Last week, the Life of Jesus class studied the parable of the Prodigal Son. We considered Luke 15:31-32:
And [the Father] said to [his elder son], Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.
Joel Green writes:
Accepting his unworthiness to be counted as a son, the younger had opted for the status of a day laborer; having severed his relationship as a son, he hoped to reestablish it as a hireling. Ironically, the elder son comports himself now not as a son but as a slave.
Just as the father had run out to meet his younger son, so, again dishonoring himself, he leaves the banquet over which he is host in order to plead with his elder son. Calling him son and conferring upon him the honor of an equal, he seeks restoration. In doing so, however, he advances a condition—namely, that the elder acknowledge the divine necessity of celebrating the recovery of the lost. As the son of his father, the elder must embrace his fathers gracious will. If he is really his father’s son, he will act as he has acted and rejoice at the recovery of the lost (cf. vv 5–6, 10). Hence, the father’s reference to his younger son as this brother of yours is presented as an invitation to restoration.
The younger son had utterly thrown off his relationship with his father. For the father, it was as if his son was dead. The return of the son to the father was a restoration like a return from death.