Extreme Grace (1) – The Extremely Loving and Forgiving Father

Many people are familiar with The Parable of the Prodigal or Lost Son. I believe this parable is titled such because the focus is on the son who was brazen enough to ask his aged father for his share of the inheritance and then spent all the money on wild living. He was so down and out that even the food of the pigs which he was tending looked delicious to him. It was then that he decided he should return to his father’s house since the servants there were better fed than he.

Many Christians think that the prodigal son in this parable taken from Luke 15:11-32 is the prime figure in the story because they see it from the perspective that when we sin, we should be like the prodigal son. We have to be willing to turn back to God and repent of our sins and He will forgive us.

If we look at this parable in context, it is the third parable in a string of three which Jesus told in Luke 15 – the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. I believe and Pastor Prince has also preached that these three parables depict Jesus as the shepherd, the Holy Spirit as the woman and God as the father. The lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son are all pictures of lost sinners whom the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are seeking. Just one lost soul found will call for extreme and extravagant celebration and jubilation.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son (I want to rename it the story of The Extremely Loving and Forgiving Father), the key figure or the main character is the father. When the son was a long way off, the father saw him, ran to him and embraced him with all his might. The father broke all tradition as it was not befitting for a man of his status to run and rushed forward to welcome home the wayward son who had squandered half of his fortune. The son was so overwhelmed by his father's extreme display of affection that he could not utter a word, let alone recite his prepared speech of asking to be one of his father's hired servants.

There was no stern or angry reprimand as the son expected but extreme lavishing of love and forgiveness as the jubilant father called for an extremely generous celebration. “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.” (Luke 15:22-24 NLT) What extreme grace! It was so extreme that the older son was angry and indignant “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’”(Luke 15:28-30 NLT)

Such is God’s extreme grace, it does not depend on what we have done or can do for God. Extreme grace is God’s extreme love and forgiveness for extremely sinful man.

Have you embraced this extreme grace?