(2) The Parable of the Prodigal Son

 

(2) The Parable of the Prodigal Son

 

The Parable of the Prodigal Son tells the story of the second son who asked his father for an inheritance. After receiving the inheritance, he left home, lived a dissolute life, and eventually squandered all his wealth.

After losing all his fortune, the son lived in a foreign land where pigs were raised, eating the fruit of the cypress tree. It was then that he remembered his father. He remembered that his father's hired servants lived a better life than he did. Thus, the story is about him returning to his father.

However, when he returned to his father, his father did not scold him; instead, he ran to him, kissed him, and embraced him. The scene depicts the father dressing him in his finest clothes, placing a ring on his finger, putting on fine shoes, and slaughtering a calf to hold a feast.

The story of the Prodigal Son symbolically expresses the story of a spirit that has sinned in the Kingdom of God, becoming a sinner and being trapped in the material world, only to repent and return to the Kingdom of God.

 

The angels who sinned were called sons of God, but because they committed sin, they became imprisoned in the prison of the world. God is waiting for them to abandon their own righteousness and return to Him. Jesus says that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners. He came to call them to repentance. The reason Jesus told the parable of the Prodigal Son is that the prodigal son represents those who displayed their own righteousness in an attempt to become like God.

However, He is telling them to repent and turn back. Yet, in this world, there are those who do not turn back like the prodigal son, but still believe they can achieve righteousness on their own. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, these people are likened to the older son.

In Jesus' time, the older son resembled the scribes and Pharisees. They were those who thought they could become like God on their own. Today, among the people in the church, those who are diligent in their religious life but consider themselves the masters are exactly like the older son.

 

A person who considers themselves the master can never truly know the heart of the Father. The parable of the Prodigal Son was Jesus' final parable. He is speaking metaphorically that all those living in the world, having left the Kingdom of God, resemble the prodigal son, and that they must repent and turn back to God. However, the world is becoming increasingly wicked.

Jesus says that the last days are like the days of Noah and Lot. We are living in an era where human thoughts are evil from childhood, and people know nothing of God's righteousness. Even in the church, it is not easy to find those who have repented in the sense that the carnal self must die. This means that while people profess to believe in Jesus with their mouths, those who are united with Jesus' death are extremely rare.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is about the prodigal son returning to his father. In Luke 15:32, "Your brother was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found," we must consider what the word "dead" means. It means that the Lord does not love everyone, but loves those who have died (the death on the cross) and are returning alive (the resurrected). Those who have died and are returning alive refer to the born-again believers who possess the resurrected life of heaven.

To die means to deny the carnal self. Thus, one becomes one who realizes that they are born into the spiritual. Jesus’ command to deny oneself applies here.