Luke 15:13

(ut sup.) The younger son set out into a distant country, not locally departing from God, who is every where present, but in heart. For the sinner flees from God that he may stand afar off.

What is the object of the parable? Let us examine the occasion that led to it so we will learn the truth. The blessed Luke had said a little before of Christ the Savior of us all.… The Pharisees and scribes made this outcry at his gentleness and love to people. They wickedly and impiously blamed him for receiving and teaching people whose lives were impure. Christ very necessarily set before them the present parable. He clearly shows them that the God of all requires even him who is thoroughly steadfast, firm, holy, and has attained to the highest praise for sobriety of conduct to be earnest in following his will. When any are called to repentance, even if they have a bad reputation, he must rejoice rather and not give way to an unloving irritation because of them.

After he went abroad, he who departed from the church squandered his inheritance. "After," it says, "leaving his home and country, he went abroad into a distant country." What is farther away than to depart from oneself, and not from a place?… Surely whoever separates himself from Christ is an exile from his country, a citizen of the world. We are not strangers and pilgrims, but we are "fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God," for we who were far away have come near in the blood of Christ. Let us not look down on those who return from a distant land, because we were also in a distant land, as Isaiah teaches. "To them that dwelled in the region of the shadow of death, light has risen." There is a distant region of the shadow of death, but we, for whom the Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord, live in the shadow of Christ. The church therefore says, "Under his shadow I desired and sat down."

"A mighty famine came there in that country." It was not a famine of fasts but of good works and virtues. What hunger is more wretched? Certainly whoever departs from the Word of God hungers, because "man lives not by bread alone but by every word of God." Whoever leaves treasure lacks. Whoever departs from wisdom is stupefied. Whoever departs from virtue is destroyed. It was fitting that he begin to be in need, because he abandoned the treasures of wisdom and the knowledge of God and the depths of heavenly riches. He began to want and to suffer starvation, because nothing is enough for prodigal enjoyment. He who does not know how to be filled with eternal nourishment always suffers starvation.

Second, as regards the perpetration of voluntary fault, he adds: And not many days after, having gathered all together, through the dominion of free will, which has authority over all the natural powers: the younger son went abroad into a far country, and this by …

And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. He went far away, not by changing his location, but by changing his mind. For the more someone sins …

By our "property" one can understand everything in general that the Lord has given us, namely: heaven, earth, every creature in general, the Law, the prophets. But the younger son saw heaven and deified it; saw the earth and honored it, while he did not …

He took a journey into a far country - Far from God: God was not in all his thoughts: And squandered away his substance - All the grace he had received.

They are sometimes ranked with harlots ( Matt. xxi. 32 ); here and elsewhere with sinners, such as were openly vicious, that traded with harlots, known rakes. Some think that the sinners here meant were heathen, and that Christ was now on the other side Jordan, or in Galilee of the Gentiles.

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together,....

Sinners, that go astray from God, venture their all. Now the condition of the prodigal in this ramble of his represents to us a sinful state, that miserable state into which man is fallen. [1.] A sinful state is a state of departure and distance from God. First, It is the sinfulness of sin that it is an apostasy from God.

Gathered all together - Collected his property. If he had received flocks or grain, he sold them and converted them into money. As soon as this arrangement had been made he left his father’s house. Took his journey - Went, or traveled. Into a far country - A country far off from his father’s house. He went probably to trade or to seek his fortune, and in his wanderings came at last to this dissipated place, where his property was soon expended. Wasted his substance - Spent his property.

Am 4:6-10). riotous living-- (Lu 15:30), "with harlots." Ah! but this reaches farther than the sensualist; for "in the deep symbolical language of Scripture fornication is the standing image of idolatry; they are in fact ever spoken of as one and the same sin, considered now in its fleshly, now in its spiritual aspect" (Jer 3:1-15;

The parable before us is commonly known as the parable of "the prodigal son." It may be truly called a mighty spiritual picture. Unlike some of our Lord's parables, it does not convey to us one great lesson only, but many. Every part of it is particularly rich in instruction. We see, firstly, in this parable — a man following the natural bent of his own heart. Our Lord shows us a "younger son" making haste to go far away from a kind father's house, and "wasting his substance in riotous living."

The parable before us is commonly known as the parable of "the prodigal son." It may be truly called a mighty spiritual picture. Unlike some of our Lord's parables, it does not convey to us one great lesson only, but many. Every part of it is particularly rich in instruction. We see, firstly, in this parable — a man following the natural bent of his own heart. Our Lord shows us a "younger son" making haste to go far away from a kind father's house, and "wasting his substance in riotous living." We have in these words, a faithful portrait of the mind with which we are all born. This is our likeness. We are all naturally proud and self-willed. We have no pleasure in fellowship with God. We long to depart, and go afar away from Him. We spend our time, and strength, and faculties, and affections — on things that cannot profit. The covetous man does it in one way; the slave of lusts and passions in another way; and the lover of pleasure in another way. In one point alone are all agreed. Like sheep, we all naturally "go astray, and turn every one to his own way." (Isaiah 53:6.) In the younger son's initial conduct, we see the natural heart of every man. He who knows nothing of these things, has yet much to learn. He is spiritually blind. The eyes of his understanding need to be opened. The worst ignorance in the world, is not to know ourselves. Happy is he who has been delivered from the kingdom of darkness — and been made acquainted with himself! Of too many it may be said, "They know not, neither will they understand. They walk on in darkness." (Psalm 82:5.) We see, secondly, in this parable — man finding out by bitter experience, that the ways of sin are hard.

Not many days after - He probably hastened his departure for fear of the fine which he must have paid, and the reproach to which he must have been subjected, had the matter come before the civil magistrate. See above. Riotous living - Ζων ασωτως, in a course of life that led him to spend all: from α not, and σωω I save. And this we are informed, Luk 15:30, was among harlots; the readiest way in the world to exhaust the body, debase the mind, ruin the soul, and destroy the substance.