Winman, considering the audience listening to Jesus while He was giving these stories. Who do you think they thought the pharisees were? Based on your view then it would not be the case that they saw the 99 as being the pharisees. However, Jesus tells this story after the Pharisees and religious leaders accuse him of welcoming and eating with "sinners". So, it seems perfectly reasonable that non-pharisees in the crowd had identified the pharisees as being the 99, and the prodigal son.
It seems that you are trying to apply all parts of a parable as making multiple truths when a parable is actually a story given to make a single point. Not that it is the case that no other points could be substantiated.
When Jesus told the crowd, "Those who are well have no need of a physician" and "For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." do you think the Jesus was referring to the Pharisees or Jews as those that were well or righteous? No, His point was that everyone needs a physician, that everyone is a sinner to be called to righteousness, that everyone individually is a sinner with whom Jesus would eat, that everyone individually is a prodigal son, that everyone individually is that one lamb gone astray, that everyone individually is a lost coin.
I'm sure there are other reasons and scriptures that you base your denial of OS but I don't think interpreting these parables to support such is accurate.
The Pharisees and the crowd may well have believed that the 99 just persons who needed no repentance were the Pharisees, but we know that cannot be true. So, you would have to interpret this as sarcasm, which I do not believe Jesus was using here.
I propose that Jesus was directly answering the Pharisees criticism that he "receiveth sinners and eateth with them". Jesus was telling these Pharisees (though they probably did not understand), that these horrible sinners they despised were once the children of God who have become lost in sin, and showing that God does not despise these persons, but like a good shepherd goes out and seeks and searches for these lost persons until they are recovered.
It is the same with the 10 silver coins. Jesus is showing these persons are of great value to the woman, they were not despised by God. Again, the woman sweeps and searches her whole house till she recovers this lost coin and then rejoices.
Jesus is pointing out their hypocrisy, just as he did with the parable of the Pharisee and publican. As you know, the publicans were considered some of the "worst" of sinners and despised by almost everyone.
Now, whether the Pharisees understood who the 99 just persons who needed no repentance is, I do not know. Jesus often spoke to the Pharisees in parables for the intention they would not understand. But those who believe and seek for the answer shall receive it.
But all the parables in this chapter show the same thing. The prodigal son was not lost at first, he was at home with his father. He went out in sin and joined himself to a citizen of that far country (Satan). When he repented, twice Jesus said he was alive AGAIN.
The Jews had no notion of Original Sin as we do, so this probably made perfect sense to them. They did not consider infants and little children sinners.
The reason folks can't understand these parables is because almost everyone accepts Original Sin as truth. Therefore they cannot conceive of any person being just and having no need to repent.
But this is not what the scriptures show these persons believed.
Rom 9:11 (For the children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; )
Paul did not consider Esau and Jacob sinners when they were in their mother's womb.
Rom 7:9 For
I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived,
and I died.
10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it
slew me.
Those who hold to Original Sin have great difficulty with this passage. In their mind it would be impossible for Paul to say he was alive once. So, they come up with all kinds of convoluted explanations for this passage, many say Paul is saying he mistakenly "thought" he was alive once. Absurd, if that is what Paul meant to say, he could have easily done so.
No, I believe Paul was directly saying he was spiritually alive once, but when the commandment came, that is, when he understood the law, he was convicted by it and spiritually died.
This belief in OS has caused more confusion than any doctrine in the history of the church. Take it away and see how the confusion immediately disappears and all scripture becomes amazingly consistent.
If we were at first alive, and not separated from the father as the lost sheep was in Luke 15, or the silver coin, or the prodigal son, then 1 Pet 2:25 makes perfect sense.
1 Pet 2:25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now
returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
See how this verse makes perfect sense if you take OS out of the way? You will find that true with all scripture, try and see.
