The father’s welcome of the younger son in Luke 15 demonstrates the lavish prodigality of God’s grace. Jesus shows the father pouncing on his son in love not only before he has a chance to clean up his life and evidence a change of heart, but even before he can recite his acceptance speech. Nothing, not even abject contrition, merits the favor of God. The Father’s love and acceptance are absolutely free.
But when the elder brother hears from his servants that his younger brother has retuned and has be reinstated by his father, he is furious. Now it is his turn to disgrace his father.
He refuses to go in to what is perhaps the biggest feast and public event his father has ever put on. He remains outside the door, publicly casting a vote of no-confidence in his father’s actions… He’s adding things up. “I’ve worked myself to death and earned what I’ve got, but my brother has done nothing to earn anything, indeed he’s merited only expulsion, and yet you lavish him with wealth. Where is the justice in that?”
It is not his sins that created the barrier between him and his father, it's the pride he has in his moral record; it's not his wrongdoing but his righteousness that his keeping him from sharing in the feast of his father. (Keller, 25,26, 35)
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