Luke 7:36-42 Loves Much
We can see this woman is forgiven." How can you see? You can't see forgiveness, you can see the transformation that it makes...joy, gratitude, love, affection. So Jesus then used that woman as clear testimony to His power to transform a life. When Jesus says, “Do you see this woman?” He is using her example as a living witness to the Pharisee of the transforming power of His truth.
The greater the forgiveness, the greater the love, whoever got forgiven the most is going to be showing the most love (McArthur). If you are beginning to think little of sin, it must be because you have been thinking little of Jesus Christ. As you get near to Jesus, you will hate sin and you will love Him who bore your sin, and carried it all away that you might be free from it forever! (Spurgeon)
Degree of guilt v 41 One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, The immensity of our debt both the parties had an insurmountable debt, The inability to pay our debt neither of them had anything with which to meet the liability—“they had nothing to pay”
The debtor that has found his creditors merciful ought to be very grateful to them and, if he cannot otherwise recompense them, ought to love them. Jesus is the Creator and sinners are the debtors: [1.] Sin is a debt, and sinners are debtors to God Almighty. As creatures, we owe a debt, a debt of obedience to the precept of the law, and, for non-payment of that, as sinners, we become liable to the penalty. We have not paid our rent, we have wasted our Lord's goods, and so we become debtors. God has an action against us for the injury we have done him, and the omission of our duty to him. [2.] Some are deeper in debt to God, by reason of sin, than others are: One owed five hundred pence and the other fifty. Luke 18:10,11. [3.] Whether our debt is more or less, it is more than we are able to pay: They had nothing to pay, nothing at all to make a composition with for the debt is great, and we have nothing at all to pay it with. Silver and gold will not pay our debt, nor will sacrifice and offering, no, not thousands of rams. No righteousness of our own will pay it. [4.] God is ready to forgive sinners, upon gospel terms, though their debt is ever so great. If we repent, and believe in Christ, our iniquity shall not be our ruin, it shall not be laid to our charge. God has proclaimed his name gracious and merciful, and ready to forgive sin and, his Son having purchased pardon for penitent believers and promises it to them, and his Spirit seals it and gives them the comfort of salvation. [5.] Those who have their sins pardoned are obliged to love him that pardoned them and the more is forgiven them, the more they should love him. The greater sinners any have been before their conversion, the greater saints they should be after, the more they should study to do for God, and the more their hearts should be enlarged in obedience. When a persecuting Saul became a preaching Paul he labored more abundantly (Henry)
Demonstration of Grace: v. 42 he cancelled the debt of both. The creditor freely forgave them both by an act of pure gratuitous favor, because he delighted to show kindness to his poor debtors, he said, “There, go home, both of you. I shall never ask you for the amount of your debts again. I have crossed it off my book though I have received nothing whatever from you.” This is just what the Lord, in His infinite mercy, does for all poor sinners who come and trust His Son. He gives them a receipt in full, for there is One who has paid the debt for them! All glory be to His name—it has been paid in full! There is the same door of entrance for us as that which was opened to the very chief of sinners, for there is no difference between one sinner and another in the sight of God, as far as the plan of salvation is concerned. There may be many differences in other matters but, in the matter of salvation, there is nothing which places one man in a different position from another, or which allows him to be saved in any other way than the one way which God has laid down for a sinner’s salvation (Spurgeon). The word cancelled or forgave Gk charizomai, is from the word charis, grace, is a business term used for forgiving a debt as well as a theological term used by Paul of the forgiveness that God gives us in Christ. What makes it so generous is any time somebody forgives a debt, they themselves incur that debt in full. If I lend you 500 denarii and you can't pay and I say, "I forgive that," then now I've incurred that debt completely. That debt is now mine. The cost is transferred to me. I pay. And that's...to understand that is to get an insight into the forgiveness of God. And when God forgave your sins, He then incurred the debt and Jesus Christ died to pay it. The debt doesn't go away. It still has to be paid, but the forgiver incurs it and pays it. So it's not just forgiveness and it's done, it's forgiveness and then the debt is transferred to the forgiver (Mc Arthur). The debt is not released because the debtor loves his creditor, but the debtor loves because his debt is forgiven him. Remission goes before, and love follows. (Lightfoot). On denarii was a day’s wages. In one stroke God forgives all who come to him. Whatever the debt it is paid. Whatever the sin it is forgiven. Christ graciously paid (cancelled) all the debt against us not just part of it. We are completely and eternally forgiven. As the hymn “It is well with my soul” proclaims: My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
Depth of Gratitude v. 42 Now which of them will love him more?" 43 Simon answered, "The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt." And he said to him, "You have judged rightly." 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven--for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.
"I say to you, her sins which are many have been forgiven," GK- perfect tense. It didn't happen right there then. That's past. Perfect tense, something happened in the past with continuing effect. She had already been forgiven. She had been forgiven some other place, some other day, some other time. She came there already forgiven, in a state of forgiveness, to find Jesus to thank Him. She had been forgiven. And the guilt was gone and the shame was gone and the life was different and longings after holy things and righteous things began to occupy her heart and she was swept away with gratitude, swept away with affection and love for the One who had forgiven her. (McArthur) She had a deep desire to be near Him, a boldness to confess him and a humbly heart to honor him (Henry). Our love for Christ will increase when we have a deep sense of our own sinfulness. When we have this deep sense of sin the result will be a burning love toward Christ which will lead us to show our love very much as this woman did. (Spurgeon) Our thankfulness will almost always be in direct proportion to our awareness of sin (Kendall). We don’t have to be taken into the depths of sin to love God deeply, but we must come to the consciousness of our sin. (Allister Beggs). The greater of the sins was the Pharisee. He had the law and the covenant love of God, yet lived a life of self-righteousness. Rather than being aware of his sinfulness like the woman he disregarded it. His evaluation of himself was one of righteousness and her evaluation of herself was ruin. It is the one who realizes their own depth of depravity that will love the deliverer to the greatest degree. It is not the degree of sinfulness that brings the greater gratitude for deliverance, but the greater degree of the disgust of sin that brings forth eternal thankfulness. When you are convicted of sin, even the “smallest” sin, it becomes everything to you. You are broken by it and will do whatever it takes to get rid of it. When you find the redemption and forgiveness that Christ brings, you are eternally gratefully. It is the realization of the magnitude of your sin that pushes you to relish the marvelous grace of the savior. The more a Believer looks within, the more he discovers reasons for Divine wrath and the less he believes in his own personal merit. How is the heart of a true Believer filled with adoring gratitude that ever the Lord’s boundless love should have been pleased to settle and fix itself upon him (Spurgeon). For many who grew up on Church and a Christian home, you can say truly that you have been moral and you ought to thank God for it. It is true that you have been preserved from contamination with an ungodly world and should bless God for it. But, still, in the matter of the soul’s salvation, faith in the atoning Sacrifice of Christ is the way of salvation for the most immoral and for the most moral, too! You and I, dear Friend, must go together to the Lord Jesus and see in Him the full Atonement made and the utmost ransom paid—and then we must accept, as poor bankrupt sinners, the free gift of a full pardon through the Sovereign Mercy of God whom we have offended (Spurgeon). It was not the amount forgiven which was the cause of the greater or lesser love—it was the consciousness of the amount—the realization of its greatness, which would be the cause of the greater love! In the judgment of men and, perhaps, in the judgment of God, you may not be a great sinner, nevertheless, you love Christ more—the reason being that these greater sinners never had such a deep sense of the enormity of sin as these, comparatively speaking, lesser sinners have had. The question turns not so much upon the actual amount of debt, as upon the consciousness of the magnitude of that debt—not so much, in the matter of love, upon the indebtedness, as upon the sense of that indebtedness, so that you who have been kept in the ways of morality before you were converted, may rightly place yourselves among the greatest debtors and, perhaps, may love Christ even more than some others do who have actually been grosser offenders, but who have never been awakened to such a full sense of their sinfulness as you have had. It is a deep sense of our sinfulness, coupled with the perfect consciousness of our forgiveness, that will work in us intense love to Christ. If you realize what He has done for you, you cannot help loving Him much! (Spurgeon). Those who love Christ much have a very deep sense of sin. The deepest convictions of sin do not come, as a rule, to men of coarse life, but to those who have been of upright moral character. Some of us who were kept from such sins as they have committed, have had a far greater sense of horror and terror indicted upon us than they have ever experienced! I have many times found that the deepest sense of sin has been felt where the actual sin has been the least. For many Christians, the sense of sin is much stronger after they have been saved than it is at the time of their conversion. There is not any despair mixed with it and the fear of punishment has gone—but a sense of horror at the terrible guilt of sin will sometimes come over a Christian who is far advanced The nearer you get to perfection, the more horrified you feel because of the sin that still remains in you! And the more horror you feel at your sin, the more intense will be your gratitude to the bleeding Savior who has put that sin away. And, in consequence, the more intense will be your love to Him (Spurgeon)
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