---

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

I. The secret springs of the poor sinner's conduct.

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

I. THE STRINGS OF THE WOMAN'S 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 devil's 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 heart's 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 Luke 7:47-50.)

(J. B. Brown, B. A.)

---

---

KJV: 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.

WEB: Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little."