Luke 7:47

Luk_7:47

Her sins, which are many, are forgiven

Her sins

Incontinency of life is enough to give the denomination, and is a sin that is accompanied with many other sins besides itself.

A brood of sins are hatched out of this one egg. Instance we but in Davids case (we need go no further). The devil having prevailed with him in the sin of adultery, draws him on to other sins, whereby he might hide his wickedness from the world, so that they might not espy it. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)

The greatest sin

I have read a story of a hermit that led a devout and solitary life. One day talking with the devil, he demanded of him which were the greatest sins; he answered him, Covetousness and lust. The other demanded again whether blasphemy and perjury were not greater. The reply of Satan was that in the schools of divinity they were the greater sins, but for the increase of his revenues, the other were far the greater. And therefore Bede styles lust, filiam diaboli, the daughter of the devil, which bringeth forth many children to him daily. Nor doth any one such special service to the devil as an harlot. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)

That grievous sinners upon repentance shall find mercy

And for further proof, read 2Ch_33:12; 1Co_6:11; 1Ti_1:12-13; Act_2:38-39; Luk_15:20. Though then thou hast been an egregious sinner and led a vicious life, defiling thy soul with many sins, yet suffer not thyself through Satans malice to be plunged into the pit of despair; thou hast provoked Gods justice grievously heretofore by thy presumption, wrong not His mercy through desperation. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)

For she loved much

A note of inference

But are they ignorant of this; the for is often times a note of inference or consequence, and as well an argument of the effect from the cause, as of the cause from the effect. We say it is springtime. Why so? For, or because the fig-tree puts forth and buds. The putting forth of the fig-tree argues the spring-time, but the budding and putting forth of the fig-tree is not the cause of spring-time. I say this child is alive, because it cries; or this man lives, because he moves; will any so understand me as if I meant the crying of the one and the moving of the

other is the cause of life and motion in the one or in the other? Our Saviour Himself useth this kind of arguing, as we find: I have called you friends, for all things I have heard of My Father, I have made known unto you Joh_15:15), where declaring of those things to them is the effect not cause of His love. And that our Saviour here reasoneth from the effect to the cause is evident enough from the whole discourse. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)

Love as a cause

A proof (a posteriori)

from the effect is a strong proof, and very demonstrative. Thus the truth of our faith is to be proved Jam_2:18). And of repentance (2Co_7:11). And of charity (1Jn_3:14). And so St. James proves wisdom from above by the effects (Jam_3:17). Still Scripture puts us upon the trial of our graces, by these kind of proofs. Grace is invisible in its nature, it cannot be seen in habitu. Therefore, as God was seen to Moses, so is grace to men, by its back parts; and as the wind, which no man can see in its proper essence, by the full sails of the ship is perceived which way it stands. Let this be a direction to us in our examination and trial of ourselves. Would I know if the sun shines? there is no climbing up to the sky to be resolved, nor examining what matter it is made of; I look upon the beams shining on the earth, I perceive it is up and shines by the light and heat it gives. Would I know if God hath elected me to life and to salvation? There is no climbing up into heaven to know His decrees and hidden counsel (as too many would most audaciously) but study well the marks of it from the effects. The head of Nilus cannot be found, but the sweet springs issuing from thence arc well known. No surer way to the sea, than by taking a river by the hand. Our vocation and sanctification will carry us to election Rom_8:30; 2Pe_1:5-10). These are the means whereby our election and salvation is made certain, not the efficient causes whereby it comes to be decreed. The sun, not the shadow, makes the day, yet we know not how the day goes by the sun, but by the shadow. In a word, as the planets are known by their influence, the diamond by his lustre, and the soul by her vital operations, so grace is more sensibly known to us by the effects thereof. Secondly, we observe from hence, that a true and unfeigned love of Christ is a sure sign that our sins are remitted. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)

Love hard to simulate

This grace can the hardiest be counterfeited of any other grace. There is scarce anything else that we can instance in, saith one, but a hypocrite may go cheek by jowl with a good Christian. He may do all outward services, he may abstain from sin, a great change may be wrought in him; we know how far the third ground went (Mat_13:1-58.) And those (Heb_6:1-20.) But this they cannot counterfeit to love the Lord. A hypocrite may hear the Word, pray, give alms, but to do these out of love, that is a thing which no hypocrite is able to reach unto. Secondly, though saving graces have their counterfeits, yet a man may be assured by the Word that he hath this and other graces in him in sincerity, so as that he cannot be deceived in them. For as God gave Moses in the Mount a pattern, according to which He would have all things made in the Tabernacle (Heb_8:5), so that when he viewed the work and saw all was done according to that pattern, He was sure He had done right, and blessed them, as we read (Exo_39:43). So hath God given us a pattern in His Word, according to which He would have everything in His spiritual tabernacle (as faith, repentance, love, obedience, &c.) to be wrought. And if a man can find that the grace he hath be according to the pattern, as (if he take pains with himself to view the work, as Moses did) he may, then he may be sure it is right, and shall have cause of rejoicing, as the apostle saith (Gal_6:4). Thirdly, Learn hence a notable way to establish our hearts in the assurance of the pardon of sin. Thou needest not climb up into heaven to search Gods books, whether they be crossed or no, there to behold the face of God whether He smile or frown; but dive into thine own soul, and there find out what love thou bearest to thy Maker and blessed Saviour; if thou findest that thou lovest Him unfeignedly, that is, that thou lovest Him more than these, lovest Him for Himself, for those beauties and excellencies that are in Him. It is the greatest comfort that thou canst have in this life, for that thou mayest rest assured hereupon that God is reconciled to thee, and that thy sins (be they never so great or many) are forgiven thee. Finding this in thee, thou mayest be sure, and never till then canst thou be assured of it. For, we may easier carry coals in our bosom without burning, than by faith apprehend truly this love of God in the pardoning of sin without finding our hearts burn in love to Him answerably. Only see that our love be rightly qualified, that it hath these requisites which Gods Word speaks of, that it be with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our might (Deu_6:5; Mar_10:30.) In the fourth place we do observe, That loving much argues much mercy received from the beloved party. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)

Love and forgiveness

This story contains three figures, who may stand for us as the types of the Divine love and of all its operation in the world, of the way in which it is received or rejected, and of the consequences of its reception or rejection. There is the unloving, cleanly, respectable, self-complacent Pharisee, with all his contempt for this woman. There is the woman, with gross sin and mighty penitence, the great burst of love that is flowing out of her heart sweeping before it, as it were, all the guilt of her transgressions. And, high over all, brooding over all, loving each, knowing each, pitying each; willing to save and be the Friend and Brother of each, is the embodied and manifested Divine love, the knowledge of whom is love in our hearts, and life eternal.

I. CHRIST HERE STANDS AS A MANIFESTATION OF THE DIVINE LOVE COMING FORTH AMONGST SINNERS.

1. He, as bringing to us the love of God, shows it to us, as not at all dependent upon our merits or deserts. He frankly forgave them both.

2. He tells us, too, that whilst that love is not caused by us, but comes from the nature of God, it is not turned away by our sins. Christs knowledge of the woman as a sinner; what did it do to His love for her? It made that love gentle and tender, as knowing that she could not bear the revelation of the blaze of His purity. Daughter, I know all about it--all thy wanderings and thy vile transgressions: I know them all, and My love is mightier than all these. They may be as the great sea, but My love is like the everlasting mountains whose roots go down beneath the ocean; and My love is like the everlasting heaven, whose brightness covers it all over.

3. Christ teaches us here that this Divine love, when it comes forth among sinners, necessarily manifests itself first in the form of forgiveness. There was nothing to be done with the debtors until the debt was wiped out.

4. We see here the love of God, last of all, demanding service.

II. THIS WOMAN--THE PENITENT LOVINGLY RECOGNIZING THE DIVINE LOVE. Great blunders have been built on the words of our text. I daresay you have often seen epitaphs written on gravestones, with this misplaced idea on them, Very sinful; but there was a great deal of love in the person; and for the sake of the love, God passed by the sin! Now, when Christ says, she loved much, He does not mean to say that her love was the cause of her forgiveness--not at all. He means to say that her love was the proof of her forgiveness. As for instance, we might say, The woman is in great distress, for she weeps; but we do not mean thereby that the weeping is the reason of the distress, but the means of our knowing the sorrow. The love does not go before the forgiveness, but the forgiveness before the love. That this is the true interpretation you will see, if you look back for a moment at the narrative which precedes: He frankly forgave them both: tell me, therefore, which of them will love Him most?

1. Then all true love to God is preceded in the heart by these two things--a sense of sin, and an assurance of pardon.

2. Love precedes all acceptable and faithful service. If you want to do, love. If you want to know, love.

III. A third character stands here--THE UNLOVING AND SELF-RIGHTEOUS MAN, ALL IGNORANT OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. Simon is the antithesis of the woman and her character. What was it that made this mans morality a piece of dead nothingness. What was it that made his orthodoxy just so many dry words, from out of which all the life had gone? This one thing: there was no love in it. And, love is the foundation of all obedience. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The text teaches--

I. THAT SIN IS PARDONABLE. A very elementary truth, yet a very important one. The obstacle to forgiveness.

1. Not in God.

2. Not in nature.

3. Not in the sinner, if he repents.

II. MUCH SIN CAN BE REPENTED OF AND THEREFORE FORGIVEN. Her sins, which are many.

III. A GREAT SINNER CAN BE A GREAT SAINT. Bunyan, in his sermon on The Jerusalem sinner saved, explaining the reasons why Jesus would have mercy offered in the first place to the biggest sinners, remarks, If Christ loves to be loved a little, He loves to be loved much; but there is not any that are capable of loving much, save those that have much forgiven them. Having cited Paul as an instance, he adds the quaint reflection, I wonder how far a man might go among the converted sinners of the smaller size before he could find one that so much as looked anything this wayward. Then coming to the scene in Simons house, the moral lesson it suggests is thus put: Alas! Christ has but little thanks for the saving of little sinners, he gets not water for His feet by the saving of such sinners. There are abundance of dry-eyed Christians in the world, and abundance of dry-eyed duties too--duties that were never wetted with the tears of contrition and repentance, nor even sweetened with the great sinners box of ointment. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)

THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER.

Simon, her kisses will not soil;

Her tears are pure as rain;

Eye not her hairs untwisted coil,

Baptized in pardoning pain.

For God hath pardoned all her much,

Her iron bands have burst;

Her love could never have been such

Had not His love been first.

But oh! rejoice ye sisters pure,

Who hardly know her case;

There is no sin but has its cure,

Its all-consuming grace.

He did not leave her soul in hell,

Mong shards the silver dove,

But raised her pure that she might tell

Her sisters how to love.

She gave Him all your best love can.

Was He despised and sad?

Yes; and yet never mighty man

Such perfect homage had.

Jesus, by whose forgiveness sweet

Her love grew so intense,

We, sinners all, come round Thy feet--

Lord, make no difference.

(George Maxdonald.)

The value of deep feelings

You will observe the very striking instance here of the difference between natural feeling and conventional feeling. There are many persons who would not desecrate, by wearing the hat, any cathedral or church, but who are not troubled by sin in their own souls--by pride, malice, envy or uncharitableness. This woman was heart broken in the presence of the Saviour, the contrast of whose purity and truth threw such a light of revelation upon her own past life; but in all her feelings, so strikingly manifested, the Pharisee saw nothing.

1. In the beginning it must not be supposed that love is to be derived only from a sense of benefit conferred, and that the conscious benefit of forgiven sin is the true fountain of the highest love. For love will be in proportion to the strength of the love-principle in the subject of it. We do not love God merely on account of what He has done for us. We begin to love God by a perception of His great mercy to us. It then goes higher, and widens and purifies itself.

2. Nor must we reason falsely upon the implications of this passage. For we might say, If love is to be in proportion to the forgiveness of sins, then men should sin freely in order that they may love greatly. Paul had precisely the same ease presented to his mind by an objector. He had been urging that Gods grace was in proportion to a mans sin; and the objector said, Must we, then, go on and sin that grace may abound? No, God forbid! said the apostle. That would be contrary to the very nature of love. It is impossible for a man who loves to go on sinning for the sake of loving more, or for the sake of winning more grace. The two ideas are practically incompatible with each other. Nor are we to say, As I have not been a great sinner, I am not bound to love much.

3. But not to speak longer upon these possible perversions of this truth here, I proceed further to say that it is a truth which opens for consideration the question of the value of great feelings, deep feelings--especially a profound experience of personal sinfulness incident to a Christian life. There is a powerful effect wrought upon a mans moral nature by the mental experience through which he goes. If a man has had such a struggle with himself that he is profoundly impressed with the might of evil in him; if there has been in his experience a revelation of the destructive tendencies of sin; all this experience would tend to produce, most vividly and most powerfully, a sense of Gods grace. His sense of the gift is to be measured by this experience. No man that has a low conception of sin will ever have a very high conception of grace. Gods rescue will seem great in proportion to your conscious peril. How much has been forgiven you will be determined by how much you consciously have been in debt. As a practical matter, almost all men know that eminent experiences have grown out of profound convictions of sin, and come up to this point of conviction of sin, and stopped there. It may be that you have not enough conviction of sin; you have enough to begin a life of reformation with. Then what will happen? In proportion as a man goes toward that which is right, his conscience becomes firm, his moral sense becomes stronger, and conviction of sin, like every other Christian experience, will develop and grow. Let the sense of sin grow as you grow. A profound experience of unworth will open more and more upon you as you go on in the Divine life. The magnitude of the debt that has been forgiven you, will constitute a growing practical Christian experience. You are like a child that wants to read a book, but will not learn his letters because he does not want to touch a book till he can go off all at once. You must learn your letters before you can read. The experience of every trait, of every element of Christian life, is an experience that begins small and waxes larger, and by and by becomes like a branch of a tree in full top. And that which is true of every other feeling is true of this one--namely, conviction of sin. If, then, you have enough feeling to condemn you, you have enough for yeast.

4. Very wicked men ought to become very eminent and active Christians. Usually, men who have been very wicked, are men who have very strong natures. Men who have been dissipated, arc men who have had very strong passions and appetites. Usually a wicked man is a man of power and audacity, if he is very wicked; but where there is great power to do wrong, there is great power to react from wrong; and if a man has been going away from God with vigour, that same vigour should supply him with the elements by which to return. It is pitiful to see a man fruitful, energetic, from day to day, and constantly diversifying his experience in wickedness, but sterile, and close, and formal, and proper when he becomes a Christian. Bad men also are usually acquainted with human life. They know the dispositions of their fellow-men; and whatever knowledge there is of bad men they have. And such men are bound to consecrate their knowledge, and to bring it into the service of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has forgiven them, and renewed their life, if they are born again. If a man has been a gambler, and is converted from his wicked way, that ought to be a sphere in which he feels peculiarly called to labour. There is also a sense of Divine goodness that ought to go with eases of conversions of bad men, and that ought to be specially affecting and influential. I see a great many persons who try to serve God softly. The devil puts excuses into their mouths like these: I ought not to meddle with sacred things. I ought not to put on airs in religion, or give people reason to suppose that I do. And under these guises they do but little, and very soon wither and go back to their old state. If, therefore, within the hearing of my voice, there are those who are thinking about a Christian life, I open the door of the church to you--but on this condition; come in with all your might! If you have been a swearing man, your lips must not be dumb now in the praise of that God whom you have been blaspheming all your life. If you were sick, and your case had been given over by all the physicians, and a stranger should come to your town, and should examine into your difficulty, and should say, It is a struggle with death itself, but I am in possession of knowledge by which I think I can heal you; and he should never leave you day nor night, but should cling to you through weeks and weeks, and at last raise you to health, would it not be contemptibly mean if you should be ashamed to acknowledge him to be your physician, and testify to what he had done for you? If I was that physician, would I not have a right to have my name and my skill made known by you?

5. Men who have sinned, not by their passions but by their higher faculties, if they would be true Christians, must have just the same spiritual momentum--though for different reasons--as those that have sinned by their lower faculties.

6. Let every man who is going to begin a Christian life pursue the same course that she pursued whose name has been made memorable, and whose soul this day chants before her Beloved in heaven--or she is one of those of whom Christ says, The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you, Pharisees. (H. W. Beecher.)

Much love the fruit of abundant pardon

Learn from the mistake of the Pharisee to be very careful in the formation of your opinions of others, and especially in the expression of your judgment. Great changes may take place in persons, which changes do not come to your ears.

I. THE FIRST OF THESE LESSONS IS, THAT GRATITUDE IN A LIVING HEART RISES WITH THE OCCASION. YOU know that gratitude is a joyous sense of obligation. I lay great stress upon that word joyous. There may be a sense of obligation without thankfulness-there may be a sense of obligation associated with hatred, and malice, and revenge. There are men who are excited to indignation by obligations which they cannot cast off. Gratitude is a joyous sense of obligation to another, accompanied by a desire to confess that obligation. If this sense be absent, and if the consciousness be painful, and if a man shrink from the utterance of acknowledgment of the obligation, gratitude is not in his heart. Now, as the mercury in the barometer rises with the lightness of the atmosphere, and in the thermometer with the heat of the atmosphere, so gratitude in a true heart swells with the extent of the obligation. Christ says of this woman, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. Thankfulness in this poor womans soul had reached a very high point; that is, it responded to the demand made upon it. Gratitude in a living heart will not be stationary. As the clouds of guilt and sorrow are blotted out from the firmament of the mans heart, and from the firmament of the mans prospects, thankfulness will rise. Gratitude cannot be the same in two individuals of equal spiritual sensitiveness, but of different conditions. She loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. The difference in the condition, the heart being alive, produces the difference in the thankfulness. As a trunk-line receives traffic from its branch-lines, or as the principal stream through a valley receives accession by tributary streams, so thankfulness is deep or shallow, wide or narrow, in proportion to the circumstances which call it forth. The highest occasion of thankfulness is large pardon from God--pardon dispensed by God abundantly. Sin admits of degree. Transgressions may be many or few, and they are marked by degrees of aggravation. Observe, too, the manner in which God dispenses forgiveness. He pardons freely, without money, and without price; readily, without the vain repetition of continued entreaty--abundantly, making the scarlet, snow, and the crimson, wool. Now, until a guilty man is forgiven by his God, none of the gifts of the Father of Mercies partake thoroughly of the nature of blessing. He has health, and strength, and life; but these are only adding distance to his wanderings from God. Strong gratitude, brethren, is very free in its utterance. It is not restricted to place. The man who is really thankful cannot expend his emotions in the sacredness of retirement only. Yet the thankful heart is not dependent upon the excitement of the multitude. Still, gratitude is not restricted to time, or to mode. It finds regular seasons for utterance--in the morning and evening, and at noonday. It will lisp like an infant; it can chant like a seraph. It will utter itself in a sigh or in a song, in a tear or in an alabaster, in a look or in a course of service. Look at a third fact. Gratitude breaks the laws of propriety which a formalist would recognize. It puts its hand on the best and it offers the best. Now, how ought the gratitude of a forgiven man to be expressed? Honour the Saviours person in the persons of His disciples. (S. Martin.)

She loved much: she had much forgiven

In treating this subject more fully I shall try to analyze--

I. The secret springs of the poor sinners conduct.

II. The nature of the action, which was viewed so diversely by the Pharisees and the Lord.

I. THE STRINGS OF THE WOMANS CONDUCT. The woman was a sinner. Into the precise form or extent of her transgression there is no need to pry. The word was very significant; a lost woman would be its equivalent now. The sin was one which filled her whole consciousness. The springs of her action, perhaps, lie here.

1. In her desperate self-abandonment the Lord had lit one ray of hope within her spirit. Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest What sin-crushed spirit would not leap to hear such words from such Divine lips? Despair is the devils own instrument. The first step in the reformation of the most abandoned profligates is to get them to care for themselves--to think themselves worth the care. Doubtless, this poor sinner had long loathed her vocation. Doubtless, the burning blush of shame had often stained her cheek, and tears, tears that had a tinge of blood in them, had often dimmed her eye, when she remembered that she had lost her womanhood, lost her soul, lost her life, for ever. Surely, too, the thought of reformation had often visited her. But the Where shall I go, what shall I do? as often checked her. Who in this universe cares for a woman that is a sinner?

2. The Lord had quickened within her numbed and withered heart the pulses of a blessed and purifying love. Love is the strong redeemer of pollution. How hard and how long will even a human love struggle against the pollution of a sensual life. The devil has not fairly secured his victim until the very embers of love are extinguished in the hearth-fire of the heart. Jesus made her a woman again. The tendrils of love, torn from their pristine hold, all tangled and rotting on the damp earth whereon she grovelled, began to tingle and thrill again. Heaven seemed to open above her and beam its benediction.

II. And now LET US TURN OUR THOUGHTS TO THE NATURE OF THE ACTION, AND ANALYZE THE OPPOSING JUDGMENTS WHICH WERE PASSED ON IT BY THE DISCIPLES AND THE LORD, Worldly wisdom would probably find a double objection to this transaction.

1. It was shameful that a woman, who was a sinner, should approach a prophet; and--

2. The gift was lavish and wasteful, and might, have been put to better use.

And Jesus seems to me to say by His answers--

1. That love--such love- must be left to its native affinities. Its elections are absolute, its decisions are supreme.

2. The Lord said that there are gifts which a love like hers alone can justify. She loved much, He pleaded, in answer to the glances which condemned the occasion as a scandal, and the gift as a waste. There are gifts which are simply the utterance of the heart of the giver, outlets of surcharged feeling, expressions of thoughts too deep for words, for tears. Let the cold and cautious stand aside while such are passing, nor stay the flight of these angels on the wing. The hearts first duty is to find itself expression. She loved much; she spent her living in telling how much she loved. Simon, there is malignant devil in that cautious calculation. Moreover, love like hers is not so uncalculating, though it disdains Pharisaic measures. The woman gave her living, but she won her soul. The ointment was lost, and the money which bought it, but her soul was for ever rid of its burden, and was braced for conflict and heavenly work. Love, though profuse in gifts, clears the intellect, kindles the spirit, stirs the courage, and nerves the hands.

3. The Saviour says that love like hers may well seek strange and profuse expressions, for it is the parent of a glory and blessedness which transcends all utterance and thought. Love is life. The woman who was a sinner, loving much, grew more swiftly and strongly to saintly perfectness, than Simon the just Pharisee measuring and obeying. Love, like electric fire, leaps swiftly to its object. Justness, the quiet sense of duty, the careful measuring of obligations, travels slowly, though wisely and surely, along the road. (Read Luk_7:47-50.) (J. B. Brown, B. A.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven. Again, as in the synagogue, and no doubt on many other occasions, when these words were uttered, a thrill would run through the company present. Who was this, then, one would ask the other, who with this voice and mien dared to utter such things? Only One could forgive sins! Was, then, the Nazareth Rabbi, the great Physician, the Worker of awful miracles was he the One whose Name was lost, but the echo of whose voice still lingered, they hoped, in that desecrated Holy Land? For she loved much. Are we, then, to understand by this that her love for Jesus was the cause of forgiveness? Many Roman and some Protestant expositors have believed this is the meaning of the Lord"s words. But at once a contradiction is given to this interpretation by a reference to ver. 42, where, after the remission of the two debts the great and the little Jesus asks, "Which of these will love him most?" But had love been the cause of a forgiveness of either or both of the debts, the question should have run, "Which of the two loved him most?" not "will love him most." In addition to which the Master guards against any view of this kind being entertained, by his concluding words (ver. 50), "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." The principle on which forgiveness was granted to the woman was faith, not love. Stier, in his comment here, writes that the expression of the Lord, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much," is an argumentum, non a causa, sed ab effectu; in other words, "I say unto thee, Her many sins are forgiven, and thou must infer from this that she loved much, or, she loves much, for (that is, because) her sins are forgiven." Stier gives another example of the meaning of "for" (oti) in this place: "The sun is risen it must have risen, for it is day". (Stier, "Words of the Lord Jesus:" Luk_7:47) Some may ask What great amount of sin is necessary in order to loving much? Godet well answers, "We need add nothing to what each of us already has, for the sum of the whole matter is to the noblest and purest of us, what is wanting in order to love much, is not sin, but the knowledge of it. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. This saying refers to Simon the Pharisee; the first saying (in the former part of the verse) which we have been considering refers to the woman. The same principle exactly is presented as in the first instance, and viewed from the other sidethe less forgiveness, the less love results. Our Lord is very tender in all this to Simon and men like Simon. This Pharisee had evidently tried to live up to his light, though his life was disfigured with censoriousness, narrowness, harshness, and pride the many faults of his class. He too had heard Jesus, and had been moved and struck by his words, and, after a fashion, loved him; only the worldhis world came between him and his love, so that it was only a poor, pale reflection of the real feeling after all. But our Lord gives him full credit for that little love. He even excuses its poverty by saying that he, Simon, had only received a little forgiveness, and there fore only a little love was the result. Though the Lord implies in his sad irony that the little forgiveness which he had received was Simon"s own fault, for he did not think, in his self-righteousness, that he had any need to be forgiven. "O Pharisaee, parum diligis, quia parum tibi dimitti suspicaris; non quia parum dimittitur, sed quia parum putas quod dimittitur" (St. Augustine, "Serm." 99.). Godet has a deep reflection on this state of Simon"s. He asks, "May forgiveness be only partial? Then there would be men half-saved, half-lost The real forgiveness of the least sin certainly contains in germ a complete salvation, but only in germ. If faith is maintained and grows, this forgiveness will gradually extend to all the sins of a man"s life, just as they will then become more thoroughly known and acknowledged. The first forgiveness is the pledge of all the rest. In the contrary case, the forgiveness already granted will be withdrawn, just as represented in the parable of the wicked debtor; (Mt 18) and the work of grace, instead of becoming complete, will prove abortive."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luke

LOVE AND FORGIVENESS

Luk 7:47.

This story contains three figures, three persons, who may stand for us as types or representatives of the divine love and of all its operation in the world, of the way in which it is received or rejected, and of the causes and consequences of its reception or rejection. There is the unloving, cleanly, respectable, self-complacent Pharisee, with all his contempt for ‘this woman.’ There is the woman, with gross sin and mighty penitence, the great burst of love that is flowing out of her heart sweeping away before it, as it were, all the guilt of her transgressions. And, high over all, brooding over all, loving each, knowing each, pitying each, willing to save and be the Friend and Brother of each, is the embodied and manifested divine Love, the knowledge of whom is love in our hearts, and is ‘life eternal.’ So that now I have simply to ask you to look with me, for a little while, at these three persons as representing for us the divine love that comes forth amongst sinners, and the twofold form in which that love is received. There is, first, Christ the love of God appearing amongst men, the foundation of all our love to Him. Then there is the woman, the penitent sinner, lovingly recognising the divine love. And then, last, there is the Pharisee, the self-righteous man, ignorant of himself, and empty of all love to God. These are the three figures to which I ask your attention now.

I. We have Christ here standing as a manifestation of the divine love coming forth amongst sinners.

His person and His words, the part He plays in this narrative, and the parable that He speaks in the course of it, have to be noticed under this head.

First, then, you have this idea-that He, as bringing to us the love of God, shows it to us, as not at all dependent upon our merits or deserts: ‘He frankly forgave them both’ are the deep words in which He would point us to the source and the ground of all the love of God. Brethren, have you ever thought what a wonderful and blessed truth there lies in the old words of one of the Jewish prophets, ‘I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for Mine holy Name’s sake’? The foundation of all God’s love to us sinful men, that saying tells us, lies not in us, nor in anything about us, not in anything external to God Himself. He, and He alone, is the cause and reason, the motive and the end, of His own love to our world. And unless we have grasped that magnificent thought as the foundation of all our acceptance in Him, I think we have not yet learnt half of the fullness which, even in this world, may belong to our conceptions of the love of God-a love that has no motive but Himself; a love that is not evoked even {if I may so say} by regard to His creatures’ wants; a love, therefore, which is eternal, being in that divine heart before there were creatures upon whom it could rest; a love that is its own guarantee, its own cause-safe and firm, therefore, with all the firmness and serenity of the divine nature-incapable of being affected by our transgression, deeper than all our sins, more ancient than our very existence, the very essence and being of God Himself. ‘He frankly forgave them both.’ If you seek the source of divine love, you must go high up into the mountains of God, and learn that it, as all other of His {shall I say} emotions, and feelings, and resolutions, and purposes, owns no reason but Himself, no motive but Himself; lies wrapped in the secret of His nature, who is all-sufficient for His own blessedness, and all whose work and being is caused by, and satisfied, and terminates in His own fullness. ‘God is love’: therefore beneath all considerations of what we may want-deeper and more blessed than all thoughts of a compassion that springs from the feeling of human distress and the sight of man’s misery-lies this thought of an affection which does not need the presence of sorrow to evoke it, which does not want the touch of our finger to flow out, but by its very nature is everlasting, by its very nature is infinite, by its very nature must be pouring out the flood of its own joyous fullness for ever and ever!

Then, again, Christ standing here for us as the representative and revelation of this divine love which He manifests to us, tells us, too, that whilst it is not caused by us, but comes from the nature of God, it is not turned away by our sins. ‘This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him,’ says the unloving and self-righteous heart, ‘for she is a sinner.’ Ah! there is nothing more beautiful than the difference between the thought about sinful creatures which is natural to a holy being, and the thought about sinful creatures which is natural to a self-righteous being. The one is all contempt; the other, all pity. He knew what she was, and therefore He let her come close to Him with the touch of her polluted hand, and pour out the gains of her lawless life and the adornments of her former corruption upon His most blessed and most holy head. His knowledge of her as a sinner, what did it do to His love for her? It made that love gentle and tender, as knowing that she could not bear the revelation of the blaze of His purity. It smoothed His face and softened His tones, and breathed through all His knowledge and notice of her timid and yet confident approach. ‘Daughter, I know all about it-all thy wanderings and thy vile transgressions: I know them all, and My love is mightier than all these. They may be as the great sea, but my love is like the everlasting mountains, whose roots go down beneath the ocean, and My love is like the everlasting heaven, whose brightness covers it all over.’ God’s love is Christ’s love; Christ’s love is God’s love. And this is the lesson that we gather-that that infinite and divine loving-kindness does not turn away from thee, my brother and my friend, because thou art a sinner, but remains hovering about thee, with wooing invitations and with gentle touches, if it may draw thee to repentance, and open a fountain of answering affection in thy seared and dry heart. The love of God is deeper than all our sins. ‘For His great love wherewith He loved us, when we were dead in sins, He quickened us.’

Sin is but the cloud behind which the everlasting sun lies in all its power and warmth, unaffected by the cloud; and the light will yet strike, the light of His love will yet pierce through, with its merciful shafts bringing healing in their beams, and dispersing all the pitchy darkness of man’s transgression. And as the mists gather themselves up and roll away, dissipated by the heat of that sun in the upper sky, and reveal the fair earth below-so the love of Christ shines in, molting the mist and dissipating the fog, thinning it off in its thickest places, and at last piercing its way right through it, down to the heart of the man that has been lying beneath the oppression of this thick darkness, and who thought that the fog was the sky, and that there was no sun there above. God be thanked! the everlasting love of God that comes from the depth of His own being, and is there because of Himself, will never be quenched because of man’s sin.

And so, in the next place, Christ teaches us here that this divine love, when it comes forth among sinners, necessarily manifests itself first in the form of forgiveness. There was nothing to be done with the debtors until the debt was wiped out; there was no possibility of other gifts of the highest sort being granted to them, until the great score was cancelled and done away with. When the love of God comes down into a sinful world, it must come first and foremost as pardoning mercy. There are no other terms upon which there can be a union betwixt the loving-kindness of God, and the emptiness and sinfulness of my heart, except only this-that first of all there shall be the clearing away from my soul of the sins which I have gathered there, and then there will be space for all other divine gifts to work and to manifest themselves. Only do not fancy that when we speak about forgiveness, we simply mean that a man’s position in regard to the penalties of sin is altered. That is not all the depth of the scriptural notion of forgiveness. It includes far more than the removal of outward penalties. The heart of it all is, that the love of God rests upon the sinner, unturned away even by his sins, passing over his sins, and removing his sins for the sake of Christ. My friend, if you are talking in general terms about a great divine loving-kindness that wraps you round-if you have a great deal to say, apart from the Gospel, about the love of God as being your hope and confidence-I want you to reflect on this, that the first word which the love of God speaks to sinful men is pardon; and unless that is your notion of God’s love, unless you look to that as the first thing of all, let me tell you, you may have before you a very fair picture of a very beautiful, tender, good-natured benevolence, but you have not nearly reached the height of the vigour and yet the tenderness of the Scripture notion of the love of God. It is not a love which says, ‘Well, put sin on one side, and give the man the blessings all the same,’ not a love which has nothing to say about that great fact of transgression, not a love which gives it the go-by, and leaves it standing: but a love which passes into the heart through the portal of pardon, a love which grapples with the fact of sin first, and has nothing to say to a man until it has said that message to him.

And but one word more on this part of my subject-here we see the love of God thus coming from Himself; not turned away by man’s sins; being the cause of forgiveness; expressing itself in pardon; and last of all, demanding service. ‘Simon, thou gavest Me no water, thou gavest Me no kiss, My head thou didst not anoint: I expected all these things from thee-I desired them all from thee: My love came that they might spring in thy heart; thou hast not given them; My love is wounded, as it were disappointed, and it turns away from thee!’ Yes, after all that we have said about the freeness and fullness, the unmerited, and uncaused, and unmotived nature of that divine affection-after all that we have said about its being the source of every blessing to man, asking nothing from him, but giving everything to him; it still remains true, that God’s love, when it comes to men, comes that it may evoke an answering echo in the human heart, and ‘though it might be much bold to enjoin, yet for love’s sake rather beseeches’ us to give unto Him who has given all unto us. There, then, stands forth in the narrative, Christ as a revelation of the divine love amongst sinners.

II. Now, in the second place, let us look for a moment at ‘this woman’ as the representative of a class of character-the penitent lovingly recognising the divine love.

The words which I have read as my text contain a statement as to the woman’s character: ‘Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.’ Allow me just one word of explanation, in the shape of exposition, on these words. Great blunders have been built upon them. I dare say you have seen epitaphs-{I have}-written often on gravestones with this misplaced idea on them-’Very sinful; but there was a great deal of love in the person; and for the sake of the love, God passed by the sin!’ Now, when Christ says ‘She loved much,’ He does not mean to say that her love was the cause of her forgiveness-not at all. He means to say that her love was the proof of her forgiveness, and that it was so because her love was a consequence of her forgiveness. As, for instance, we might say, ‘The woman is in great distress, for she weeps’; but we do not mean thereby that the weeping is the reason of the distress, but the means of our knowing the sorrow. It is the proof because it is the consequence. Or {to put it into the simplest shape} the love does not go before the forgiveness, but the forgiveness goes before the love; and because the love comes after the forgiveness, it is the sign of the forgiveness. That this is the true interpretation, you will see if you look back for a moment at the narrative which precedes, where He says, ‘He frankly forgave them both: tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most?’ Pardon is the pre-requisite of love, and love is a consequence of the sense of forgiveness.

This, then, is the first thing to observe: all true love to God is preceded in the heart by these two things-a sense of sin, and an assurance of pardon. Brethren, there is no love possible-real, deep, genuine, worthy of being called love of God-which does not start with the belief of my own transgression, and with the thankful reception of forgiveness in Christ. You do nothing to get pardon for yourselves; but unless you have the pardon you have no love to God. I know that sounds a very hard thing-I know that many will say it is very narrow and very bigoted, and will ask, ‘Do you mean to tell me that the man whose bosom glows with gratitude because of earthly blessings, has no love-that all that natural religion which is in people, apart from this sense of forgiveness in Christ, do you mean to tell me that this is not all genuine?’ Yes, most assuredly; and I believe the Bible and man’s conscience say the same thing. I do not for one moment deny that there may be in the hearts of those who are in the grossest ignorance of themselves as transgressors, certain emotions of instinctive gratitude and natural religiousness, directed to some higher power dimly thought of as the author of their blessings and the source of much gladness: but has that kind of thing got any living power in it? I demur to its right to be called love to God at all, for this reason-because it seems to me that the object that is loved is not God, but a fragment of God. He who but says, ‘I owe to Him breath and all things; in Him I live and move, and have my being,’ has left out one-half at least of the Scriptural conception of God. Your God, my friend, is not the God of the Bible, unless He stands before you clothed in infinite loving-kindness indeed; but clothed also in strict and rigid justice. Is your God perfect and entire? If you say that you love Him, and if you do so, is it as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Have you meditated on the depths of the requirements of His law? Have you stood silent and stricken at the thought of the blaze of His righteousness? Have you passed through all the thick darkness and the clouds with which He surrounds His throne, and forced your way at last into the inner light where He dwells? Or is it a vague divinity that you worship and love? Which? Ah, if a man study his Bible, and try to find out for himself, from its veracious records, who and what manner of God the living God is, there will be no love in his heart to that Being except only when he has flung himself at His feet, and said, ‘Father of eternal purity, and God of all holiness and righteousness, forgive Thy child, a sinful broken man-forgive Thy child, for the sake of Thy Son!’ That, and that alone, is the road by which we come to possess the love of God, as a practical power, filling and sanctifying our souls; and such is the God to whom alone our love ought to be rendered; and I tell you {or rather the Bible tells you, and the Gospel and the Cross of Christ tell you}, there is no love without pardon, no fellowship and sonship without the sense of sin and the acknowledgment of foul transgression!

So much, then, for what precedes the love of Christ in the heart; now a word as to what follows. ‘Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.’ The sense of sin precedes forgiveness: forgiveness precedes love; love precedes all acceptable and faithful service. If you want to do, love. If you want to know, love. This poor woman knew Christ a vast deal better than that Pharisee there. He said, ‘This man is not a prophet; He does not understand the woman.’ Ay, but the woman knew herself better than the Pharisee knew himself, knew herself better than the Pharisee knew her, knew Christ, above all, a vast deal better than he did. Love is the gate of all knowledge.

This poor woman brings her box of ointment, a relic perhaps of past evil life, and once meant for her own adornment, and pours it on His head, lavishes offices of service which to the unloving heart seem bold in the giver and cumbersome to the receiver. It is little she can do, but she does it. Her full heart demands expression, and is relieved by utterance in deeds. The deeds are spontaneous, welling out at the bidding of an inward impulse, not drawn out by the force of an external command. It matters not what practical purpose they serve. The motive of them makes their glory. Love prompts them, love justifies them, and His love interprets them, and His love accepts them. The love which flows from the sense of forgiveness is the source of all obedience as well as the means of all knowledge.

Brethren, we differ from each other in all respects but one, ‘We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God’; we all need the love of Christ; it is offered to us all; but, believe me, the sole handle by which you can lay hold of it, is the feeling of your own sinfulness and need of pardon. I preach to you a love that you do not need to buy, a mercy that you do not need to bribe, a grace that is all independent of your character, and condition, and merits, which issues from God for ever, and is lying at your doors if you will take it. You are a sinful man; Christ died for you. He comes to give you His forgiving mercy. Take it, be at rest. So shalt thou love and know and do, and so shall He love and guide thee!

III. Now one word, and then I have done. A third character stands here-the unloving and self-righteous man, all ignorant of the love of Christ.

He is the antithesis of the woman and her character. You remember the traditional peculiarities and characteristics of the class to which he belonged. He is a fair specimen of the whole of them. Respectable in life, rigid in morality, unquestionable in orthodoxy; no sound of suspicion having ever come near his belief in all the traditions of the elders; intelligent and learned, high up among the ranks of Israel! What was it that made this man’s morality a piece of dead nothingness? What was it that made his orthodoxy just so many dry words, from out of which all the life had gone? What was it? This one thing: there was no love in it. As I said, Love is the foundation of all obedience; without it, morality degenerates into mere casuistry. Love is the foundation of all knowledge; without it, religion degenerates into a chattering about Moses, and doctrines, and theories; a thing that will neither kill nor make alive, that never gave life to a single soul or blessing to a single heart, and never put strength into any hand for the conflict and strife of daily life. There is no more contemptible and impotent thing on the face of the earth than morality divorced from love, and religious thoughts divorced from a heart full of the love of God. Quick corruption or long decay, and in either case death and putrefaction, are the end of these. You and I need that lesson, my friends. It is of no use for us to condemn Pharisees that have been dead and in their graves for nineteen hundred years. The same thing besets us all; we all of us try to get away from the centre, and dwell contented on the surface. We are satisfied to take the flowers and stick them into our little gardens, without any roots to them, when of course they all die out! People may try to cultivate virtue without religion, and to acquire correct notions of moral and spiritual truth; and partially and temporarily they may succeed, but the one will be a yoke of bondage, and the other a barren theory. I repeat, love is the basis of all knowledge and of all right-doing. If you have got that firm foundation laid in the soul, then the knowledge and the practice will be builded in God’s own good time; and if not, the higher you build the temple, and the more aspiring are its cloud-pointing pinnacles, the more certain will be its toppling some day, and the more awful will be the ruin when it comes. The Pharisee was contented with himself, and so there was no sense of sin in him, therefore there was no penitent recognition of Christ as forgiving and loving him, therefore there was no love to Christ. Because there was no love, there was neither light nor heat in his soul, his knowledge was barren notions, and his painful doings were soul-destructive self-righteousness.

And so it all comes round to the one blessed message: My friend, God hath loved us with an everlasting love. He has provided an eternal redemption and pardon for us. If you would know Christ at all, you must go to Him as a sinful man, or you are shut out from Him altogether. If you will go to Him as a sinful being, fling yourself down there, not try to make yourself better, but say, ‘I am full of unrighteousness and transgression; let Thy love fall upon me and heal me’; you will get the answer, and in your heart there shall begin to live and grow up a root of love to Him, which shall at last effloresce into all knowledge and unto all purity of obedience; for he that hath had much forgiveness, loveth much; and ‘he that loveth knoweth God,’ and ‘dwelleth in God, and God in Him’!

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7:47 so she has shown me much love: This is a better translation than the traditional “because she loved much.” It was not that her great love for Jesus caused him to forgive her, but that the forgiveness she had already received from Jesus prompted her love.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 7:47. Αἱ πολλαὶ, the many, [Engl. Vers. not so well, which are many]) the many sins, which thou, Simon, dost bring forward as objections against her. The article is to be referred to Luk 7:39.—ὃτι, because, seeing that) That is to say, the forgiveness of her sins, which was not thought of by Simon, is proved by the fruit, Luk 7:42 [where the love of the forgiven debtor is the proof that he has been indeed forgiven], which is evident, and forces itself upon the eyes of all present [is obvious to be seen], even though the forgiveness be hidden [is not to be seen with the eyes]. Add the antithesis which follows in the text, But to whom, etc. In order to refute Simon, there is cited by the Lord that which is “the fulfilling of the law,” namely, love, as being the criterion of sins being forgiven which was suited to the comprehension of the Pharisee: whereas to the woman herself, her faith (Luk 7:50) is said to have saved her. The former expression has more of an enigmatical character in it: the latter is more strictly literal. The more weight that each assigns to love in this matter above faith, the more like to Simon he is, and the more removed is he from the feeling of the woman, and of the Lord Himself. Love is the criterion of forgiveness, even though he who loves does not so think as to forgiveness.[78]—ᾧ δὲ, but to whom) mildly expressed; not actually saying, though meaning, thou, to whom, as the force of the antithesis implies; otherwise there are not wanting persons who “love much,” even though great transgressions have not been committed by them previous to their forgiveness.—ὀλίγον, little) Speaking comparatively, and after the manner of men, he loves tenfold less; Luk 7:41 [as the debtor who was forgiven fifty pence, a tenfold less debt than five hundred, loved proportionally less].—ἀγαπᾷ, loves) but yet he loves, provided only he has obtained forgiveness. The multitude of sins forgiven will exceedingly stimulate in the elect their eternal love towards God.

[78] He does not so dwell in thought on his own acts of love as the pledges of his forgiveness. He dwells rather by faith on what Christ has done, than on what he himself has done.—ED. and TRANSL.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_7:47. Οὗ χάριν, by Beza, Grotius, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, and others, is separated from λέγω σοι by a comma, and connected with ἀφέωνται. But the latter has its limitation by ὅτι κ.τ.λ. It is to be interpreted: on account of which I say unto thee; on behalf of this her manifestation of love (as a recognition and high estimation thereof) I declare to thee.

ἀφέωνται κ.τ.λ.] her sins are forgiven, the many (that she has committed, Luk_7:37; Luk_7:39), since she has loved much. This ὅτι ἠγάπησε πολύ expresses not the cause, and therefore not the antecedent of forgiveness. That the words do express the antecedent of forgiveness is the opinion of the Catholics, who maintain thereby their doctrine of contritio charitate formata and of the merit of works; and lately, too, of de Wette, who recognises love for Christ and faith in Him as one; of Olshausen, who after his own fashion endeavours to overcome the difficulty of the thought by regarding love as a receptive activity; of Paulus, who drags in what is not found in the text; of Baumgarten-Crusius, and of Bleek. Although dogmatic theology is not decisive against this opinion (see the pertinent observations of Melanchthon in the Apol. iii. 31 ff. p. 87 f.), yet perhaps the context is, because this view directly contradicts the παραβολή, Luk_7:41-42, that lies at its foundation, as well as the ᾧ δὲ ὀλίγον ἀφίεται κ.τ.λ. which immediately follows, if the love does not appear as the consequent of the forgiveness; the antecedent, i.e. the subjective cause of the forgiveness, is not the love, but the faith of the penitent, as is plain from Luk_7:50. Contextually it is right, therefore, to understand ὅτι of the ground of recognition or acknowledgment: Her sins are forgiven, etc., which is certain, since she has manifested love in an exalted degree. Bengel says pertinently: Remissio peccatorum, Simoni non cogitata, probatur a fructu, Luk_7:42, qui est evidens et in oculos incurrit, quum illa sit occulta; and Calovius: probat Christus a posteriori. Comp. Beza, Calvin, Wetstein, Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 603 f.; Hilgenfeld also, Evang. p. 175. The objection against this view, taken by Olshausen and Bleek, that the aorist ἠγάπησε is inappropriate, is quite a mistake, and is nullified by passages such as Joh_3:16. The ἀφέωνται expresses that the woman is in the condition of forgiveness (in statu gratiae), and that the criterion thereof is the much love manifested by her. It is thereafter in Luk_7:48 that Jesus makes, even to herself, the express declaration.

ὧ δὲ ὀλίγον ἀφίεται, ὀλίγ. ἀγαπᾷ] a general decision in precise opposition to the first half of the verse, with intentional application to the moral condition of the Pharisee, which is of such a kind that only a little forgiveness falls to his share, the consequence being that he also manifests but little love (Luk_7:44-46). There was too much want of self-knowledge and of repentance in the self-righteous Simon for him to be a subject of much forgiveness.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 7:47 . οὗ χάριν , wherefore, introducing Christ’s theory of the woman’s extraordinary behaviour as opposed to Simon’s ungenerous suspicions. λέγω σοι , I tell you, with emphasis; what Jesus firmly believes and what Simon very much needs to be told. ἀφέωνται (Doric perf. pas.) αἱ ἁμαρτίαι αὐτῆς , forgiven are her sins; i.e. , it is a case, not of a courtesan acting in character, as you have been thinking, but of a penitent who has come through me to the knowledge that even such as she can be forgiven. That is the meaning of this extraordinary demonstration of passionate affection. αἱ πολλαί , the many, a sort of afterthought: many sins, a great sinner, you think, and so I also can see from her behaviour in this chamber, which manifests intense love, whence I infer that she is conscious of much forgiveness and of much need to be forgiven. ὅτι ἠγάπησεν πολύ : ὅτι introduces the ground of the assertion implied in πολλαί ; many sins inferred from much love; the underlying principle: much forgiven, much love, which is here applied backwards, because Simon, while believing in the woman’s great sin, did not believe in her penitence. The foregoing interpretation is now adopted by most commentators. The old dispute between Protestants and Catholics, based on this text, as to the ground of pardon is now pretty much out of date. ᾧ δὲ ὀλίγον , etc.: this is the other side of the truth, as it applied to Simon: little (conscious) sin, little love. The doctrine here enunciated is another very original element in this story. It and the words in Luk 5:31 and Luk 15:7 form together a complete apology for Christ’s relations with the sinful.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, saith Theophylact, she hath showeth her faith abundantly: and Basil in his sermon of Baptism saith, He that oweth much, hath much forgiven him, that he may love much more: And therefore Christ’s saying is so plain by the similitude , that it is a wonder to see the enemies of the truth draw and rack this place so soundly to establish their meritorious works: for the greater sum a man hath forgiven him, the more he loveth him that hath been so gracious to him: And this woman showeth by duties of love, how great the benefit was she had received: and therefore the charity that is here spoken of, is not to be taken for the cause, but as a sign: for Christ saith not as the Pharisees did, that she was a sinner, but beareth her witness that the sins of her life past are forgiven her.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Her sins which are many--"Those many sins of hers," our Lord, who admitted how much more she owed than the Pharisee, now proclaims in naked terms the forgiveness of her guilt.

for--not because, as if love were the cause of forgiveness, but "inasmuch as," or "in proof of which." The latter clause of the verse, and the whole structure of the parable, plainly show this to be the meaning.

little forgiven . . . loveth little--delicately ironical intimation of no love and no forgiveness in the present case.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 47. For she loved much] Or, THEREFORE she loved much. It appears to have been a consciousness of God's forgiving love that brought her at this time to the Pharisee's house. In the common translation her forgiveness is represented to be the consequence of her loving much, which is causing the tree to produce the root, and not the root the tree. I have considered οτι here as having the sense of διοτι, therefore; because, to make this sentence suit with the foregoing parable, Lu 7:42-43, and with what immediately follows here, but he to whom little is forgiven loveth little, we must suppose her love was the effect of her being pardoned, not the cause of it. οτι seems to have the sense of therefore in Mt 13:13; Joh 8:44; 1Co 10:17; and in the Septuagint, in De 33:52; Isa 49:19; Ho 9:15; and Ec 5:6. Both these particles are often interchanged in the New Testament.

Loved much - loveth little] That is, A man's love to God will be in proportion to the obligations he feels himself under to the bounty of his Maker.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(47) Her sins, which are many, are forgiven.—Grammatically, the words admit of two interpretations, equally tenable. (1) Love may be represented as the ground of forgiveness, existing prior to it, and accepted as that which made forgiveness possible; or (2) it may be thought of as the natural consequence of the sense of being forgiven, and its manifestations as being therefore an evidence of a real and completed forgiveness. The whole drift of the previous parable is in favour of the latter explanation. The antecedent conditions of forgiveness, repentance, and faith—faith in Christ where He has been manifested to the soul as such; faith in Him as the Light that lighteth every man where He has not so been manifested—must be pre-supposed in her case as in others. And the faith was pre-eminently one that “worked by love,” from the first moment of its nascent life. In such cases we may, if need be, distinguish for the sake of accuracy of thought, and say that it is faith and not love that justifies, but it is an evil thing to distinguish in order to divide.

Note in detail (1) that the tense used is the perfect, “Her sins . . . have been forgiven her;” (2) that the many sins of her past life are not, as we should say. ignored, but are admitted, as far as the judgment of the Pharisee was concerned, and pressed home upon her own conscience; (3) the thought subtly implied in the concluding words, not that the sins of the Pharisee were few, but that he thought them few, and that therefore the scantiness of his love was a witness that he had but an equally scant consciousness of forgiveness.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

47. for she loved much] Rather, because. No doubt, theologically, faith, not love, is the means of pardon (Luk_7:50); hence, some interpret the ‘because’ a posteriori, and make it mean ‘she is forgiven,’ as you may conclude from the fact that she loved much. It is more than doubtful whether this was intended. Her love and her forgiveness were mingled with each other in mutual interchange. She loved because she was forgiven; she was forgiven because she loved. Her faith and her love were one; it was “faith working by love” (Gal_5:6), and the love proved the faith. Spiritual things do not admit of the clear sequences of earthly things. There is with God no before or after, but only an eternal now.

to whom little is forgiven] The life of conventional respectability excludes flagrant and open transgressions; cold selfishness does not take itself to be sinful. Simon imagined that he had little to be forgiven, and therefore loved little. Had he been a true saint he would have recognised his debt. The confessions of the holiest are also the most heartrending, because they most fully recognise the true nature of sin. What is wanted to awaken ‘much love’ is not ‘much sin’—for we all have that qualification—but deep sense of sin. “Ce qui manque au meilleur pour aimer beaucoup, ce n’est pas le peche; c’est la connaissance du peche.” Godet.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

Ver. 47. For she loved much] Nam, notificativum est, non impulsivum. Her love was an argmnent (not a cause) that her sins were forgiven her.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wherefore I say unto thee - As the result of this, or because she has done this; meaning by this that she had given “evidence” that her sins had been forgiven. The inquiry with Simon was whether it was proper for Jesus to “touch her” or to allow her to touch him, because she was such a sinner, Luk 7:39. Jesus said, in substance, to Simon, “Grant that she has been as great a sinner as you affirm, and even grant that if she had “continued so” it might be improper to suffer her to touch me, yet “her conduct” shows that her sins have been forgiven. She has evinced so much love for me as to show that she is no longer “such a sinner” as you suppose, and it is not, therefore, “improper” that she should be suffered to come near me.”

For she loved much - In our translation this would seem to be given as a reason why her sins had been forgiven - that she had loved much “before” they were pardoned; but this is clearly not the meaning. This would be contrary to the whole New Testament, which supposes that love “succeeds,” not “precedes” forgiveness; and which nowhere supposes that sins are forgiven “because” we love God. It would be also contrary to the design of the Saviour here. It was not to show “why” her sins had been forgiven, but to show that she had given evidence that they actually “had” been, and that it was proper, therefore, that she should come near to him and manifest this love. The meaning may be thus expressed: “That her sins, so many and aggravated, have been forgiven - that she is no longer such a sinner as you suppose, is manifest from her conduct. She shows deep gratitude, penitence, love. Her conduct is the “proper expression” of that love. While you have shown comparatively little evidence that you felt that “your sins” were great, and comparatively little love at their being forgiven, “she” has shown that she “felt” hers to be great, and has loved much.”

To whom little is forgiven - He who feels that little has been forgiven - that his sins were not as great as those of others. A man’s love to God will be in proportion to the obligation he “feels” to him for forgiveness. God is to be “loved” for his perfections, apart from what he has “done” for us. But still it is proper that our love should be increased by a consideration of his goodness; and they who feel - as Christians do - that they are the “chief of sinners,” will feel under infinite obligation to love God and their Redeemer, and that no “expression” of attachment to him can be “beyond” what is due.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. In the Scripture, an effect sometimes seems attributed to one only cause, when there are divers other concurring dispositions; the sins of this woman, in this verse, are said to be forgiven, because she loved much; but (ver. 50,) Christ tells her, thy faith hath saved thee. In a true conversion are joined faith, hope, love, sorrow, and other pious dispositions. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

47. Wherefore—Our Lord now furnishes his reply to the silent query of Simon, whether this professed prophet discerns spirits, by showing him that he did most truly discern both her spirit and his. And so he also settled Simon’s other query as to the rightness of allowing this female sinner to approach and touch him. Penitence and sanctification have made her pure, and gratitude, moreover, by her feeling of the greatness of her sin, her ruin, and her salvation, have wrought this paroxysm of love, and these acts of humility.

Her sins are forgiven—Jesus does not here address the woman and now pardon her sins; he addresses Simon, and informs him that the reason of her much love is that she is one much forgiven; and forgiven before he has announced the fact to her, and even before the rich display of her love. Her gratitude is in effect a consequence, a manifestation and proof that her sins are forgiven.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Those many sins of hers are forgiven; therefore she loveth much - The fruit of her having had much forgiven. It should carefully be observed here, that her love is mentioned as the effect and evidence, not the cause of her pardon. She knew that much had been forgiven her, and therefore she loved much.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The lesson:

v. 47. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

v. 48. And He said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.

v. 49. And they that sat at meat with Him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?

v. 50. And He said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

On the basis of the parable and the facts as stated by Christ, He tells Simon: Forgiven are her many sins, for she loved much. The fact that her many grievous trespasses had found forgiveness in the sight of Christ and God filled her heart with joyful love, which she was constrained to show by her outward behavior. The forgiveness was not the result of the love, but the love, followed and flowed out of the forgiveness, just as the sun does not shine because it is light outside, but it is light because the sun shines. "The papists adduce this verse against our doctrine of faith and say, Since Christ says: Her many sins are forgiven because she loved much, therefore forgiveness of sins is not obtained by faith, but by love. But that this cannot be the meaning the parable proves, which shows clearly that love follows out of faith. Therefore, when one has forgiveness of sins and believes, there faith follows. Where one does not have forgiveness, there is no love. " On the other hand, there is no partial forgiveness. A sinner to whom certain grievous sins are forgiven has forgiveness of them all. Simon’s lack of love proved that he had no forgiveness, in fact, cared nothing about forgiveness in his proud Pharisaic mind. But to the woman Jesus now said: Forgiven are thy sins. This word out of the Savior’s mouth was the seal and surety of her forgiveness. It was the word which inflamed the glow of her faith into a rich fire. Though the other guests took offense at the words of Jesus, He continued in His kind assurance to the poor woman. Her faith, which she had proved by her love, had saved her. Through her faith she had accepted the redemption of Jesus, she was a blessed child of salvation.

Summary

Jesus heals the servant of the centurion of Capernaum, raises the widow’s son of Nain, receives an embassy of John the Baptist, and is anointed in the house of a Pharisee, teaching a lesson in faith and forgiveness.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

47–50. Wherefore I say unto thee. This woman, a great sinner, shows that she is forgiven by her great love. Her faith in Jesus led her to trust for forgiveness.

Thy sins are forgiven. The fact which her trust led her to believe and which filled her soul with love is now announced.

Thy faith hath saved thee. Her faith brought her to the feet of Christ, a contrite and weeping sinner. Go in peace. All her tokens of penitence and affection could not, even in the eyes of sinful men, wash away the stain of her life, but the grace of Christ led her to true peace, as her abiding condition.—Schaff.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

47. ὅτι ἠγάπησεν πολύ. ‘Because.’ No doubt, theologically, faith, not love, is the means of pardon (Luk 7:50); hence, some (with Calvin) interpret the ‘because’ a posteriori, and make it mean ‘she is forgiven,’ as you may conclude from the fact that she loved much (so Bengel). It is more than doubtful whether this was intended. Her love and her forgiveness were mingled with each other in mutual interchange. She loved because she was forgiven; she was forgiven because she loved. Her faith and her love were one; it was “faith working by love” (Gal 5:6), and the love proved the faith. Spiritual things do not admit of the clear sequences of earthly things. There is with God no before or after, but only an eternal now.

ᾦ δὲ ὀλίγον ἀφίεται. The life of conventional respectability excludes flagrant and open transgressions; cold selfishness does not take itself to be sinful. Simon imagined that he had little to be forgiven, and therefore he loved little. Had he been a true saint he would have recognised his debt. The confessions of the holiest are the most heartrending, because they most fully recognise the true nature of sin. What is wanted to awaken ‘much love’ is not ‘much sin’—for we all have that qualification—but deep sense of sin. “Ce qui manque au meilleur pour aimer beaucoup, ce n’est pas le péché; c’est la connaissance du péché.” Godet.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

47.] This verse has been found very difficult to fit into the lesson conveyed by the Parable. But I think there need be little difficulty, if we regard it thus.

Simon had been offended at the uncleanness of the woman who touched our Lord. He, having given the Pharisee the instruction contained in the parable, and having drawn the contrast between the woman’s conduct and his, now assures him, ‘Wherefore, seeing this is so, I say unto thee, she is no longer unclean—her many sins are forgiven: for (thou seest that) she loved much: her conduct towards Me shews that love, which is a token that her sins are forgiven.’ Thus the ὅτι is not the causative particle, ‘because she loved much;’ but, as rightly rendered in E. V., for she loved much: ‘for she has shewn that love, of which thou mayest conclude, from what thou hast heard, that it is the effect of a sense of forgiveness.’ Thus Bengel, ‘Remissio peccatorum, Simoni non cogitata, probatur a fructu, ver. 42, qui est evidens et in oculos incurrit, quum illa sit occulta;’—and Calov., ‘probabat Christus a posteriori.’

But there is a deeper consideration in this solution, which the words of the Lord in ver. 48 bring before us. The sense of forgiveness of sin is not altogether correspondent to the sense of forgiveness of a debt. The latter must be altogether past, and a fact to be looked back on, to awaken gratitude: the former, by no means so. The expectation, the desire, and hope of forgiveness, the πίστις of ver. 50, awoke this love; just as in our Christian life, the love daily awakened by a sense of forgiveness, yet is gathered under and summed up in a general faith and expectation, that ‘in that day’ all will be found to have been forgiven. The ἄφεσις τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, into which we have been baptized, and in which we live, yet waits for that great ἀφέωνταί σου αἱ ἁμαρτίαι, which He will then pronounce.

The aorist ἠγάπησεν is in apposition with the aorists throughout vv. 44-46, as referring to the same facts.

Remark that the assertion regarding Simon is not αἱ ὀλίγαι ἀφέωνται, but ὀλίγον ἀφίεται; stamping the subjective character of the part relating to him:—he felt, or cared about, but little forgiveness, and his little love shewed this to be so: on the whole, see Bleek’s note.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

47. This is a verse which has been the subject of much controversy. What is the meaning of the first half of it? We have to choose between two possible interpretations. 1. “For which reason, I say to thee, her many sins have been forgiven, because she loved much”; i.e. οὖ χάριν anticipates ὅτι, and λέγω σοι is parenthetical. Her sins have been forgiven for the reason that her love was great; or her love won forgiveness. This is the interpretation of Roman Catholic commentators (see Schanz), and the doctrine of contritio caritate formata is built upon it. But it is quite at variance (a) with the parable which precedes; (b) with the second half of the verse, which ought in that case to run, “but he who loveth little, wins little forgiveness”; (c) with ver. 50, which states that it was faith, not love, which had been the means of salvation; a doctrine which runs through the whole of the N.T. This cannot be correct. 2. “For which reason I say to thee, her many sins have been forgiven (and I say this to thee), because she loved much”; i.e. λέγω σοι is not parenthetical, but is the main sentence. This statement, that her many sins have been forgiven, is rightly made to Simon, because he knew of her great sinfulness, he had witnessed her loving reverence, and he had admitted the principle that the forgiveness of much produces much love. This interpretation is quite in harmony with the parable, with the second half of the verse, and with 50. There were two things evident,—the past sin and the present love,—both of them great. A third might be known, because (according to the principle just admitted) it explained how great love could follow great sin,—the forgiveness of the sin. Remissio peccatorum, Simoni non cogitata, probata a fructu, qui est evidens, quum illa sit occulta (Beng).

αἱ ἀμαρτίαι αὐτῆς αἱ πολλαί. The second art. refers to 5:39: “The many sins of which than thinkest.” “Her sins, yes (according to thy estimate), her many sins.”

ᾦ δὲ ὀλίγον ἀφίεται. “But he to whom little is forgiven,” i.e. who thinks that he has committed little which could need forgiveness.It is said with evident reference to Simon. O Pharisæe, parum diligis, quia parum tibi dimitti suspicaris; non quia parum dimittitur, sed quia parum putas quod dimittitur (Aug. Serm. xcix.). For this use of the dat. comp. Soph. Ant. 904.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.