Q.—Luke 13 and 15; Many believers would value your judgment on the enclosed tract (“The Strait Gate, and the Prodigal Son"). Is its teaching scriptural? G.S.B.
A.—No wonder that sober Christians are disturbed by these speculations. We may not set scripture against scripture in our zeal for the full gospel of grace. The sermon on the mount is no more the gospel of the kingdom than that of Christ's glory. The reception of Christ by the true action of the Spirit and the word was always requisite, which works both faith and repentance in the soul. On this the Lord insists in Luke 13:2424Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. (Luke 13:24) as in Matt. 11:1212And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11:12) and John 3:3-53Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? 5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3:3‑5); the form and figures suiting its own context, but the same truth substantially. To be born anew goes to the root of the need, is a vital want, and cannot be without painful exercise before God, expressed in the first case by striving at all cost to enter through the narrow door into God's kingdom. In the glad tidings is His answer to what the heart craves for peace and joy.
This is anticipatively shown in the three parables of Luke 15, the lost sheep, the lost piece of silver, the lost son: activity in straying, insensibility Godward, and on the sail's self-judgment, the full revelation of the Father's love and the riches of grace in “the best robe” and all other blessing in the communion of His love. It is false that a backsliding saint is here contemplated. How can any instructed Christian err so profoundly? Is a fallen believer a “lost” one, as the Lord here reiterates? Is it not the full salvation of the sinner's soul? Who could allow or teach that it is the restored saint that receives “the best robe,” the ring, the sandals, the fatted calf, the joy shared with God when the dead one came to life, and the lost one was found?
There is no real difficulty in the “two sons” as the Lord spoke. For man naturally is by Luke treated as “God's offspring": so the apostle preached to the heathen Athenians; with which we may compare Luke 3:3838Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. (Luke 3:38), as to Adam so constituted by God in contrast with the brute, or the clean animal. He only had an immortal soul and must give account to God; but after the fall and all God's dealings he is pronounced “lost,” and needs a new nature, as well as redemption, whereby he becomes a child, and an adopted son of God by grace. The natural relationship could not avail against sin: and self-righteousness made things worse for the “elder brother.” Hence evidently the “elder brother” fully confirms the just application, and refutes the blunder that either one or other as such means a son of God by faith in Christ Jesus. This the prodigal does become when he comes not only to himself but to the Father; this the elder son, as far as the parable teaches, does not become, whatever his pretensions, and whatever the external privileges shown here. The upshot is that He “would not go in”; he has no part in the Father's joy of grace. He has only satisfaction in himself, reproaches for the saved sinner, and insult for the God of all grace and His boundless goodness to “this thy son.”