Seeing the Person not the Past
Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
-Luke 7:44-47, ESV
Last time, we looked at how Job’s wife is often judged harshly because her only recorded dialog was from her darkest moment. But the context strongly suggests that she was a righteous woman who repented after her failure. The story line of Job reflects the story of the entire Bible: Creation, Fall, redemption, and restoration. It starts with everything being very good just like Creation, only to have that goodness shattered, with which Job and his friends grapple. Then God shows up, which produces repentance that leads to redemption and ultimately restoration. The concept of shalom is an important theme in Job, being a sense of completeness in which nothing is lacking and everything is in its proper place. Job’s shalom was destroyed then restored. Since that included the repentance and restoration of him and his friends, the fact that his wife is not mentioned suggests that she too repented, otherwise Job’s shalom was not actually restored. While we cannot know for sure, a story in the life of Jesus leaves no room for speculation. Rather than seeing a woman’s darkest moment, we see her remarkable act that likewise warns us against judging by appearances.
A Gospel That Divides
First, we need to understand the context of this story. After healing the Centurion’s servant (Luke 7:1-10) and resurrecting the widow’s son (Luke 7:11-17), Jesus was performing miracles when John the Baptist had his own season of doubt. He who had so boldly declared Jesus as Messiah now sent messengers to ask if Jesus really was the Messiah. Jesus responds similarly to the way Job responded to his wife. Jesus did not harshly rebuke John nor excuse his doubts but reminded him of the truth: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Luke 7:22-23). Jesus then gave John great praise, which elicited opposing responses from “sinners” and the religious elite: “When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him” (Luke 7:29-30). The people were divided based on their reaction to John the Baptist. Those who had been baptized by John worshipped God, but those who had rejected his baptism rejected God. All of this was to prepare the way for Jesus, who likewise brought division (Matthew 10:34-39), which Jesus makes clear by proclaiming that John the Baptist fulfilled the prophecy by preparing the way for Him (Luke 7:27 cf. Malachi 3:1). Matthew makes this connection even clearer by recording the same exchange right after Jesus said He came to bring division (Matthew 11:1-19).
Why was John’s baptism so divisive? It was a baptism of repentance (Luke 3:3 cf. Acts 19:4). The tax collectors and “sinners” had recognized their sin, and desiring repentance and forgiveness they flocked to John. The religious leaders had not, so they were repulsed by John. Those who were drawn to John were then drawn to Jesus, while those who were repulsed by John were repulsed by Jesus, so He concludes with this: “For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children” (Luke 7:33-35). They rejected Jesus and John for the same reason: both did not conform to their perception of righteousness. The religious leaders were not willing to acknowledge their own sin and repent, so they rejected John with his Elijah-mirroring diet and also rejected Jesus for His festal diet and association with those with whom they would not associate. They were completely unresponsive to the Gospel, and the nation largely followed them, so Jesus refers to them as “this generation” (Luke 7:31 cf. Matthew 11:16). This is the first time He used that language, and each time is in condemnation for the Jews of His day who were unresponsive or hostile to the Gospel. This culminated when He said God’s wrath for all the innocent blood from Abel to Zechariah would fall on them (Matthew 23:35-36, Mark 13:30, Luke 11:49-51). That generation murdered Jesus, and it is quite likely they would have murdered John the Baptist too if Herod didn’t beat them to it. They thought that the people of God were the ones who followed their traditions precisely, but Jesus taught that His people were identified by their faith and repentance.
Do You See This Woman?
All of this provides context for Luke’s account of Jesus having dinner with a Pharisee named Simon. Everything went normally until a woman with a reputation of sin came up behind Jesus. Some think this was Mary Magdalene or even the sister of Lazarus, but that is highly unlikely.[1] This unknown woman started weeping so heavily that when her tears fell on Jesus’s feet, she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them. It was inappropriate enough for such a woman to come to a Pharisee’s home and approach a rabbi like Jesus, and scandalous for her to touch Him with her hair or even let it down in public.[2] A rabbi would not have stood for this, so Simon was surprised at Jesus’s lack of reaction: “Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner”” (Luke 7:39). Jesus responded with a parable: “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” (Luke 7:41-42). Simon gave the obvious answer: “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt” (Luke 7:43a).
Jesus then applied the parable in no uncertain terms, starting by asking him a simple question “Do you see this woman?” (Luke 7:44a). Obviously Jesus wasn’t asking if Simon perceived the presence of a particular adult human female. Jesus was essentially saying: “Do you really see this woman? Not her sin, not her reputation, but her.” We recently saw that true hate speechincludes making someone’s identity anything other than being made in the image of God, being male or female, or status with respect to Christ. Jesus would ultimately show that Simon was committing that sin, but first He contrasted her actions with his: “I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment” (Luke 7:44b-46). Simon had dishonored Jesus by neglecting the most basic signs of hospitality while this woman had spared nothing in showing Him honor.[3] Simon arrogantly judged the woman and Jesus, but this woman humiliated herself to honor Jesus.[4] What she was really showing was incredible love, so Jesus makes a statement that shocked Simon: “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47).
Identity: Forgiven vs. Unforgiven
As the God who created her, Jesus knew her sin infinitely better than Simon did yet declared her to be forgiven because of the great love she displayed. She was not forgiven because of her love but loved because she was forgiven: her extravagant display of love was the evidence of her forgiveness.[5] It was evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work to convict her of sin and bring her to faith and repentance. Jesus therefore declared her forgiven of all her sins, not just those that Simon knew about. John Owen notes: “Christ never forgives in part the repentant sinner. The pardon is most ample, covering the sins of a whole life”.[6] Some teach that only sins for which we have repented are forgiven, but as we saw with Calvinism, all of salvation is the work of God. We are not saved by faith and kept by works. Every sin of every elect person was removed by Christ in his once-for-all sacrifice, so this woman was forgiven before she approached Jesus.[7]
Not understanding this, Simon and everyone else at the table wondered how Jesus could forgive this woman’s sins. There was no priest nor sacrifice here, but they didn’t realize that Jesus was the Great High Priest that all other priests foreshadowed and that He would also be the only sacrifice that actually removes sin, so He declared to the woman: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Luke 7:50). Faith and repentance worked side-by-side—as they always do—to produce love that evidenced true conversion. She came to Jesus as a notorious and despised sinner, but she left forgiven and at peace. She had been foreknown, predestined for salvation, called, and justified—and she would be sanctified and ultimately glorified (Romans 8:29-30). While others would continue to condemn her, there was no longer any condemnation for her from God (Romans 8:1). Perhaps we don’t know her name because only her identity as forgiven matters. She had been forgiven much, so she loved much.
Simon by contrast had not been forgiven much—or even little. While Jesus was clearly referring to him when He said “he who has been forgiven little, loves little”, He was saying the same thing as “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Luke 5:31), which He said in a similar situation. Jesus was not implying that they were well, so He was not implying that Simon had been forgiven little. Throughout His ministry, He made clear that the self-righteous and hypocritical religious leaders who would ultimately commit the greatest sin in history by murdering Him were sicker than the tax collectors and sinners—they just didn’t know it. Likewise, the complete lack of love shown by Simon gives every indication that he was not elect and therefore not forgiven at all. During Holy Week, Jesus told the religious leaders that the tax collectors and prostitutes would enter the Kingdom before them because they had believed and responded to John the Baptist’s ministry of repentance while the Jewish leaders had not (Matthew 21:31-32). They were unrepentant themselves, so they did not rejoice at others’ repentance—and Simon was no exception: “The Pharisee’s problem was that he had so hardened his heart against sinful people, that he had lost his capacity to rejoice at the repentance of a sinner. He was so caught up in his own self-righteousness, that he couldn’t bear the fact that some people were being forgiven”.[8] The point is clear: God’s people are characterized by faith and repentance that produces great love for God and celebration of others’ repentance while God’s enemies are characterized by a lack of faith and repentance that produces a lack of love and forgiveness.
Application: Judge By Evidence of Grace
As with many scenarios involving Pharisees, it is easy to miss parallels in ourselves. We like them often sin by judging based on externals (John 7:24). When a woman walks into the church dressed immodestly with an unrefined demeanor and “a past”, how many congregants who “have it together” judge her? The same can be said of the man covered in tattoos who looks like he belongs in a motorcycle gang—and there are numerous other examples. As soon as we think we are better than them, we are reflecting Simon. If we like him do not celebrate genuine repentance that outweighs even the most colorful past, we should be very concerned that we are displaying the same arrogant self-centeredness that is the true enemy of God’s people. If we like Simon do not demonstrate love for God and joy when others repent, perhaps we have not been forgiven so those genuinely repentant “tax collectors and sinners” will enter heaven instead of us. When we despise those who were outwardly sinful but genuinely repented while remaining hypocritically unrepentant of our own sins, we may be displaying hardened hearts that prove that we like the Pharisees are greater sinners and ultimately worthless. I am not saying that such thoughts are evidence that anyone is not a genuine believer, but we should be concerned when we see these signs in ourselves and endeavor all the more to confirm our calling and election by demonstrating love for Christ and the saints.
Ultimately, we must define people like Jesus not Simon. Jesus acknowledged the woman’s sin but declared her righteous as evidenced by her love for Him that stemmed from genuine repentance and forgiveness. Even though that repentance was likely very recent, it was already bearing fruit in terms of genuine love. This means we need to avoid two common extremes. The first is to deny genuine repentance by continuing to view people primarily in light of their sinful past when they are clearly displaying the fruit of faith. The other is to completely overlook sin and proclaim forgiveness when there is no fruit to support that claim. Genuine repentance will naturally produce the fruit of love for God and the saints. While that fruit may take time to become evident, it will come. Not long after this incident—and right after Luke records that women like Mary Magdalene and the wife of one of Herod’s officials followed Jesus (Luke 8:1-3)—is the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:4-15). We would be ever wise to remember that two of the soils—rocky and weedy—were only revealed to be bad by time and trials. Nevertheless, if a person is bearing fruit that points to genuine repentance and forgiveness, we must treat them as forgiven until proven otherwise. Finally, we must never forget that sanctification is a process that takes an entire lifetime. We all start at different places and proceed at different rates. With both Job’s wife and the forgiven woman, we are only seeing a snapshot in time, so when looking for fruit in ourselves and others we must focus on progress more than status.
In closing, Jesus Christ came to save wretched sinners—which would include all of us whether we acknowledge it or not. Whether despairing in our darkest day like Job’s wife or coming to understand the depth of our sin like the forgiven woman, Jesus calls us all to repent and then produces in the genuinely repentant love for Himself and our fellow saints. So let us be careful to avoid Simon’s mistake:
Simon’s mistake lies only in this: Not considering that Christ came to save what was lost, he rashly concludes that Christ does not distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy. That we may not share in this dislike, let us learn, first, that Christ was given as a Deliverer to miserable and lost men, and to restore them from death to life. Secondly, let every man examine himself and his life, and then we will not wonder that others are admitted along with us, for no one will dare to place himself above others. It is hypocrisy alone that leads men to be careless about themselves, and haughtily to despise others.
– John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 2, Bellingham, WA: Logos: 2010: 135–136.
NOTES:
[1] John J. Owen, Commentary on Luke, New York, NY: John F. Trow: 1859: 101-102; J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, vol. 1: New York, NY: Robert Carter & Brothers: 1879: 240; Philip Graham Ryken, Luke, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, vol. 1, Reformed Expository Commentary, Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing: 2009: 341.
[2] Philip Graham Ryken, Luke, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, vol. 1, Reformed Expository Commentary, Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing: 2009: 342.
[3] Philip Graham Ryken, Luke, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, vol. 1, Reformed Expository Commentary, Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing: 2009: 346-347.
[4] R. C. Sproul, A Walk with God: An Exposition of Luke, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications: 1999: 152.
[5] R. C. Sproul, A Walk with God: An Exposition of Luke, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications: 1999: 155.
[6] John J. Owen, Commentary on Luke, New York, NY: John F. Trow: 1859: 107.
[7] J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, vol. 1: New York, NY: Robert Carter & Brothers: 1879: 242.
[8] R. C. Sproul, A Walk with God: An Exposition of Luke, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications: 1999: 153.
