The son was always the son. The union never changed. It was only the communion. This is not indicative of how we are with God. We start off as enemies. We are as children of wrath. We are adopted into the God’s family. So using that parable to make a point it was never intended to make fails is taking it out of context.
For the sake of the True Gospel which I deeply desire to serve, I am going to take the time to explain in greater depth my view of the issue. I am dealing with the semantics that form in my/our psycholinguistics from two different perspectives of right/wrong, and good/bad, so as to obtain an objective view. Please allow me to elaborate a bit further. We all reason upon fundamental dichotomies of good/bad, true/false, Light/dark, positive/negative. In addition to that, I am also aware that propaganda/subversion or falsehood is therefore meant to change what is in reality a positive into a negative, which is the same as changing a true negative into a false positive.
For example, the prodigal son views staying in his Father's house as 'bad' in some degree when he is motivated to leave the Fathers house. He therefore has his hopes in that which is outside his Father's house even though he does not know what is out there. It is therefore a judgment made out of darkness/blindness. When he learns the Truth obviously his view changes, so that he now sees things as 'good' in his Father's house and 'bad' outside his Father's house, and likewise his hope which was formed in a darkness is now become reversed in that he now hopes that he may be accepted back into his Father's house, which is now formed in the Light of knowledge and which also motivates his return. Here I must take time to note that the overarching dichotomy that defined the good and bad in his psycholinguistics was
the imagery he held of his Father, which in a positive and negative dichotomy is articulated clearly as trustworthy or untrustworthy.
In the same way
it is our imagery of God that defines the good and bad and the positive and negative in our psycholinguistics, which in turn will constitute what is the Light and darkness in our souls. To corroborate this, we can see in scripture that the serpent Satan, presents to mankind a false image of god which portrays God as
A Tyrant Master who lies and uses the fear of death as a means to keep them from ascertaining what would make them His equal. This imagery promotes an untrustworthy image of god, again similar to the prodigal son, which is formed out of darkness/blindness, which then motivates disobedience perceiving disobedience as a good thing that in the end will improve their stature.
In contrast I see that there is also in scripture the Image of God that is sent by God, Who is the Christ. This image is
not A Tyrant Master, but is
A Servant Master image, an exact opposite in perspectives. The telltale differences are found in the semantics that occur in the term 'sacrifice' which changes from a positive to a negative and visa versa according to the imagery. It is clearly articulated as the tyrant master would sacrifice all others to save himself while the Servant Master would sacrifice himself to save all others. Hence the image of the Master that is the servant is counted as trustworthy, while the corrupt image of a tyrant is counted as untrustworthy. Which is why I also read about two images of God/god in scripture here:
2 Corinthians 4:4, In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
In view of this I can see that if I hold the servant image, I also have a heavenly or
positive prejudice towards others that will see and love others as myself so as to serve others as I would want to be served. In contrast I can see that the worldly image of a Tyrant God forms a
negative prejudice that results in a do it to them before they do it to you mentality. I believe that the worldly and false image presented in the garden of God causes people to see others in classes of stature, where being the boss of everyone else is a 'good thing' and being the servant to everyone else is a 'bad thing'. This is clearly seen in the image of the Christ who says that the 'greatest' is the one who serves the rest. Hence our imagery of God/god defines our terms.
Please reconsider my use of the story of the Prodigal son. The points I am trying to make in this story is for one, that there is rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repents. And I'm also saying that the same Godly sorrow required to cause the prodigal son to sincerely repent, is a product of the sinner seeing how and why he was wrong about how he viewed his Father which motivated the sin in the first place. And as this is the case with all sin, this is not a type of repentance that would come through a fear of the wrath of God which points to a tyrant. Therefore I am saying that a true and lasting repentance is motivated by the revelation of the goodness of God and not by the wrath of God. Wherefore I conclude that the knowledge of God referred to in the bible, is the knowledge of His Person which defines what is meant by His Character as being Holy.
Moreover, I'm saying that the sinner is like a lost sheep, and that we are like the sick who need a doctor to heal us. Therefore, when I read scripture that Jesus bore our sins such as is implied in Isaiah 53, I am viewing it as he suffered the injustice of the world and forgave the injustice saying
"forgive them they know not what they do". This is a bearing of sin as in showing forbearance or being longsuffering towards us, even enduring a cross of torture to that end. To me this is the Love of God towards us, whom if we emulate his Spirit, we would also carry the burden of our own cross in the same manner of love. It's similar to the sentiment in these scriptures: "
Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
Matthew 10:38,
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
As I said, I believe that many terms in scripture reverse in meaning according to one's image of god/God. For the sake of more clarity please allow me to present a parable that I believe speaks to both the 'pity' of God and the 'anger' of God.
Matthew 18:23-34
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
For the purpose of understanding where I'm coming from, I would like to say with some humility, that I've studied psycholinguistics most of my life. In propaganda this is all easily obscured when articulated as 'justice' according to the law. This is why I said that I believe mercy is greater than justice. It would also be prudent to point out that scripture says that no flesh will be justified by the law, but only by faith/trust/belief in the servant God image that is Jesus the Christ.
In summation it is my view, that when we change the suffering of the cross from an act meant to display the extent of God's loving mercy, to an act meant to display the extent of God's wrath, we by implication change a positive into a negative. In doing so, what is actually forgiveness becomes a penalty of payment due, and what is a merciful God becomes a vindictive god. And finally, by implication I also believe we are projecting whether we hold to be true an image of god/God that is a Tyrant Master presented by Satan, or A Servant Master presented by God. As such, I would teach my children that we are all sinners and are vulnerable to temptation through the lusts of the flesh. However, I would never teach my children that God is a type of person who says that we deserve to be stripped naked, mocked, scorned, beaten, flogged, and nailed to a cross to slowly die in the most excruciating agony, but the good news (Gospel) is that Jesus took it instead.