Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 15

Then drew near to him . . .—Better, and all the publicans and the sinners were drawing near to hear Him. There is not quite the same direct sequence in the Greek as in the English, but what follows comes naturally after the mention of the “multitudes” in Luke 14:25. Publicans and sinners knew that Jesus had turned, as in indignation, from the house of the Pharisee, and this, it may be, gave them courage to approach Him.

And the Pharisees and scribes . . .—Here, too, we may well believe that the speakers were some of the guests of Luke 14:15. They had followed Him to see what He would do, and were at once startled and shocked to find the Teacher who had spoken so sternly to those who were professedly godly, not only talking to, but eating with, those who were, at any rate, regarded as ungodly and sinful.

What man of you, having an hundred sheep ...?—The meaning of the parable is so clear that it requires little in the way of explanation. It gains, however, fresh force and interest if we remember that it followed the great parable of the Good Shepherd in John 10:1-16, and the compassion for the lost sheep of which we read in Matthew 9:36.

The thought was, if we may use the language which rises to our lips, a dominant idea in the mind of Him who spoke. The primary application of that idea is clearly to be found in the immediate occasion of the parable, in the love that compels the Son of Man to concentrate His thoughts, energy, and prayers on some one soul among those publicans and sinners who were gathered together; but it is, at least, a legitimate extension of it to think of it as embracing also His whole redemptive work as the Son of God, leaving the “ninety and nine”—the hosts of unfallen angels and archangels, or perhaps unfallen beings more like ourselves in other worlds than ours—and coming to the rescue of the collective humanity that had fallen and wandered from the fold.

And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders.—Here again we have a threefold series of parallel applications: the love of Jesus for each wandering sheep, bearing and sustaining it in its weakness; the love which led Him to take upon Him our nature, and to bear its infirmities; the love which leads those in whom the mind of Christ is formed to follow in His footsteps, and to act as He acted.

He calleth together his friends and neighbours.—The recurrence of the two words so soon after Luke 14:12 is suggestive. There are times when we do well to recognise the natural and social ties that bind people to one another. It is chiefly right to do so when we make them sharers in our own spiritual life, and raise and purify their life by calling on them to sympathise, not with our sufferings only, but with our purer and nobler joys. As it relates to our Lord’s own work, we may think of His friends and neighbours as being the disciples whom He had chosen; we may also think of the angels of God, and the spirits of the just made perfect, who rejoice over one sinner that repenteth.