The Legalistic Son

The Legalistic son Luke 15:11-32

Timothy Keller in Prodigal God describes the elder son: He Lives a fastidiously obedient life, he tries to get the father’s things by being good, he tries to get control by obeying, he tries to keep the rules, He has moral conformity and from all appearances he is the example of a godly man, but in fact he is lost in his goodness and religiosity. Sinclair Ferguson states: The Prodigal son sought salvation by grace he had done nothing to earn or merit God’s favor. He sought salvation by the mercy of God. The Elder son sought favor with God by the law. He had done everything in his eyes to earn God’s merit, and he attempted find God’s favor by obedience and keeping the commandments

Displeased Son v. 25 "Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.' 28 But he was angry and refused to go in.

Two kinds of lostness. That’s the reason that Jesus put the elder brother in the parable. You can escape God as much through morality and religion as you can escape God through immorality and irreligion. Elder brothers obey to get things from God, and if those things aren’t forthcoming. They get angry.

The Elder son is always angry he feels that he has lived such a good life that God owes him. If you love God you will obey him. The Elder brother doesn’t obey out of love, but to get stuff. (Keller)

The older brother failed to see that sin is not simply acts of wickedness, but sin is a heart of rebellion against the father, expressed differently form that of his younger brother, yet he was in the same predicament and in need of the same mercy and what he want and thought he deserved God had no basis to give. The older brother saw himself as spiritually sound and health so he couldn’t see his need for grace. (Keller)

Dishonored Father

· Indifference v. 12 he divided his property between them

· Insolence v. 28 he refused to go in

· Irreverence v. 29 he answered his father, 'Look

The Older son did not care that his lost brother had come home. He did not care about that which pleased the father. He did not care about the glory of the father, he wanted the glory for what he had been doing. He did not even care about the father, he did what he did for what he could get out of it. This man even saw his service to the father as “slavery”, v. 29. He didn’t serve his father out of love for the father, but out of a desire to help himself. (Alan Carr)

Deceived Son

Here is the guy who because he has done good is under the illusion that he is good Mac Arthur

· Labor to Receive what he wants v 29 but he answered his father, 'Look, these many years I have served you,

· Live by the Rules to make him deserving v. 29 and I never disobeyed your command

· Look for a Reward because of all his goodness and works v. 29 yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!'

One son is very good and one is very bad. Each one of them wanted the father’s things, but not the father, each one of them used the father to get what they really loved. One did it by being good and one did it by being bad. They’re both lost. The bad one is lost in his badness, but the good one is lost in his goodness. In the end it is the bad one that is saves and the good son that is lost. That goes against everything - the lover of prostitutes is saved and the man of moral repute is lost. When you see why the good son was lost it was not in spite of his goodness, but because of it. It is not his sins keeping him from the father, but his goodness, his righteousness–

There are a lot of Christians with an elder brother type of heart. If in their heart of hearts they say, “I try very hard, I try to be obedient. I go to church. I pray. I try to serve Jesus. Therefore, God, you owe me to answer my prayers, to give me a relatively good life, and to take me to heaven when I die. If that’s the language of their heart, Then Jesus is their model, Jesus is their example, Jesus is their boss, but he’s not their savior. They’re seeking to be their own savior. All their morality and all their religion, it’s all just a way to get God to give them the things they really want, and those are not God himself. (Keller)

Religious people obey God to get things, gospel people obey God to get God - to resemble him, to love him, to know him and to delight him. (Keller)

We have not all violated the law as other might have done, but we have all sinned. All are sinners but the expression of sin might be different. Bothe sons were equally sins and both equally in need of mercy. (Mac Arthur)

Devoted Father

Seeking father v. 28 His father came out and entreated him Gk parakaleō

Staying father v 31 And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me,

Sharing Father v 31 and all that is mine is yours. v. 12 divided the property

Sympathetic Father v 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'"

So you see extremely evil people in the story and extremely religious people in the story. And the point is not that everybody is either one of those extremes. The point is that God opens His compassionate, forgiving, reconciling love to those who are at those extremes, and everybody in between. And you see that because at this point the Lord, in telling the story has the father, who is God in Him, in Christ, mercifully humble Himself. (Mac Arthur)

Christ the seeker: Just as in the case of the younger son, the father came down out of his house and ran right down to the middle of town for all to see, bearing the scorn and the shame of the embarrassment of violating public common conventional behavior. And he did it to embrace the sinner and protect him from the shame. Here the father leaves the festival, goes out, and does what you would never expect God to do plead with a hypocrite. But He is the one who seeks to save the lost. What you would expect is that the father would be absolutely insulted by this. It is a blatant insult. It is an utter disregard for the father’s honor, the father’s joy, the brother’s well-being. He shows himself as having no love for either of them. The traditional Middle Eastern response would be to take the son and give him a public beating for such dishonor. But instead of the father ordering him to be beaten and locked in a room somewhere until he can be dealt with, the insulted dishonored father comes out and he starts begging him. But here the father shows up again in mercy. Here he shows up again in compassion, and love, and humility, and kindness. It is another act of selfless love kindly toward this son in the same way that he ran to embrace the younger son. He goes out in mercy, and he reaches to the hypocrite the same way he reached to the rebel. (Mac Arthur)

The contrast was between the penitent brother who saw the need for grace and the impenitent brother who saw do need for grace at all. He could understand how his brother would need intervention, but not him. The younger brother is bound to his father in a relationship of grace, but the elder son was bound in a relationship with the father in legal obligation. Does God owe us anything that he should repay us. If were to get what we deserve none of us would be here. The truth of the story is that the son didn’t get what he deserved. The elder son can’t get his head around this I deserve something and I don’t get it. He doesn’t deserve anything and he does get it. All of his years of obedience were just grim duty (Allister Begg)

The older son, receives the same tenderness, the same kindness, the same mercy, offered the same grace as his younger brother, but he reacts with bitter resentment, attacks the virtue, the integrity of the father. The story stops in verse 32. The question is What did the older son do? Did he come in. Did he humbled himself, Did he fell down before his father, and seek his grace for his long hypocrisy and bitter service. Was he forgiven, and reconciled? Did the father come in with his arm around his son, bringing him to the head table, and sitting him next to his brother. How would you write it? “And the older son fell on his knees before his father saying, ‘I repent for my loveless cold service, my pride and selfishness. Forgive me, father, make me a true son, take me to the feast.’ At which point the father embraced and kissed him, took him in and seated him at his table by his brother, and all rejoiced in the sons who had been reconciled to their loving father.” Mac Arthur asks “Who wrote the end of the story?” The Pharisees wrote the end. Here’s the end they wrote. “And the older son being outraged at his father, picked up a piece of wood and beat him to death in front of everyone.” That’s the ending they wrote. That’s the cross. And that’s what they did just a few months after this. What an ironic thing it is that the father who should have beaten the son, is beaten by the son to death in the greatest act of evil the world has ever seen. And yet out of that horrible ending of killing the Son with wood came our redemption. The final shameful resolution of the story is the cross, but out of that God wrought our redemption. For on that cross He died to bear our sins, and what the leaders of Israel meant for evil, God meant for good

(MacArthur) ------

True Elder Brother Melted and moved by what The Pharisee obeys God to get things while the true believer obeys God to get God. “Everything I have is yours” The younger brother had been given everything that had belonged to the elder brother. It was at great expense to the elder brother. Someone must pay, the elder brother must pay. The true elder brother would have seen the agony of the father and went out and looked for the younger brother. And even if he has ruined his inheritance I will bring home home at my own expense. We have a true elder brother. Jesus gives us a bad picture of an elder brother so we will long for the true one. We don’t need someone to go to the next town to find us we need someone to come from heaven to earth. We don’t need an elder brother that would bring us into the family at the cost to his wallet, but at the cost of his life. On the cross Jesus was stripped naked that we might be clothed in the robe of honor. He had everything the father had and spent it all to bring us home. (Keller)

The heart of the gospel is salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Works may appear good. And they may be on a human level good. That is, they help people. They’re kind. They relieve people’s suffering. They’re charitable. They’re philanthropic. But they are really sinful when they are done by the unregenerate because they lack purity and they lack true motive, which is the glory of God. And anything that is not done to the glory of God is done, then, to the glory of man and that is the sin of all sins. They are really expressions of human pride. So anybody who thinks that by their good works they are somehow doing what is meritorious and earning favor with God is just making the deception further and further buried in their hearts, and layer, and layer, and layer of good work make it harder to get to reality. The works of sinners may not all be crimes, but they are not without sinfulness because they are done for personal and selfish motive and gain. They bring honor to man. They produce self-satisfaction. They produce self-gratification. They produce pride, and a sense of well-being, and that deceives the sinner, and that increases sin because it is proud. And pride is at the head of all sins, and so we really in doing good apart from God, apart from grace are adding to our pride, which is to compound our sinfulness at its most devastating point.