Luke 15:20 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 15:20

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The prodigal could never have gone home on his own. He wouldn't have made half a mile. He was starving; he had lived on the husks that the swine ate for a long time. He was weak; he was in tatters; he was emaciated, exhausted, enfeebled. His muscles had wasted away probably, and his body covered with sores. He had no money for food, let alone lodging he had no protection from the wild beasts of those days, no servants, no one to help him. He had crossed many boundaries, mountains, valleys, maybe seas. He had gone a long way from home. When you read that parable, don't think, ‘When he got abreast of the last hill and he could see home, his father spotted him.’ No, we have got to understand the parable. His father went out to meet him where he was when he had scarcely started the journey home, because he was incapable of such a journey.The language of the parable cannot tell us the whole story; the illustration breaks down at this point, but this is what happened. While he was yet a great way off he had hardly begun the journey, and while he was yet a great way off, his father – who represents God – saw him. The God who sends famine into the life, the God who makes us feel our emptiness until we turn to him, the God who enables us to see through this world; he is watching us. The very instant we come to the point where we desire him and we want to come to him; he comes out to us. The father in the parable saw him while he was a great way off and the father came out to him. That is what God has done for us.

Application

That is what happened when the Lord Jesus Christ left heaven and came into this world to suffer and die on Calvary's cross. He crossed the great gulf, the great gap between God and man. God was seeing us a great way off and coming down to meet us. The Lord Jesus suffered and died on the cross to bear the punishment of our sin we could never bear. If he had not come we would have to be judged and sent to bear the punishment of sin for all eternity. The Lord Jesus Christ came and took that punishment for us so that he would have the right to forgive us and set us free and make us his children. We cannot get to God. We are penniless with no righteousness of our own. We are starving; we have got no strength to change our ways and live righteous lives. We are in rags and boils. We are all unsightly to him. But God is so full of love that he will come to us. If we just repent of our sins, if we believe in what Christ has done on Calvary's cross, if we say, ‘Lord I believe that the Saviour suffered and died for people like me, that he took away the punishment of sin for those who come to him. I rest upon that. I depend upon that alone. Because the Saviour has suffered and died, I can come and ask for forgiveness. Oh Lord, forgive me. Lord, change me; make me a new person.’ And that's exactly what God does.

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Luke 15:20 Commentary and Bible Study

Explain meaning of Luke 15:20