Luke 7:47

Luke 7:47

We learn from this story that such love as the Magdalene showed to our blessed Lord is the point of forgiveness, of forbearance, and of service. "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much."

I. Now it is this which differences the Gospel from all other systems of religion, that it promises reconciliation only to the loving. One code of morals declares that obedience is the only avenue to pardon; but this may be merely deistic. Another code of morals asserts that repentance is the only road to forgiveness; but that may be merely Jewish. Jesus Christ proclaims that absolution is only pronounced upon the affectionate. Now there is in this no confusion between right and wrong, no pretence that guilt is as beautiful as grace; but since all men sin, and since all need pardon, they gain the richest, the blessedest gift of forgiveness, whose hearts are warmest of love for the Saviour.

II. Love is the fountain of reverence. This woman was conspicuous for the earnest, devout, uncalculating veneration which she paid to the Redeemer. The Pharisee had his notion of the proprieties which belong to reverence; but they were very unlike the unaffected, the passionate, worship of the Magdalene. The fastidious Pharisee would have been quite shocked to start aside, even by a hair's breadth, from religious decorum and etiquette; but the woman's heart was all aglow with the gifts and the sense of pardon; and with the vision of a higher life she can only tell her veneration in the accents of reverence which were too real to be restrained. Like her, we must go boldly to the throne of grace, blending confidence with worship, respect with affection, and reverence with rapture.

III. Love is the fountain of service. The Pharisee had his idea of this service. He had coldly and carefully regulated all his obligations. He paid tithe of mint and anise and cummin. He could set down in order his notions of duty, and formulate them into a code of morals; but all this obedience was as a cold light shining upon his intellect and not in his heart. But one single feature in his character attracted the notice of Christ he had no heart filled and overflowing with love. It was not an enormity; it was a lacking. But this woman, who is only known to us by her contrition and her reverence, won the Saviour's heart by the simplicity and the beauty of her service. Only the heart of a woman could have conceived a service or a gift so full of tender pathos, so fragrant, so exquisite. It was her best it was her all; for it is the instinct of love to give not only largely, but also sweetly. Her generosity had no stint, and her method had no rudeness.

H. White, Penny Pulpit,new series, No. 964.

The point to which we specially direct our attention is the self-accusing spirit of this woman; its necessity and its blessedness.

I. For, first of all, it may be said, that the kingdom of Christ is founded upon those who accuse themselves of their sins. It has both an exterior and an interior foundation, an outer and an inner court. On His part it is a perpetual ministry of absolution; on our part, a perpetual confession. In. the midst of the visible Church, Christ numbers, by direct intention, the fellowship of true penitents. In them He dwells, and to them He listens. He has no communion with those who do not know their need of His absolving pity. The law of repentance is laid on all, even on the greatest saints; it often seems to press more heavily on them than on others; for as they have more of sanctity, they have more of love; and as they have more of love, they have more of sorrow. As the light rises upon them, they see more clearly their own deformities. It is the greatest light of sanctity that reveals the least motes of evil; as things imperceptible in the common light of day float visible in the sunbeam.

II. Self-accusation is the test which separates between true and false repentance. Under all the manifold appearances of religion and of repentance, there are at last two, and only two, states or postures of mind; the one is self-accusation, the other self-defence.

III. The true source of the self-accusing spirit is love. A heart once touched with the love of Christ no longer strives to hide its sin, or to make it out to be little. To excuse, palliate, or lighten the guilt even of a little sin grates upon the whole inward sense of sorrow and self-abasement. So long as we defend ourselves, and God accuses us, we go heavily all the day long, our hearts glowing and smouldering within; so soon as we accuse ourselves at His feet, God and all the powers of His kingdom shelter and defend us. This is our true solace and relief. Now there are two signs by which we shall know whether our confessions are the self-accusations of penitent and loving hearts. (1) The first is, that our confessions be humble; (2) the other is, that it be an honest self-accusing. Where these two signs are, we may be strong in hope that the grace of a loving and penitent heart has been bestowed by the Spirit of God.

H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 135.

I. From the doctrine that God is personal, and as personal the object of love, flows out the unique character of the Christian as against other forms of penitence. For other moral systems tell us that the only true repentance consists simply and entirely in amendment of life for the future, and that all the energy which, instead, is spent in sorrow for the past, is merely a waste of labour that might be otherwise employed. "The only true repentance," says a great philosopher, "is moral amendment." But still, the Christian Church, in her age-long ministry to the souls of men, has gained a deeper, truer insight into the springs of human action than is possible to speculative thinkers or to average men of the world. And as the result of her thinking, she proclaims repentance based on sorrow as not only far truer, but far more fruitful in noble practice, because born of the great desire to atone for wounded love.

II. The problem of the life of penitence is how contrition may be gained. God, men say, though we believe in Him, seems very far away from us, and the sufferings of the Cross are past and over long ago. There is no present object to help me realise that I have wounded the love of God. Go back to the history recorded in my text, and see what kind of love it was which there merited forgiveness. This poor woman in her misery did not know that she was worshipping the everlasting Son of the Father, very God of very God. But she felt, as she looked and listened, that there was a presence in humanity, on which her life of sin had been an outrage and a shame; and in the rock-like shelter of that presence, overshadowing the weary world, the faded instincts of her true womanhood revived and blossomed into action; and her sins, which were many, were forgiven her; for she loved much. We are not bold enough in realising how true it is that the knowledge of God must be learned inductively from His presence among men.

III. Though contrition is only the first part of penitence, it is one of those halves that contains in itself the whole. For real contrition must express itself first in word and then in deed; and so it leads us onward to confession and satisfaction.

J. R. Illingworth, Sermons in a College Chapel,p. 90.

I. We have Christ here standing as a manifestation of the Divine love coming forth among 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" are the deep words in which He would point us to the source and the ground of all the love of God. God, and God alone, is the cause and reason, the motive and the end, of His own love to our world. (2) Whilst the love of God is not caused by us, but comes from the nature of God, it is not turned away by our sins. He knew what this woman 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 feet. (3) Christ teaches us here that this Divine love, when it comes forth among sinners, necessarily manifests itself first in the form of forgiveness. (4) Here we see the love of God demanding service. 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 it rather beseeches us to give unto Him who has given all unto us."

II. Look next at "the woman" as the representative of a class of character the penitent lovingly recognising the Divine love. All true love to God is preceded in the heart by these two things: a sense of sin and an assurance of pardon. 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. (1) Love is the gate of all knowledge. (2) Love is the source of all obedience.

III. 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. 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? This was the thing: there was no love in it. 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.

A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester,p. 28.

Note:

I. That gratitude in a living heart rises with the occasion.

II. Gratitude cannot be the same in two individuals of equal spiritual sensitiveness, but of different conditions.

III. Strong gratitude is very free in its utterance. It breaks the laws of propriety which a formalist would recognise.

S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit,2nd series, p. 147.

References: Luke 7:47. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874, p. 256; E. Bickersteth, Church of England Pulpit,vol. v., p. 149; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1881, p. 37; Homiletic Magazine,vol. xv., p. 288; J. M. Neale, Sermons in a Religious House,vol. ii., p. 535.Luke 7:50. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. 111., p. 283; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xx., No. 1162; Homiletic Magazine,vol. xii., p. 321.Luke 7 F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven,p. 126; Parker, Christian Commonwealth,vol. vii., p. 89. Luke 8:1. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xiv., p. 297. Luke 8:1. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 230. Luke 8:1. G. Macdonald, The Miracles of Our Lord,p. 87. Luke 8:2. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 56. Luke 8:2; Luke 8:3. A. Maclaren, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 273.Luke 8:3. J. Baines, Sermons,p. 214.Luke 8:4 H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty,vol. i., p. 114.Luke 8:4; Luke 8:5. C. Girdlestone, A Course of Sermons,vol. i., p 227. Luke 8:4. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vi., No. 308; H. R. Haweis, Church of England Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 132.Luke 8:4. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 55; Ibid.,vol. xvi., p. 107; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 84; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 40. Luke 8:5. J. B. Mozley, Sermons Parochial and Occasional,p. 141; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College,vol. iv., p. 72.Luke 8:5. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 50. Luke 8:7. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year,p. 44.Luke 8:8. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., p. 89; Homilist,new series, vol. iv., p. 233.Luke 8:10. Homiletic Magazine,vol. x., p. 77.