Luke 15:7

“I say to you, that even so there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance.”

Jesus then completes the parable with a comparison. Not only do sinners gather together to rejoice in the finding of what is lost, but when it is a lost sinner so also does Heaven. God Himself rejoices, and all who are with Him, for thereby is fulfilled Luke 5:32; Luke 13:3; Luke 13:5. The only ones left out are the religious cynics who have no time or inclination for such behaviour. The Rabbis in contrast preferred to speak of God's joy over the downfall of the godless.

Those ‘who need no repentance' may refer to the godly in Israel who are walking in God's ways making use of the appropriate means of forgiveness (people such as Zacharias, Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna), but the Pharisees would certainly have included themselves in the total.

‘There will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance.' This is not to disparage the ninety and nine, or to suggest that they were loved the less. The latter, if genuinely righteous, are fully appreciated in Heaven. However, they are not a surprise. But to find something valuable that is lost is an especially delightful surprise.

It is noteworthy in all this how confidently Jesus can speak of goings on in Heaven. For Him it was not ‘beyond the veil'. It was home.

Further Thoughts on the Parable.

The first emphasis in the parable is on the fact that the shepherd sought the sheep. It is a reminder that it is God in Jesus Christ Who in His graciousness seeks us, not we who tend to seek God. The second is on the fact that He sought until He found it. When Jesus Christ sets out after someone He does not cease until they have become His. There is behind both these ideas the concept of election, the concept that we are ‘chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and without blame before him in love' (Ephesians 1:4). The perfect number is fixed. Not one must be lost. (The same idea is present in Revelation 7:1). The third is the joy in Heaven once a sinner turns to God. It brings out that God is more concerned about such things than we are. The fourth is in a sense hidden behind the simplicity of the story, and that is the cost to the shepherd. Seeking a lost sheep could mean going into inhospitable territory, and the way could be hard. It can best be put in the words of the hymnwriter,

‘But none of the ransomed ever knew,

How deep were the waters crossed,

Or how dark was the night that the Lord passed through,

Ere He found that sheep that was lost,

Out in the desert He heard its cry,

Sick and helpless and ready to die.'

And He knew the cost even as He taught this parable. He knew that ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day' (Luke 9:22). And yet He still sought the sheep, whatever the cost, until He found it.

And the fifth lesson that we must not lose sight of is that the one which was lost represents the outcast, and the despised. It represents those who while not precious in man's sight, are precious in God's sight.