12.01 The gospel within the gospel

I. THE GOSPEL WITHIN THE GOSPEL

WE now reach the parable which may well be called the greatest of them all. To use the true and often quoted phrase, it is Evangelium in Evangelio the Gospel within the Gospel. Unerring sureness of touch and faultless simplicity of language and imagery, these we have seen to be the literary characteristics of all the parables, and in these the parable of the Prodigal Son is supreme. Regarded as a mere fragment of human literature, it is an incomparable expression of the patience and generosity with which human love bears with and triumphs over human wilfulness and folly. But to the Christian, who knows Who it was Who told it, and of Whom it was told, it is something infinitely deeper.

It is, as it were, a very sacrament of the Eternal Love of God. Not merely are we permitted to see in the generous love of a human father a distant type of the attitude of God towards His children; rather, the Eternal Father, “of Whom every fatherhood in the world is named,” speaking through the eternal “Word,” Himself breathes through this story of the assurance and the appeal of His own patient and allembracing Love. It is this, so to say, sacramental presence of the Love of God in the story which gives it its immortal power. It is a parable to be appropriated by the spirit rather than expounded in words. The attempt seems vain indeed to give any new exposition of it. The whole experience of the Christian life for nineteen centuries is its living commentary. We can only hope by recalling it reverently to our minds, by the use it may be of some fresh turn of thought or phrase, to renew and deepen its hold upon the heart and conscience.

Doubtless it was at the moment intended to be a rebuke to the Pharisees and scribes, who had murmured, saying, “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them!”

Doubtless it had a reference to the position which the Jew and the Gentile were to take in regard to the preaching of the Gospel.

It includes these temporary references, but it transcends them. It is spoken to human experience in every age. Therefore, the best method of treating it will be to unfold the response to it of our own conscience and of our own great need.

TAGS: [Parables]