---

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. Christ's 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. 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? 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 Simon's 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 sinner's 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 hair's 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.)

---

---

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."