Luke 15:17

17. Came to himself For all this time he has been in an insanity or a dream. Would it were so; for then he would have been unfortunate or irresponsible. Had he but waked in the morning from a troubled dream, he would have smiled over his own imaginary miseries, and have gone down in a sweet morning innocence to meet his father’s kiss, from lips that spoke of love but not of forgiveness.

He said The he who says this is the God-given reason, the secret conscience; long silent or unheard, now awakened by suffering, and speaking.

Hired servants He thinks of hired servants because that has been so long his own condition. His father had, it seems, no slaves. The Greek word here is μισθιος . See note on Luke 7:2. Commentators make a very needless difficulty of the explanations of this word hired servants in the true economy of grace. If it be true that all our salvation is of grace, it is equally true that the saved are rewarded according to their works. God pays man for his services. And this none the less from the fact that he provides for man all his power, and confers upon his works all their rewardable value. See note on Luke 19:16. We may note, first, That the hired servants in the father’s house, are the Church; second, they labor for him, and by him are rewarded with the true bread; third, they have no right, as from birth, in the house, and are only adopted members of the family. All these traits are plainly to be found in converted Gentiles; and thus here we have again the defence of our Lord for receiving sinners, that is, Gentiles, whose coming to him on the banks of the Jordan at these times had excited the murmurings of the scribes and Pharisees. (Luke 15:1-2.) Not only St. James but St. Paul in the right passage will say that men are justified by works. The son was a laborer as well as the hireling.