The Prodigal Son and the Plan of Salvation
This might not be how we usually read this parable. But when we look closely, we see a Heavenly Father who wants us back home—no matter what.
We’re all familiar with the parable of the prodigal son, in Luke 15. But this is one of those parables we tend to understand on one specific level, and then we move on and don’t try to understand a deeper truth in it.
We generally understand that the parable is about someone who strays from the faith. They leave the Church, they apostatize, they depart from the straight and narrow. Then eventually they decide to come back. The father is overjoyed to see his son again, and welcomes him back. In reading this parable, we might see ourselves as the prodigal son (who made mistakes but wants to find his way back), the father (who welcomes the sinful back), or the older son, who we haven’t mentioned yet (who is bugged that the sinful son is having a party thrown in his honor).
In general, I have been taught this parable as being about people leaving the Church and coming back. But in looking at it again, I see it as a type of the plan of salvation. And I learn a very specific lesson from it.
11 And he said, A certain man had two sons:
12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
The son leaving his father is each of us leaving the presence of our Heavenly Parents and coming to mortality. We each take everything they have to give us, namely, a physical body and our ability to choose for ourselves.
13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
We come here to earth, and we inevitably misuse the gifts we’ve been given. We use our physical bodies for things outside of what was intended, and leverage our God-given agency to repeatedly make mistakes. While “waste” is a strong word, we—all of us—do take the things we have been given and squander them.
We make some good choices along the way, and some poor ones. Regardless of how hard we try and how many good works we strive to perform, we end up “in want.” We are imperfect, sinful, and full of scars from our time in mortality. The son in the parable makes, for lack of better description, all of the mistakes. We may not make all of them, but we make most of them.
15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
We try to find fulfillment and absolution wherever we can, by joining ourselves to “citizen[s] of [this] country” (this secular world). But there is nothing here that satisfies the soul.
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
We have been taught over and over again—right or wrong, but probably wrong—that our Heavenly Parents’ love is contingent upon our faithfulness. We’re taught that our sins, if plentiful enough, disqualify us from being able to return to Their presence. While we all aspire to Celestial glory, we’re painfully aware of the requirement for entry—perfection—and know we can’t meet it. We spend our entire lives trying to be worthy, and ultimately esteem ourselves to be of little worth.
20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
This is the good news of the gospel. This is the whole thing.
No matter what sins we’ve committed, no matter how many times we didn’t read our scriptures, no matter how many times we’ve rebelled against our own Father, He doesn’t just want us back. He runs to us. He sees us from a great way off, and is filled with love for us because we’re finally home.
We’re insistent that we’re not worthy to be with Him. Maybe we can live in the servant quarters; not in His presence but close enough. We didn’t do the things that we were supposed to do with the gifts we were given. We’ve fallen short. We were always going to fall short, but somehow it comes as a surprise that it did eventually happen.
But God doesn’t care, and waves off our rationalizations. He loves each of us because each one of us is literally his child. He’s not going to allow us to be any less than His children, any more than we would demote our own children to be our hired servants. He’s just glad we’re back. Because He loves us, and that doesn’t change because of the things we do.
The good news is that it’s okay that we’re not perfect.
This isn’t always what we’ve been taught. In fact, this is rarely what we’re taught in LDS circles. We anchor hard on the doctrine of degrees of glory, because it’s familiar; the grade you get on the test depends on how many questions you answer correctly. But more and more I see this as us humans imputing a human meritocratic system onto Heavenly Parents who love us infinitely. As Rob Bell put it:
If Jesus wisdom was simply an announcement that, "Hey, all the good people are in, hey, God loves all of the 4.0’s, that wouldn't be anything new. That would be what you and I already know, because that's how the world works.1
Perhaps the reason that this parable doesn’t immediately land as a plan of salvation parable is that we don’t see our familiar atonement narrative in it. Doesn’t someone need to pay the price for those mistakes? What about justice? Don’t we need a Savior to stand in our place, take our sins and our stripes upon Him, and redeem us through His blood?
Of course we do. The atonement of Jesus Christ is what makes it all possible. But the atonement feels almost ancillary, a means to an end, to the love of our Heavenly Parents. If the Savior’s atoning sacrifice is ever difficult to connect to or relate to, that’s okay—because we can always relate to love.
And love is what the whole thing is about.
From Rob Bell’s “The Robcast”, episode 146: Alternative Wisdom | Part 1 - Good News About Nothing