Rembrandt's Prodigal Son

Once a son, always a son

Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son, depicting the father’s embrace of his wayward son. The son’s ragged state did not nullify his sonship or the father’s love, illustrating the enduring bond between God and His children. 

For many readers, the parable of the prodigal son conjures up a dramatic conversion scene, an unbeliever hitting rock bottom and finally “coming to Jesus.” Countless altar calls have been built around this beloved story. Yet ironically, the parable is not about how an unbeliever becomes a child of God at all; it’s about a wayward son, already in the family, who breaks fellowship and later is restored. Properly understood, the prodigal’s journey powerfully affirms the doctrine of eternal security, demonstrating that once someone is truly a child of the Father, that status is never in jeopardy.

The lost, the found, and the grumbling Pharisees

The parable of the prodigal son is the third in a series of parables. Jesus does not tell it in a vacuum. Luke 15 opens with a grievance: “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (v. 2). The complaint comes not from the irreligious, but from the religious elite—from those who, like the elder brother to come, feel entitled to exclusive favour and resent any grace extended to outsiders.

In response, Jesus tells three parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Each story features a thing that belongs to someone—sheep to a shepherd, coin to a woman, son to a father—and each is lost, found, and celebrated. This is not a chapter about strangers being welcomed into the family; it is about family members being restored to their proper place.

The shepherd already owns the sheep. The woman already possesses the coin. The father already has two sons. In none of these stories is the lost item acquired for the first time—it is recovered. The emphasis is not conversion, but restoration. Not salvation, but reconciliation.

Always a Son

The prodigal son does not become a son when he returns. He is a son from the beginning (v. 11). He is a son when he demands the inheritance. He is a son when he wastes it in “loose living.” He is a son when he tends the pigs, starving and alone. And he is still a son when, “coming to himself,” he resolves to return home—not to earn a place, but to appeal to his father’s mercy.

Critically, the father never denies the sonship of the boy. He does not say, “You are now my son.” He says, “This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (v. 24). Dead in the sense of being relationally alienated. Lost, not in the eternal sense, but in the sense of being out of place, disoriented, and far from home. The son’s status as son never changes. What changes is his experience of fellowship.

Not Just a Parable, but a Mirror—and a Warning

To force a soteriological reading onto this parable leads to absurdity. If the prodigal represents a sinner becoming saved, then the elder brother represents… what? A saved person angry that others are being saved? That cannot be right.

Rather, Jesus begins with holding up a mirror to the Pharisees, who grumble that He welcomes sinners. But the point is not to map them rigidly onto the elder brother. It is to expose the attitude—prideful, joyless, and entitled—that they displayed. Because it is an attitude that believers themselves are not immune to.

Spiritual pride, which can affect believers as much as unbelievers. With a small but vital difference: the attitude will prevent a rebellious Pharisee (= unbeliever) from accepting Christ , whereas the prideful believer will cut themselves off fellowship with the Father. Indeed, in the end, it is the elder brother who stands outside the house, refusing to enter.

This is not a parable about how unbelievers become believers. It is a parable about how believers wander, how God rejoices when they return, and how dangerous it is to become jealous of grace, thus proud. In the end, even pride is a form of waywardness.

The Vocabulary of “Lost” and “Found”

A major stumbling block for many interpreters is the word “lost.” Surely, they reason, if the son is lost and then found, he must have been unsaved and then saved. But this ignores how Scripture uses language.

In Luke 15, the word “lost” (Greek: ἀπόλλυμι, apollymi) does not connote condemnation. It simply means something ruined, wasted, or out of place. Jesus uses the same verb to describe wineskins that burst (Matt 9:17) and ointment that is “wasted” (Mark 14:4). The sheep is lost, not dead. The coin is lost, not destroyed. They are lost from use, not from ownership.

So too the son. He is “lost” in the sense that he is no longer functioning in his proper place within the household. He is “dead” in the sense that fellowship is broken, but the bond of fatherhood is unbroken.

To be found, then, is not to be saved from eternal death. It is to be restored to where one belongs.

Repentance as Relational, not Soteriological

The prodigal’s repentance is real. He “comes to himself” and returns with humility, acknowledging his failure and unworthiness. But notice: he plans to say, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants” (v. 19). And yet the father will hear none of it. He interrupts with kisses, a robe, a ring, and a feast.

This is not a sinner negotiating his way into salvation. This is a child being restored by grace.

Repentance is not a condition for eternal life—it is a turning of the heart back toward the Father, resulting in restored intimacy. In the Gospel of John, the book explicitly written “that you may believe… and have life in His name” (John 20:31), the sole condition for eternal life is faith—belief in the Son of God. Repentance is not once listed as a requirement for salvation in John. But in Luke, repentance is repeatedly linked to joy, fellowship, and restoration.

The Warning against Religious Pride

We have mentioned already how religious pride will keep an unbeliever from saving faith in Christ. But it does not stop there. A believer growing into this attitude will rupture fellowship with the Father.

See, the elder brother is a son. He is dutiful, obedient, and seemingly moral. But his heart is cold. He resents the father’s generosity. He cannot bring himself to call the prodigal “my brother” (v. 30). He speaks not in affection, but in terms of merit: “I have served you… I have never transgressed… you never gave me a young goat.”

Here is the real danger: that we, having kept our noses clean, might feel superior to those who are in ruin or even those who have returned from it—and that we might forget we too are recipients of grace.

The elder brother does not need to be saved; he needs to rejoice. His tragedy is not that he has sinned, but that he cannot forgive. The father’s appeal—“all that I have is yours”—is a gentle reminder that nothing has been taken from him. Grace toward one does not mean less grace for another. But the brother refuses to enter.

How many believers live in the outer court of resentment, unwilling to rejoice in another’s restoration? Even worse, how many aren’t willing to come to the rescue of their brothers and sisters, to help them to come back to the Father? Instead judging them and even doubting their salvation? And yet, as James reminds us, “Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins” (James 5:20), once again using death the same way Luke is using it.

Eternal Security

Seen rightly, this parable teaches a powerful truth: once a son, always a son. The prodigal’s journey is not one from outsider to insider, but from rebellion to restoration. He is not adopted; he is returned. The father does not require restitution; he celebrates the return. The ring, the robe, the feast—these are not tokens of new status, but of unbroken identity.

If one could lose salvation through sin, then this parable would require the father to disown the son, or at least conditionally readmit him. But he does neither. He runs to him. He embraces him. He publicly celebrates him. He declares, “This my son… was lost and is found.”

Thus, the parable becomes a defence of eternal security—not as an abstract doctrine, but as a lived reality in the heart of God. The son never stopped being a son. He was always loved. And the moment he returned, he was welcomed—not grudgingly, but joyfully.

The Father’s Heart Revealed

To misread this parable as an evangelistic tract is to strip it of its deepest comfort. It is not a how-to manual for the unsaved, but a balm for the wounded child of God. It is not an altar call—it is a homecoming.

And perhaps, if one truly understands this parable, one need not argue much more for eternal security. For in the embrace of the Father, in the robe flung over shame, in the ring restoring dignity, in the table laden with undeserved delight, we see the heart of God toward His children—even the ones who fail spectacularly.

Indeed, if we understand this parable, we understand grace. And if we understand grace, we understand the gospel. And if we understand the gospel, we will never again ask, “But what if I fall too far?”

For the answer will always be the same: The Father is waiting.


Comments

One response to “Once a son, always a son”

  1. mark a delsignore Avatar
    mark a delsignore

    “Repentance is not once listed as a requirement for salvation in John.” I’m becoming more convinced that John’s Gospel is written to Old Covenant saints, those who had believed Moses and the prophets and had the faith of Abraham. The Father was drawing His sheep and transitioning them to, and pointing them to, the promised Messiah , whom they were looking for. John 6:44-45
    New International Version
    44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[a] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. John10:14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. John10:25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[c]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

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