is no guarantee that the person will not break the law in the future, so also, the declaration of rightness by God is no guarantee that we will not break God’s law in the future.

Once we have received the righteousness of God, we must make sure we put it on and wear it. The breastplate of righteousness is only helpful in spiritual warfare if it is strapped around our chest.

So how do we put on the breastplate of righteousness? How do we make sure that the free gift of God’s positional and imputed righteousness becomes the practical and applied righteousness of God in our lives?

How do we make sure that God’s declaration that we are “in the right” with Him becomes the true reality of our life as we walk with Him? Since there is a difference between being declared right and actually living right, how can the spiritual reality of our righteousness from God become the practical reality of a righteous life?

The key to practical righteousness is to recognize that while all of us will continue to sin during this life, there are steps we can take to purify our lives and refrain from sin as we follow Jesus on the path of discipleship.

The breastplate of righteousness, remember, covers the vital organs of the body, such as the heart, lungs, and digestive tract. So when we seek to take up and put on the breastplate of righteousness, we seek to protect the vital and essential elements of our life as a Christian.

We seek to protect our heart and its desires. We maintain contact with the indwelling and purifying work of the Holy Spirit as we maintain a pure conscience before God. We make sure that the spiritual food we eat is healthy for the growth and development of our spiritual bodies.

The biblical practices of confession, purification, and repentance help us maintain righteousness and holiness in our lives. The first letter of these three terms form the acronym CPR, which is interesting because CPR is the practice of reviving a person when their heart or lungs stop working.

The breastplate protects these vital organs, but we can also restore them to proper functionality through spiritual CPR. Heart attacks often occur as a result of poor diet, but we can get a heart beating again and return breath to the lungs through spiritual CPR. If there is an area in your life where you are having a spiritual heart attack, or where you are about to be drowned by sin, God wants to get your heart beating and your lungs breathing again through spiritual CPR: Confession, Purification, and Repentance.

These three practices will help us achieve and maintain the practical righteousness of God in our lives. Let us briefly consider each.

Confession (1 John 1:9-10)

There is much confusion about confession. People wonder what they should confess, how they should confess, and who they should confess to. And then there is the question of how confession differs from repentance.

The basic definition of confession is that it occurs when we admit or agree that something we said, did, or thought was wrong. When we agree, admit, or confess that a behavior were wrong, this stops sin dead in its tracks. See “Confess” in my Gospel Dictionary course for more.

Quite often, we Christians do things we know are wrong. We know we are not supposed to lie, lust, steal, covet, or commit any number of other sins, but sometimes, in a moment of weakness, we engage in such sins anyway.

Afterwards, the Holy Spirit works with our conscience to convict us of our sin. The Spirit points out to us what we already know, that what we did was wrong. And if we agree with the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, then we confess our sin, and the sin does not take further root in our life.

John is teaching that when we sin, God often points out to us that what we did was wrong. When this happens, we are faced with a choice. We can either agree with God that our actions were wrong and then turn from them, or we can disagree with God and continue in our sinful behavior.

If we agree, then we are released from the potential addiction and destruction that this sinful behavior might bring upon us and are cleansed so we can follow Jesus in righteousness again.

If, however, we do not confess, if we do not agree with God that our behaviors were wrong, then we will continue in these destructive behaviors, and will likely become enslaved to a damaging and destructive pattern of sin in our lives. Sin will sink a hook into us, and will drag us down deeper into its destructive tendencies.

confess our sins

All patterns of sin begin by committing the particular sin the very first time. When this happens, God confronts us on it. He might do this through Scripture, or by the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, or maybe even through the gentle words of a trusted friend. If we ignore the corrective prodding from God, we will likely continue in this sin, committing it more and more frequently, until we become enslaved to it.

Sin will sink its claws into it. It will hook into us and not let us go. We will become addicted to this sin, until it becomes a destructive habit or pattern in our life.

John gives the solution to this problem in 1 John 1:9. He says that when we sin and God confronts us about it, we should own up to what we did. We should confess our sin, agree with God that what we did was wrong.

If we do this, then sin will not gain a foothold in our life. Instead, we will be released from the addicting power and destructive consequences of that sin. We will be cleansed from the unrighteous behavior, and will maintain the practical righteous life that God wants and desires for us. See “Confess” in my Gospel Dictionary course for more.

Now, there is a way to break free from the addicting and enslaving patterns of sin in our life as well, but confession will not be enough. We will need repentance for that. However, before we talk about repentance, let us consider purification.

Purification (James 4:8)

While purification and confession are similar, there is one main difference. Confession is necessary when we do something we knew was wrong. We knew it was wrong to lie, but we lied anyway, and then our conscience kicked in, so confessed to God and to the person we lied to.

Purification is different. Purification is necessary when we do something wrong that we didn’t initially know was wrong. Purification is required when we discover that some action or behavior we performed—maybe many years—is actually sinful and wrong, but we didn’t know it.

While confession is necessary when we do something we knew was wrong, purification is necessary when God reveals the truth to us about a sinful behavior we didn’t know was wrong.

God doesn’t really hold these sins against us, for He constantly cleanses and purifies us from all sin anyway, but once He takes our sanctification to the next level and start pointing out new areas in our life He wants us to work on, it is our responsibility to purify our lives from these sinful activities, beliefs, or behaviors.

Believe it or not, there are many sorts of activities in life that most people—including Christians—do not recognize as sinful. We all come to Christianity with a host of bad habits.

And that’s okay.

God doesn’t expect us to get rid of them all before we become a Christian, or even in the first few weeks, months, or years of being a Christian. He takes us just as we are, and works with us slowly over time. The process of sanctification is a life-long process.

After we become a Christian, God begins to deal with us and some of our sinful ways of living, many of which most people don’t even think of as being sinful. As we seek to follow Jesus on the path of discipleship, He begins to show us that some of the things we are doing are not really what we should be doing.

Some of the behaviors God wants to purify from our lives might seem a little surprising, because we didn’t even realize that what we were doing was wrong.  Almost everyone knows that murder and adultery are wrong, but there are many sinful condemned by Scripture which few people realize are wrong.

Take money as an example. Many people, Christians included, think that the money they make is theirs to spend. Even though many Christians give a tithe, they assume the rest is theirs to keep, to do with as they please. But all money belongs to God, and He wants us to use money to love, serve, feed, and clothe others.

Gossip and slander also are a normal way of life for most people. We like to hear the newest juicy tidbit of news about other people. We Christians even like to spread gossip under the guise of sharing a “prayer request.” We say things like, “Did you hear about how Mr. and Mrs. Jones are going to marriage counseling? Yes, I heard they had a fight, and he went down to the local bar and had a few too many drinks. He ended up kissing a woman down there in front of everyone, and who knows what else they did… I wonder if they are going to get divorced. We should pray for them.” This is not a prayer request. This is Christian gossip.

Some of us have been engaging in these sorts of practices for years. Maybe even decades. And we never really knew they were wrong, because this is just how the world works. But eventually, through Bible study, prayer, a sermon, or the kind counsel of a Christian friend, we hear that a behavior we have always practiced is actually wrong and displeasing to God.

When this happens, we must make the choice to purify our lives from such behaviors. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

When we draw near to God, He draws near to us, and His closeness to us ends up shining light into the dark corners of our life, pointing out dust and cobwebs we never knew were there.

When God reveals to us that these behaviors are sinful, we are to cleanse our hands from such actions, and purify our hearts. In so doing, we will draw closer to God, and He will draw closer still to us. And of course, the process of purification will begin again.

The process of purification is a never-ending cycle of becoming more and more like Jesus, and more like the person God wants us to be.

So purification is different than confession. We purify our lives of sinful behaviors that we didn’t know were sinful until God pointed them out to us. But we are to confess the sins we commit which we knew were sinful when we committed them.

But what about when we engage in sinful practices that we know are sinful, and which we practice for a long time?

In other words, if we refuse to confess the actions we knew were sinful, or refuse to purify our lives from the sinful behaviors God revealed to us, what happens then? In this case, we continue to practice the sin. We will chase after it. It will become a pattern, a habit, or addiction, in our life. When this happens, there is only one way out: repentance.

repentance

Repentance (Luke 15:11-32)

One of the classic biblical stories about repentance is the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32. It is story about a father who has two sons. The younger son asks for his inheritance early, and then goes off to a far country to squander his inheritance on feasting and parties. He eventually finds himself living among the pigs, without food, shelter, or clothing, and decides to return home. When he returns home, his father throws a big “Welcome Home” party for his son.

Most Christians think this is a story about how God welcomes non-Christians in His family. They think the prodigal son represents non-believer, and the party occurs when this person becomes a Christian.

But that is not true to the story. The son was a son before he ever left home. He did not become a son by going home.

In the two previous parables of Luke 15, the lost sheep belonged to the shepherd before he went looking for it, and the lost coin belonged to the woman before she swept her house clean. It is the same with the lost son. The father doesn’t adopt a son he never had before. The son rebels and leaves and then returns. In this way, the son represents a Christian who went off into sin, and lived in sin for a very long time.

And at the end of the stories, Jesus says that there is great rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repents. Who is the sinner Jesus has in mind? It is the sinful Christian.

The sinner who has turned away from the path of discipleship and decided instead to live in sin and rebellion against God. This sinner still remains a Christian, a son, but they are in a far off land, away from the light, love, joy, and fellowship that is found in the father’s household. But when the wayward Christian returns, God throws a party.

How is this return accomplished? Through repentance. The son journeyed to a far country, then when he realized that his sinful rebellion wasn’t good, enjoyable, or satisfying, he turned away, repented, and started the journey back. He was headed one way, and then he repented and started heading the other way. This is repentance.

It is for those Christians who have refused to confess their sin when God points it out to them, and have ignored God’s revelation about purifying their lives from sinful behaviors. Instead of follow God’s guidance, they continue to follow sin. But eventually, the find themselves wallowing in the mud with pigs. Once they realize how wrong they were, and how right God was, they can then begin the journey of repentance back toward God.

But this journey doesn’t happen overnight. If we spent a decade walking into the woods, we won’t get out in an hour. The journey back toward God will often take less time than the journey away, for after all, when the son was still a long way off, the father ran to meet him.

When God sees us coming back, He will run to meet us as well, so that He might walk with us, and even carry us, on the return journey. But the return journey of repentance must be made. Only through learning from our mistakes and journeying back toward obedience to God will we learn to avoid more mistakes in the future.

And the return doesn’t happen in an hour. If it took us 20 years to journey into the woods, we won’t get out in 20 minutes. Thankfully, it won’t take 20 years to get out of the woods, for the Father, when He saw his son returning from a long way off, ran out to meet him.

prodigal sonGod is watching for our return, and when we turn, and begin to journey back toward fellowship with Him, He casts aside all dignity, and runs with haste to meet us on the road, carrying and helping us when we are tired and weary from the journey. But we must journey back, if we are to return to fellowship in the family.

And the return journey requires repentance. It requires us to take the time, energy, resources, and locations that we used to use to aid us in our sin, and transforming or redeeming such items to be used in the pursuit of godliness and holiness. We turn away from our habits of sin and turn toward developing habits of righteousness.

Repentance is turning away from patterns and habits of sinful rebellion, and beginning to take the journey back toward God.

Conclusion

So the three elements of spiritual CPR can be summarized in this way: Confession is for those one-time sins we knew were sinful, but which we committed anyway. It keeps sin from setting its hooks and claws into our lives.

Purification is for those one-time or long-term sins we commit, which we didn’t know were sinful until it is pointed out to us through Scripture, the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, or a good friend.

Repentance is for breaking free from the sinful habits or behaviors we have practiced for a very long time which we knew were sinful, but which we practiced anyway. Repentance is needed when sin has hooked into us deeply, and we need the careful hands of the Great Physician to cut the sin out of our bodies, and the healing touch of the Holy Spirit to restore our life and health. Repentance is often a long process, but it is the only way to recover from sinful habits and patterns.

Together, confession, purification, and repentance allow us to practice spiritual CPR in our lives as Christians. Such practices keep our lives free from sin and on the path of righteousness that God wants for us.

Righteousness keeps us healthy and strong as soldiers of Jesus Christ so that we can fight against wicked forces in spiritual warfare. Righteousness keeps our lungs breathing in the pure air the indwelling Holy Spirit, our heart focused on the desires of God, and our belly fill with the meat of the truth of God’s Word.

We take up and put on God’s breastplate of righteousness by removing our filthy clothes stained with sin and replacing them with His practical righteousness. When we get the breastplate of righteousness on, when we get it firmly in place, it becomes much easier to protect our heart.

Only in this way will you protect your life from the deadly and suffocating consequences of sin. Only then will we be able to stop the fiery darts that the devil shoots our way.

Do you want to learn about spiritual warfare and how to put on the full armor of God? If you want to defeat sin and gain victory in your life over temptation so you can better follow Jesus, take my course on the Armor of God as it is explained in Ephesians 6:10-20. This course costs $297, but when you join the Discipleship group, you can to take the entire course for free.

God is Redeeming God, Redeeming Scripture, Redeeming Theology, z Bible & Theology Topics: armor of God, breastplate of righteousness, confess, confession, Ephesians 6:10-20, Ephesians 6:14, Luke 15:11-32, prodigal son, purification, repentance, righteousness, spiritual warfare

Advertisement

God in Search of Man

By Jeremy Myers
4 Comments

God in Search of Man

I am really excited about the podcast I am publishing this Thursday. We will be looking at Genesis 3:8-10 which is where Adam and Eve hide from God after eating fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

If you haven’t been listening to my podcast, make sure you don’t miss this one. It reveals something crucial about God. Something you don’t want to miss. Go subscribe now, and you will get it automatically on Thursday…

subscribe on itunes

Among other things, I talk about how God calls out in Genesis 3:10, “Adam, where are you?”

This is the question of God throughout all of human history.

Lots of people say that the Bible is an account of man in search of God. I see it differently. I see it as an account of God in search of man.

God did not leave us. We left Him. The division that exists between God and man is completely one-sided (our side). We abandoned Him; He did not abandon us.

god in search of manThe death of Jesus on the cross was not to reconcile an angry God to sinful and rebellious humanity. No, the death of Jesus on the cross was completely one-sided; it was to reconcile a fearful humanity to a loving God. God was in Jesus reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor 5:19); not the other way around.

Scripture is about what God is doing to rebuild that relationship and reconnect with us.

One of the other places we see this is in Luke 15, with the story of the shepherd who goes in search for a lost sheep, a woman who upends her house searching for a lost coin, and loving father who pines away looking down the road for his lost son (and when he sees his son returning from a long way off, he runs to meet him).

I also believe, by the way, that the Prodigal Son is Adam (and all of us in Adam). When the younger son goes and asks his father for his inheritance, this is Adam eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I believe that the wisdom that came from that tree is something God wanted to slowly impart to humanity over time in the midst of their relationship. But Adam took a short cut. He wanted the wisdom “Now” just like the Prodigal Son wanted his inheritance “Now.”

Anyway, if you haven’t subscribed to the Podcast yet, this would be a great time! Or if you have subscribed, but have missed several episodes, this would be a great time to pick it back up.

Someone who has been listening their way through the episodes recently emailed me and said that the podcast was “Genesis in a way I have NEVER heard it before!” That’s a good way of describing it. I enjoy teaching it, and I know you will enjoy learning along with me.

That might be an overstatement. Not all people enjoy my podcast. But even if you don’t enjoy it, at least you will be challenged …

Anyway, what do you think of this idea about God in search of man. It is not that He “lost” us. He knows right where we are, just as He knew right where Adam was. But God plays Hide and Seek in the Garden with Adam just as He plays Hide and Seek with us in our lives.

Why?

You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out…

subscribe on itunes

God is Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: 2 Corinthians 5:19, anger, death of Jesus, Genesis 3:8-10, love of God, Luke 15, One Verse Podcast, prodigal son, sin, wrath

Advertisement

Which son is the true Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32?

By Jeremy Myers
23 Comments

Which son is the true Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32?

older son in prodigal son storyI wrote previously about Luke 15 here. This post looks primarily at the Prodigal Son.

Have you ever felt like the “older son” in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)? I have often felt this way, and so has my wife. Earlier this week, I met someone else online who felt the same way.

I think a lot of “good” Christian people relate to the words and feelings of the older son.

Relating to the Older Son

I mean, why is it that people who lived the rowdy life get more praise and glory in the church (and from God too, it seems) when they repent and return than those who lived respectable and responsible lives?

Even when someone doesn’t spend their lives on sex, drugs, and wild living, but simply chases after worldly things like money, success, and fame, it often seems like they are the ones who not only get rich but also get recognized by the church when they decide to “start living for God.” Of course, they still have their millions of dollars in the bank which they earned while chasing mammon …

Those of us who dutifully worked at home for our whole lives look at this and say, “What is going on? I have lived faithfully, worked hard, made wise choices, didn’t squander my money, didn’t chase after success and fame, was faithful to my spouse, sacrificed for my children, faithfully tithed, never drank, smoked, or did drugs, and served God as best as I could for my whole life, and what do I get for it? No parties. No book deals. No invitations to speak at conferences. Instead, we get broken ovens, broken computers, broken windows, broken air-conditioning units, and an ant infestation … all in the same week. (That is exactly what happened to me this past week. Seriously.)

When this happens, we who are the older brother say,

What gives, God?! You throw a party for him? I’ve served you my whole life. Where’s my party? I’m glad he’s home and all, but if this is the way you treat your faithful children, it’s no surprise you don’t have more … I’m just saying.

I have actually known people who have purposefully “gone off the deep end” just so they could get asked to share their testimony in church when they repented and returned. And it worked! If you want to become a Christian celebrity, go sin for a season, and then repent and write a book about how God brought you back from the brink of hell.

Is this what God wants from us? It certainly seems so from Luke 15:11-32.

Let’s take a look.

A Brief Summary of Luke 15:11-32

The younger son effectively slaps his dad in the face when he asks for his share of the inheritance. This is akin to saying, “I wish you were dead.”

If this sort of behavior weren’t shocking enough, the father says, “OK. I’ll die for you. Here’s your share of the inheritance.” That’s outlandish! When someone says, “I wish you were dead,” nobody responds by saying “OK. I’ll die.” But the father did.

Then the son adds insult to injury by leaving family and home and going to a far country (all big no-no’s in Middle Eastern culture), to waste his father’s hard-earned money on drinking, parties, and sex.

Eventually he wakes up in a pig sty and realizes life is terrible. So he returns home to beg for a position among the household servants.

When the father sees his son coming, he runs out to meet him. Again, the father shames himself with such behavior. Middle-eastern landowners did not run. Running was for servants. In running to his son, the father shows once again that he only cares about his son. He does not care about himself. He is willing to act like a servant for his son.

Prodigal Son Luke 15

When the son sees this, he realizes his father will never let him be a servant. So he simply confesses his sin. Note that he is already forgiven before he confesses. Forgiveness doesn’t follow confession, but precedes it. There’s a big theological truth there, but let’s finish the story…

The father is so glad his son is home, he throws a party for this son that has returned.

And now comes the older brother. He (rightfully?!) wonders why a party is being thrown for this wayward son who shamed the family name, insulted their father, and squandered his inheritance.

The father says, “We’ve been together this whole time and everything that is left is yours. But my son, who was dead, is now alive. That deserves a party.”

End of story.

I go round and round on this story (that’s one of the points of Jesus’ stories … to make us think about them for weeks, months, and years). I, too, feel like the older son. So does my wife. You probably do too.

Have we misunderstood the Parable of the Prodigal Son?

At one point in my life, I thought maybe that this was a parable from Jesus which describes how people in this world work, but this is not how it is in heaven. I mean, after the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, Jesus talks about the angels in heaving rejoicing (Luke 15:7, 10). But there is no such statement after the parable of the lost son. So maybe there isn’t a party in heaven for this son, but these parties only take place on earth where we have a broken sense of who should get glory.

Take church as an example. Who gets the glory, the honor, and the recognition in church? It is always the prodigal sons. The pastor gets some glory if he’s a good preacher, but if the pastor has a shady past AND he’s a good preacher, well, that’s the golden combination right there. Such a pastor will get more book deals and conference speaking invitations than he can deal with.

If this is the way of understanding this parable, then the point would be this: “Honor those who really deserve honor, which is those who are faithful, hard-working, and responsible. Don’t honor the users and abusers until they too have learned to become responsible people.”

This understanding must be rejected however.

First, it appeals to our religious pride (which is a big strike against it). Second, this understanding contradicts the message of the two preceding parables (even though the statement about the angels is not repeated), and Jesus seems to be building up to a point with the 1/100 from the sheep, the 1/10 from the coins, and the 1/2 with the sons, so this third parable is building to a crescendo, not seeking to make a contrast.

And in fact, it was this narrowing of focus from 1/100 to 1/10 to 1/2 that caused me to finally see what this parable is really about (at least, what I currently think it is really about).

The Missing Fourth Parable of Luke 15

The parable of the lost son is not really the last parable in the sequence.

And no, I don’t mean the parable of the shrewd steward in Luke 16, though that parable also fits within the thrust of what Jesus is teaching in these parables. The last parable in the sequence is an unspoken parable which fits between Luke 15:32 and Luke 16:1.

What parable is that?

It’s the parable of the 1.

Since Jesus went from 1/100 to 1/10, to 1/2, the next number in the sequence is 1/1, or simply the number 1. And who is the “1”? It’s the older son.

Note that the parable of the prodigal son ends with the father speaking to the older son, but we do not hear how the older son responds. We do not know if the older son goes into the party, or if he continues to sit outside in the dark throwing a little pity party of his own.

Heck, as the father said, everything now belongs to the older son anyway, so for all we know, maybe the older son threw a party for himself! And why shouldn’t he? When the father said, “Everything I have is yours,” it was almost as if the father was saying, “You want a party? Great! Let’s have one! Since you own everything, go ahead and throw a party!”

We just don’t know what the older son said or did.

Jesus doesn’t tell us.

Why not?

It’s for the same reason that the book of Jonah has no ending. (I am writing about this in my commentary on Jonah … the similarities between Jonah and the older son are striking!)

Why does the third parable in this sequence have no ending? Why do we not hear what the older son says? Why does Jesus leave us hanging as to what happened?

Because the rest of the story is ours. The 1/1, the number 1, is you and me. The parable of the Prodigal Son has no ending because we are invited to end it.

If we identify with the older son in Luke 15, then we are invited into the story to provide it’s ending.

The father is now speaking to us and saying, “I have been with you the whole time. Everything I have is yours. It was right that we should have a party for your brother, for he was dead and is now alive. … But now, the ball is your court. Are you going to come party and play or continue to sit outside?”

And that is not an easy question to answer.

I don’t want to party with those who have abused the grace of God. I don’t want to party with those who have spit in God’s face and wished that He was dead. I don’t want to party with those who live irresponsibly and ask me to pay for it. I don’t want to party with those who spend their days sleeping around, watching TV, doing drugs, smoking, drinking, and collecting their monthly checks, which they can only collect people like me work our butts off every week and mark hard decisions about how to spend our money. They don’t deserve a party; they’ve been partying! I deserve a party. I’ve never had one! Where’s my party! On the other side of the spectrum, how come that rich doctor gets both a million dollar bank account and the big fat book deal? He chased money his whole life, and now that he decides to give a small portion away to children in Africa, he gets the book deal? How about me? I never chased money, and have always given away a large chunk of my income to children in Africa (though it’s still less than what he gave), but I don’t get the book deal, the radio interviews, or the conference speaking invitations!!!

You see how this goes?

Probably, if you feel like the older son in Luke 15, this is the sort of conversations that goes through your head too…

So as one older son to another, let me invite you into what I have been thinking and feeling should be our response to our father about our wayward and returning brothers.

There are four things we older sons can learn from the Parable of the Prodigal Son

1. There is No Older Son

First, the hard and difficult one.

I believe that when all is said and done, we will discover that there is no such thing as an older son.

In other words, you and I think we’re older sons, but we’re not. We are just prodigal sons who have not yet woken up in the pig sty. Oh, we’re in the far country, and our wanton living looks different than it did for our younger brother, but we are lost sons nonetheless. Our particular form of wayward living has a decidedly “religious” bent. We don’t spend our inheritance on sex, drugs, and alcohol. No, we spend our energy and life on self-righteousness, condemnation of others, and feelings of superiority.

One of the main truths of Parable of the Prodigal Son is that everybody is a Lost Son. Some of us just haven’t woken up to it yet.

younger son pigs prodigal sonFurthermore, the “older son” is the worst kind of “lost son” because we think we have stayed with God our Father, when in reality, we have gone into the far country of religion, which allows us to look down our self-righteous noses at everybody else who is not good enough, smart enough, or disciplined enough to truly live for God.

Remember what Jesus said to some of His onlookers? “I have not come to call the righteous, but the unrighteous.” Here’s the translation:

You’re all unrighteous; some of you just don’t know it yet. Those of you who think you are righteous are the worst kind of “unrighteous” because you are only “religiously” righteous.

As I have written elsewhere, while most of us think that Jesus came to rescue us from sin, I think the gospels seem to pretty clearly show that Jesus is more concerned about those of us trapped in religion than He is about those trapped by sin.

Religion is an invisible prison. It makes us think we are okay with God, when we may actually be further from Him than the greatest of sinners. Sinners typically know they are sinning. Religious people never do.

Religion blinds us to the truth of who we really are.

Note that in the Gospels, the “sinners” are little more than a side note. The real focus of Jesus’ interaction is with the Pharisees and other religious leaders. Whenever sinners are mentioned, it is usually in the context of setting up a discussion between Jesus and the religious people. Why is this? Because Jesus came to rescue us from religion! Sin is not that big of a deal for God. But religion? Now there is something He’s concerned with!

I sometimes think God allows people to sin so much so that religious people can have their eyes opened to their own sin!

And that’s the deal with the older son. He thinks he is better than his brother because he stuck around with dad. But he’s not better necessarily, for he is judging and condemning his brother, whom the father has accepted and forgiven! The older son is a lost son as well, and he too has turned away from his father.

So the Parable of the Prodigal Son should be called the Parable of the Prodigal Sons. They’re both prodigal, but in different ways!

2. The First Two Prodigal Sons in History

This leads me to the second point from this parable, which we actually arrive at by going all the way back to the first brothers in history, to Cain and Abel.

In Genesis 4, Cain was older than Abel. Out of anger at God accepting the younger brother’s offering, Cain murdered his brother Abel.

Remember what Jesus taught elsewhere: If we hate our brother, this hate leads to murder (Matt 5:22). If the older son in the parable continues down the path of anger toward the younger son at how the father has accepted him, the older brother could end up in the same position as Cain. That warning is implied here.

Yet there is a warning for the younger son as well. In Genesis 4, after Abel is murdered, God says that the blood of Abel cried out to him from the ground. What did it cry out? We are not told, but we can imagine: It cries out for “Vengeance! Retaliation! Retribution! Justice!” But note that in Genesis 4, there is none of this from God. God does not exact vengeance, retaliation, retribution, or justice. No, he seems to bless Cain. This doesn’t seem very fair either! And now the roles are reversed. Now it is the younger son who feels slighted by God!

One wonders if, after the party was over in Luke 15, as the younger son hung around the house and watched everything go to the older son, if the younger son ever started to feel slighted. Maybe he began to complain that the only reason he left home in the first place is because his older brother always looked down on him, and was better than him at everything. Maybe he began to argue that since he cashed out so early, some of the future profits of the farm should go to him instead of to the older brother if the inheritance between the two was to be truly fair. We don’t know what the younger brother might have said or felt in the future, but we do know human nature. If the younger brother was anything like the rest of us, he probably found reason to be jealous of his older brother, to complain against him, maybe even to blame his older brother for his own poor choices, and maybe even to cry out to his father for equality, fairness, and justice. Just like Abel.

But such a cry for vengeance and justice is not the cry of God. God has His own version of justice, which seems not at all just and fair to humans, because God’s justice is based on forgiveness, mercy, and love. This is why Jesus came and why Jesus died. And this is why the author of Hebrews says that Jesus brought a new covenant, which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:24). Abel’s blood cried out “Vengeance! Justice!” The blood of Jesus cries out “Forgiveness! Grace! Mercy!”

So Jesus, in telling a story about two brothers and alluding to the story of the first two brothers in history, is telling us all that we are both the older brother and the younger brother, and are feelings toward one another have nothing to do with what we have or haven’t done, or how we have been slighted or overlooked, insulted or abused. No, the story is all about forgiveness, grace, and mercy.

Both the older son and the younger son need to see how God has graciously forgiven and accepted each of them, one for his many sins and the other for his religious hypocrisy, and both can thank the father for His love, and then show each other the same love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness in return.

It is only when we come to this recognition that the party begins for us too.

This leads us to the third point about this parable.

3. Parties are only for Screw-Ups

Notice that parties are never thrown for the rebellious sinners or for the religiously self-righteous. Neither one gets a party as long as they are caught these two types of traps.

Prodigal Son RembrandtThe younger son only gets his party when he realizes how much he has screwed up and how much his father loves and forgives him. That’s when the party begins for him.

Logically, then, the older son will get a party too … when he realizes how much he has screwed up and how much his father loves and forgives him too. That’s when the party will begin for him.

As I have written so many other places before: Death always precedes resurrection. Until there is death, there can be no resurrection.

The younger son died and has risen to new life. The older son has yet to recognize he is dead. But when he does, there will be life for him as well.

If, like me, you feel like the older son, then our prayer should be this: “Father, show me how I am the younger son. Let me see the pig sty I am living in.” Only then will the party begin.

However, it is possible that we may never fully come to this realization. We may never get the party. Or, more likely, we may never feel like we get the party. In that case, here is what will happen:

We will reach the end of this life and die. (There’s our death). And we will arrive in heaven and stand before Jesus, and I sort of imagine myself saying something like this: “Jeremy Myers reporting for duty, Sir! I have lived my whole life for you and for your glory, and now I am ready to live my eternal life in your service! What are my responsibilities in the eternal kingdom so that I might begin to serve you forever?”

And, based on what I read in this story, I think Jesus will look at me with a half-smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye and say, “Since you have been faithful in a few things, I will make you faithful in many. Do I ever have an assignment for you! Come with me.”

And he will lead me down the steps of the throne room, and to a secret door behind the throne. He will invite me to open the door, and as I step through, all my friends and family from this life will jump out and shout, “SURPRISE! Welcome home!” Someone will throw a robe on my back, put shoes on my feet, and Jesus Himself will put a glass of wine in my hand and will smile and say, “Duty? Responsibilities? Service? There’s none of that here. Now is the time to party, and this one is your honor, for you were dead and are now alive again.”

So even if you and I don’t get the party in this life, there’s gonna be a party for us too.

In the meantime, we can continue doing what only we can do.

If that’s serving to the best of your ability, and working hard, and living responsibly, and making wise choices, and living on a budget, that is wonderful. Just don’t look down on others who seem to not be able to live up to such standards (for whatever reason).

4. The Father Loves BOTH Sons – But the Older Son Gets Something Special

Here is the fourth point, which in my opinion is and most beautiful of all … note that in the end the only thing the father has for the older son is the only thing he has for the younger son – pure, unconditional love. God does not love you any more or any less than the younger sons who are out there. He loves and accepts you both the same.

Nevertheless, there is something you have with God that the younger son does not. It does not make you better, or more special, or anything of the sort. But there are benefits to living the way you do, and in the parable the father reminds the older son about one of them.

Note that the father says to the older son, “You are always with me.”

When it comes right down to it, why have you lived responsibly? Why do you try to make smart choices with your money, time, and resources? Why do you try to always please God and do what He wants? I think, if you are honest with yourself, it is because you love God and want to be with God.

And what does the father say to the older son? “You are always with me.”

Do you hear the tenderness? The love?

Do you hear the relationship?

The younger son went away to a far country. The younger son lost year upon year upon year of relationship with his father. We don’t know how many years pass between Luke 15:13-15, but for the son to spend all his money and for a severe famine to come upon the land, we are looking at probably at least a decade. Typically, a severe famine takes several years to develop. But during all that time, the father and the older son enjoyed conversation over everyday meals, working side-by-side in the fields, laughing at each other’s jokes, and supporting each other through the trials of life. There was never any party, but ten years of memories with his father are probably worth more than the most splendid party of all time.

People who live large portions of their lives apart from God still get the same love and forgiveness from God that we all get. They still get the party. But they don’t get the memories. They don’t get the history. They don’t get the fellowship that comes only with building a relationship through time and trials. And this fellowship is worth more than any amount of parties.

Think about it. If you could rewrite your life, which would you choose: First, you could go with what you have now, and the relationship with God you have now through years of sticking by Him, and struggling with questions and fears, and fighting off temptation, and making wise decisions (that sometimes turn out to be unwise), and persevering through temptation, and learning what you know about God, Scripture, and theology, but ending up as a relative “nobody” in the Churchianity.

Or, you could take all that and trade it for the story of someone who slept around, did drugs, got divorced four times, murdered somebody, landed in jail, found Jesus, got paroled, and then became an internally known Christian author and conference speaker even though they lived most of their life with no thought for Jesus. Would you trade your life for this one? I wouldn’t.

My life is not glamorous or glorious. It doesn’t have the ups or the downs or the highs and lows of other people’s lives. I often get jealous of the people who “strike it rich” with book deals and conference invitations, who get the parties and the fame because they were bad but now they found Jesus, but then I look back over my life, at how far Jesus and I have walked together, what we have been through together, and how we have suffered, and grieved, and rejoiced, and laughed together, and I realize that no book deal, bank account, or applause from men could ever substitute for what I have with Jesus. And I believe the richness of our friendship will only increase as I continue to walk with Him through the thick and thin of life.

If you feel like the older son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I believe the same is true of you. You see things and know things that few other people know, and this is due, in large part, to the fact that you have stuck with Jesus when many others have wandered off to the far country. Keep hanging out at home with your father. It may not be glamorous, but it’s good.


Note: A slightly different version of this post appeared at the All About Eve blog? There is a conference in Portland this October called “All About Eve,” and I am writing a weekly post for the 40 weeks leading up to this conference. The idea is that a modern-day Eve is having correspondence with me and a few other authors about her journey away from “Churchianity.” Click the link above to go read some of our “correspondence.”

God is Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: Cain and Abel, death precedes resurrection, Genesis 4, Luke 15:11-32, Matthew 5:22, parables, prodigal son

Advertisement

God is Not Angry With You

By Jeremy Myers
10 Comments

God is Not Angry With You

God is not angryOne of the reasons Jesus came was to reveal God to us.

Among all the truths that Jesus revealed to us about God, one of the most critical truths in connection to the violence of God in the Old Testament is that God is not angry.

The violence of God in the Bible makes it appear that God is angry with us, and one way He deals with His anger is by slaughtering people through flood, earthquakes, pestilences, diseases, and enemy armies.

God is Not Angry with the World

When people believe that God is angry with the world, and is actively punishing us for the sins we have committed by sending us diseases, famines, earthquakes, storms, terror, and death, we malign the character of God. God does not torture, rape, kill, and murder in order to teach us to love and obey Him. While there is indeed blood on God’s hands, this blood is His own. God does not force us to bleed for Him so that we might learn some sort of lesson about obedience.

[God does not bring] about suffering in order to discipline a person. …This presumption morphs to cruel absurdity when we are speaking of horrors like a man mourning his murdered wife or a mother grieving over her stillborn child.

This way of thinking takes the cruel arbitrariness of life and deifies it by projecting it onto God. When this is done, the beautiful clarity of God’s loving will revealed in Christ and centered on the cross is obscured by a nonbiblical picture of a God of power. And Jesus’ simple words “If you see me, you see the Father” are qualified by every terror-stricken scream of torture throughout history (Greg Boyd, Is God to Blame? 82).

But God is not angry.

God is not out for bloody revenge.

God does not punish, kill, torture, or maim so that by some inscrutable aspect of His mysterious will, He might teach us a lesson.

Quite to the contrary, as I reveal in my book, (#AmazonAdLink) The Atonement of God, God’s nature and character is revealed in Jesus Christ.

God is not Angry

How Jesus Reveals God is Not Angry

When Jesus began to minister in Galilee, one of the common threads of His miracles and message was that God is not angry at us. Instead, God loves us, and wants to redeem, deliver, and rescue us from the clutches of Satan, the bondage of sin, and the sting of death.

I wish we had space and time to go miracle by miracle and parable by parable through the Gospel accounts to see how Jesus reveals the love and forgiveness of God through everything He says and does.

Such a study would reveal that the consistent message of Jesus is not that God is angry with us and has departed from us, but that we have misunderstood God and have departed from Him, and now, finally, God is bridging that divide by drawing near to us and reconciling us to Himself once and for all in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

God is not angry

The Parable of the Prodigal Son Reveals that God is Not Angry

Take one of the more popular parables as an example: the parable of the Prodigal Son. We all know the story. A man has two sons. The younger asks for his portion of the inheritance, and when he has received it, travels to a far country where he squanders his inheritance on parties. He eventually finds himself living and eating with the swine, and so decided to return home to his father, in the hopes that he might be taken on as a servant. But when he is a long way off, the father sees him coming and runs to him. Then the father throws a party for his long-lost son, which leads to a teachable moment for the older son.

There are multiple levels of interpretation to this parable, but one is sufficient for our purposes here.

The prodigal son is not just a story about a wayward Christian, but is a story of cosmic proportions. It is about a father who loved his son so much, he let the son think the worst of him, insult him, slap in the face, treat him as if he were dead, and then on top of it all, depart into a foreign land. Note that the father goes nowhere. The son has done all the leaving while the father stays right where he was.

prodigal sonWhen the son returns, the father has clearly been watching for his return, for when the son is still a long way off, the father sees him coming, and runs to meet him on the road. For a wealthy middle-eastern man, any sort of running was considered shameful, but to run to meet a son who had betrayed you was extremely shameful. Nevertheless, due to the father’s great love for his son, he runs to meet him, and not only that, but gives him a warm welcome and throws a party for him.

The only thing that is really different about this parable and how God behaves toward prodigal humanity is that God came Himself into the far country to seek and save the lost. Then, when God found His lost child, the child killed Him.

But other parables represent this aspect of what God has done for humanity in Jesus Christ. The point of this parable, as well as many of the other parables by Jesus, is to show humanity how badly we have misunderstood God and what God is doing in this world, and that God is not out to destroy us, slaughter us, or punish us, but is seeking to bring us back into His family, to rescue us from the pigsty we find ourselves living in, and to throw us a party when we are reconciled to Him.

This sort of message is found, not just in the parables of Jesus, but in all the other teachings and miracles of Jesus as well. By the love of God, those who were once far off have been brought near and have been accepted once again into God’s family.

God is Not Angry; God is Love

God is not angry with us; He loves us! And since the first sin of Adam, God has been doing everything He can to rescue and deliver us from sin, death, and devil.

The violent portrayals of God in the Bible are actually part of this rescue operation of God. He is not the one commanding or performing these violent actions, but is instead, taking the blame for them. Just like the father of the prodigal son, out of His great love for us, God is shaming Himself for our sake.

God of the Old Testament and JesusHow can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

God is Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: anger, prodigal son, Theology of God, Theology of Jesus, violence of God, When God Pled Guilty

Advertisement

What is the meaning of Luke 15 and the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, and Prodigal Son?

By Jeremy Myers
25 Comments

What is the meaning of Luke 15 and the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, and Prodigal Son?

Parables of Luke 15 Lost SheepIn Luke 15, there are three famous parables: The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin, and The Lost Son (also known as The Prodigal Son). (Read my post here about the Prodigal Son).

The most common view on these parables in Luke 15 it that the lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son all refers to unbelievers, and Jesus goes out and finds them, and brings them back to Himself. So when people ask about the meaning of Luke 15 and the three parables, the answer that most people get is that unbelievers are becoming Christians.

But is this really what Jesus meant by these stories in Luke 15? I think not.

The Lost Sheep are Not Unbelievers, but Believers

Upon careful inspection, however, it soon becomes clear that the parables of the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, and Prodigal Son in Luke 15 are not about unbelievers becoming Christians, but about straying Christians repenting and being restored back into fellowship with God.

For example, the Lost sheep already belonged the shepherd. The Lost Coin already belonged to the woman. The Lost Son was already a son of the father. The Shepherd does not get a NEW sheep into his sheep fold, but returns one that was lost and found. The same is true of the Lost Coin and Lost Son.

Furthermore, the Gospel of Luke itself is not an evangelistic book in the Bible, but is a discipleship book. That is, Luke does not say much of anything in his Gospel about how unbelievers can receive eternal life. But he writes a lot about how believers can better follow Jesus and grow in their faithfulness and obedience to Him. The Gospel of John is the only real evangelistic book in the Bible, and it says over and over and over how to receive eternal life (believe in Jesus for it).

So again, the immediate and broader context of Luke 15, we see that the issue is not unbelievers becoming believers, but straying believers being brought back into the care, protection, and provision of God. In light of the context and the terms uses in the passage, this seems to be what Jesus is saying in these parables.

Furthermore, the traditional interpretation of this passage leads to some dangerous theological results.

The Traditional View of Luke 15 Can Lead to Universalism

Parables of Luke 15 Lost sonFor example, if these three parables are talking about how Jesus goes out to find unsaved people, and the lost sheep, coins, and sons therefore represent all the people of the world, what is keeping us from a universalist interpretation of this passage, since Jesus doesn’t stop searching until he has gathered all 100 back into his fold?

I recently discussed this online with a person who had come to this exact conclusion. He wrote:

I’m living for the Shepherd who will leave ninety-nine sheep to find the one that is lost. If the entire world was lost, I expect He found every last one.

Certainly, not everyone who holds the view that the lost in these parables in Luke 15 refer to unbelievers are universalists, but this man did arrive at a universalist position partly as a result of viewing the lost sheep, the coins, and the sons as unbelievers.

Luke 15 is an Encouragement to You

This truth from Luke 15 is a great encouragement to you and to me. It shows us how much God loves us, and that even if (when!) we stray, God will not shrug His shoulders and say “Good riddance! Buh bye!” No, instead, God will go to every length possible to find you and bring you back into His care. He will search high and low. He will scour every nook and cranny. He will never stop watching, waiting, and looking.

And when He sees you far off in the distance, He will not make you crawl back and beg for forgiveness. No, He will run to you with open arms and throw you a party for your return.

Have you stayed from God? It’s okay. Hopefully you have learned a few things while away. Now, return to Him. He is ready, willing, and waiting to welcome you back.

The Gospel According to ScriptureWant to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

God is Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: Discipleship, evangelism, lost coin, lost sheep, Luke 15, prodigal son, universalim

Advertisement

Join the discipleship group
Learn about the gospel and how to share it

Take my new course:

The Gospel According to Scripture
Best Books Every Christian Should Read
Study Scripture with me
Subscribe to my Podcast on iTunes
Subscribe to my Podcast on Amazon

Do you like my blog?
Try one of my books:

Click the image below to see what books are available.

Books by Jeremy Myers

Theological Study Archives

  • Theology – General
  • Theology Introduction
  • Theology of the Bible
  • Theology of God
  • Theology of Man
  • Theology of Sin
  • Theology of Jesus
  • Theology of Salvation
  • Theology of the Holy Spirit
  • Theology of the Church
  • Theology of Angels
  • Theology of the End Times
  • Theology Q&A

Bible Study Archives

  • Bible Studies on Genesis
  • Bible Studies on Esther
  • Bible Studies on Psalms
  • Bible Studies on Jonah
  • Bible Studies on Matthew
  • Bible Studies on Luke
  • Bible Studies on Romans
  • Bible Studies on Ephesians
  • Miscellaneous Bible Studies

Advertise or Donate

  • Advertise on RedeemingGod.com
  • Donate to Jeremy Myers

Search (and you Shall Find)

Get Books by Jeremy Myers

Books by Jeremy Myers

Schedule Jeremy for an interview

Click here to Contact Me!

© 2025 Redeeming God · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Knownhost and the Genesis Framework