The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a parable that never really got to me when I was a kid. I thought it was pretty cool that the father (who represents God) would take that terrible kid back. I saw that it was a picture of God's grace, but I was never able to put myself in the prodigal's place. I could never imagine myself doing what he did. But Jesus didn't title the parable “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” And if He had bothered giving His stories titles, He probably would have been more likely to call this parable “My Two Sons.” (It wouldn't have been a cliché back then.) This story is not only a picture of God's grace but is also a warning for those of us who consider ourselves “good.”
In Luke 15:11, the parable starts out with a father and two sons. The famous son--the prodigal son --says to his father, “I wish you would die already so I could have all of your money now.” His father gives him the money without dying, and the bad son spends his fortune on sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and Pilates classes, gets so hungry he starts to covet the food in the dumpster behind the Waffle House and finally decides to go back home to beg his father to give him a job mowing the lawn.
The other son, the one who usually gets ignored, is the good son. In Luke 15:29, the good son claims to have been pretty much perfect, and his father doesn't argue. We don’t even know anything about this kid except that he obeys his father and wants justice and his own dead calf. At the end of that story, the father invites everyone into the party (Heaven) to celebrate the return of the bad son. Only one person did not go into the Heavenly metaphor: the good son. Why? Because the good son believed that he had earned the right to the fattened calf by following the rules. Instead of relying on his father’s grace, he was relying on justice. He never did anything wrong; therefore, he deserved his inheritance. He did not need grace from his father; his father owed him.
Many people make this mistake. We think that if we do everything right God has to be on our side. He owes us. But Jesus came and made it clear that it doesn’t work that way. Jesus died on the cross "while we were still sinners" (Romans 5:8). Because this is the case, we know that He doesn’t owe us, we owe Him. God doesn’t let us into Heaven because we obey the law or do good works; instead, we obey the law and do good works because He is letting us into Heaven. He already did it all.
Nothing we do after confessing with our mouths that Jesus is LORD and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead can get us into or out of Heaven. He died for all of your sins once, knowing all the while that you would sin again and again. If you truly believe, you will have good works. That’s what Paul says in Galatians 5 and what James says in James 2. The result of true faith in Christ is service done to God out of thankfulness and love. If you don’t really believe, you’ll prove your disbelief either by going back to sin (the prodigal son before he came home) or by going back to doing good works to ensure your salvation (the good son). He did not die for those who loved Him first. He died for those who made it necessary for Him to die.
Nothing we do after confessing with our mouths that Jesus is LORD and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead can get us into or out of Heaven. He died for all of your sins once, knowing all the while that you would sin again and again. If you truly believe, you will have good works. That’s what Paul says in Galatians 5 and what James says in James 2. The result of true faith in Christ is service done to God out of thankfulness and love. If you don’t really believe, you’ll prove your disbelief either by going back to sin (the prodigal son before he came home) or by going back to doing good works to ensure your salvation (the good son). He did not die for those who loved Him first. He died for those who made it necessary for Him to die.
