15:25-27 Jesus pictured the older brother, symbolic of the Pharisees and scribes, as working hard for the father. The Jews as well as the Jewish religious leaders likewise enjoyed the privileged status of an older brother in the human family because God had chosen them for special blessing (Gen. 19:5-6). The older brother was outside the banquet having missed it apparently because of his preoccupation with work and his distant relationship with his father.
15:28 The older son's anger at the father's forgiveness and acceptance of his brother contrasts with the father's loving compassion demonstrated by his coming out and entreating him. Similarly the Pharisees grumbled because God received sinners and welcomed them into his kingdom (v. 2). Nevertheless God reached out to them through Jesus as the father reached out to his older son.
15:29-30 After a disrespectful address, the older son boasted of what he had done for his father and than blamed him for not giving him more. Clearly he felt that the father's response should reflect justice rather than grace. He was counting on a reward commensurate with his work (cf. Matt. 20:12). This hardly reflects a loving relationship.
"He hasn't stayed home because he loved his father, but because working in his fields was a way to get what he wanted."364
He refused to acknowledge his brother as his brother since he had so dishonored his father. By calling him his father's son he was implying that the father shared his son's guilt.
15:31-32 The father responded to the older son's hostility with tenderness and reason. The Greek word teknon, translated "child"or "son,"is a term of tender affection. The father stressed his older son's privileged position as always enjoying his father's company. This was a uniquely Jewish privilege that the nation's religious leaders enjoyed particularly (cf. Rom. 3:1-2; 9:4). All that God had was Israel's in the sense that they always had access to it because of the privileged relationship He had established with the nation. It was necessary to celebrate the return of sinners, implying that the older brother should have joined in the rejoicing. The reason for the rejoicing was the salvation of the lost. The parable closes with the father's implied invitation to the older son to enter the banquet. That invitation was still open to the Pharisees when Jesus told the parable.
"Thus the parable teaches that God loves sinners, that God searches for sinners, that God restores sinners, and that God confers the privileges and blessings of sonship on those who return to Him."365
There are two interpretations of these three parables that are common among evangelicals. Some see them as teaching the restoration to fellowship of believers. They cite the fact that the man owned the sheep that he lost, the woman owned the coin, and the lost son was a son of his father. They view these relationships as indicating the saved condition of the lost objects in the parables. Other interpreters view the lost objects as representing unbelievers. This seems more probable since Jesus was speaking to Pharisees and lawyers who rejected God's salvation that He extended through Jesus. They grumbled against Jesus because He received sinners who believed on Him. Moreover the younger son received a position that he had not enjoyed previously when he returned (v. 22). The Jews were God's children only in the sense that God had adopted them into a special relationship with Himself (Exod. 19:5-6). They still had to believe on Him to obtain eternal life (Gen. 15:6).366
On one level these parables deal with Israel's religious leaders, but on another level they deal with all the Jews. The unbelief that characterized the Pharisees and lawyers also marked the nation as a whole. Therefore it seems that these parables teach God's reaching out to the Gentiles in view of Israel's unbelief as well as His extending salvation to Jewish sinners in Jesus' day. As Luke's Gospel unfolds from Jesus' postponement of the kingdom (13:34-35), Jesus' mission primarily to the Jews declines and His worldwide mission to the Gentiles becomes an ever increasing emphasis.
