I have favorite Bible stories. They are passages I return to often because they moved me, spoke to me, fascinated me, or transformed me in some way. Recently, I made a connection between two such passages that never occurred to me before. While researching another writing project, I recalled something my friend Brad Jersak had taught me about what he calls the Grace Creed in the Old Testament. As I read an article he wrote about it1, an idea whispered through my mind: “Is the parable of The Prodigal Son an expression of the Grace Creed?” One must never ignore such whispers, so I decided to ponder the question.
The Grace Creed is most famously found in Exodus 34:6-7—which is indeed one of my favorite stories. I remember even as a child being utterly fascinated by the setting of Moses up on the mountainside hiding his face as the immense and powerful presence of God passed by him. His courageous conversation with God beforehand left a deep impression on me that has lasted my entire life. It is a story that, in part, taught me how to pray, and how to fully express my heart before God without reservation. The words of God as he describes His character for Moses ring out and echo from the heights of the mountain:
“The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
To my mind, these are beautiful words. From here on they form the core understanding of God’s character and nature in the hearts and minds of His people. Even when they don’t want God to be gracious and merciful, they know that this is who He is and what He is like. Consider Jonah’s complaint after God chooses not to mete out the punishment (3:10) Jonah has prophesied over the city of Nineveh:
So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”
Jonah is angry that God has acted according to the Grace Creed revealed to Moses—but he is not surprised. He suspected all along that this was what God would do, which seems to hint that Jonah as a prophet knew well that God’s gracious compassion is what can be expected from Him. Jonah’s unmerciful and angry heart toward his enemies, the Ninevites, stands in stark contrast to the merciful love of God that leaves us in awe of such divine grace and mercy.2
The question I want to answer is can we read The Prodigal Son as an expression of the Grace Creed given to Moses in Exodus 34? I believe we can. This parable has long been one of my favorite stories. No matter who we are and what our journeys have been, everyone seems to find a reflection of themselves in this parable. To see how the parable expresses the Grace Creed we need to rearrange its order a little. Ready? Here we go:
And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. (Luke 15:12-16)
The prodigal demands his inheritance before it is due. The very action is one of rebellion. He is alienating himself from his dad and all of his family. The relationships that should be most important to him, he breaks. He leaves for a distant place where he wastes his inheritance on meaningless living until he finds himself with nothing left. Added to his foolishness, he has nothing at a time when he needs his inheritance just to survive. He is forced into the worst imaginable lowly labor. He must feed food, which he would gladly eat if only allowed, that is deemed fit only for the pigs. In the Grace Creed, we read that guilt is by no means cleared and that iniquity/sin’s consequences can carry on for three or four generations. Certainly, we see that the prodigal son has come to the very pit of the consequence of his sin. His guilt is made clear in where he has ended up and in how he has wasted his inheritance. According to the Creed, if he has children, they will endure the results of these consequences for a few generations. What can he do in this place of despair?
The prodigal son looks within himself. He realizes his only hope is to return to his father’s house. In Luke 15:17-19, we read how he understands that he cannot request the restoration of his status as his father’s son. He hopes, and believes, that his father will at least allow him to return as one of the hired hands. In his heart, he acknowledges his sin against his father and his family. From this place of true remorse, he heads for home.
Now a remarkable scene unfolds:
“And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.” (Luke 15:20-24)
Ashamed, the prodigal nears home. His father, his Abba, sees him from afar and is overcome with compassion. His compassion moves him so much that he must run to his returning son and embrace him and kiss him. The image and message is clear: “Welcome home! I love you!” The prodigal delivers his practiced line asking for forgiveness but expecting the bare minimum. Instead, the father responds by restoring him as a full son in his family. He bestows on him everything that marks him as a son—not a prodigal—the robe, the ring, and the sandals, all speak the truth of who he actually is: the father’s son. The father now becomes the fulfillment and voice of the Grace Creed, greeting his son that was dead and lost in his rebellion and sin with love and actions that reflect God’s character: the father is merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.
As I reflect on this reading of the parable, there is something that stands out to me. The prodigal son suffers because of the choices that he makes and we would be right in understanding that those choices have led to his self-inflicted punishment. The consequences are said to endure for three or four generations. Yet, in the parable, as I have written it out here interacting with the Grace Creed, we have what seems like a significant change of order. The prodigal son’s journey begins with rebellion, which leads him into sin and its consequences. There is no hope for him or his children and their children. Then, he returns home and is restored and shown grace, compassion, and mercy. If we were to write the Grace Creed according to the unfolding order of the story of the prodigal, it would read this way:
“By no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.
“The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”
I admit it is slightly awkward but it is intriguing. In the end, the parable told by Jesus leaves us with an altered and prophetic form of the Grace Creed from Exodus 34. Just as Jeremiah has prophesied:
In those days they shall say no more:
‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
And the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
But everyone shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31:29-30)
The prodigal son experiences the reality of the words of Jeremiah. He alone faces the potential consequences of his sin. Yet, he encounters the Gospel response in his father. He is forgiven, reconciled, and restored. The prodigal son is transformed by his father’s grace and compassion, his boundless mercy and goodness. He is now, in every way, the father’s son once more. The generational consequence of the prodigal’s sin and rebellion is no longer an unfolding curse that can visit his descendants. God has declared this will no longer happen. This is how it is meant to be (see also Ezekiel 18). The image, the likeness of the prodigal fades from view and vanishes. Only the forgiven and restored son remains with a new robe, a new ring, and comfortable, new sandals. Could there be a better reason to eat and be merry? I can’t imagine there is.
Notes
[1] Brad Jersak, “Grace Creed & The So-Called ‘Old Testament God,’” last modified February 20, 2022, https://www.ptm.org/grace-creed-the-so-called-old-testament-god-brad-jersak
[2] For an extensive list of Scripture passages where the Grace Creed appears, see Brad’s article. It is eye-opening when you discover how often the refrain is found across the Old Testament.
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