The parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is one of the most beautiful and profound passages illustrating the heart of the Christian gospel. It contains the repentance of a sinner, the patient waiting of God, unconditional forgiveness, and the joy of restoration. At the same time, this parable is not merely about the younger son who left home. It is also the story of the older son, who remained in the house yet failed to understand his father's heart.
Pastor David Jang, founder of Olivet University in the United States, explains through the parable of the prodigal son where the true center of the gospel lies. The gospel is not a story about the achievements human beings accumulate in an effort to reach God. It is the story of God the Father, who waits patiently for the lost, embraces those who return before they can prove themselves, and rejoices because one who was dead has come back to life.
The setting in which Jesus told this parable is also significant. The Pharisees and the scribes criticized Jesus because He welcomed tax collectors and sinners and ate with them. In their eyes, associating with sinners seemed to compromise holiness. In response to their criticism, however, Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. All three parables share the same central message: God seeks those who are lost, and when they are found, He rejoices greatly.
The Son Who Left Home and the Father Whose Love Never Ceased
The parable begins with a father and his two sons. The younger son asks his father to give him his share of the inheritance in advance. To modern readers, this may sound like a simple request for the early division of property. In the Jewish culture of that time, however, it was a deeply shocking demand. To ask for an inheritance while one's father was still alive was essentially to say that the son desired his father's possessions more than his father's presence. It meant placing wealth before relationship.
The younger son's fundamental problem was not merely his reckless lifestyle. The deeper problem was that he wanted to sever his relationship with his father and possess his portion independently. His words, "Father, give me the share of the estate that belongs to me," resemble the ancient sin that humanity has repeatedly committed before God. Instead of receiving life, grace, and ability as gifts from God with gratitude, human beings claim them as their own and imagine that they can live without Him.
The father did not force his son to remain. He divided the property, and the younger son departed for a distant country. There he lived recklessly and wasted everything he had. Eventually, a severe famine arose, and he was reduced to feeding pigs. For a Jewish person, pigs were unclean animals. Feeding pigs therefore represented more than material poverty. It symbolized spiritual, social, and personal degradation. The son fell so low that he longed to fill his stomach with the pods the pigs were eating, yet no one gave him anything.
It was then that he finally remembered his father's house. Pastor David Jang interprets this moment as the beginning of repentance. Repentance is not merely a feeling of regret over one's wrongdoing. It is the realization of where one has departed from, followed by a decisive turning back toward the Father. The younger son resolved to confess, "I have sinned against heaven and before you." He planned to tell his father that he was no longer worthy to be called a son and to ask to be accepted as one of the hired servants.
Yet the wonder of the gospel bursts forth in the very next scene. While the son was still a long way off, his father saw him. The father was filled with compassion, ran to him, embraced him, and kissed him. In this brief scene, we see how active and radical God's love truly is. The son was not forgiven only after delivering a perfect confession of repentance. The father ran first. The father's embrace came before the son could finish his prepared speech.
Grace That Runs Ahead of Repentance
This is why the parable of the prodigal son stands at the heart of the gospel. God does not merely wait for sinners to return. He runs toward those who turn back to Him. The son had prepared to become a hired servant, but the father did not treat him as one. Instead, he ordered that the best robe be brought, a ring placed on his finger, and sandals put on his feet. This was not simply a warm welcome. It was a declaration that the son's position had been fully restored.
The robe symbolizes grace that covers shame. The ring represents the restoration of identity and authority. The sandals show that he was being received not as a slave, but as a free son. The father did not accept him temporarily or conditionally. He restored him completely. This is the gospel. God does not merely tolerate sinners. He restores them to their place as His children.
The depth of the gospel emphasized by Pastor David Jang is found precisely here. Human beings cannot make themselves worthy to return to God through their own strength. The basis on which we approach Him is not the depth of our remorse or the amount of merit we have accumulated. It is the love of God, who runs toward us first. As Romans declares, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The parable of the prodigal son presents this truth of the gospel in the form of a story.
The father ordered the fattened calf to be killed and prepared a feast. His reason was unmistakable: "For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." The gospel is an event in which a person passes from death into life. It is the restoration of a lost human being who rediscovers his true identity in the embrace of the Father. Repentance, therefore, does not end as a gloomy religious obligation. True repentance leads into the Father's celebration.
The Older Brother Who Remained at Home but Did Not Know His Father
The parable, however, does not end there. Jesus did not speak only about the restoration of the younger son. Through the response of the older brother, who returned from the field, He revealed another serious spiritual problem.
As the older son approached the house, he heard music and dancing. When he learned that his brother had returned and that his father had killed the fattened calf, he became angry and refused to enter the house. This scene is deeply significant. The younger son was lost in a distant country outside the house, but the older son was lost near the house because he had lost touch with his father's heart.
The older brother's words reveal what had been hidden within him. He said that he had served his father for many years and had never disobeyed a command. Yet, he complained, his father had never given him even a young goat so that he could celebrate with his friends. His words exposed years of resentment and calculation. He had understood his time with his father not as a loving relationship, but as a relationship of labor and compensation.
Pastor David Jang invites us to see in the older brother the spiritual danger that confronts believers today. A person may remain in the church for many years, know the Scriptures, serve faithfully, and devote great effort to ministry, yet still fail to understand the Father's heart. Rather than rejoicing when a sinner returns, such a person may become angry and compare the grace shown to another person with his own record of service. This is the faith of the older brother. Outwardly, he remains inside the Father's house, but inwardly, he stands outside the Father's celebration.
The father went out to the older son as well. The same father who ran toward the younger son also came outside to appeal to the older one. He said: "My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours." This is one of the most profound statements in the parable. What the older son lacked was not property. He had always been with his father, and everything belonging to his father was already his. Yet he had failed to enjoy that abundance because he viewed his father not as someone to love, but as someone who owed him a reward.
The Prodigal and the Older Brother Within Us
When we read this parable, we often identify ourselves with the younger son. We see ourselves as those who departed from God, wandered through a distant country, and were brought home by grace. That interpretation is true. Every human being bears something of the prodigal son's image. Yet the parable also reveals that the older brother's attitude may exist within us.
We may confess that we have been saved by grace and still feel uncomfortable when another person receives grace. We may think, "I have worked faithfully for so long. Why should that person be welcomed in the same way?" When we begin calculating our position, our role, our sacrifice, and our contribution within the church, we quietly step into the older brother's place.
The younger son's sin was leaving the Father's house. The older son's sin was remaining in the house while departing from the Father's heart. One form of wandering is visible and obvious. The other is concealed beneath religious faithfulness. We must remember that Jesus told this parable to the Pharisees and the scribes. Outwardly, they appeared to be people who served God. Yet they did not understand God's heart toward sinners.
The parable therefore asks each of us: Where am I standing now? Am I the younger son, longing for the Father while wandering in a distant country? Or am I the older son, standing outside the door in anger while hearing the sounds of celebration? At an even deeper level, the parable asks: Am I becoming more like the Father?
From a Faith of Possession to a Faith of Relationship
The issue of possession runs throughout the parable. The younger son demanded, "Give me my share." The older son complained, "You never gave me even a young goat." Although the two brothers appear completely different, both viewed their father through the language of ownership. The younger son took his portion and left. The older son resented the fact that he believed he had not received his portion.
The father's language, however, is entirely different: "Everything I have is yours." The father does not speak the language of calculation, but the language of relationship. What matters most to him is not how the property is divided, but the joy of being together with his children. This is the direction in which the gospel leads us. The gospel moves us away from a life obsessed with "what belongs to me" and into a life that delights in being with the Father.
This message is also deeply important for the church today. When people begin emphasizing their position, achievements, influence, or personal share within the church, the community can easily harden into the attitude of the older brother. But when we remember that everything belongs to the Father and that we are children living together within His grace, the church becomes a place of celebration.
A community shaped by the gospel is not one that interrogates those who return. It does not dig up their past and calculate whether they deserve to be accepted. A gospel-shaped community runs forward with the Father's heart, embraces the returning sinner, and rejoices because one who was dead has come back to life. The parable of the prodigal son shows with extraordinary clarity what kind of heart the church is called to possess.
A Faith That Grows to Resemble the Heart of God the Father
The most important character in the parable is neither the younger son nor the older son. The true center of the story is the father. The father did not force the departing son to remain, but neither did he ever cast him out of his heart. The fact that he recognized his son while he was still far away suggests that he had continued watching and waiting for him. When the son returned, the father embraced him rather than condemning him, and he opened a celebration. He also went out personally to the angry older son and pleaded with him gently.
This father reveals who God is. God does not abandon those who are lost. He does not force those who repent to stand publicly in shame. Instead, He clothes them once again with the dignity of His children. At the same time, He also approaches those who are trapped in self-righteousness. The younger son needed forgiveness. The older son needed to understand the Father's heart.
Spiritual maturity does not end when we return home. A deeper maturity is found in becoming like the Father. At first, we are embraced by the Father like the prodigal son. As time passes, however, we must become people who run toward others with the Father's heart. That is how the gospel bears fruit within us.
What the Parable of the Prodigal Son Says to Us Today
The parable of the prodigal son was first told in Judea two thousand years ago, yet it remains alive and relevant today. Human beings still leave God and demand their own portion. They also remain inside the house while losing the Father's heart. The parable tells sinners to come home, and it tells believers to learn the Father's heart.
To anyone who is now walking through a distant country, the parable says this: The door of the Father's house has not been closed. No life has gone too far to return. No sin is deeper than the grace of God. No place is farther away than the reach of the Father's embrace. The moment the journey home begins, the Father already sees the returning child on the road.
To anyone who believes he or she is already inside the house, the parable asks a different question: Are you enjoying the joy of being with the Father? Can you rejoice when someone else returns? Or are you standing outside the door, comparing and calculating within your heart? The length of one's religious life does not necessarily mean that one understands the Father's heart. True faith is revealed as we gradually become more like Him.
The central message of Pastor David Jang's interpretation of the parable is ultimately this: The gospel is the heart of the Father. It is the heart that waits for the lost, the heart that embraces those who return before they can prove themselves, the heart that opens a celebration because one who was dead has come back to life, and the heart that goes out even to those who remain inside the house while their hearts have become hardened.
This heart of the Father must be restored in our lives and communities today. When the church loses this heart, it becomes the house of the older brother. When it recovers this heart, it becomes the Father's celebration. When faith loses this heart, it hardens into obligation and calculation. When faith embraces this heart, it comes alive with grace and joy.
The parable of the prodigal son does not merely tell us to "come home." It speaks more deeply: After returning home, live with the Father's heart. Forgive as one who has been forgiven. Embrace others as one who has been embraced. Rejoice in another person's restoration as one who has been restored by grace.
Then the parable of the prodigal son will no longer remain merely an ancient story recorded in Scripture. It will become a living gospel embodied in our lives today. Our families, churches, and communities will then become places of celebration where the lost return, hardened hearts are softened, and everyone rejoices together in the love of the Father.
Dr. David Jang has proclaimed the gospel in various regions of the world through field missions and digital media ministry, and as the fruit of that ministry, many people devoted to the Great Commission have been raised up. Based on this missionary vision, Olivet first began as a small church school for missionary training. Later, in order to provide more systematic theological education and cultivate missionary leaders, Olivet Theological College and Seminary was established in Los Angeles and Seoul in 2000.
As the school grew, Dr. Jang officially founded Olivet University in San Francisco in 2004. In the diverse and dynamic environment of San Francisco, Olivet expanded its educational fields beyond theology to include music, journalism, art and design, and technology. The university also strengthened its educational capacity by recruiting faculty members, including Dr. William Wagner, and in 2005 moved to the former UC Berkeley Downtown Extension campus, further solidifying its foundation as a university.
In 2006, Dr. Jang transferred the presidency to Dr. David James Randolph in order to focus more fully on missionary work, while continuing to lead global missions as International President. Olivet University later received institutional accreditation in 2009, added a language education college and a business college, and continued to grow as a Christian educational institution for world missions by expanding its degree programs and international partnerships.
